my phone is stolen and sim cards removed. how to track it? my android phone got stolen a few hours ago. the thief has already removed both the internet sims.
as such, i had not installed AndroidLost or Mobile Tracker apps in the phone as it is a relatively new one.
i have tried to remotely install it, but it may take time .
please help out with the procedure and suggest methods to get it back.

There can be many other options instead of those apps.
Android Device Manager
http://www.android.com/devicemanager
This is the only thing to do, and check where the theif had been for a few last moments. But this isn't perfect.
Android IMEI
If you ever wondered what your phone's IMEI is, you would have checked it via *#06# too. If you have it, then go to the government officials who can handle it (I am sorry I cannot guide you to the perfect organisation for that, because I never tried using IMEI to track a phone) and they will help you either in protecting your data or will even get you to your mobile too.


Turn off PIP for calls On my Motorola One and under Android 10, whenever I exit Call app during an active call, a picture-in-picture mode for this app is enabled:

This is super-annoying. How can I disable or turn-off this behavior?
I tried the usual way, i.e. by disabling this feature in Picture-in-picture section of Settings. But there is no sign of Call app there.

Is there any other way to achieve this?

"Display over other apps" is the setting you must look for when some app (in the form of bubble in your case) is floating on other app.
PIP and "Display over other apps" are 2 different settings.
Latter is mostly non-obtrusive until user interact with it. PIP in contrast takes up screen space to show something informative. Only common thing is they can be moved anywhere on the screen and can be dismissed by dragging towards bottom of the screen.


What are the current rooting options for Galaxy S6? I've sort of been following the development scene for the A6, enough to know that there are multiple rooting options, each with their own pros and cons. What are the current ways people are rooting their S6s?

These are my options by which you can root your device:-

Odin (I prefer)
Kingo
Oneclick

See this link to know more.


Images deleted after taking taking memory card i used 2gb memory card for 5 months in my HTC mobile, i have unmounted it and removed it safely to replace it with 16gb. but now when i try to connect the 2bg card to system and copy the images through adapter, they are lost...every other data is there except the Pics which i took using camera. please help me to recover that pics

If you have not overwritten the data in the 2GB memory card, then you can recover the pics using "Recuva" in Windows PC. The software is available for free download online. Install the software, connect the adapter, select the drive through the application's interface and you will be able to recover the pics.


Battery charging issue in Samsung Galaxy S3 I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and it is charging very very slowly when plugged into my PC. I deleted all my images and some videos and some other stuff and the charging seemed to speed up.

Is battery charging is related to available memory? I didn't think it was.

This is the due to the change in the supply current between the PC's USB port and the actual plugin charger you got with your device.

Current from USB port is less compared to that of the charger.

Hence time required to charge phone from PC usb port is more as that of charger


How to Root SGH-I717M How to root my device?
(Preferably without requiring the use of Windows OS and preferably not having to delete all files during the process)

Looking though https://android.stackexchange.com/q/1184, I did not find any instructions for my particular device.

Here are the details from "About Device" page
(Even though it doesn't say on the page, I should mention it is a Samsung device, not AT&T)

Model Number:

SGH-I717M

Android Version:

4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)

Baseband Version:

I717MUGMD1

Kernel Version:

3.0.31-1112295
se.infra@SEP-69 #1
SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 4 15:48:09 KST 2013

Build Number:

JZO54K.I717MUGMD1

Note: As per https://android.meta.stackexchange.com/q/790, I am allowed to ask this question for a particular device model.

What I have tried so far:

KingoRoot (Gives me error 0x148F24)

I just tried rooting my phone (SGH-I717M) for the first time and was much quicker than I expected (took only 30 minutes).

This preserves all files you currently have (but you should still backup first, just in case)

First download latest version of TWRP from https://dl.twrp.me/quincyatt/
(twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.img on 2017 05 13)

Change the img file into a tar.md5 by issuing the following:

tar -H ustar -c twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.img > twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.tar
md5sum -t twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.tar >> twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.tar
mv twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.tar twrp-3.0.0-0-quincyatt.tar.md5

Warning: md5 is sensitive to filenames

Download and run Odin version 3.09 (recommended version by many other websites) on a Windows machine

In Odin, select "AP" under files and choose the tar.md5 file from earlier

In the bottom left, it should say md5 check successful

Select "Start". It should now say "RESET!".
Odin will APPEAR STUCK at this point. WAIT.
Your device will now automatically boot normally.
WAIT until Odin says "PASS", then close Odin
I had to wait 3 minutes.

Shutdown your device normally.

Boot into recovery mode and TWRP should now appear.

Select Reboot --> System and when prompted, select install SuperSU

Once your device is on, tap "SuperSU Installer - Tap to install SuperSU and root your device"
Tap install via Google Play Store --> Update, not Open

SuperSU should now be installed and should be accessible via Downloaded Apps


If there is no corresponding cyanogenmod rom for my Samsung Galaxy On5, how do I install Cyanogenmod? My phone is rooted and I have the TWRP installed. I am not sure where to go from here though.

There are likely sources to build CyanogenMod from scratch. I did find the forums at xda  helpful http://forum.xda-developers.com/t/samsung-galaxy-on5 I wouldn't be suprised if you see CM 13 or 14 in the near future. If you are on a linux box you could possibly build from scratch.


Using OpenDNS for the 3g connection I'd like to use OpenDNS for the 3G connection on my Android phone. I have a phone with Android Lollipop. The phone is not rooted. I tried several apps for non-rooted phones (DNS Changer (no root 3G/WiFi),
Fast DNS Changer(no root),
DNSet pro,
DNS Changer (without Root), etc...). They are all based on the creation of a VPN connection. I tried them all and they work but if i turn off the phone and boot it, I need to restart the app manually every time. Is there a way to do it automatically ?
Thank you.

You can't change a data connection's IP settings, unless you

are rooted, then you can use Linux-based approaches (e.g. iptables)
use an app that creates a VPN connection to a remote server that uses OpenDNS

Now, VPN on boot depends on the app you're using. I'm yet to encounter an app that creates a VPN tunnel on boot.

Update: For the record, a lot of apps these days create VPN tunnels on boot.


Music covers aren't shown correctly I have copied my mp3 files to my new Google Nexus 7 (Android 4.2.1) via USB into the Music folder. It can be played with Google Play Music (version 4.5.910l.560208), but it is always showing one and the same cover for any track. This problem also shows up with other music players such as Rocket player. In VLC and iTunes on my PC the mp3 covers are just displayed fine!

Do I have to change something on my mp3's in order to display the covers correctly on that device or is there some kind of bug in the mp3-decoder? I couldn't find such a problem report in the web, so my assumption would be that there might be something wrong with my mp3 files.

Thanks in advance ...

iTunes and Windows Media Player encode album art into the song file's metadata.  Googly Play Music uses an 'old hat' method for adding album art.  Linux or WinAmp users know about this.

In your Album directory drop the image of the album in the directory and rename as "AlbumArt.png" or "AlbumArt.jpg".  (Note the capitalization).

Google Play Music should pick it up, if not the artwork may not have fully synced.  Try resetting your droid and it should re-sync. :)


XPS viewer similar to Adobe PDF viewer Is there a way to open Microsoft XPS documents on Android, similar to the way Adobe PDF documents have "Adobe Reader for Android"? I took a look in the Market but I didn't find anything.

Unfortunately, it does not look like there's support for reading XPS documents on Android products as of yet. But there are nice little utilities, like XPS to Image Converter that will allow you to convert them to images or pdf files viewable on your Android device.


pm hide VS pm disable -- the identity crisis What's the need of pm disable when pm hide already does its job?
I've compiled some information based on my search and research: click here to see the table (edited).
As you can see, pm hide can achieve what pm disable can, but without needing root access. Also, based on my tests, I've reached the conclusion that when pm hide is performed, unlike pm disable, no matter what, the app will not be loaded in the memory again.
I opine that hide descended from block. Block was first introduced in KitKat 4.4.0, remained till Android L Preview and was later superseded by hide in Android 5.0.0. It is not clear to me what lead to renaming of block to hide and why was it needed?
Regardless, if somebody without root access can achieve the functionality of disable, then why does disable exists at all?
Furthermore, why does hide exists? If hide was built supposedly to help users to  get rid of anything they want, without un-installation and without rooting the device, then in the GUI we should be having a relevant option, but we've got only the disable option.
Intertwine questions:

What are the merits and demerits of them, excluding those  noted in my question?

Why both of them exists and to what or whom do they serve?

Is it technically true that hide surpasses the functionality of disable and can truly disable any app, when executed on it?

New: Given findings of Andrew T. and my tests shown in the table, is component shown in hide's usage an error or have I failed to understand latter's usage?
For historical purposes: hide's usage as of now is shown as
  pm hide [--user USER_ID] PACKAGE_OR_COMPONENT

Note: The question does not, in any fashion, seeks unsubstantiated opinion but straight to-the-point answer(s). If you must write an opinion, make sure to back it up using credible and technical sources with sound reasoning to make distinction between what is technical and real and what is speculative.

Tests performed on Carbon ROM (Android 5.1.1) and COS12 (Android 5.0.2) for OnePlus One.

I don't have enough points to comment yet.. This is not an answer... more like... information:

pm hide does this

pm disable does this and if it can find the component name then this.

I can see how some people may have thought that pm hide would do an uninstall.

ex.  If you run this command after a pm hide

diff <(adb shell pm list packages -u) <(adb shell pm list packages)

You'll see your hidden package.  -u is a list of previously uninstalled packages.

These pm commands below all invoke androids Intent class.

pm hide <package>
pm unhide <package>
pm enable <package>
pm disable <package>

This command below:

pm hide <package>

invokes:

android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REMOVED.

This below command:

pm unhide <package>

invokes:

android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED.

pm disable and pm enable both invoke:

android.intent.action.PACKAGE_CHANGED.

Thanks @Irfan Latif for the corrections.  I can verify what he was saying.  Under Android Settings:  If you look at installed apps, even after pm hide, you can still see the app is installed.  Interestingly, with pm disable, the app disappears from installed apps.  These commands don't seem to create any obvious filesystem changes.

These directories:

/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/
/data/data

and other misc directories...

One possible hypothesis... Maybe its best practice to always call both commands to disable any package:

pm disable <package>;pm hide <package>


Why does Android boot so relatively slow? This question is of concern to me (and perhaps many out there) because there is no spinning part in my phone.
My phone has a quad core, 3 GB of RAM, and so much storage space, all SSD-like in nature, with amazing read/write speeds.
With all this, Android (both Android 4.4 (KitKat) and Android 5.0 (Lollipop)) takes some 80 seconds to boot to completion. It takes way less on Ubuntu using systemd or Upstart. (Some users report less than 10 seconds booting time using Ubuntu with systemd and some 20 seconds when using Upstart, with specifications like Intel Core i5 and RAM of 8 GB.)
So, what makes Android boot so slow? And is there anything as a user, I can do to speed up the booting process?
According to the booting process explained (What is the boot process of an Android device?), there doesn't seem to be much differences in the overall booting process compared to a conventional OS like Ubuntu. Where does Android go wrong in the process?

Few years back, I worked on Android boot time optimization, as a Android developer. Obviously, as part of this work, we first needed to analyse where Android spends time during booting.

Below is the brief findings:

Hardware used : OMAP3430 Board which is like development board on which Stock Android is flashed. On actual commercial/production device, there will be additional specific hardware.
To visualize the boot time, we used a developer tool called bootchart

The most time spend by Android is in following 2 areas:

Zygote process. When android OS is started it will start Zygote process, it preloads classes to create
a shared memory area for applications. This work of proloading of java classes
takes @23 secs for its completion.

Why? Because The zygote class preloading is essential for good performance of the system after boot. So once classes are loaded of all apps, then run-time of app is much faster.

Package manager service.
In logcat output, we can see that Package manager scans 4 directories.
/system/app,
/system/framework,
/data/app,
/data/app-private.

Next, there is a component called Activity Manager which start differents services such as Location service, Telephony service etc. And it takes nearly 11-12 sec to finish this.

Why? Because, The package scan can in theory do some caching of its results after first boot and may check for security vulnerabilities.

If you add up these 2 times, it is about 35 Seconds

You may ignore these numbers in Today's day and age, but the point these number indicate is where Android AOSP code spends time during boot. OEMs have their own set of hardware which varies device to device.

Of course, there are other hardware and software initializations that Android needs to do after these 2 time consuming steps, which can stretch boot time further.

  And is there anything as a user, I can do to speed up the booting
  process?

Not much I guess. The Android developer community and OEMs are still working on expediting the boot time but as you may imagine, it is not all that easy and making changes to optimize boot time may end up causing more app load time during normal operations, as hinted by Android framework engineer.


How can I send all calls to voicemail during "busy" calendar events? Basically I'd like to have something that auto sends calls to voicemail when I'm "busy", and possibly as a bonus, send a reply text as well.

Is there any solution for this?

There are a few apps that can do this for you, or at least some of these things. One I saw on Lifehacker yesterday is Agent.

  Agent is a combination automation tool and personal assistant that will silence your phone during meetings, remember where you parked, auto-respond to texts and phone calls while you're driving, and more, all so you don't have to.


play.google.com and Google Play app out of sync Having become fed up with a custom ROM i was using, I reverted back to a previous ROM via a nandroid backup (through CWM Touch).
It would appear that the backup preserved all my installed apps and data (Was under the impression they didn't, so this surprised me somewhat), but since then the 'My Apps' listing on the google play website has been out of sync with what is actually on my phone. I also seem unable to request (un)installation through the web interface.

Help would be muchly appreciated.

It may be the link to the Play store was lost. I think if you install an app from, say, the amazon app store, Google Play will not be able to update or uninstall it, as the link is gone. Similarly, restoring an app from a previous rom backup may not create that link.

Titanium Backup can recreate the links (the free version can can't do this). Or you could uninstall the app and try installing it fresh from Google Play.


Can we backup the stock recovery.img in any way? Suppose I plan to flash my recovery with TWRP/CWM, but then later suppose I would like to move back to the stock recovery.
Is it possible to take a backup of stock recovery just like we can take a backup of our ROM?

EXTRACTING BOOT.IMG FROM STOCK ROM or OTHER IMG LIKE RECOVERY ETC.

REQUIREMENT:
1. Download adb required tools.
2. PC
3. Phone Drivers (for other phones google it out)
          for spreadtrum phones: SCI-Usb-Jungo v4 (download here) or
                SCI-USB2Serial v1.5.6.1 (download here)
4. Android Phone + Usb cables

STEPS:
OPEN cmd window in adb folder

type the ff:

      adb devices
      adb shell
      su
      cat /proc/mtd

Now from your screen look at your files and you see mtd10 has your recovery.img

dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 00040000 00020000 "misc"
mtd10: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd12: 00280000 00020000 "boot"
mtd13: 04380000 00020000 "system"
mtd14: 04380000 00020000 "cache"
mtd15: 04ac0000 00020000 "userdata"

Once u see it's LOCATION in which in this sample is in mtd10
type:

cat /dev/mtd/mtd10 > /sdcard/mtd10.img or
cat /dev/mtd/mtd10 > /sdcard/recovery.img
Source: http://howtorootcherrymobilesnap.weebly.com/adb/how-to-extract-img-files-via-adb-ex-bootimg


Nexus 7 2012 Lolipop screen cast problem I have a first generation (2012) Nexus 7 running Android 5.0. There is a screen cast feature in the popup settings, but when I try to setup my Chromecast it is not working and cannot detect it. Does this device support screen casting?

According to an article from July, the first gen Nexus 7 does not support screen casting to the Chromecast.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/07/10/hands-on-video-android-new-screen-casting-game-changer-and-more/

That information MIGHT be out of date but as of four months ago, the 2nd gen (2013) was the only Nexus 7 that was supported for screen casting


Is it possible to change which output the audio is played through? Is it possible to reroute audio (i.e. music) through the phone earpiece instead of the speaker? I've searched this site and Google extensively and haven't found anything yet.

If it matters, I'm on the HTC Evo 4G LTE (Sprint). I'm also rooted and have CM10.1 on my phone.

You can simply use an app like Earpiece. It does what you want to do. You can pop Earpiece up on top of another application simply by holding down the SEARCH key. then check Audio through earpiece

On a side note, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Playing audio at high volumes, especially for a prolonged amount of time, can damage speakers and/or hearing.


Which app uses my GPS I have discovered battery drain and it is caused by GPS but I don't understand how is that possible when my location is turned off and location permission is denied for every app installed and also any app I use don't need gps. I don't have any unfamous or pirated apps installed, and didn't get any new apps since 5 days, and problem started today. So is there any way to see which app is using gps since here is just blank name..?

Go to setting--> Location

Then you will see list of recent apps who requested location.
If you are still seeing apps there who is using location service then you can find which app is using your location service .


No one can hear me on my Galaxy Note 8 Edge! How do I fix? No one can hear me on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Edge when they call me or I call them.  I hear them clearly, but I have to race to turn the speaker on before they hang up.  How do I fix this problem when it seems my mic works fine when I use an app to record myself

Most apps use secondary source to capture audio when the primary source is down. The source switching is automatically done and, in a phone with good memory, might be seamless.

It is highly probable that your Mic (primary audio source) is down. When recording, the app might actually be switching over to secondary source for audio (which might be the loudspeaker). My advice is that you change the Mic of your phone.


How can I check which mobile frequencies my phone supports? I received a Samsung Galaxy Nexus as a present (in Australia), however I'm not sure where it came from so I'm not sure what mobile frequency bands it supports. Is there a way to check which frequencies it supports so I know which mobile networks I should be looking at?

Wikipedia and the XDA-Developers Wiki should be a good resource:

GT-I9250 on XDA Wiki
GT-I9250 on Wikipedia


Where does the LINE app store pictures and video files? Where does the LINE app store pictures and videos that are received through it?

I don't see them in Gallery.

Pictures and videos from the LINE app are stored under the following directory:
 /sdcard/Android/data/jp.naver.line.android/storage/gallerybig

All the audio files are placed under directory:
 /sdcard/Android/data/jp.naver.line.android/cache/mo/(folder)/[audio files]

Profile pictures are cached in directory:
 /sdcard/Android/data/jp.naver.line.android/storage/p

Just rename the files to .jpg to view them.
Update:
With recent update, the download folder name for image, video, and voice files has been changed to LINE. Please check the LINE folder when you look for files.
Update on 18 Feb. 2021
Today I check for a video (*.mp4) file, and find it deep somewhere under .../storage/mo with strange folder names, so you'd better use a file manager to search it.


Using speech-to-text in text messages I've got an Android P690. When I go to compose text in a text message I would like to input it via the microphone by using Google's networked speech recognition engine. However when I hold down the search hardware button and speak, and finish speaking, Android opens up a web browser and performs a web search with the spoken text instead of inserting the text in the SMS text box. And when I press the back button the text I spoke is not in the text box either. So my question is, how do I use the microphone to compose an SMS's body?

Sorry, now I see the small microphone icon and globe icon for setting the speech language (keeping the globe pressed allows you to choose which languages to toggle back and forth between) on the soft keyboard that comes up.


Files deleted from SD card are restored after restart I use my sd to watch movies, everything was working fine, suddenly every time I reboot my tab the deleted files are back in the sd card.

I tried to format and still same issue, the deleted files are always coming back.

I tried many apps, they seems to delete the files, but if I reboot or format the sd they come back.

Clear the cache on your  File Manager,  the browser you used to download the movies, and for the application  involved used to play the movies.

For each of those applications select the application and clear its cache:

Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All (at the top) > {application} > Clear Cache


Are there any Android phones that allow Bluetooth PAN off the shelf? I'm specifically looking for an off-the-shelf solution.

Without going into too much technical detail, I need to connect a phone via Bluetooth to a device and receive IP traffic from the device. Bluetooth PAN provides that functionality, but it seems to be disabled by default in most commercial Android phones. Short of recompiling the OS, are there phones available (specific models, or buying directly from the manufacturer etc) that allow Bluetooth PAN?

edit: I'm actually looking for any solution that would allow me to establish a network connection from the phone to the device. The device's onboard NIC doesn't allow it to be configured as a WAP.

Android 4.0 devices (or already 3.0?) allow this.

Both client and host PAN roles are supported (I guess this was deliberately introduced by Google for UMTS-less tablets).

On the PAN host: Enable bluetooth tethering in the settings
On each device: Pair with the host and enable "Internet access" in the bluetooth device's tab:


My device is soft-bricked after some system errors Welcome!

Edit: the phone is => Prestigio Multiphone 5451 DUO, android version is 4.2.2

In the past days, I decided to download the larger Messenger app, and removed previously installed "lite" messeger app, and installed facebook lite app, and previously installed the larger FB app. And my phone stuck in a boot-loop. :(

After that, I browsed websites with Google Chrome app, then my phone started freezing with some org.android messages, then accidently the stock launcher is stopped too. I restarted the device, then a message showed up => "encryption unsuccessfull" like in this image

I unfortunately pressed the "reset phone" button, but it don't did anything so I unplugged my battery. Now, when it boot, it stuck in the logo.

Only thing I can do is to boot into stock recovery mode(vol_up, power and Home), and factory mode(vol_down and power)

I can "sideload" with ADB in Recovery Mode, but can't flash due to android signature? .. //edit: but PC sees the device.
I tried by listening adb on boot with both linux/windows, but they can't detect it..

I think someone can help me, I don't want to throw away a whole phone, because others fight with famine and so on. :(

Cheers, LeFizzy.

Flashing the phone should solve the issue but you'll lose all your personal data.

Download the stock firmware here, Click on Support tab.


Unable to Bypass Activation Screen S5 I've tried every combo I've seen for bypassing the S5 Galaxy (SMG900VZKV) Samsung's activation screen.  Phone is Verizon branded.  Anyway around this screen with 4 corners or volume button presses?  Or any other combo?  I've tried them all

Remove sim, boot and select run on wifi.  :)


Why can't I install apk file.? Everytime I press Install,it keeps saying app not installed. I tried rebooting, restarting.. Still can't install.. But i can install apps on google play.. Just not on my files... I really need it.

Navigate to "System & Device" -> "Additional Settings" ->  "Privacy" -> "Unknown Sources" (Enable this "Unknown Sources" option to allow installation of apps from unknown sources)

Adding more information as on date 11/14/2018 based on the comments: Apk related issue can occur due to the following. Please give it a try and let me know your observations.

Hoping that the APk file is not corrupted/infected and you are facing this issue with every APK file

1) Storage Location - Try checking if the apk is trying to install on Android device’s internal memory/storage or else where. By this we can ensure apk is getting installed in the correct path where you have access.

2) Check if SD Card is mounted or not in the Device
Try by going to Settings -> Storage -> Mount SD Card -> Restart device and try installing

3) Application Permissions - Software operations running in the background are set not to allow the installation of third-party software, it is also one reason why app not installed error on Android happens.

Go to Settings > Apps > Reset App Preferences/ Reset Application Permissions. After this, third-party software can be installed on your device.


MicroSD and/or internal storage of LG Optimus E615f phone doesn't mount on GNU/Linux Yes, I do have that phone, rooted few seconds ago. Anyway, is practically impossible for me to be able to mount my MicroSD and/or phone's internal storage on GNU/Linux even if the USB mode is turn to "MTP". On my father's laptop that runs Windows, I can plug and open the folder about my phone and then select between mounting either the MicroSD or the internal storage.

So, How can I mount my MicroSD or phone's internal storage on GNU/Linux?

Wow, I had this problem just this week! And just got access to my MicroSD...
Accessing your MicroSD
The Problem:
My MicroSD card works GREAT on my phone, but when I inserted it into my card reader and plugged it into the computer (Ubuntu 12.04), it didn't read! Well, this MicroSD card was a 16GB, Class 4 so I thought maybe it was due to the Class that it didn't work. Since, when I plug in a 2GB MicroSD, it works great! Works on my phone as well as using the card reader.
What I did:
Updated my USB drivers as well as my computer and it's all GREAT!
Here's the command that I used:
sudo update-usbids && sudo update-pciids

And then use the Software Center and just do a full system update. That's it.
The post where I got the info from: Ubuntu 10.04 USB drives not mounting! - These are instructions for Ubuntu 10.04 but it worked for my 12.04. *I didn't have anything to do with mount-manager at all.
Accessing your internal storage
This is something that I'm not an expert at but I'm quite sure it's what the rooting program using the ADB connection did to my Android when it needed to install the sudo binary.
But here's a link I hope will be of a great help to you - How to access intenal storage or internal memory of Android while conecting to PC?!


What is the interface to RIL daemon? I know the Android HAL defines an interface for Radio Interface Layer (RIL) manufacturers to abide by, which is the one used by ril daemon to talk to vendor-specific ril shared libraries. But what I couldn't find is the interface to talk to the ril daemon itself.

How does the phone service speak to rild through /dev/socket/rild unix socket? and where is the source files of the phone service?

For anyone who's been in my situation , you'll find the sources of the phone service that are related to RIL under frameworks/opt/telephony/src/java/com/android/internal/telephony/RIL.java.


Stop Android File Transfer Popping Up Bit annoying that Android File Transfer pops up whenever I connect my Nexus 7 to the Macbook. Is there any way to keep it active but hidden initially?

In my case the Android File Transfer App made my whole Macbook touch input freeze, so I had to find a away around this problem. The solution from this page worked: https://cooltrainer.org/taming-android-file-transfer-on-mac-os-x/

Kill all Android File Transfer (AFT) processes using Activity Monitor
Remove AFT from your login items
Remove the agent with the following terminal command:

rm -r ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Android\ File\Transfer/Android\ File\ Transfer\ Agent.app

Rename the agents copy with:

cd /Applications/Android\ File\ Transfer.app/Contents/Resources
mv Android\ File\ Transfer\ Agent.app Android\ File\ Transfer\Agent.app.disable


Not seeing any notifications in notifications bar except srange icon Recently I started seeing this strange icon in my notifications bar (see screenshot). At the same time, I stopped seeing any notification icons in the bar on top. I still get audibly notified, and they're there if I pull the notifications window down. But the notification bar remains as in the screenshot.

Any ideas what this might be?

The little arrow with the - means that you have status bar notifications disabled, which is why you're no longer seeing them. If you pull down the notification shade and then swipe the buttons to the right (I believe it's to the right anyway, check both directions) there should be a toggle to re-enable them:


Why does the youtube offline videos get expired Weird behavior of offline videos. I had downloaded a lot videos from office for offline viewing at home. But when i went home they were showing expired and when i clicked on them it showed connect to internet to update. So i went online but even then it was showing connect to update, but after long hours of searching over the internet i couldn't find any solutions. So i first removed them from offline and re-downloaded them.

That was okay, but the same thing happened today hence i am frustrated. My questions are like this:
1)Why are they getting expired
2)Solution for the above question.

Screenshot:

Screenshot - (click to enlarge)

Apparently YouTube videos downloaded for offline viewing get expired after a certain amount of time. I haven't heard anything official about though.

The downloaded  videos are stored in the internal storage but they are saved as .exo file format which only the YouTube app can open (you can't play them with any other media player app)

The best advice I can give you is to use a YouTube downloader like Tube mate to download the videos.


Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 not getting 5.0.2 update I am working on provisioning several (3) Samsung Galaxy Tab 4's Model SM-T530, and one of them is not getting the latest system updates.  It is stuck at Android 4.4.2, Kernel version 3.4.0-3235464.  I have tried manually running the Update now, verified I am online, all that fun stuff.

This is the WiFi Only version, so it is not dependent on the carrier releasing the update, and the other two that were purchased from the same vendor at the same time, updated just like they were supposed to, and are now at 5.0.2.

What can i do to troubleshoot this issue?  (Logs, check settings, etc)

Update will took some time to become available in every country.

If you check on Sammobile, 5.0.2 was released today (2015-07-16), and it is for United Kingdom. There no version for other countries.

You can flash UK version via Odin, but better wait some days for it to get released for other countries. After that you should be able to update it via OTA, without risks of bricking, flashing...

As it is WiFi only version, your tab doesn't depends on Country Code and it can work with any, it is just recommended to have version that is at least near you (like not installing Korean version, if you're from USA/EU (because of language, stock apps, QoL changes, compatibilty problems, etc)).

I just want to notice, as I already said this process is NOT recommended.

This involves flashing new ROM using Odin. This process can be risky, it can cause soft (even hard) brick. You should still have warranty, because package is signed by Samsung and it does not trigger binary counter but you never know.

It is best to wait even 1-2 weeks so it gets deployed in every region, but I think it will available in some days so it is not worth trying it...

Keep in mind if you want to continue, do backup! If something bad happens, you will have to do factory data reset, so you can be on safe side, if you need to format it

Process of installing new ROM:

Download new ROM for your device variant from Sammobile.
When you download, you will ususally get ZIP, that contains one .tar.md5 and one .dll. Ignore .dll and unpack only .tar.md5.
Download Samsung USB driver and install it.
Download Odin and unpack it.
Make sure you disable A/V before you start flashing, it can cause fail. Also you must kill all Samsung Kies processes before flashing or flash will fail.
Go to Settings -> About Phone -> Tap some times (as I recall it is 6-8 taps) on build number. It will enable developer options.
Go Back and find Developer options. Enable it if it isn't. Also you must enable USB debugging and authorize your PC (don't forget to remember choice!).
Reboot your device to Download mode (find on Google, how to do it for your tab), and plugin USB.
Open Odin. Now you will see some 'blue' colored box where it says COM something. It means that your device is connected.
Be sure that you ONLY HAVE CHECKED F. Reset Time and Auto-Reboot! Repartition MUST STAY UNCHECKED !
Click on PDA and select .tar.md5, you previously unpacked. Let it some time to check everything.
Start the process. DO NOT UNPLUG USB OR IT WILL BRICK DEVICE. If everything went well, your device will reboot into Android Lollipop 5.1 ready to use.

Also, Keep in mind - I or this site will not be held responsible if your device get brick after following this process. You should be on safe side but when you flashing and using Odin, you never know what can happen. In 99.9% of time it worked very well for me, but you never know. Good luck


How to get vi or vi like editor on an android Samsung galaxy tablet I'm using an Android Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet, and I downloaded terminal from the market; I want to edit a network host file. However, there does not appear to be a text editor in terminal. Does anyone know how to get vi on the tablet or something similar?

In short, what is the most straight forward way to edit files on the Samsung tab 10.1 Thanks!

You could use the busybox version of vi. If you're rooted then you can get it from the Market and it will install pretty trivially (example). Then you'd just need to execute vi from a terminal and you're good to go. I don't know of any installers that don't require root, but there may be one floating around somewhere that will install to /data/local or something.

Alternatively, you can do it the "manual" way. The following should work fine on an unrooted phone:

Download a busybox binary or build it yourself (the busybox website hosts ARM binaries that should work).
Copy the binary over to /data/local somehow. adb is easy if you have it set up - just connect your tablet and use: adb push /path/to/busybox /data/local. You could also put it on your SD card and then move it with a file manager. You may optionally want to rename it to simply busybox (I'll assume this is the case in the next steps).
You may need to use chmod to make it executable, which can be done from either a terminal emulator or an adb shell - chmod 0755 /data/local/busybox should suffice.
Execute vi from a terminal with /data/local/busybox vi.

Of course, if you just want any ol' editor you don't have to use vi. There are a bunch in the Market.


"Touch to download SoundCloud" notification I have Samsung Galaxy S3, Android 4.3. Not rooted.

From time to time, I get notification: "Touch to download SoundCloud"

I did had Soundcloud installed application before, but I have uninstalled it and I am still getting this notification. When I tap it, nothing happens.

Does anyone know what this notification is or how can I identify which process is spawning notification?

Edit:

I have found that process that is raising this notification is Firefox. Every time I start Firefox on the phone I get this notification. The question is, how to stop this notification  from displaying when I start Firefox?

You can identify the app responsible by long-tapping the notification and clicking "App info" on the pop-up menu.


Is there a ODIN or heimdall varient on Xperia? This one is what it says on the tin is there a form of ODIN and similar clients that have the capability to flash Stock and Custom ROMS to a Not boot loader unlocked device. I prefer if its built in Linux, but I don't mind using wine

Using Sony Xperia E C1505, android 4.1.1
Small note- if it relies on ro.product.name or the android version to detect a device,  no can do. I will accept universal flashing tools too.

Yup for Sony experia devices it is called Androxyde Flashtool
-Flashtool is a software used to flash Sony [Ericsson] Xperia line (2010 to 2013) phones that use the S1 protocol

Please check http://www.flashtool.net to have more informations


What is this circular icon that keeps appearing/dissapearing? This keeps appearing/dissapearing on my icon bar, and I can't find any reference to it.  Can anyone shed some light on this mystery?

This means that the audio you are playing at this moment is supported by the "DolbyAudio" sound-enhancement. Seems like you are using a HTC ONE M9 then - it is a replacement for the BeatsAudio engine to enhance your music.

I found the explanation on a german site. Credits go to them.


Where does the Play Store store the apps I am currently downloading? I was downloading Facebook from the Play Store awhile ago when the phone suddenly hanged up so I forcefully shut it down by removing the battery. Now when I re-boot Facebook is no longer in the queue and I need to download it again. Now my question is, where did the Play Store temporarily store it while it was being downloaded? I fear that there's now a rogue incomplete Facebook apk file somewhere that's using up wasted space.

The Playstore app usually uses /data/local to temporarily store .apk files while downloading, then installs them from there, and finally removes the temporary download-file (which then went to /data/app). The /data/local directory should be readable by all processes (so no root needed to list its contents), as it is used as a kind of "temporary directory" for a lot of things (you might think of it as a "misnamed" /tmp directory).

This directory should be "cleaned up" on reboot1, so your issue might rather be a broken .apk in /data/app. A new install should solve this anyway. I further recommend using AppMonster Pro -- yes, the Pro version: on each install/update it grabs the .apk file of the installed/updated app and stores away a copy. So in cases like this, you could simply grab a previous version and install it over.

Just for completeness: There seem to be more such "temporary directories" on Android devices. Investigating a dump from a stock 2.2 Motorola Milestone 2, I e.g. also found /data/download. Different devices might use other directories additionally. But that should not affect your Playstore question.

1 I can only base this on one of my devices (Motorola Milestone 2, stock Android 2.2), where I extracted a Nandroid backup stored on my PC. There the init.rc file (which is called during the boot process) a.o. contains the following:

mkdir /data/local 0771 mot_tcmd shell
mkdir /data/local/tmp 0771 mot_tcmd shell
mkdir /data/local/12m 0771 mot_tcmd shell
mkdir /data/local/12m/batch 0771 mot_tcmd shell

Easy to see: the /data/local directory is created during the boot, which suggests it being empty at this point. Same is valid btw. for /data/download


I can't receive SMS when I have low storage From the time the "low storage" warning appears no synchronization is done at all, including receiving SMS.

Can I do anything about it? Can I "force" my Motorola Milestone Froyo to receive SMS somehow?

This is really annoying. Especially because the user doesn't informed in detail. I missed a lot of SMS... I hope that gets fixed in Froyo.

SMS, etc. are stored on internal storage.  If it's getting full, then you'll have to uninstall some apps to free up space to receive more messages.  Not much else you can do about this.

My suggestion, however, is that you use an app like SMS Backup+ to backup your old SMS messages to a label in gmail.  Then you can delete old threads which will free up space AND you'll still have a copy of all of your messages.


Kies won't connect to Galaxy S2 It just displays Connecting... forever when I plug in the phone (through USB), and nothing else happens. What should I do?

I just installed Kies, v2.3.0.12035_16

I had the same problem. I fixed it by reinstalling the latest version of Kies and deactivating USB-Debugging BEFORE I connected my phone (Samsung Galaxy XCover) the first time.


HTC One Messages app extremely slow, but just when I text one person! My friend (who texts me a lot of pictures of his kids) sent me a barrage of pictures and one video. Ever since then, texting him is excruciatingly slow. These things happen:

Just getting our text thread to open takes much longer.
When typing, some words get stuck and I have to wait until the word is completed.
When I do get the text written and hit send, the message disappears for a little while, then it appears, but as not sent yet, and then  after 30 seconds, finally sends.

Texting all other people is just as quick as it ever was.

I'm wondering if it's because I've got so many pictures in the thread? Can't think of anything else.

I'm deleting some pictures, to see if it helps, and I think I might try clearing the app's cache, but I'm not sure what that does.

Might be a small bug because it is specific to only one contact. Hoping you've saved all the stuff you want from that thread, delete the thread/whole conversation. If you don't mind delete the contact also by writing his number somewhere. Now start fresh again by creating the contact again and see what happens. Comment.


Changing input format for Android calendar I have a Nexus 4.  For the calendar, you have to scroll to enter a time, which is inconvenient for events starting at :30 (30 minutes past the hour).  On the same phone, for the alarm clock, you manually enter the time using a keypad-type display.  Is there anyway to use the keypad-type display rather than scrolling for the calendar function?

When creating the event click on the time that you need to change:

Then when the set time pop-up comes up press on the number instead of scrolling.


Does flashing Factory image on nexus 5 reinstall core apps I messed up with some internal core apks of nexus 5 running 5.1 (android L) to be particular Google play services.

I want to get back the original apks. Would flashing factory image help me with that ?

Go to settings>apps and scroll down to Google Play Services. You can uninstall updates from there. And yes, flashing the factory image would help, but is probably overkill for your problem.


Does greyscale/grayscale mode save battery life? Simple question but searching I can't find much evidence. I use an LED device (not OLED), would that also make a difference?

No, because power is still being consumed to display the image. Had the device been OLED or AMOLED, then it would have saved a bit of power, since each pixel is an individual source being powered, and black pixels would not receive power.

The best bet on saving power with LED is if the GPU was processing images in 8-bit, but it does not. If you turned on grayscale and took a screenshot then turned it back off, the image is still in color.


Synchronize Gmail but not contacts I have a phone with Android 4.2.2.

I want to sync my mails but not my contacts.

The problem is that it seems to be joined in my phone.

When I go to Settings > Account > Google I can activate synchronisation but not choose which one.

Does anyone knows how to do this or an app that allows this?

When you tap Google in your accounts list, the first option shows your user mail. Tap that and you will see a list of services which are getting synced. Untick Contacts and make sure Gmail is checked.


Is it possible to only use your Google account for Google Play only? I'm developing Android applications on a phone (5.0.2) provided by my company so I'm supposed to log on Google Play in order to download other applications and test them.

The thing is with that, all of my Gmail, Drive, Photos, Hangouts, Youtube, Keep (and the list goes on) are automatically synchronized and made available with a simple "login button"... Which is quite embarrassing.

Everytime I try to log out from any of those google services, it redirects me to Android's parameters accounts tab... like it's all or nothing.

So the question is : How can I login to Google Play alone ?
Thanks

If you go to "Settings>Applications>Google" you can turn off automatic syncing to the device. For the login button there's two things you can do:

I think you can deauthenticate the device from your google settings.
Simply solove the problem by creating another account you use just to do work-stuff. You shouldn't mix private and business life.

Hope this helps :)


Who is creating icons? Some application (malware? adware?) is creating garbage icons on my Android desktop. How to know the application who does this?

I heard each application is a Linux user on android. Is it possible to see icon file owner ID then?

My device is Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Android is 3.2

UPDATE

Icons are different. Some of them mimic existing icons, other are entitled with question marks.

I can delete them, but they appearing again.

I need to have general way to know icon creator.

What are these icons:

Mysterious icons on your start screen or ads clogging your notification bar is a way developers have to monetize their software.

Usually the majority of these ads come from mobile marketing firms that work with app developers for some way to make money from their smartphone software.

There's an extensive article covering this subject at TechHive:

Sneaky Mobile Ads Invade Android Phones

What can you do:

You can use an app to scan and identify possible installed apps that are causing this on your device:

AirPush Detector

  This is a simple Android application which detects other installed applications which appear to use known notification ad frameworks and offers the user the ability to easily uninstall them.

  If your device is running Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" or higher, you don't need this app anymore! You can just press and hold on notifications and your device will tell you who is generating them.

Addons Detector

  Addons Detector detects addons used by your installed applications. It has all the tools to find push notification ads and icon ads.

  If you are looking for the app that uses AirPush or other push notifications, you can easily find the app and uninstall.
  Besides push notifications, using this app is a great way to see what advertising agencies apps use, and what tools they have integrated.

Not satisfied with the above apps:

Many more can be found with a search for AirPush at Google Play Store.


Does Samsung galaxy 7 turn itself on once dies and plugged up to chrger? Will my Samsung galaxy 7 turn itself on once plugged into wall, or do I have to turn it on myself ?

I couldn't find anything in the user guide one way or another but I have a Galaxy S7 myself and I tested this several times.  I found that you do have to turn the phone on once it has started charging.  It will not turn itself on.


Starting emulator for AVD 'Android_2.2' PANIC: Could not open: Android_2.2 How do I please to make the AVD correctly works ?

When I try to start a virtual device, I get the following message :

How do I to fix that, please?

Are you starting Android Virtual machine from within eclipse or directly ?

If you are running it from eclipse then before starting eclipse just make sure to run the below command:

sudo export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0

Now start the eclipse and try running AVD from it.
I hope this helps. It solved this issue at my end when I faced the similar problem.


How to remove android chrome notification requests? Phone:
samsung s10

runs android

Sometimes when i visit "certain" websites, the site requests to send notifications to me through chrome. How do I remove these chrome site notification requests from random websites? I dont see any locations for removal.

[1
[]2
[]3

Similar to this question:

How to permanently remove a particular Chrome notification from Android mobile phone?

See pictures.

To remove notifications for an individual site on Chrome for Android, you need to block the Notification permission by doing the following:

Open Chrome -> Settings.
In the Advanced section, click on Site Settings, then All Sites. Sites that have permissions set will be listed.
Find the site you are looking for, click on it.
Under the Permissions section, click on the permissions you want to remove, in your case the Notification permission, then select "Block".


Home shortcut key to my designated webpage? I was wondering if there is an android shortcut to make things more efficient.

That one is quite easy:

Make a bookmark to the desired target in your web browser
Create a shortcut to that bookmark on your desktop

The second step is sometimes offered by the browser itself, but always possible using the bookmark widget shipping with Android itself.


Saying "Call Joe Bloggs" doesn't work on Huawei Y330 I bought my grandad a cheap Android phone - a Huawei Ascend Y330 - for Christmas. He likes Google Now a lot, but for some reason the command Call <somebody in his phone book> isn't working.

It's saying (in a robotic voice, not the usual one) Say the name of the contact you want to call, or say cancel. It isn't coming up with any contact suggestions either, and it isn't working for any contacts, from simple home to slightly more complicated names.

Initially it came up with a permission request to access his contacts, which I approved.

Saying Call ACME Inc does work though, when it needs to search online for the number.

It's running Android 4.2 Jellybean and there are no updates available.

Any ideas?

First, check the settings under Google Now. Open "Phone Search" and check if "Contacts" is ticked. If it is not, then tick it and it should work. If it is, head to Settings and Application Manager. Get to Google App and uninstall updates. Get back to the Play Store and reinstall all updates. It should work. If all else fails and he hasn't much data on the phone, back up and format it. Good luck and thank you for the bounty.


Add mobile number to Facebook contact? My Android phone connected to Facebook and grabbed all my friends. Now I want to edit their info and add a mobile number, but it does not let me do that; it only lets you change their ringtone and a few other little options.

I am also using GO Contacts from Go Launcher. It's a little annoying when I click "edit a Facebook contact" and it goes to the phone's default contact sheet.

If I click a person I input manually it will go to that person in the Go Contact app and give me extra options and all that good stuff.

Is this a problem with Go Contacts or something? Can anyone recommend something better? Needs to have a dark skin.

From your contact list, select the Facebook contact that you would like to edit.  Click the menu button and choose Edit Contact.  You'll see an indication that the user is a Facebook contact and may not be edited.  Now click the Menu button again and choose New contact.  This will create a new contact in your address book and merge the Facebook profile information with that contact.  You may now edit the contact to have additional details, such as a phone number.


System Set Permissions Accidentally, and is Corrupt My phone's system folder at /system was corrupt.  I accidentally set its permissions to rw-r--r--.  Then, I reboot my phone, and nothing is working.
Here's what I mean:

1st reboot: power off;
2nd automatic reboot: automatically went to Recovery Mode;

When I reboot, it doesn't go to the Operating System.  It just sends me to Recovery Mode.

Offline Charging is (I think) also not available.  It powers on the device, but it doesn't play the Boot Animation (because the System Folder is corrupt), so it just send me to Recovery Mode.

What should I do?  How could I set the permissions of the system folder back to its default state rwxr-xr-x?

I had think of 3 possible ways:

chmod the system folder using TWRP Recovery's Built - in chmod.

I need to find the "Octal Code" of the permission rwxr-xr-x.

Install the stock ROM (in this case, CM 12.1) through recovery.

I don't know if this one will work.

Wipe the System Partition, and install the ROM.

I have no idea if this will work, or not.

The problem is solved quickly after digging on TWRP, and found out that there is a restore option.

Luckily, I have a backup of the System Partition.

The ROM installed on my device was CM 12.1, which is running Android 5.1 Lollipop.

The backup system (pre - installed ROM) was the stock ROM, which is running Android 4.4 Kitkat.

Guess I should just install that CM ROM.

By the way, I could get into the Operating System now, but I have another problem, which I will post in an another question.


Samsung Note 4 was stolen. Can I get my contacts, pictures, and SMS back? My Samsung Note 4 was stolen today at the movies. Is there any way I can get all my pictures, contacts and SMS back? It's synched to my Gmail account almost daily when connected to wifi.

Honestly, ordering a new phone isn't a big deal, but I had priceless information and pictures on the phone.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Andrew

What you can restore from Google is limited to what you backed up to it.

Make sure to go here and remove your device so that the person who has your phone right now can not mess up with your Google account as well.


Tecno N3 keeps rebooting In my case, my tecno n3 keeps rebooting even with the sd card removed. What can I do? Pls help.

Didn't install any new apps recently.
Only followed Barca_Ac Milan commentary online.

Also, how do I hard reset the phone?

Press Vol up + Power button for about 4 seconds, keep until reset menu appears.


What can I do to slow down battery degradation of portable power bank for my Android phone? I just got Inland USB-A 5,200mAh Power Bank w/ LED Indicators for my android phone. It has a one-year warrantee, which  seems to tell that its battery might degrade significantly after one year of uses.
The power bank came fully charged. I don't have  a plan of using it sometime soon, except for something unexpectedly, and will just set it aside for weeks or even months. I was wondering how to slow down battery degradation as much as possible?
For example:

In what percentage of charge shall I leave it, when I set it aside? Emptily, fully charged, or somewhere between?

Does its battery degradation depend on how many times it has been  discharged and then charged, and how often it has been ?

Power banks too have the same type of batteries as Android devices (Li-Ion or Li-Po) so the answers covering points you raised are :

In what percentage of charge shall I leave it, when I set it aside? Emptily, fully charged, or somewhere between?

40% is the best for storage
Quoting from this answer

When the phone is marketed, manufacturers, typically charge the battery to around 40% as you may have noticed. This is good for battery longevity and ensures battery degradation does not occur on storage. See BU-702: How to Store Batteries for better understanding

Does its battery degradation depend on how many times it has been discharged and then charged, and how often it has been ?

Quoting from this answer

Yes. The more you use the battery , more the number of discharge cycles ( which covers both charging and discharging as explained earlier) and drop in battery capacity... (see answer for graphs and picture)

Now, the unasked part, charging while in use, see this answer

charge when the battery drops to 50% and stop charging at 80 or 90%.

You may want to look at hardware solution for the last point.


Installing Google Account on i9500 on leaked 5.0.1 I recently installed the leaked lollipop 5.0.1 ROM for the s4 i9500. I can see that it does not come with the google package of google play, google search and also one cannot add a google account in the accounts.
I downloaded the apk but that is not running and not even an error is displayed when i click on it.
Is there a way to get google play without rooting? and even add a google account?

Follow the below procedure:

Download the ROM
Download GApps package for Lollipop
Download SuperSU
Put the zip files on your SDCard
Reboot in Recovery
Wipe Data / Factory Reset
Select "Install zip from SDCard"
Choose ROM zip file
Choose GApps zip file
Choose SuperSU zip file
Reboot system

You need customized google apps package.

Courtesy:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4/i9505-orig-develop/rom-cyanogenmod-12-t2943934


Why is the same sd-card partition mounted on 7 different mount points? I created an /sd-ext partition and linked /cache/download and /cache/dalvik-cache to /sd-ext/...  When I boot up the phone and all filesystems are mounted and I start adb shell, "df -h" shows that I have both /sd-ext and /data/sdext2 and they are both connected to the same block device, /dev/block/mmcblk0p2.  In fact that partition is mounted on 7 different mount points!  Is that supposed to happen?

/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /sd-ext
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /data/sdext2
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /data/app
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /data/app-private
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /data/data
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /data/dalvik-cache
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2    915.2M    394.7M    471.6M  46% /sd-ext/download

Furthermore, there is /sd-ext/dalvik-cache and /data/dalvik-cache.  They seem to have identical contents.  In fact, ls -ldi shows that they are the same inode!

When I first set up the /sd-ext partition, I added it to /etc/fstab.  But each time I booted, I found that /etc/fstab was overwritten.  Now I can no longer find fstab anywhere on the sd-card!

I also looked in init.rc and found the following:

# grep symlink init.rc
    symlink /system/etc /etc
    symlink /sys/kernel/debug /d
    symlink /system/vendor /vendor
    symlink /mnt/sdcard /sdcard

This doesn't really explain why /data/dalvik-cache and /sd-ext/dalvik-cache are the same inode, and many other things I'm seeing.

There is obviously more going on here than meets the eye, and I'd like to get to the bottom of it so I know what's going on.

what version of CM are you using? A bunch of those mount points don't even exist in my version of CM (CM7)

tmpfs                   173052        32    173020    0% /dev
tmpfs                   173052         0    173052    0% /mnt/asec
tmpfs                   173052         0    173052    0% /mnt/obb
/dev/block/mtdblock2    192000    146684     45316   76% /system
/dev/block/mtdblock3     81920     35816     46104   44% /cache
/dev/block/mtdblock5     16384     14512      1872   89% /radio
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2   1935192    286276   1648916   15% /data
/dev/block/mtdblock6    176128    156340     19788   89% /datadata
/dev/block/mtdblock4     12800      6756      6044   53% /efs
/dev/block/mmcblk1p2   1874206     32898   1741308    2% /sd-ext
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2   1935192    286276   1648916   15% /cache/download
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2   1935192    286276   1648916   15% /cache/download
/dev/block/vold/179:1  13824672   4444320   9380352  32% /mnt/sdcard
/dev/block/vold/179:1  13824672   4444320   9380352  32% /mnt/secure/asec
/dev/block/vold/179:9  5869368    1714680   4154688  29% /mnt/emmc

There is what i get when i do a df. I did think it was interesting that /cache/download was in there twice though. But, also, if you notice, both /data and /cache/download are on the same device. Really, it is not uncommon that a device could have multiple mounts.


Can Windows be installed on a n Android Phone Well I have a Lenovo K3 Note and would like to know if I could install windows on it if so could anyone tell me how because I've done my research and only ended up with tutorials and videos that use a software called change my software and while researching this software I came up with a few isuues some people say its malware and some say that its useless and will only brick my phone if you could provide me a method of installing windows on an Android phone and dual booting it with android I'd be greatful

In short: no.

I'm afraid there is little support in the area of custom flashing for your device as it is, even on the Android side.

This topic on XDA guides you to root the device and install a custom recovery but doesn't give any links ROMs, which you'd need. There is, however, a topic that allows you to install Cyanogenmod 12.1 (Android 5.1.1) here. Note that this is a not officially supported ROM and by the looks of the comments there appear to be quite some issues at the time being.

That doesn't mean all hope is lost. There are rumours by reputable resources that Microsoft is working on a way to install Windows 10 (partially) on an Android device but I wouldn't count on it arriving any time soon. Even if it is, there is no way of saying it'll be compatible with the K3 Note. The question is why you need this operating system. If it's specific Microsoft apps you're looking for, there's already a wide range of them available on Android (and iOS) such as Cortana (beta), Bing, Outlook or Word.

Virtualization can be a solution for you but you'll need a running Windows machine to connect your device to. Just Google for "run Windows programs on Android" and you'll find plenty easy-to-follow tutorials to get it done.

As for dualbooting, you'd be roaming dangerous territory. Dualbooting on an Android device is completely different from your average home PC dualbooting Windows and Ubuntu. There are tools like MultiROM, Safestrap, DualBoot Patcher and GRUB for Android but they are in most situations highly experimental.

I hope this helps you in the right direction and at least answers a part of your problem. Whatever you do, make a nandroid backup so if you get in trouble, you can still restore your original setup.


Why does Google Maps ask me to rate places I haven't been to? I am asked to rate places Google maps thinks I have visited. I have not been there and I click on I have not been there but next time I get asked to rate (those places I listed as I have not been there).

How can I stop maps from asking me to rate places I haven't been to?

If someone else is logged in to your Googe account on another device and visits the place in question it might push the notification to your device.


Save a draft message using 'hello sms' app I have started using hello sms as my everyday SMS app and it is great. One problem though is I cannot work out how to save a draft message.

If you want to save new message as draft, it works the following way:

Open Hello SMS and click on '+' button.
Type in your contacts & your message in their respective fields.
You can exit app by pressing either 'back' button or 'home' button. Both way it handles the draft.
Now when you again open app, just click on '+' button and you will have your previously entered contacts and your message body in their respective fields.

UPDATE:

If you want to save multiple drafts, it works the following way:

Open thread of the recipient to whom you wanna send text and type in your message.
You can exit app and when you return again, just open respective recipient's thread and you will find your draft message.

You can have multiple drafts for multiple contacts in their respective message threads.


How do timers and alarms function while the device is sleeping? I would like to preface this by noting that this is not a developer question, more of a interest to know how this particular aspect of Android works in relation to the hardware found in smartphones today.

My basic understanding is that when a phone is sleeping all CPU cores (for a multicore device) are in a battery-essential, very low-powered state.
However, when a timer or an alarm is set into some arbitrary point in the future, I assume the hardware needs to essentially monitor every passing second and act on whether to sound the alarm, or wait.

Does this mean that the CPU is doing the work (which I doubt), or is there some dedicated low-power hardware?

Thank you!

All computers have a special piece of hardware called the clock (more fully, the real-time clock or RTC). The clock is connected to the CPU, but it runs even when the computer is completely powered down. On a desktop computer, a battery on the motherboard keeps the clock running even when it's unplugged from the mains. Mobile devices tend to have a large capacitor (which is a bit like a rechargeable battery), so even if you pull the main battery out, the clock can continue to keep time for some hours.

At regular intervals, the clock sends a signal to the CPU called an interrupt. It tells the CPU to interrupt whatever it's doing to process this signal. This is the same mechanism used by other parts of the computer (such as the touch screen) to send input to the CPU. The rate of the signals can be controlled by the kernel: it might be as slow as once per second, or as fast as a thousand times per second. This sounds like a lot of signals, but don't forget that today's computers take a fraction of a nanosecond to do a single operation, so even a 1 kHz clock only interrupts every few million operations.

Don't confuse the real-time clock with the CPU clock and the CPU's clock rate, which are typically a few GHz. The CPU clock is not a timekeeping device: it sets the number of operations per second the CPU can perform, and is a big factor in how much power the CPU draws.

On most CPUs, the kernel can decrease the CPU clock rate, turn off some CPU cores, and maybe even power down some caches, all to reduce power consumption. This is what happens when your Android device goes to sleep, but the exact changes are different from one phone to another. The CPU is still running, just more slowly, and drawing less power. As Izzy points out, if the phone uses ARM's big.LITTLE system, it might even be a completely different CPU core that runs in sleep mode: a slower one tuned for low power consumption.

Consider, then, that the RTC is still running in sleep mode, and the CPU is still receiving and processing clock interrupts. This is still necessary for the CPU to keep track of different processes and allocate time between them fairly. One of the processes is the system's alarm manager. This has a sorted list of all the apps on the system that have registered an alarm. The alarm manager doesn't run continuously: rather, it tells the kernel when the first alarm is, and the interrupt handler for the clock interrupts is responsible for checking the time and waking up the alarm manager when appropriate.

This way, the CPU only needs a few instructions per clock to compare the current time with the time of the next wake-up.

In addition, the alarm manager has its own optimizations to keep the device asleep as much as possible. When several apps want to run at intervals (e.g. to check email every 15 minutes), the alarm manager won't run them individually at the exact times they asked for, waking up the device several times over that 15 minute window. Instead, it will run all of them at the same time, so the device only needs to wake up once.

On top of that, many alarms won't run at all if the device is asleep. For example, if an app wants to run every hour to change your home screen background, there's no point in doing that while the device is asleep, because you can't see it. It will tell the alarm manager that it doesn't need to wake up the device to run, so the alarm manager will ignore that alarm when telling the kernel when it needs to run. That way, if the device is asleep when the time comes, the alarm will only happen when the device next wakes up.


Check the original carrier of Galaxy S3 How do I check the original carrier for Galaxy S3 (model no is i9300 in Australia)?

I bought it from one buyer. I can't use the network. So, please help me.

i9300 is international model of Samsung Galaxy S3. So it won't come up with any specific carrier. You can also use i9300 with any carrier as you like.
but there are some other models with specific carriers. If you want use them ,you need to unlock it.
Like:
1747- At&T US....

You can check carriers and S3 model names here


How to run a script on a rooted android device? We recently deployed a lot of android devices internally for displaying customized web page only.

Device: RKM MK902
OS: Android 4.4.2 Rooted
Wifi radius 8021x
Dolphin browser with kiosk mode and tab reload add-on (refresh page/30 sec)
Also have code in web page to refresh itself
Tried other apps to refresh browser in scheduled time window. (bad results)

The issue I am facing now is that even I setup refresh interval as 30 sec, but sometimes it still shows "page is not available", but I can access page manually from my desktop.

I am trying to find out if it is wifi issue or web server issue.

What I want to do is that have a script running on the android device accessing the page every 30 sec and log the result. My questions are

how to write a script on android device? what language or what command?
how to run this script on android device?
how to log the results?
how to schedule this script to run?

You Can Download BusyBox which has many common UNIX utilities. You can write a script in shell and can run it on Teriminal Emulator
If you know python you can write and run script on Qpython3
You can use Tasker to schedule script.
You can download Dolphin Browser and can relode tab with Dolphin Tab Relode

{ have no idea about creating Log :(
And I know it is not proper solution but you can try to get solution using above mentioned apps.}


Insufficient Storage Space? I just bought an SD card with 8GB of memory (My old one had 2GB) and it's still saying I can't download or update any apps, and that there is insufficient storage space. I have an LGMS659 and I am very frustrated. Please help?

Loren, this is most likely due to your internal storage being full. By default, applications may be installing to your local storage. The easiest solution here will be to uninstall any unimportant applications and then install AppMgrIII or a similar application. This will then allow you to migrate larger applications to your SD card.

From memory (this may not be accurate) all applications that are not system installed applications can be moved to the SD card.

If you feel I have answered this please mark it so. If there is anything I have missed, or something wrong, let me know.


Nexus 7 2012 is almost unusable after upgrading to the latest Lollipop. What should I do? I have a Nexus 7 2012 wifi. With the latest version of Lollipop it has really become unusable, freezing for a minute or more, or even rebooting while loading a page in Chrome.

I did a system reset, but that did not change much past the few first minutes.

What is the recommended version to have again a usable tablet? Is anyone having a "runbook for dummies" to install Android 4.x (or CM or whatever works fine) ?

Most of the tutorials I found on the Internet are for geeks wishing to experiment. I just want a running system with minimal fuss/risk.

The official Google Developers site has the full instructions and image repository on how to install a factory image for any Nexus device, including your "nakasi" Nexus 7 2012. I recommend 4.4.4, but you are free to go back as far as you want until you're comfortable with it's use.

Cyanogenmod also has a stable 10.2 version (Android 4.3) - you can download the image file here. You can re-use the instructions found on the Google Developers site to install this as well (just target your CM unzip location instead).

BE AWARE: This will wipe your device, and this is all done under your own volition. Flashing a device - regardless of source or instruction - always comes with risk of damaging or rendering the device useless. We are not responsible for it!


SdCard is not usable with KitKat? I am using App Backup & Restore for creating backup of my apps but with KitKat its using the internal SdCard as Storage.

When I explicitly set the external SdCard path it gives the error that it is unable to create folder,

I have also tried with creating folder under android/data/[packagename]/files/ but it is still not able to do the same.

Is there any solution so that apps can use external storage for writing files.

Note : I don't want to ROOT my Phone.

On my S4 Mini I configured the path as:

/storage/extSdCard/Android/data/mobi.infolife.appbackup/APP_Backup_Restore

and it works fine - device is not rooted.

Probably the first part (/storage/extSdCard) is different from device to device and maybe the path is case-sensitive.


How to make the page number in a PDF file match with the one inbuilt in the app? I have a PDF file, which shows page numbers after a few pages, like preface, index etc. However, I use the Drive PDF viewer, which starts counting pages from the preface page itself. Is there anyway, to make it start counting after a few pages, so that to match it with the book itself?

This maybe an off-site question, so instead of downvoting, please suggest me where else to post this question.

Three options

Splitting the PDF file
Rearrange pages in PDF
Open the file on your PC to edit and transfer it your Android - not tried by me

There are many apps , ( thanks to Izzy)
that can do the first two options, but I would recommend Xolo PDF reader and editor which is versatile in handling PDF files. Besides, you can export edited files to drive.

Deletion:  You can delete those initial pages and export to drive or a different location in your device ( warning: make a copy of original file and use the copy to edit, since changes are permanent)
Rearrange pages: Select and drag the pages you don't want ( for instance pages with Roman numbering and put them at the end of document ). Save and export to Drive or use Xolo. Note- This is a feature which is free in this app unlike a paid option in other apps


import words in android personal dictionary I have a json file exported from a 3rd party app keyboard and I wanted to know if there is any way I can import it in Google Android Dictionary (so that gboard keyboard app can utilize it).

Finally, I did the job with User Dictionary Manager (UDM)!

Find it in Play-Store.

I just had to transform the json export file to plain text word-by-line file.


Can I use an android phone running Ice Cream Sandwich to test apps created in Gingerbread? We will develop applications for android 2.3.4 (gingerbread) and because the emulator of my laptop is very unusable and the android x86 is not supported in my laptop, i'm planning to invest an android device to test the applications that we are going to create.

Since android ICS is the recent version of android OS, i plan to buy a phone running it.

Would their be any compatibility issue i might encounter during my development? Or i could survive using that phone smoothly till the end?

In short, yes. Android apps are upward compatible as @ce4 said. But if you are going to build an app, its best to compile it on the latest version of android, ie Jelly Bean 4.2.1. This question would have been better suited on StackOverflow.


How to put a ROM on read-only /sdcard, while adb shell not working (HTC One X) I've been searching my _ off for two days now to find a solution for my problem, but I can't find one working for me.

What I do have right now:

NO working ROM (I believe because of a failed atempt to revert to a backup in CWM)
Access to my bootloader (unlocked through HTCDev)
Access to my recovery (Which is the latest CWM)
Fastboot/adb working
Phone boots upon the HTC logo screen
NO ROM zipfile on the SD-Card (I accidentilly deleted that, I still hate myself for that)
I've managed to push to ROM file into both /data and /system, which (of course) isn't usefull to flash from because they don't show up in CWM.

What I've tried:

Reverting to a Nandroid backup, I've 2 on the sdcard. Both don't pass the part where /system is being restored.
adb shell to push files, or mount the SD card, does not work. First I had the error saying '--exec /system/bin/sh failure: file or dir not found (2)'. I managed to push the sh file into system, (and I believe into /system/bin), and the error changed to '[...] No directory (20)'
adb push <ROM.zip> /sdcard/<ROM.zip>; doesn't work because /sdcard is read-only.
In CWM I can't mount as USB storage, is says something about a file which can't be found.
TWRP recovery doesn't work on my device, I can touch whatever I wan't, the only button responding is the power button, which causes a locked recovery, which I can't unlock. (You need to swipe for that, which my phone seems to ignore).
I've read almost every topic on XDA and whatever Google could give me, but most solutions somewhere relied on the adb shell, or pushing into the /sdcard, or simply assume I still can mount as USB storage. :(

Does anyone have any suggestions left on howto get a ROM into the /sdcard so I can flash it? I would be thanking you forever!

Thanks in advance!

If your version of CWM recovery has the “install zip from sideload” option in the main menu (looks like such recovery version for HTC One X exists), you can use this option to install from a zip file which is stored on your computer without copying it to the SD card:

Select the “install zip from sideload” option in the recovery menu.
Run the following command on your computer:

adb sideload UPDATE.zip

where UPDATE.zip is the zip file you want to install.

You may need to update your ADB executable if it does not understand the sideload subcommand.

Note that currently there is no confirmation when the “install zip from sideload” command is selected, and also no way to abort the sideload mode once it is entered, therefore if you enter the sideload installation mode without a way to give the adb sideload UPDATE.zip command, the only way out would be to pull the battery (on some phones holding the power button for 10–15 seconds to force a reboot also works). Or, if you entered the sideload mode, but do not actually want to install a zip package, run something like adb sideload /dev/null, or use any small file which is not a zip package.

The sideload option is primarily made for phones which do not have internal FAT32-formatted storage, but should also work on other models. One important limitation is that the zip file is temporarily downloaded into the phone RAM (it is placed into /tmp/update.zip, which is in ramfs), therefore, depending on RAM size of your phone, you may not be able to install large packages this way.


Physical (USB) keyboard keeps waking Android ICS tablet from sleep With (or without) my USB keyboard attached... my tablet will sleep after 1 minute of no activity, or if I manually make it sleep by tapping the power button. However, with my keyboard attached it will wake the tablet again after 30+ seconds. And it will continue to do this sleep..wake..sleep..wake.. until I disconnect the keyboard.

Is there any way to prevent the keyboard from waking the device?

Just to add... if the tablet was already sleeping when I connect the USB keyboard, then the tablet will still wake up after a short period of time. (It is not just when the tablet sleeps having been using the keyboard.) The lights on the keyboard flash just before the tablet wakes up, as if the tablet has sent the signal to 'wake up'?

The only related setting I can find is "Stay awake - Screen will never sleep while charging" (not selected) under Developer options.

EDIT: The tablet is a DGM T-703 7inch - a very generic/vanilla tablet AFAIK. The keyboard is an Afunta(TM) Artificial Leather Keyboard Case, but I have tried another standard USB keyboard and the same thing happens.

I now have the same issue using a 7" Sumvison Astro+ after updating the firmware to the manufactures latest ICS listed version. From what i can tell this issue has been introduced as it wasn't present when i first received the tablet with the original firmware.

The details the device lists are

Android version 4.0.3
build version 9F2-D1-H2-H01-2102.20120515
baseband version 1.1
Kernel version 3.0.8+

The release notes list nothing but stability improvements so no clues as to what has been tinkered with. Generally the update was successful a Wi-fi issue i had with streaming music has been cleared and the devices has had it's default CPU speed bumped up which makes it feel snappier, if this keyboard issue wasn't there it would be perfect.


what does the "disable" button do? When I go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Downloaded I see an application list. If I select some applications I see button "disable". What does this button mean?  What happens if I press it?

The "disable" buttons will essentially "freeze" a system application.

System applications are the applications that come pre-installed on your phone - unremovable apps such as the browser, the gallery, the people app, and so on. Disabling one of these apps will stop the app from doing anything. It'll be removed from the app menu, other apps will no longer be able to open it, it will stop running in the background if it does, etc. It's like uninstalling a normal app, but you have the option to re-enable the app and bring it back at any point in time.


Can I really tell where the tower is that I'm connected to? I've been having some difficulty keeping a reliable connection at my house, so I installed the OpenSignal app to see what might be going on.  According to its map, I live in a "hole" between several different towers.

However, the pointer on its home screen doesn't seem to make any sense.  It's supposed to tell me where the tower is that I'm connected to, but it seems to rotate faster than necessary to account for me rotating the phone (unlike a compass needle), and it seems to be fascinated with my home stereo speakers when I bring it close to them.  (like a compass needle pointing to the speakers' magnet)

So is this a legitimate radio problem?  Or is somebody's software getting confused?

I've gotten a lot of feedback about OpenSignal being worthless, but it was only meant to be a diagnostic tool for the problem of getting a more reliable connection.  The reason to know where the towers are, and specifically the one I'm connected to, is to somewhat intelligently play with placement.  (I'm mostly using the data connection for a WiFi hotspot, so an awkward location isn't all that bad.)  If there's a better app or methodology, I'm all ears.

From app blogs Methodology explains how they collect data

Crowd Sourcing (already pointed in comments)
Monitoring users who installed app continuously

So, the accuracy pretty much depends on how many people use the app with GPS on

Data Analytics

Also see Cell towers/wifi routers not located correctly which is dated but relevant

This app was recently launched in India and I noticed this

Cell towers are very well mapped of a  provider, though, in my area tower density is low ( likely because provider made it open source as a part of publicity )
Cell towers are not well mapped, for another provider,  though the tower density is much higher

Not a very dependable app , IMO


The Android phone app wants to know my location - why? I'm running CyanogenMod 13.0 without Play Services. I launched the Phone app and wanted to search through the contacts. Then a popup appeared, that:

  Allow Phone to access this device's location?

What does a phone app need location for?

It might have something to do with Truecaller.

Some CyanogenMod isos integrate C-Apps directly into the OS, and Truecaller is a CallerID service with social media integration. Now, if you're not one for social media, I'd recommend blocking this off the bat. However, if you are, I'd recommend looking through the functionality further and determining whether it'd be useful for you or not.

But, then again, it might be something else. If you really want to be sure, I'd recommend going to the github page for your given CM distro and finding someone familiar with the code to take a look at the part that contains the phone application.

Sources:

https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Cyanogen_Apps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truecaller

https://cyngn.com/c-apps


How do I find my Nexus 7 model number I am building an adhoc network using Asus Nexus 7. I've managed to root using CyanogenMod and ClockworkMod recovery and establish the adhoc after installing Thinktube image-file. However, i need to buy similar tablets so that i can test the network for real.

I am now trying to find out my Nexus 7 model number. But when i go to Settings-->About Tablet-->Model Number, All I can see is Nexus 7.

how can I find the Model of my Tablet ?

The XDA Wiki entry of the Nexus 7 only mentions two models:

Wifi Model: ME370T
Cellular Model: ME370TG

So if you have a functional SIM card slot then you have the cellular Model, otherwise the wifi-only one.


HTC One X hangs at bootscreen, repair centre writes it off ..so am I screwed or what?

I was running the ViperX ROM on my One X, based on 4.2.2, and a couple of days ago I started getting FCs on HTC BlinkFeed, even though I wasn't using it. I rebooted into recovery and reset the phone, wiped cache etc, but that didn't help.

Then I made the mistake of selecting 'wipe all but SD card' - and since then the phone hangs on boot up.

Using ADB is out of the question since I've never been able to get ADB to work over USB on my PC which runs Windows 8.1. I've downloaded the latest HTC Sync, but all I can do is connect as an MTP device. Mass storage mode doesn't work, USB debugging is already turned on. So till this problem happened, I got around this by using wireless ADB and the AirDroid app. Both of these are obviously out of the question now.
Fastboot is the only thing that works when I connect the USB cable (I can still hear the device plugged/device disconnected sounds, and in my computer's device manager, it shows an Android device connected with no driver problems)
So far I have extracted the boot.img from the new Viper ROM and flashed it, and also flashed a newer touch version of ClockworkMod recovery, neither of which helped.
When I go into Clockwork recovery and try to reinstall the ROM zip from the SD card, I can't see the contents of my SD card. All it shows are LOST.DIR and clockworkmod, both of which are empty.
My recovery has the option to sideload via ADB - but that also doesn't work due to the reason above.

I took it to the official repair centre (the phone is already a year out of warranty) and they said they can only replace the motherboard, which will cost about half as much as what I paid for the phone unsubsidized 2 years ago.
So am I totally hosed? Is there anything I can do or try to fix this?

So I flashed the TWRP recovery instead of ClockworkROM, and this was able to activate mass storage mode. The rest was history - copied the ROM zip file and installed it as usual.
Sadly, my internal 32 GB storage was totally wiped out, so I've lost my TitaniumBackup folder, a bunch of songs (that I can copy again anyway) and some photos.


Is there a Palm OS-style launcher (placing apps in categories)? I am interested in a launcher/home screen application which behaves like the classic Palm OS (not WebOS) launcher. Specifically, every installed application is in exactly one category, and you can flip between categories. There is no separate app drawer versus home-screen. Ideally, I could reorganize the apps (and add shortcuts and widgets) within each category, and let the less-used part of that category be accessible by scrolling past the 'bottom' of the screen.

(I get the impression that iOS (and so iOS-inspired Android launchers, presumably) does a similar thing of forcing each application to be on some page of the home screen, but I specifically want to have single categories larger than my screen size; e.g. "Games".)

My goal is to make it harder to forget I have an app — because the standard app drawer is a big unorganized list, I hardly ever look at it, and when installing inessential things like games it's easy to forget to carefully add it to a folder.

I would also like it to not have extra features which require extra permissions (widgets can check my calendar for me, thanks).

I am currently using folders to organize my apps into categories (in the stock Android launcher), but this is an moderately unsatisfactory solution:

There is no “Uncategorized” folder which newly installed apps or apps removed from other locations end up in.
I would like the “rest of the category” to be more naturally “connected” to the home screen (e.g. scrolling down) rather than being a single icon on it.
I would like to have more than five categories.
There is a bug in the stock launcher in which the use of folders causes other home screen slots to misbehave.

Well, perhaps the launcher from the miui rom will do what you need- it supports folders, there is no app drawer, and you can pinch to zoom out and quickly change home screens. Most other 3rd party launchers (adw, launcher pro, my personal favorite go launcher ex) do the same things but keep the app drawer.


How can I stop my Nexus 5X getting stuck in the loading screen? My phone is stuck on the dots loading screen and won't load. It is rooted and it is a Nexus 5X. (No it is not the bootlooping issue). I cannot boot into recovery because the phone will not fully turn off as when I hold down the power button it just turns the screen off and back on and shows the device is corrupt screen, then goes onto the loading screens.

Do I have to wait for the battery to go down or is there another option. Thanks

To turn the device off, when it's in the bootloop phase, just hold down the VolDown key until the device restarts and takes you to fastboot. From there, you'll be able to choose the option to turn off.

Hope it's still a useful answer.


Flashing Lenovo Vibe K5 to Stock ROM Lenovo Vibe K5 is up and running in CM 13. But, I need to flash stock ROM on it. Now, I have tried to flash with TWRP, but that didn't worked for stock firmwares. I have seen multiple tutorials, in that, they are using QPST and flashing it easily. While I am having problem, because my device shows as non Qualcomm device. It shows as RELINK HS-USB QDLoader instead of Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader. I have installed the Qualcomm drivers correctly.

Finally i have done it. So i am sharing with all of you, you should turn off your internet while doing all these steps , because when you press and hold vol up + down button and insert usb cable, it automatically downloads Relink driver because of running internet in the background and even if you uninstall and reinstall those drivers it wouldn't work unless you format it .


Encrypting Nexus 7 vs. screen lock I read in this article that a non-encrypted tablet with only screen-lock on can have data read through USB.

Is this really true for example for a Nexus 7 tablet? I mean - if I lock the screen you can't get anywhere, even if you restart the device. Attempts to root it, or to hack it somehow when the bootloader is locked forces a data wipe and a factory reset. So is it really possible to get to the data in a screen-locked Nexus 7 which has no SD card?

The only way I can think about is that someone would somehow open the device and take the internal memory out and connected it somehow to a device which could read it. I presume that would be pretty expensive. If this really is the only way how to get to the data, it might be interesting to know, how much it may cost to do such a thing. If it is really costly, than it should be okay to just use screenlock.

Basically, as screen lock secures your data as long as the data chip stays in the phone(as long as debugging is disabled [or enabled with no trusted credentials] and the phone isn't rooted), whereas encrypting it secures it no matter what.

Old answer:
It is possible to access some data via usb, however other data isn't accessible, plug your tablet into the computer and wee what comes up under internal storage, that is accessible (EDIT: none of it if the screen is locked). Of course given enough time a hacker in possession of your tablet could access all the data (as long as it isn't encrypted) (EDIT: for example as you suggested by removing the internal storage and reading it with a different device).
If your tablet is encrypted none of the data can be accessed without your passcode (if the tablet is switched off).
If usb debugging is enabled or you are rooted it is even easier to access the data.


AVD Dose not start, No Errors Either I have my AVD setup with a Virtual Phone created, but when i click start. It shows me the window that it is starting the AVD, and then when the prograss bar gets done, the window closes and nothing starts up.

Any Ideas?

I had a similar issue, turned out to be a fault with my graphics driver . Assuming you're running windows check your event logs for more info


Listen which URLs an app tries to connect Is it possible to listen/monitor an app's network activities?

I have this one app, and I couldn't figure out where it gets its images. I tried to google an app to listen to other apps connections, but I didn't find any. I'm looking for similar functionality as Google Chrome's network tab from developer menu.

I have rooted Nexus 4 with 4.2.2.

OS Monitor lists network connections by app:

OS Monitor and Connection Tracker listing connections (source: Google Play; click image to enlarge)

As you can see, OS Monitor lists up all connections, and lists the corresponding app "owning" this connection along. This should enable you to see all servers your suspicious app connects to. There are other apps available with the same feature as well, as e.g. Connection Tracker shown in the second screenshot.

If you really need the full URL, the above won't bring you there (both apps use methods similar to netstat, which only reveals the hosts). Instead, you might want to take a look at e.g. tPacketCapture, which "sniffs" your network traffic (without requiring root), and saves the protocol in so called .pcap files. These again can be read then by e.g. Shark Reader.


APN Settings Don't Save - Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4.2 I'm trying to setup my APN settings on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus, running Android 4.2.

The APN list is currently empty, and every time I try to add one (menu -> add -> fill out form -> save), nothing new appears.

I'm trying to connect to H2O wireless, when I fill out the instructions, I get a warning saying to enter the MCC and MNC (which H2O says to leave blank), the phone says the MCC and MNC are required, so I add in the MCC and MNC using sumac's instructions.  After I add the settings and click save, no new item is added to the list of APNs.

I think that there should be an item already in the list, as others mention the default settings, but there definitely should be an item after I add the APN.

Has anyone else dealt with this before?

People have suggested online to others that it may be a firmware issue.

Please let me know if there is anything else to add, this is the first time I have tried to get help with my phone.

Edit:
I've talked to H2O's support, and they said 310/410 should work.  They said the problem has been in Android since 4.0.2, and all they can suggest is a hard reset.  So now, it doesn't seem to be a problem with my carrier, my phone, or the settings.  Has anyone gotten around adding APNs on Android since 4.0.2?

Your MCC and MNC are indeed required and must match the MCC and MNC detected by the phone.  I recommend using Market Enabler (requires root) to force set them if your phone isn't detecting it properly.  (It looks like ME has been removed from the Play Store and is now available here).