How to allow Android Market License Check through a secured network? We have a secure network that doesn't allow internet access. Unfortunately one app from the Android Market we purchased for our honeycomb tablets uses Market License Check to verify that we've purchased the app on, what it seems like, a daily basis. What site(s) do we have need to allow access to for this authentication to happen?

The answer is "android.clients.google.com" with port 5228 (TCP).


Android recover data (adb device unauthorized) I am trying to recover data from my phone (Galaxy S3 mini) which screen is cracked. I want to do this using adb. But my device is unauthorized.

How can I solve this? I don't have acess to the device directly therefore I'm not able to turn on USB debugging.

 C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\sdk\platform-tools>adb devices
    List of devices attached
    007667324ccb229b        unauthorized

I resolved the problem entering the recovery mode by pressing "home", "volume up" and "power" buttons at the same time.

Once in recovery mode adb recognized my device and I was able to use the command adb pull /sdcard/ which copied the sdcard to content to my PC


Samsung Galaxy note 3 SM-N9005 cannot boot due to Power down I have Samsung galaxy note 3 SM-N9005 and I wanted to make hard reset but I accidental did Power down. And now, my phone does not fully switch on. When I turn on the phone it stops at the Samsung sign. I waited for several minutes but nothing further happened.

The OP stated (in a comment),

  I took the phone for repair and found out the problem, they said that they need to reinstall the entire phone again.


Forcing system upgrade despite "Battery too low" I have a 2013 Nexus 7 running Android 6.0.1 which has survived a lot of physical distress (being dropped, being partially immersed in the bath one time, and an amateur screen replacement). For the last few months, the battery constantly indicates 0% charge regardless of the actual charge state.

This prevents the Android System Update process, which gives the error "Battery too low to install updates", whether or not the charger is connected.

Is it possible to force the update to proceed anyway, or to fake the battery charge level so the update can proceed?

I've attempted to follow the steps from the first answer, but this is the result:

Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off. OK
Turn it on again and let it turn itself off. Can't turn on again, it's completely dead.
Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent. There was no screen indication. After waiting a few hours, I pressed the power button and the lock screen came on instantly as if it was asleep
Unplug your charger. OK
Turn your phone on. It's likely that the battery indicator won't say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on-screen as well. Battery indicator still says 0%

The tablet does not gracefully shut down when the battery is low. It just powers off instantly.

You could recalibrate the battery. You could try using an app or use method 1 on this AndroidPit help page:

Method 1:

Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.
Turn it on again and let it turn itself off.
Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.
Unplug your charger.
Turn your phone on. It's likely that the battery indicator won't say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on-screen as well.
Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn't say 100 percent, plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.
Repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it's going to get) when you start it up without being plugged in.
Now, let your battery discharge all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.
Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption and you should have reset the Android system's battery percentage.

Don't do this too often, though, as it may reduce the battery's lifetime.


Most of the apps crashing after editing platform.xml I tried making writing to SD possible, so I edited platform.xml to add <group gid=”media_rw” /> to “WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE“.

When I rebooted everything started crashing. I cannot open any apps. It says it connects to Wi-Fi but cannot access the internet.

I tried:

Restoring original platform.xml - nothing good.
NAND backup -> restore to previous backup -> copy .xml from there and restore it - nothing good again.
Dirty flash the ROM which made me unable to even go to Recovery - had to re-flash TWRP.
Backup all apps via ADB and restore them on my previous backup, but all the settings are messed up.

Is there anything I can do to fix the platform.xml issue? What could be causing everything to crash like that? I restored the .xml, so why is it still broken?

Ended up resolving the issue by doing a factory reset and restoring all the apps from an old backup. Some loss but everything works at least.


How can an existing storage server in Solid Explorer be edited? In Solid Explorer (2.7.7), how can an existing network storage server (e.g. SFTP, LAN/SMB; all grouped by Solid Explorer into "Cloud Storage") be changed? ? How can one be deleted? Holding on the server name in the "Storages" list or the title bar has no affect.

Tap the "hamburger" icon (☰) to open the sidebar.
Tap the vertical ellipses (⋮) to open the menu.
Tap "Storage Manager".

From here, tap a storage's menu button to edit or delete the server. Additionally, the storage order can be changed by holding and dragging an item.


Plus icon in folders - how do I remove? I'm on a Galaxy S6 and recently updated to Android 6. Now in every folder on my home screen I have this annoying plus icon (http://i.imgur.com/SUZSJvv.png) which is meant to select apps to add to the folder instead of having to drag them in one by one.

How can I remove this? I haven't changed the UI from default.

Edit: Turns out this doesn't work anymore after you restart the device...  [Rename the folder to "Google" and the plus will disappear. Then you can rename the folder to whatever you like and it won't come back.]


Is there a way to preserve my configuration between firmware updates? I had some apps installed on my Galaxy S2 and configured them on screen the way I liked to have them.

Today, the firmware got updated (it looks cool) and all my installed apps are gone from my workspaces. They are still available in the application menu. Also, a load of Samsung and Vodafone (my carrier) apps were put in the workspaces.

Is there a way to preserve my configurations between updates, and if not... why?

I usually use about five apps, so it's not such a big deal for me, but it's annoying. I can imagine some other users freaking out over this.

By workspace you mean homescreen ?

You could try a custom launcher, like Apex or Nova, which allow you to backup your homescreens.


Symlink to simulate /storage/extSdCard in Android 6.0 So recently, I started using Android 6.0, and one of the first things I noticed was that the external SD card was no longer mounted under /storage/extSdCard anymore; instead it was mounted under a folder named after the Volume ID in /storage, meaning that several of my applications that originally used the /storage/extSdCard path could not anymore. I was curious as to whether it's possible for me to create a symlink in storage to the new path named /storage/extSdCard so that those applications can still use it, but when I tried using ln -s /storage/some-volume-id /storage/extSdCard to create the link, though, the result ended up being only visible and usable as the root user. I checked the permissions which saw full rwx permissions for all, tried changing the group to match the others, tried the symlink switch on the commands, and tried remounting filesystems read/write, but the link still doesn't work for any of the apps or non-superusers. I'm still relatively new to this, so is there anything I'm overlooking that somehow keeps the link from showing up?

Did you upgrade to 6.0 over-the-air? You may need to flash a fresh installation if you intend on keeping your phone unrooted. I've never heard of anyone being able to create symlinks/modify mount points/etc. without root. But maybe someone will come along here who knows more than I do.


Switch play store account without accepting ToS? I accidentally swapped accounts(to Account2) on the play store and now I cannot switch back to the original account(Account1) without accepting the ToS for Account2. Is there any way to switch back to Account1 or is Google forcing me to accept the play store ToS for Account2 in order to get back to Account1?

No, unless you either accept the ToS, or remove the account, you're unable to access the Play Store's interface therefore not allowing you to switch accounts.


Flashing galaxy s5 issues I am having issues flashing my Samsung Galaxy S5 with a new firmware.

Whenever I use odin to flash the new firmware it would say Failed (size)

This lead me to issues with the PIT file, alas flashing that by its self did little other than make the phone stay on the splash screen.

Following more information I was told the issue could be with hidden.img.ext4 which I should flash separately as a .tar file.

However if I flash the tar.md5 and then flash the 'hidden' the tar.md5 still fails and the flashing of hidden puts me back to the continuous splash screen.

Any idea what I should do?

So what worked for me was to flash it, let it fail, extract the rom file (tar.md5) flash the system.img and then the hidden.img after the first. Reboot in safe mode (volume up + home button + power) and boot from /system


What is rootfs? Can I make persistent changes to my device's root filesystem? When I open up a terminal emulator and run the mount command, it indicates that my Android device's root filesystem (/) is of filesystem type rootfs. What is rootfs? Can I write to it? Will my changes persist even after I shut the device down?

Note: If you're an Android ROM developer who wants to add files to your ROM's rootfs, please see the relevant Unix.SE question instead.

What is rootfs?

It's an initramfs. Basically, it's a prepopulated RAM drive. It's prepopulated with some content at boot time, usually from a cpio archive which has been compiled into the kernel.

Can I write to it?

One way to make changes to your rootfs is to unpack the cpio archive, make your changes, and repack the archive.  Your device will almost surely have to be rooted before you can do this.  As well, you'll need the necessary tools.
Alternatively, you can make changes to the rootfs copy which is loaded into RAM; but, if you do so, there are four gotchas.

You must root your device first.
Then, you must remount the filesystem as read-write.
Don't write too much to the rootfs; if you do, you'll take up too much RAM and your device will slow down.
The biggest gotcha is that the files you create will disappear when you shut down or reboot. Please keep on reading.

Will my changes persist even after I shut the device down?

No. If you create or modify files in rootfs, your changes will be undone when you shut down or reboot.

What should I do instead of writing to the root filesystem?

Store your files somewhere under /storage or /data or /system instead. You can choose any of the three. Somewhere under /storage is probably best, since that's the most common choice.

Why doesn't my device act like a normal Linux device and mount a normal disk-backed filesystem to /?

I don't know.

I suspect that the answer is as follows:  Android isn't a full Linux distribution.  It doesn't include a full glibc, it's probably not fully LSB-compliant, and it doesn't feel obligated to provide the niceties that most Linux distributions provide (e.g. a disk-backed root filesystem).

Elsewhere, Gilles writes:

  Most desktop Linux systems have a small initramfs which contains just enough programs and configuration files to mount the real root filesystem, which is then mounted on /, replacing the initramfs. Android, like some embedded Linux systems, keeps the initramfs mounted forever. Android's initramfs contains only /init, adbd and a few configuration files.

References:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1004478
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt by Rob Landley
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/122787/how-to-add-folders-and-file-before-compiling-kernel#122840
And others.


I want Android to remember my currently playing song and playlist I am currently using the stock Music Player for my phone.  Whenever I pause a song, leave the app, and go back to the app, it sometimes goes back to my "All" songs view, not remembering what I was currently playing.  It appears that this behavior depends on whether or not the App was closed.  For instance, if the app closes by my actions via the Task Manager, or it closes on its own based on memory/CPU management, it loses track of what it is doing.

Is there a setting, or another music app, that allows me to play songs and have that song and playlist remembered even if the app is closed?

I'm running FroYo (2.2) on a Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S series).

The Android version of Winamp seems to do a fairly decent job of this.  I barely use it (this particular aspect isn't that important to me), but I've just fired it up after about a week, and it picked up exactly where it left off.


Python 3 on Android using TerminalIDE I want to code Python 3 on my Android device. So I went through Lanky Cyril's blog post on using the Terminal IDE to put all that I needed to do code on an Android terminal. For Python 2.X that is installed on the blog, it works like a charm.

So I installed Python 3 using the same instructions. This is what I get when I try to start Python 3:

terminal++:~$ ~/python3
Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: unable to load the file system codec
LookupError: no codec search functions registered: can't find encoding
Segmentation fault

I made sure:

export PYTHONHOME=/data/data/com.googlecode.python3forandroid/files/python3
export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONHOME}/lib/python3.2/lib-dynload

I also checked on why python 3 is not loading  on StackOverflow.

So the problem could be the python build. Has anyone worked around this?

I worked out the solution by going to the Python-for-Android (Py4A) home and found the script that allows Python3 to run as a "Stand alone" on Android.

There are 3 ways to do this:

I created the "standalone.sh" script, saved it at "HOME"(export HOME=/data/data/com.spartacusrex.spartacuside/files),
changed its mode to executable, called it and python appeared.
I opened the ~/.bashrc and pasted copied in the code:

 export EXTERNAL_STORAGE=/mnt/sdcard/com.googlecode.python3forandroid
 export PY34A=/data/data/com.googlecode.python3forandroid/files/python3
 export PY4A_EXTRAS=$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/extras
 PYTHONPATH=$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/extras/python3
 PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:$PY34A/lib/python3.2/lib-dynload
 export PYTHONPATH
 export TEMP=$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/extras/python3/tmp
 export PYTHON_EGG_CACHE=$TEMP
 export PYTHONHOME=$PY34A
 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PY34A/lib
 $PYTHONHOME/bin/python3 "$@"

Note that this means every time you launch Terminal IDE, you will automatically load Python and find yourself at the Python prompt.

To launch Python the normal way, like shown by Lanky Cyril, paste the following code in the .bashrc:

export EXTERNAL_STORAGE=/mnt/sdcard/com.googlecode.python3forandroid
export PY34A=/data/data/com.googlecode.python3forandroid/files/python3
export PY4A_EXTRAS=$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/extras
PYTHONPATH=$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/extras/python3
PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:$PY34A/lib/python3.2/lib-dynload
export PYTHONPATH
export TEMP=$EXTERNAL_STORAGE/extras/python3/tmp
export PYTHON_EGG_CACHE=$TEMP
export PYTHONHOME=$PY34A
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PY34A/lib

You will notice that the last line in the second solution has been taken out and put in an executable file "~/python". Here is the code:

  #!/system/bin/sh
  /data/data/com.googlecode.python3forandroid/files/python3/bin/python3 "$@"

I used the second one so that when I launch Terminal IDE, I get my Python prompt instantly. I installed the third solution so that, should I leave the Python prompt, I have a way to get back in the same terminal session.


How can I view my Google Analytics data on Android? I want to view the Google Analytics of my web sites on my Android 2.1 mobile phone. How can I view my Google Analytics data on Android?

Actually, they now have their very own Google Analytics app. Enjoy!

Description from Google Play:

  Essential data for your sites & apps. Anywhere, anytime. The Google
  Analytics app shows what is new and what is important on your Google
  Analytics profiles. See real time statistics, customizable dashboards
  and intelligence events on your phone.


Google Photos backup I've been trying to upload my photos to google photos. It's stuck on uploading x items. I tried restarting, removing cache, clearing storage.
I even tried downgrading the google photos app version.
My backup and sync is on.
Please need help
Thank you

Are you using wifi or mobile data for backup
Check this settings/backup & sync and turn on backup and sync
you can also try backup mode/ and reselect high quality
it will auto upload


Xperia Z5 compact recovery mode My son has forgotten his password to his phone and USB debugging mode was never enabled. I'm trying to wipe all the system but I haven't been able to enter recovery mode , I tried holding down power button and up volume button (also tried down volume button) but to no avail. If anyone knows how to solve this it'd be greatest appreciated.

Some Sony Xperia devices don't have a recovery from where you can reset to  factory settings. Did you try the service menu trick? It is performed from the emergency dialer on a locked device by dialling: *#*#7378423#*#*, a menu should pop up then select Customization settings > Reset Customization and confirm.
If the above doesn't work, flashing the userdata partition should help. For that, you'll need a computer with a USB cable:

Downloaded Flashtool - choose Regular download :)

Download Z5 lock remove (Should be the model number, something like:  Xperia-Z5-E6603-E6653-BR-32.0. A.4.11-lock remove.ftf).

Install Flashtool, go to the folder and open the drivers folder, install them all.
Now open Flashtool, click on the lightning button, select flash mode. On the next screen, click on the source folder then browse to the location you put the lock remove file.
Now click on Flash. Switch off the phone, hold volume down then connect the USB cable. The flashing process should start and take a few seconds.
Done.


Backing up data of protected apps I am using adb to backup some applications' data from my old phone to my new one. It worked fine for all apps except the one I purchased, it took me a while to figure that out since Android and its log were not showing any errors, instead it was telling me that the backup is complete and the log says:

D/BackupManagerService( 2121): Full backup processing complete.
D/BackupManagerService( 2121): Full backup pass complete.

and the generated backup file has a size of 549B (bytes)

Note: it says "Full" but it actually for a single package.

After searching I now know that Google added some kind of protection in Android 4.1+ to prevent people from coping protected applications between phones. However, I am not interested in backing up the apk itself as I can download the app from Google Play Store, instead I want to backup the data so I can restore it in my new phone and not have to deal with setting the application again.

Is there a way to do that without needing root access to the device?

Note: the old device is Nexus 4 (5.1.1 Cyanogen + root), while the new one is Nexus 6P (6.0 stock, no root).

I changed the title from saying "purchased apps" to "protected apps" since I found, thanks to @Firelord, the problem that prevents me from doing the backup. These apps have the flag android:allowbackup set to false and that will not only prevent backing up the application apk, but also its data and setting and will prevent you from restoring a backup if you managed to have one.
I tried doing a backup from my rooted phone using "Titanium backup", unpacked the apk using "apktool" changed the flag to true, singed the apk with my keys and restored the modified TitaniumBackup into the rooted phone, that allowed me to do the adb backup of the data. However, restoring the data to the original app on the new phone didn't work.

So the only solutions I know of are these two:

Use my modified and signed apk instead of the play store version, but that means I have to do the modification and signing whenever there is a new update of the application.
Or, root the new phone and use TitanimuBackup to restore settings.

and unfortunately it seems impossible to do it otherwise, not very convenient.


Disable default lockscreen notifications on Micromax Canvas A74 I'm using Micromax Canvas A74 running Android Jellybean. Recently I searched for a locksceen notification widget and found "NiLS Lockscreen Notifications".

But now the problem is, how can I disable the default "New Message" and "Missed call" notification on my lockscreen, which jumps and vibrates for sometime each time I unlock my phone? I have already unchecked the "Show notification" checkbox from the app info section, but it's still there.

But I have found Solution for this. I have a check box in Display - Lock Screen notification (a check box). It fixed my problem.


Android 7 ignoring Auto Updates turned OFF. Any solution? In Settings -> System apps updater, I've turned  "Auto updates" to OFF. However, I've just received a message "5 apps updated". In fact it has updated Gmail, Maps, Chrome, Google Photos and Telegram.

It has changed a number of settings on those apps WHICH I DON'T WANT TO CHANGE.

Among those apps I only want to update Telegram, so why do the rest of them update against my will and change it's configuration?? I can't believe how far is Google going on forcing users to do what they don't want to.

How can I effectively tell Android that I don't want it's updates?

EDIT:  Besides the information Matthew Read pointed, one can uninstall these updates on Settings -> Installed apps -> [Each app], so one can free a great quantity of space.

Updates to Android (the operating system) are completely separate from updates to apps.  You can only control the former through the system Settings app.

To disable automatic updates for applications: Open the Play Store app, go to Settings → Auto-update apps, and select "Do not auto-update apps".


Should Android kernel version date match the release date? In the process of checking the settings on my Sony Xperia XA I came across the Linux Kernel information. Version 3.18.35 was released in June 2016 but the date shown is from 2017:

3.18.35+
BuildUser@BuildHost #1
Fri Sep 15 05:31 CST 2017

Is it normal for the date shown here to be later than the release date? I assume it may represent the last automatic update. Also, what does the + sign mean next to the version number?.

I have no idea what BuildUser@BuildHost is but I am hoping someone can reassure me that it is normal for Sony phones :-)

To create the kernel for your phone, Sony downloaded Linux 3.18.35 (released June 2016), modified it to include your device’s drivers and built¹ it on the 15th of September. The date you are seeing in version information is the build date, not the release date, of your device’s kernel.
The plus means changes to the code of the kernel were made without being committed to the git² version control system. (read this answer for more info)
Lastly, BuildUser@BuildHost means that the kernel was compiled by a user called BuildUser on a machine called BuildHost.

¹ Or compiled, which means converting from human-readable C code to processor-runnable machine code
² A version control system. After editing code, you commit it to your local git repository to make a record of the changes you made. Then you sync it to the central git repository so your team members receive the changes you made.


Facebook on Nexus 4 looks different than on Nexus 5 I have a Nexus 4 and Facebook looks like the picture on the left; while on my Nexus 5, it looks amazing, like the picture on the right (with fixed tap and native Android version):

I tried re-installing the application and changing the device language with no luck. How can I get the Nexus 5 version?

It is the new Facebook app design. You don't choose to have it and it is not tied to a apk, but rather to your account. At a certain time, when you connect your account on a device and if your account has the new design, the app will switch itself to its design, but not instantaneously.


adb input keyevent 26 - Not waking device up I am trying to wake a device up using the following adb command

adb input keyevent 26

This correctly emulates the power button keypress if the screen is on, but will not turn the screen on if it was off and locked.

Can anyone suggest why?

This is an old post, but this command should wake up any device.

adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_WAKEUP


Can't log in to Google account I am trying to log in with my Google account but I can't, it says : "Can't establish conection to server. This could be a temporary problem or your phone may not be provishioned for data services". I really don't know what to do, I may have deleted some stuff with titanium backup but I can't reinstall them.

Try clearing data from Google Play Services and all Google apps and deleting your Google account from your phone. Then reboot and try logging back in.


print jobs on kindle fire hd I have a kindle fire hd and I printed some papers but they had errors on them which are now fixed but the print jobs are still on my kindle and I can't clear all to erase them.

Go to settings- go to applications manager- select all applications- then use the pull down bar and select all applications. Find print spool and select it. Then press clear all data. You should be good to go, and the error in the notification window will be gone.


Can my phone act as a WiFi access point without mobile data? I have an old (Galaxy S1-class) phone running a custom ICS ROM.  It has a pay-as-you-go mobile SIM without data.

I also have a bunch of kids with iPads that want to play Minecraft together.  As far as I can tell, I can't get the iPad to make an ad-hoc wifi network on its own.  If I had mobile data, I could turn on the Mobile Hotspot feature, connect all the iPads to the phone.  I think if I did this now, though, my SIM would be charged for any stray Internet requests that are accidentally made.

Is there a simple way to do this?

'adb shell setprop SimCheck.disable 1'

This will disable sim check while turning on WiFi tethering.


Read Whatsapp Backup from Google Drive How can we read Whatsapp messenger files from google drive backup? Does anyone know?
I can see the Whatsapp Messenger In Google drive.

Please help me...

AFAIK, you cannot read those files directly as they are encrypted and backed up on Google Drive.

The purpose of that Google Drive back up is to restore your chat history so that if you lose your phone or switch to another Android phone, your chats are safe.

Below is how you should restore back up of your chat history using Google Drive.

  Make sure the same Google account that was used to perform the backup has been added to your phone.
  Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
  After verifying your number, you will be prompted to restore your messages and media from Google Drive.
  After the restoration process is complete, tap on Next and your chats will be displayed once initialization is complete.
  After restoring your chats, WhatsApp will begin restoring your media files.

Note : In order to successfully restore a Google Drive backup, you need to use the same phone number and Google account used to create the back up.

You can read more on Google drive and WhatsApp Integration at FAQ page of WhatsApp.


Will Android kill a Service if I uncheck "Show notification" option on Settings? I was just wondering: will Android kill a Service (that uses persistent notification to keep itself alive) if I uncheck "Show notifications" on app settings?

I am running Lollipop 5.1.

Disabling notification would not terminate the life cycle of apps, nor would apps use persistent notification to keep themselves alive. Normally background operations would be done in the background, and notification provides a means to display the result back to the user via the main UI thread. Notification in this context refers to elements such as toasts (pop-up messages) and any icon the app might display in the status bar. In any case, the operation would have finished regardless of whether or not notification must be shown.


Phone log shows numbers not Contact Names after installing Samsung S3 Security Update My Galaxy S3 was working great until I installed a security update yesterday (26/11/12).  Immediately after, the names dropped off the calls list and it is now showing phone numbers only.

Contacted the customer support and they told to hard reboot the mobile. It worked for me. Please backup all your apps, contacts etc using Kies before doing a hard reboot as it will restore the mobile to it's factory settings. It is a pain but had to do it to get my phone back working.


Looking for Location-Specific Screen Locking Behaviour I'd like to have a feature that allows my Android phone to change its lock mechanism automatically dependent on location.  For example, most of the time I use pattern unlock when out and about but tire of unlocking it constantly at my desk at work. Other solutions are:

manually change to a slide lock while at work - but must remember to revert it back after;
enable dev feature: no sleep while USB charging - but is a bit of a hack;
there are likely other semi-solutions...

I'd like for my phone, when it detects my work zone for example, to require me to unlock using the current pattern lock only once and then automatically revert to a slide unlock thereafter, until the phone leaves the zone at which point it reverts back to pattern unlock for higher security.

Is there an app or configuration that supports something like this already?

As t0mm13b already suggested, Tasker can do that easily:

Condition: [Location]
Task: Keyguard disable/enable

For location, you can use different sources:

GPS (most power-hungry variant, as it requires a permanent GPS scan -- but most accurate)
network based (less power-hungry, but still requires at least WiFi -- but less accurate)
cell based (least power-hungry, not to say: using almost no additional power, as the mobile cells are either used for telephony and mobile data -- but also least accurate)

You can even combine them: having e.g. cell-based combined with GPS would only start GPS scanning when the cells already match.

The trickier part will be the "require once" element, which will be doable with a more complex Tasker profile. If this is relevant to you, I will update my answer to include some hints on this.

Other (and easier to learn) solutions might be available as well, but I'm not sure whether they can control keyguard. So you might want to take a look at Llama - Location Profiles, which can at least handle the "location-based" part quite well. And of course you can check the "other users also liked" section for these apps on the playstore.


Good clock and weather widget for someone dealing with multiple timezones / cities I work for a big corporate with development centers around the world. There are 4 in particular that I interact with frequently and travel to regularly.

What I'd like is a clock and weather widget with the following features:

Can have multiple instances set to different cities.
Shows the city it is set to.
Can fit 4 on a page, so 2x2 or 4x1.
Shows time (for dealing with meetings)
Graphical indicator of day night (for a quick are they likely to be awake check)
Shows local weather (for small talk on phone calls)
Including highs and lows (in case I have to go there tomorrow)
In Celsius (because I'm not American)

The Beautiful Widgets "Beautiful Smaller Home Weather" is visually spot on what I'm after, but you can't have multiple instances.

Is there another widget out there that meets my requirements?

Hey tolomea. I couldn't find a widget that could do all that but I did find this app that can.

  World Watch is an advanced world clock for an editable list of locations around the world. Includes sunrise, sunset, dawn and dusk times for the current or a given calendar date. Also includes weather conditions and a 4-day forecast.

I haven't used it since it's a paid app but looking at the description and the screenshots it looks like it can do everything you've asked for. I don't believe it's a widget but having a single icon on your home screen to launch it would be just as easy as having widgets.

World Watch


Is it possible to use Samsung Galaxy Nexus as a bootable USB stick? I want to install centOS linux distro on my desktop, which does not have a disk drive. Moreover, I posses a 4GB usb stick which is insufficient for installation. I need a usb stick with atleast 8GB to install centOS.

However, I've Galaxy Nexus which has lots of space. So I was wondering as to can I use it as a bootable USB stick?

There is currently an application on the Google Play Store called DriveDroid that should be able to handle that task. Please note that it needs a rooted phone.

After you install the app, it's a pretty straightforward process. If you need a helpful guide, this How-to by LifeHacker should help.


Baidu Android Store automatically installed without permission Android Store (com.baidu.androidstore) is automatically installed on my device without permission. It happens in last 2 weeks. Two months ago, I had installed Baidu Browser (com.baidu.browser.inter) but had uninstalled it 1 month later.

What I did to solve:

Unknown sources option unchecked
Uninstall the app
Reboot the phone

But after few hours it get automatically installed again.

Did anyone here have the same problem? How to solve this?

Device: HTC Sensation XE
OS: ICS 4.0.3
Rooted: Yes

Found the answer.

If your device is rooted, install 'Root Browser' from Google Play
Now go in the phone directory, and browse to /data/data/com.baidu.browser.inter.
Select and delete it.
Restart phone and you will never be bothered again by Baidu browser again.

Source: Experimented myself on Android tablet.


possibility of adding gtalk contacts to my whatsapp Could I bring my gtalk contacts to link to my Whatsapp? (in other words Sync the two?)

I don't want to run two seperate apps and wondering if there was a possibility to add these together? I will only be using Whatsapp now so really really need to hopefully be able to bring those in gtalk to link to it... any advice please??

Nope. It's not possible. A key reason for this is (at least) that

GTalk identifies people with email address while
WhatsApp identifies people by their mobile number.

On top of this both of the systems are proprietary and I don't think neither Google nor WhatsApp would want their users to be pushed over to the other system.

The above said, if you have the mobile number(s) of your GTalk contacts then those will, of course, be added to WhatsApp automatically if they also use WhatsApp. But that's really just stating the obvious.


Personal Dictionaries I use swype beta on my galaxy nexus (ICS). When I type some word that is not in the dictionary, swype prompts me to add the word to its "personal dictionary". However, even after I go along with that, the word does not get added to the system's underlying personal dictionary and so I get a spelling error indication which prompts me to add the word to the system's "personal dictionary".

Is there a way of avoiding this two-step process. Is there a way of configuring swype to use the underlying personal dictionary?

No.
Swype, just like other similar keyboard apps use their own dictionaries. The spelling correction, and the underlying dictionary that you're referring to was added in 4.0 and none of the 3rd party keyboards apps integrate with it just yet.

At this point we need to wait.


Press android version thrice took me to another screen which shows big Jellybean logo! When i pressed settings> About phone >Android version thrice quickly, it took me to another screen which displays Android version with Red  Logo. I wonder this behavior is common in all Android Flavors. I have galaxy Nexus with Jellybean 4.2.2

Its called Easter egg. All android versions contain same feature. You just hold that screen for 2 sec, and some more will be displayed.

JellyBean

Ice cream Sandwich

Honeycomb

Gingerbread


Why have some of my apps started coming up as tiny shrunken windows Sometime in the last week a few of the apps installed on my Galaxy Nexus are coming up as tiny shrunken windows that are completely unusable. Here's an example:

Very boring picture, the point being that the little white rectangle halfway down the left side is the rendition of the application that should be taking up the whole screen! I can click on the little detail that is visible there and the little white rectangle changes a bit. It seems the application is running but it is obviously unreadable and unusable. And it doesn't respond to resizing gestures. Tapping on the options button brings up a bar at the bottom of the screen with tiny unreadable icons.

FWIW, the apps that are doing this are zipcar (the one I first noticed; perhaps the installation of that app caused the problem?), a banking app and Ibird Pro. Both the banking app and the bird program worked fine in the past.

I'd be delighted to hear from anyone who has seen this, or better still know what caused it and how to fix it!

Let me guess... you turned on GPU Rendering in the developer options? Some apps that don't properly support it will do that. Try turning that off.

Also, on an unrelated note: you can take screenshots by holding power and volume down.


bring out stack view in Chrome for Android I am using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. I cannot bring out stack browsing in Chrome.
Although I have got an option for something like tilt scrolling in advanced settings but cannot find it useful any way even after enabling it. What may be the problem?

Here are some links for screenshots related to stack tabs:

I cannot find the button which is marked in the second screenshot, Also the browser in my tab looks a lot like the desktop one, with extremely small tabs at the top. Specifically the 'x' button used to close each tab, which is a headache but I use it a lot. It would help me if I manage to get the stack tabs feature.

Chrome's tab switcher view is only available on phones, not tablets. This is by design, since phones don't have space for the tab bar that tablets have. The Chrome documentation describes the differences between phones and tablets in how you work with tabs.


WiFi port turns off randomly in Blaupunkt Cape Town 945 I use Blaupunkt Cape Town 945 all-in-one system in my car. That is audio, DVB-T, reversing camera, navigation, blue-tooth for phone etc, etc. This unit based on Android 4.1.1 Firmware version is 1011403920001_SW_20151223 + root + Google Play, the latest available.
My problem is that WiFi interface turns off always when WiFi source (like my phone with GSM/LTE to WiFi router tethering facility) disappears. It is important for me because I use it for example for on-line navigation, traffic jam info and so on. From my point of view - it is s/w bug. I want to find out workaround.
Is any possibility to keep WiFi interface always on even after lost of WiFi source? Maybe additional application must be installed from Google Play. Can anybody recommend me such app?
Blaupunkt support does not answer me for my question. So maybe somebody on this forum?
This unit is mounted and powered from car accu. So power saving facilities are not important for me.

Finally I solved problem. Generally it is work around not real solving problem but it is enough. What is needed:

root unit with init.d support (included in original firmware)
busybox installed (from Play Store)
crond installed (from Google Play)

Add line in cron configuration:

* * * * * /system/bin/svc wifi enable

Thats all!


Cant install OpenGApps on Lineage OS I recently installed Lineage OS on a Nexus 6, using TWRP, followed by OpenGApps installation which crashed at 4%. So I started phone, switched off went to TWRP again, tried installation same problem. I used aroma for arm 32-bit. Any idea whats happening?

Lineage OS  : lineage-14.1-20170331-nightly-shamu-signed

OpenGApps   : open_gapps-arm-7.1-aroma-20170405

There are no Google Apps on the phone, the Lineage is working fine (or I say brilliant) but sigh, no Play Services no other apps.

open_gapps-arm-7.1-aroma-20170405 is broken, I repeat this build is broken. I used stock version and it worked. Also this build of Lineage OS has connectivity issues, you may face extremely slow downloads on WiFi (tested on Nexus 6 shamu).


My Galaxy Nexus detects wifi signal(at home) but can't connect to it My Galaxy Nexus detects wifi signal(at home) but can't connect to it.

I cant connect to wifi. The wifi icon doesnt appear beside the time on the upper right of the screen. When I try to access facebook it says connection lost. But wifi works properly well on the laptop.

I've switched the ON/OFF , restarted the galaxy Nexus and still nothing.

Please help.

A few things to try:

Ensure that the Wi-Fi network you are connecting to is an infrastructure mode (router) and not ad-hoc (shared connection via another phone or laptop) as Android doesn't support ad-hoc mode out of the box.
Disable the Avoid poor connections option under Settings -> Wi-Fi -> Menu -> Advanced.
On the same screen, switch the W-Fi frequency band from default "Auto" option to the one your router uses (2.4 GHz Vs. 5 GHz).
Check your router settings to ensure it's not filtering by MAC address.  If it is - either disable that option, or add your phone's MAC address to the list of allowed devices.
Check the settings on the Wifi network on the Settings -> Wi-Fi screen.  Long-press on the network you are trying to connect to, select Modify network, and check that the settings for Security are correct.
Try re-connecting fresh.  On the Settings -> Wi-Fi screen long-press the network you are trying to connect to and select Forget network option.  Try re-connecting to it.


How to permanently erase the deleted files from Nexus 6p? I had deleted several files like from my Nexus 6P, I want to permanently erase all deleted files, how to do it? where are the deleted files stored?

They are not 'stored' anywhere. The system marks them to be overwritten, so whenever that disk space is needed, it will write to it. There is no specific location,nor a way to trigger the overwrite. It'll happen as your device is used

Short of professional recovery tools, there is no way to get these files back especially as Android by default encrypted your phone

If you are really concerned, there are PC apps that can military grade format your phone


How to get a split apk from a device via adb? There is a well-known question on how to get APKs from an Android device with adb.
However, this fails for split APKs, because there, adb shell pm path com.example.someapp does list you not only one path, but many as shown in this example:
adb shell pm path com.example.someapp
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/base.apk
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/split_config.en.apk
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/split_config.x86.apk
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/split_config.xxhdpi.apk

So how to do that?
Do you need to pull all? Or is base.apk (the filename you always get for non-split-apks) e.g. enough?
And how to reinstall them then later?

For a split APK you need all APK files present on your device if you are lucky. If the device you want to install the app on is too different it may happen that the APK files on your device do not match and you are missing a required APK file, e.g. if the source and the target device have a different architecture.
Usually a split APK consists of (can be more):

a base APK
one APK containing the native libraries for the current platform (if the app uses native libraries)
one APK for the preferences / config UI
one APK for the translation / localization texts, images,...

For installing a such a bunch of APK files as one app see this question.


reinstall barnes and noble software on a rooted nook color? Is there a way to re-install Barnes and Noble software on a Nook Color that has been wiped and installed with gingerbread?

This is the firmware for your device's original software (v. 1.0.1).

Simply download and save to the micro SD card and use it to flash your Nook.

Voila! Job well done. The XDA page Chahk posted is an excellent resource and reassuring, stating that it

  Keep in mind that the Nook is really hard to brick. By that, I mean almost impossible.

So there you go! Good luck!


What package is responsible for the "Recents" button to work? Background:
I wanted to customize my phone a little bit, a Samsung Galaxy A70 (SM-A705FN), and that process included de-bloating it. I opened xda-developers, looked around, and finally found a list of bloatware to remove.
I threw in a few other packages that I checked, such as Samsung Radio, Google Duo, Netflix, and a few other things that I am 100% certain didn't have anything to do with my issue.
I then opened an ADB Connection and through the shell I uninstalled the packages, one by one, using this command:
pm uninstall --user 0 com.facebook.katana

Obviously I swapped around the package names for each package.
I tried to remove everything, somethings weren't removed, overall everything's great!
The issue:
Just now, several hours later, I noticed that my "Recents" button in the navigation bar is not doing anything. The effect is there, so I believe it registers the press, but I think I removed whatever handles that request. From what I gathered, it should be easy enough to re-install the package once I find what its called, but I've been looking for a while, and my only other option right now (except for factory resetting and just, like, living with it) is to manually check each permission in that list, which is going to be tedious.
Bottom line:
Does anyone know what package is responsible for handling the "Recents" button request? or of a better / easier way to solve this issue?

Found it after scanning through the list, turns out One UI is responsible for it. For anyone looking in the future, it's com.sec.android.app.launcher.


I have bricked my android phone. Is there any way to go back? I just bought a new android phone running Lollipop 5.1. flashed a custom recovery (a modified recovery based on clockworkmod recovery). Then flashed a buggy custom ROM. In which many of the functions does not run properly Including many options in settings. Power off restart is not working, plus; there's no baseband installed which affects the inactivity of the SIM, wifi, Bluetooth and MicroSD card also not shown as well.

I accidentally tried to install the original clockwork mode recovery with the "Android One Toolkit". there's no original clockwork mode recovery for the phone the only one is I have flashed before.

Somehow it erased the recovery and do not installed the new recovery I was trying to install. There's no recovery anymore, when every I tries to boot into recovery by hardware buttons it never starts and brings the system to that buggy custom ROM. either there's no way to boot into bootloader or fast boot.
I have tried everything including many apps "Rom manager" "king root" for gaining access root but all are failed to do the task due to the non-availability of wifi or internet on the phone. this buggy custom ROM is not doing anything properly which can lead me to the solution, not even reboot. I have to force reboot it by pressing buttons vol+,vol- and power button. after the options came onto the screen. "vol up for recovery" vol down for factory reset options". both options bring me to that buggy custom ROM after some time.

I am stuck, is there any way to get back in the phone? I have never used the backups before flashing.

The phone is "Qmobile Z10" MTK 6753/35 I think. The custom recovery I flashed was "Clark Recovery etc", I forget the exact name, but after the name was written "A recovery based on Clockwork mode recovery". The custom ROM I currently have in my phone is "experience ROM for TT175 by EMRESAYGIN"

Look at MTK Droid Tools and SP Flash Tool....
MTK device's are virtually unbreakable ! so don't be too worried.
Try to flash the custom recovery ( clockworkmod ) and then use the recovery for installing a new os ....
ClockWorkMod will overwrite your old recovery when flashing a new ROM,
So I'd suggest TWRP a.k.a TeamWin Recovery Project,
as TWRP will keep root and recovery installed when flashing new ROM

If you still have trouble, Look up Unbrick any MTK Device ..

This takes you through the steps to installing a rom on any mtk device !

I would write more details but each rom needs specific installations !

!   YOU NEED AN FREE ACCOUNT ON NEEDROM.COM FOR MOST MTK ROMs !

Flash Files For SP Flash Tool for Z10

Lollipop ROM for Z10

DO NOT USE FIRMWARE UPGRADE !
FIRMWARE UPGRADE WILL DESTROY IMEI NUMBER AND NV RAM ...

ONLY EVER USE DOWNLOAD MODE !

ROOT YOUR DEVICE FIRST IF IT'S POSSIBLE !

ONCE ROOTED, USE MTK DROID TOOLS ( IN LINK [MTK REPAIR FILES ])

AND BACKUP A FULL ROM ( INCLUDES NV-RAM, IMEI, SYSTEM, BOOT ETC....)

USING A MTK DROID TOOLS BACKUP IS THE ONLY SURE WAY TO RESTORE NV-RAM (IMEI NUMBER - MAC ADDRESS )

MTK Repair Files
- SP Flash Tool
- MTK V-Com Drivers (generic)
- MTK Droid Tools

If you can't access recovery, you need to use
V-COM Drivers, And Pre-Boot software SP Flash tools ....

• INSTALL V-COM DRIVER FROM LINK ABOVE

• Take out the battery ( power off completely )

• Start "SP Flash Tool" and load the custom rom above by selecting the "MTxxxx_Android_scatter_emmc.txt" File

• SP Flash tool will auto load rom from scatter

• Untick preloader or Pre-Loader
( this is what you are flashing with )

• Press on [ DOWNLOAD MODE ]  NOT UPGRADE!

• NOW Plug in device and wait for download to finish and a green Tick to appear  √

IF YOU GET ERRORS, Please tell me,
I'll try my best to respond quickly !

Errors

"Device doesn't show anymore"
This is because you need to flash Pre-Loader again !
- Preloader needs fixing with SP MDT SP MDT.rar and the correct files. (preloader from previous rom) . You can use an old version of
SP Flash tools Like V3 SP Flash Tool V3 to flash the old Backup of PRELOADER with MTK Droid Tools Hopefully ..

I have equal luck with both, If one doesn't work, the other does !

IF it still doesn't work and phone seems bricked,
You probably need to do a Firmware Upgrade, But this means you need SN Write Station and IMEI Writer to repair the IMEI, Mac adress, Bluetooth Adress etc ( On the original box or a sticker with the device )


How can I free up storage on my SGS II? I got a notification on my SGS2 today that said the phone memory is nearly full.

So my question is: How can I move apps to the internal USB storage? I don't have a micro SD card in my phone.

I believe you can move apps to the "internal SD card" by going to Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications, selecting individual apps, and choosing "Move to SD" if it's supported. Though honestly I keep all my apps off the SD, so I don't know whether it tries to move them to external or internal SD.


Only vibrate when there are no active notifications Is there a way to tell android only to vibrate if there are no active notifications?

Example: I use telegram messenger, and when receiving a message the phone vibrates. Even so I do not use the phone in the meantime, it will vibrate again for each incoming message. This holds also true for email notifications, SMS etc. This is very annoying when you take part in Group chats in Telegram or WhatsApp, as in a short timeframe lots of messages can arrive.

What I want: I only want the phone to vibrate ONCE. I then know "okay, there is something new that i need to look at, but I am currently busy and will do it later". Until I do not check the phone, I do not want to receive any further vibrations (the led light on my MotoG is flashing already, telling me that there are notifications).

Can this be done?

You could use tasker this way:
-First, deactivate notification sounds for all apps.
-Then, configure tasker to suit your needs. This resource might help.
Note that root access might be required.


How to mirror your android phone to android tablet? My android phone has got a feature called screen mirroring. But on my tablet it's called smart view. When I turn it ON on both the devices, for some reason they're not able to detect each other. Phone is from Sony and tablet from Samsung. Though both are android devices but still use different terminologies. Any ideas of how I could get them work together?

There is an app on the Google Play Store that does exactly what your looking for.
AirMirror: Remote support & Remote control devices

Remote Control AirMirror fulfills the goal to control one Android
phone with another phone.
*This feature needs AirDroid installed on the other end, and log in with the same email account.
You can apply AirMirror with the following features:
Remote Control Directly control another phone/tablet, do whatever you
like, no matter where this device is.
*If the controlled device is not rooted, it is required to process Non-Root setting through AirDroid PC beforehand.
Remote Camera Access another phone's view from either front camera or
rear camera. You can put this phone as a family security camera,
guarding your family's safety.
Screen Mirroring Check your device's screen anytime in real-time.
*If you want to control Android devices through PC, you can use AirDroid PC client.
Remote Support You can easily assist your friend or family to solve
mobile device issues through Remote Support.
*This function needs AirDroid Remote Support installed on the other end.
Overview:
Quick Connection by 9-digit Connection Code No account is required,
your friend or family can connect to you simply by their 9-digit
Connection Code.
Screen Sharing Send the screen sharing request with one tap, and you
can see the device screen in real-time.
Voice Call AirMirror provides clear voice communication, you can
simply call and talk, saving time for texting.
Tutorial Gesture Swipe or tap on the shared screen, the Tutorial
Gesture will show on your friend or familyˇs device. Follow to easily
solve the problem.
Voice Message and Text If you are under a surrounding not suitable for
making a call, you can still communicate through sending texts,
pictures and voice messages.
AirMirror facilitates your life. If there is any problem during your
experience in AirMirror, feel free to give us feedback anytime. Thank
you very much for your support of AirMirror!


Can an Indian GSM phone be used in the USA? I'm considering buying the Oppo F9 Pro, which has a dual sim GSM slot. I currently have consumer cellular service with a nano GSM sim card. would I be able to import the Indian phone and use it here without any problems?

A quick search brings up this site:

https://www.frequencycheck.com/compatibility/XnDDU6Y/oppo-f9-dual-sim-td-lte-vn-ph-64gb-cph1823-f9-pro/united-states

Which indicates that the Oppo F9 Pro would only have 2/2.5G speeds on some US carriers with GSM and NO support on the rest of the carriers for signal or speed. It would appear to be limited pre-2008 data speeds in the United States and presumably still usable as a phone/SMS on supported carriers.


Access Android System Partition from Linux What is the best way to access the Android system partition
via USB of any device with Linux (not rooted device)
Need to change some files in the system folders...

The best way is relative and dependant on not just hardware but also your desire to modify and or automate. For one-shot tasks I'd suggest adb & for special projects and automation I'd suggest Casual or Xposed. For messing with stuff I probably shouldn't, I'd definitely start with Xposed if I were you because the settings can be non-permanent.

To help future answer attempts try giving us a bit more info on your setup; Linux distro & CPU 32/64 bit, Android model & OS/Kernel versions if added to your OP will help better narrow down the best answer quickly. Additionally while looking into ADB you may wish to also look to the C.A.S.U.A.L. project as the tools there may allow for shortcutting lots of the driver and SDK installation hunting time down as well as enabling custom scripts that fire when you plugin your Android; very simple to understand language and very powerful under the hood.

ADB The Android Debugging Bridge will be the command line interpreter that you'll want to become familiar with. Commands are not hard to understand; push and pull files or directories is fairly straightforward. Mounting the directory as read/write and remembering to reset those permissions correctly can sometimes lead to trouble; make backups first with pull & try not to push where you shouldn't.
'Android SDK Tools' is the software suite that you'll usually need running on Linux to make use of push & pull commands.

Be sure in your Android's settings that you've got USB debugging enabled; sometimes this needs to be revealed by repeatedly tapping 'Build number' within the 'About device' section and then pressing the back button and the 'Developer options' should have become visible in your Android's settings screen.

Installing the necessary drivers and software packages is Android device and Linux distro specific. Some Android's drivers are not available online for Linux and require much work, others are happy enough to talk to a PC that your distribution may already be capable of basic file read/copy operations of protected file systems but unable to push without the Android SDK.

Installing the Android SDK Tools is a whole different can'o'worms when both Linux distro and Android version has to be taken into account. The route I would take would be booting a pentesting distro and installing to that anything missing for Android USB hacking as the tools that these distros offer may give you options to make full backups any time an Android device is plugged into it as well as run tailored exploits that keeps your Android's system synced with the wishes you have.

Depending on the files you're trying to modify you may run into issues with checks run by other apps or you may need a special compiler to be sure you don't brick it by killing your radio's firmware... backups don't really help there or if you mess with the bits that read your power button such that... most call that a 'brick' I call it 'spare parts' when I get a device that really doesn't respond. As stated in the beginning of this response best is relative to what you're trying to accomplish and on what hardware you're rocking. Lastly when embarking on a Modding expedition it's a good idea to know how much a refurbished model will cost, two Android devices that I've come to really enjoy boot-looping is less than $40 to have shipped (even less for ones that work but don't have a screen) and the refurbished devices I use during testing phases of development while my main device holds the most stable modifications only after I've repeatedly boot-looped the refurbs. This method has allowed me to mess with parts of the Android system, locally at times, without to much fear of perma-bricking something that I've invested data into.

All of the above being stated if you're not opposed to root then the Xposed module loader and their documentation on how to make your own module for Xposed may be useful for making modifications on the fly that automatically revert (ie not load mods on boot) settings if a bad shutdown happened last. The framework allows for modification of nearly every process of your device, often without the need to reboot to see settings take effect, so it is not for the faint of heart... used correctly though you can hide root (SU) permissions access from the rest of the Android system, root? what root? and used incorrectly it can hide it's own presence while slurping a victim's dastructrueta. Though the same feature also allows for covert data collection after device theft as well as faking the shutdown so really this yet again comes down to user's wishes for their device's features or functions and what syntax structure you feel comfortable tackling first.


How can access on an android device be restricted to applications or widgets on the home screen only? This is a rooted Nexus 7 with 4.4.4 (factory image from Google).

I'd like to restrict access to anything that's not on one of the home screens.

Apps and widgets on one the home screens should be the only thing accessible without entering a code. Ideally, just activating the apps button that shows the full list would ask for a code. The link to the full settings page from the drop down menu by the clock should also be locked.

This does not need to offer a high level of security against experts, just a basic level of protection.

Strong preference for open source solutions, but let's see what's available in general. Maybe some kind of a launcher?

Existing kids mode solutions are not a good fit. I didn't look through all of them, but they seem to limit the number of available apps, and would not be suitable for an adult due to their interface.

Kiosk and app lock solutions: I reviewed quite a few options. Some are geared towards showing a web page only, others have odd intentional characteristics such as not starting on boot. Most, however, have a long list of permissions that have nothing to do with their functionality. This is a common problem that open source apps tend not to have, hence my preference for them.

Thanks in advance.

It turned out that there's a solution without using additional apps, at least on 4.4.4.

Settings -> Users -> Add user or profile -> Restricted profile.

From there, it's just like an app locker, where the apps that should be accessible are turned on. Once the restricted profile is active, the apps that are not active are just not visible in the apps list.

The best thing about about this is that it's a built-in solution that doesn't require questionable permissions granted to an app.

Negatives: the main settings app can't be restricted for some reason and the system apps that are supposedly disabled, suddenly become active, which is particularly bad as the description for the feature says that it restricts access to apps from your account, so you'd have to do it all over again.

Advanced: Restrict Me module for Xposed is supposed to enable turning off settings as well. Not tested.


Samsung galaxy SIII is there a way to add a new call ring? I proudly own this phone, but I can't find a way to set up a classic ring call. What can I do?
There's a way?

In System Settings -> Sound you should be able to select Pick Ringtone. If you don't find the ringtone you want, you can use any MP3 or OGG. Just put the file on your sdcard in /sdcard/Ringtones/. Media scanner will classify anything in this directory as a Ringtone.


How can you send email to a Gmail Contact Group? I'm using Android 4.1 on a Droid Razr M.

Is there any way to send an email to a contact Group?

I've read several posts that show how to do this but none of them actually work.

There is also an app (GroupU) but it would be nice to be able to send to groups within Gmail.

I spent some time checking for a solution myself, and here are my conclusions.

We will never be able to send to groups within Gmail for Android. I think it's a problem Google will never solve maybe because they want us to use Google Plus to send to groups (i.e. Circles).
To send to Gmail groups outside of Gmail, I found that using Go Contacts is the best way. Gmail Group Share (Free) is also working, but it shows groups of only one Google Account at time.


Recovery Menu on Fake Note3 China version My colleague owns Faked Galaxy Note 3 from China with all the gifts - bloatware from Chinese market etc.  There is no root on the phone (I tried to check it with supersu/rom manager/uninstall) and the only option to get the root - probably to understand this "recovery" menu on Chinese:

UPD
I've found that first line is related to factory:

I've found that first 3 options are related to test -

any idea will be highly appreciated.

Having the same problem with mine.  According to google this was the translation I was able to get from the menu choices.

自动测试

Automatic test

手动测试

Manual testing

单项测试

single test

测试报告

test report

调试测试项

debug test items

清除e MMC

clear e MMC

版本信

version of the letter (?) - gives bb chip, ms board, IMEI, barcode, etc

重启手机

reboot the phone

If you find out how to enter download mode or root this device please share.


Running a tasker task via SSHDroid (or adb shell) I'm trying to run a tasker task manually from ADB Shell, via SSHDroid. I'm
running the following in putty (Windows SSH client):

am broadcast -a net.dinglisch.android.tasker.ACTION_TASK -es task_name
Silent

On which I get:

Broadcasting: Intent { act=net.dinglisch.android.tasker.ACTION_TASK
dat=Silent }
Broadcast completed: result=0

However, despite the existence of task "Silent", nothing happens.
Could it be because SSHDroid doesn't have the
net.dinglisch.android.tasker.PERMISSION_RUN_TASKS permission? If so,
how can I fix that? If not, what else can be the cause?

Thanks!

This was solved thanks to Bossman's awesome proxy APK. Install it and then run via SSH:

am broadcast -a pl.bossman.taskerproxy.ACTION_TASK --es task_name TASKER_TASK_NAME_GOES_HERE

It works flawlessly :)


My external sd card keeps losing files I have a 16gb card which I have transferred a few videos and books onto, but after a few days on my Galaxy tab the files have disappeared. I have tried three different cards, using different types of files, but after a few days they are always gone. Any ideas?

Is this a SD card that you have used for a long time on other devices? Do you, or have you, done a lot of writing to it?

SD cards have a limited lifespan, so the less amount of writing you can do to it, the better. You might want to do a chkdsk on it to see if it finds any bad sectors. If you find any, that would be your culprit.

I've had SD cards last for about a year and then files start disappearing, etc. That's when I would use it for everything - as the main SD card (swapping it), which means a lot of writing as apps save their data, backing up nightly with Titanium Backup, saving photos, caching, etc.

Once I learned about the limited lifespan of SD cards, I finally retrained myself to not use it as the main SD card. Now, I do weekly backups, once a week and I only store my music on the SD card, and photos that I take with the camera. The latest SD card I have has now lasted over a year which is longer than the others before it.

Also, quality of SD cards is a given. Don't go for the cheaper, off-name brands. They don't last long. It's better to shell out a few extra bucks and get a name brand.


"Samsung keyboard keeps stopping" error message. After reboot no keyboard is accessible and I cannot unlock the device The device is a Samsung Note 5 recently updated from Sprint running the Swype keyboard.

The error message "Samsung keyboard keeps stopping" is appearing over and over after trying to send an emoji in a text message. The keyboard area is a black space.

I rebooted the device to attempt to clear the error.

After reboot it requires a typed password.

The following issues occur:

No keyboard appears when touching the password textbox.
No keyboard appears when touching the keyboard settings menu button.
The Power button does not power cycle the device.
The Reset button does work.
If you open the camera via the quick launch from the lock screen the "Samsung keyboard keeps stopping" message appears for each time you attempt a keyboard UI action.

The device appears bricked. Other advice online suggests factory reset. Is there a way to revert the device to a working keyboard without a factory reset?

Enable Emergency Mode. This shuts down to only essential services.

This reverts the device to the default Samsung keyboard and will allow you to enter the password.

You can then disabled Emergency Mode go into the settings and re-enabled Swype.

Source:

https://androidforums.com/threads/samsung-keyboard-keeps-stopping-locked-out-of-phone.1166997/#post-7579781


Is there a soft keyboard for the HTC Droid Incredible that learns word combinations? A friend of mine was talking about a soft keyboard replacement for the HTC Droid Incredible and I believe that he mentioned one of the features was that it not only suggested words, but it would "learn" word combinations and suggest not only the current word, but the next word in the sentence. However, I've forgotten the name of the keyboard. Does anyone know of such a thing?

Is it Swiftkey?

  SwiftKey brings the future of text entry to smartphones. It uses TouchType’s breakthrough Fluency™ technology to predict the next word you want to type, before you even press a key.
  [...]
  SwiftKey doesn’t just predict regular words – it learns as you type and remembers how you write. As words and sentences are chosen over time, its Fluency™ engine creates a dynamic understanding of your writing style to boost the accuracy, fluency and speed of prediction.


Stop Facebook and Instagram from running in background In developer settings I can stop both Facebook and Instagram but those pesky apps just bounce right back within seconds.  One reason I moved from Apple to Android was to be able to control my device and I find this frustrating.  Is my only option to delete these apps and just run them from a mobile web browser?

I don't want to be told that these apps need to be running all the time and I can just ignore it.  They can run when I start them until I close them.  This is for data, privacy and battery usage concerns whether real or perceived I want this control of my device.

Also I do not want to root my phone and keep the OS stock.  Running 7.1.1 on a Nexus 5x

Applications like Facebook messenger, always leave a few processes and services running in the background. Even using task killers is not very effective in preventing them from running, because soon they will continue running.

In a situation like this, hibernating is more efficient because it takes care of both the proceses and services running in background. It will also prevent that application from starting up again until you start it.

Having said that a good remedy is to use hibernation applications like Greenify and see if it resolves the issue. The good news is that it is available for non root users as well.

More detailed instructions for setting up are found here: How to Optimize Your Android Phone’s Battery Life with Greenify


How to get Adoptable storage encryption key without root access after I "forget it" My micro SD card (set as adoptable storage) was corrupted while I was using my phone (Wiko Tommy with Android 6.0) during a trip.
Probably because of a writing error on the filesystem, I guess.

I tried to unplug the SD card and to plug it again several times, but it didn't change nothing.

I should have stopped there, and wait in order to repair the SD card filesystem a few days later.
But my phone wouldn't let me take pictures with the SD card unplugged ("storage is full", even if the internal storage wasn't full).
So I unplugged the SD card, and told my phone to forget it. That way, I could use the internal storage again and take pictures.

Back with a computer available and with a SD card reader, I made an image of my SD card using the dd command.
I tried to analyse filesystem problems with Testdisk, recover files with Photorec...
But I realized that the SD card is encrypted and that this is probably my major concern.

I found this method that would enable me to get the encryption key and to read the SD card.
Unfortunately it requires root access to read the /data/misc/vold folder, and my phone is not rooted. I would happily do it but I couldn't find any path toward it (it's a Wiko Tommy).

So I'm stuck there. Do you think of a way to get the files on the SD card back?

Find a way to root my phone?
Reverse the "forget" action so that the phone would read again the SD card (when the corrupted filesystem is fixed)?
Find a way to get the encryption key without root access, and then read from the image I have on the computer?
Use another SD card as adoptable storage, replace its contents by the old one (when the corrupted filesystem is fixed)?

Thank you

Find a way to root my phone? Not relevant... see below

Reverse the "forget" action so that the phone would read again the SD card (when the corrupted filesystem is fixed)? No, the forget action deletes the decryption token. It cannot be recovered by normal means.

Find a way to get the encryption key without root access, and then read from the image I have on the computer? No, the decryption token is in a directory that can only be read with root access, but it doesn't matter because the decryption token does not exist anymore.

Use another SD card as adoptable storage, replace its contents by the old one (when the corrupted filesystem is fixed)? There is a fix like this, it can be used in some situations like this or when moving to a larger card, the problem is that even if the corruption of the card is corrected, the data cannot be decrypted because the decryption token was erased when you "forgot" the card.

I am sorry to say, but your data on the card is now just random 0's and 1's, there is no way to decrypt the data without the decryption token (I call it a "token", it is the passphase/key or whatever you want to call it), the data will never be recoverable by any currently known method.

The root access is no longer relevant, if you didn't have it already... the reason is because to root the device requires the bootloader to be unlocked (in most cases) and doing so wipes all data on the phone, including the decryption token, which is why it is stated if you have root prior to this occurring there is a chance you can retrieve the token and decrypt the SD card.

The real problem is the token is gone because you did a "forget", if a new token is generated (by adopting a new card) it will be different than the old one. If you reinstall a "fixed" SD card with the same data, your phone will not know how to decrypt it and cannot read the data, it will most likely recommend that you format the card as either portable or adopted storage so it is usable.


I have to talk in an American accent despite setting voice recognition to English UK Is there a way around this, or perhaps a 3rd party voice recognition app that gets around it?

I also ran a few tests in a Scouse accent and it didn't like any of them - are people with strong regional dialects ever going to be able to use this technology?

Is there a way of training it to better recognaise the nuances of your voice?

In the past this sort of technology works best with:-

no training but a low number of words
high amount of training allowing a larger recognaised vocabulary

It's fair to assume the technology has moved on a lot but there's still scope for it to be trained to an extent. We'd all prefer it to work out of the box of course.

I'm English, but a southerner with a fairly RP accent, and using voice recognition for Google searching is pretty accurate for me. Unfortunately this sounds like it's an accent thing.

I know Google offer their 411 directory voice service in the US, apparently one of the main benefits of this for them is that they can capture a huge amount of speech and use it to train their voice recognition with the words that people really use, in the accents they really use.

Until they start offering something like that over here I don't think their British regional accents are going to get better very quickly.

UPDATE 15 Dec 2010: Things are changing. Google are starting to trial a new version of Google Voice that does Personalised voice recognition and learns based on the way you pronounce words. Unfortunately as it's a trial this for US Android 2.2 users only at the moment, but hopefully it should be going out to the rest of the world if this trial is successful. If you're an English speaking Android 2.2 user in the US, you can get the update here.


How to upgrade to a new micro SD card? I have a 16 GB SD card and would like to upgrade to a larger one
How do I do so without losing any data?
Most of my search results for this just end up advertising a 3rd party program
There are just so many n I don't feel like going through each of them until one works
I'd like to not mess with the SD card in my phone until I have to

I'm quoting someone who gave the correct answer as a comment
I had already done this since I was trying to figure it out on my own as well
But they worded it better than I could have

If it's removeable storage, it is literally just remove the old card,
insert the new card and format it as removeable, then using a PC copy
the contents of the old card to the new card and insert it into the
phone and you're done

2020 approved


Android OnePlus 3T stuck on boot logo, how can i recover data? My OnePlus 3T recently got a bootloop issue (stuck on boot logo).

Bootloader locked, stock ROM and unrooted device.

How can I recover my data?

I've already tried wipe data and reset system setting from recovery mode on my phone.

I have a pc with Windows os and another with Ubuntu os, if this can help.

On Windows i can see "Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008 (COM3)" on "PORT(com and lpt)" menu under "Device Manager".

I read many forums, but i find only this 2 solutions, that doesn't work for me:

1- Use an app on Windows called Android Data Recovery, but to use that i need to have USBDebugging setted on and i think i don't have. To do that you need your phone on and setting developer option enabled but i can't because stuck on boot logo.

2- Install a custom recovery to get data from phone storage. To get a custome revovery you have to unlock bootloader but i can't because to unlock bootloader i need to erase my memory.

My priority is get data from phone, if anyone can help or have any suggestion is really appriciated.

Ps: I find a way to connect phone and pc on Windows with USB cable. Using from Windows terminal the command ADB devices, it returns that my phone on "sideload" mode. I read there is a command "abd sideload file.zip" that flash your rom with file.zip, but i don't understand if this operation delete your data.

there is a 3rd way for locked bootloader without erasing userdata, but it all depends on the qualcomm factory loader firehose programmer which is special for each model

these are expert tools for EDL mode to dump partitions or install TWRP from where you should be able to decrypt

https://github.com/alephsecurity/firehorse

https://github.com/bkerler/edl

but i can't guide you i have no experience


WhatsApp Web doesn't generate QR code on Android phone's browsers WhatsApp Web doesn't generate a QR code when opened on Android phone's browsers.

I have already changed my settings to the desktop view, but still, the QR code is not generated.

How to show WhatsApp Web's QR code on Android phone's browsers?

If you're using Google Chrome for Android, then go to the menu, find the Desktop Site option, and see if it is already checked or not.

If not, then tap on it. It will be checked & show you the Desktop Version where you'll see the QR Code.


sysui_nav_bar element that does nothing? (create a dead spot on the navigation bar) For accessibility reasons, I want to create a dead spot on the bottom right corner of an Android Pie phone (Xiaomi Mi A3) so that touching it does nothing.

The phone comes with new style 2 button nav and pill shaped home button. I've tried to customize the nav bar with the "settings put secure sysui_nav_bar" trick and I've managed to get the buttons I want but cannot create a dead spot on the right side (or anywhere) because it always treats the left and right side as part of the nearest button, even if you add a "space" element there.  The best I've come up with is

adb shell
settings put secure sysui_nav_bar "back;space,home,space,space,space;recent,contextual"

This creates a left-justified nav bar, with the contextual button on the right acting as a dead spot EXCEPT when the contextual icon actually appears.

What I need is an element that does nothing, or perhaps one that practically no app uses any more so it effectively does nothing. Is there such a thing?

thanks

Simply removing the "contextual" part from your command seems to achieve what you need.
i.e.

adb shell
settings put secure sysui_nav_bar "back;space,home,space,space,space;recent"


Can't play any video online I can't play any video online, not on YouTube or Chrome or stream via VLC player. But when try to play video which I have on phone it's ok. Also if I scrol to video on Instagram app freezes, same thing with 9gag. Does anyone have any clue how to solve this, without doing a factory reset? I've allredy tried clearing app cache and clearing cache and dalvik from recovery, I even changed kernel but everything is still same..

Edit: when device is freshly booted I can play videos on YouTube and from storage and Instagram, but when try to play any video in Chrome it becames unresponsive and after that I can't play any video anywhere - app freezes.

It looks like hwcomposer module hangs up. It's internal part of Android, so you should search for newer ROM. XDA Forums are great place for it.

It's common in Cyanogenmod by the way. When CM12 came out for Galaxy S3, it was impossible to play video outside YouTube app.

Another solution is disabling H/W rendering in every app. It depends on the application, but you can do this in for example MX Player and maybe even Chrome (#disable-webrtc-hw-decoding from chrome://flags)


Touch screen is not working properly after replacing LCD display and Touch screen I recently replaced LCD display and Touch screen of micromax canvas A116. but unfortunately my touch screen is not working properly. so my question is that is it because of
some hardware issue or should i require to hard reset my phone or should i do something else? Thanks in advance.

The fact that you replaced your LCD and Digitizer of the tablet may suggest that this will be a hardware problem. Assuming that the device was functional before the 'surgery'.
You might want to double check all the connectors of the digitizer and or display. When that is all 100% correct you can consider that the digitizer will be Dead on Arrival.
Good luck..


Low space on HTC Desire with CyanoGenMod 7.1: how to solve it? I have an HTC Desire GSM.

This phone has the known problem of limited memory, so that it was impossible to install more than a couple of apps without running into the "Disk space low" problem.

So I rooted it, installed CyanogenMod7 and App2SD. I moved to the SD card almost all of the application (except those that needs notifications: those won'd work if moved to the SD).

Still, I periodically get the "Low space" message; it is as if the apps were storing their data on the phone memory. If I go to settings -> applications and clear some application's data, then clear the browser cache, I get rid of the message for a couple of days.

How can I definitely get rid of the "Low space" notification, while keeping my applications installed?

Please note:

I've read that it could be possible to repartition the SD card and "mount" it so that it extends the phone own memory. I've seen several conflicting instructions about the procedure (and, e.g. the order of the partitions on the SD card) and, while I managed to partition the card, I never managed to have Android "mount" the extra partition. I've also read instructions saying that recent versions of Cyanogenmod don't support the sd partition anymore.
The phone is already rooted, hence solutions requiring root are OK
I installed Cyanogenmod 7.1.0, but I have not particular preference to that mod. If necessary, I am open to install any mod that works on the phone and is stable for everyday use.

UPDATE:

This wiki page is the reference that says that the sd partition is not supported anymore:

  Apps2ext (previously called apps2SD) moved all user installed apps to a secondary ext partition on your sdcard. This method had the advantage of being straight forward and simple, However, it had the drawback of being difficult to set up. This method is no longer officially supported by CyanogenMod

Many ways lead to rome:

Try a ROM that specifically fixes your problems: I use an ICS build, Sandvold's ICS for Desire which comes with 4 different App2SD methods included (XDA thread) which I find rather stable. You can have a look over to XDA's Desire forum, to search for more roms.
Use Link2SD, create a 2nd ext2/ext3/ext4 partition that a choice of your apps get moved to (manually) and symlinked from /data/ to. See app on Google Play, official FAQ.
CM7 also supports the standard move to sdcard method that you can also use (and might already be aware of. Downside: /data get's full anyway really soon)
You could try to flash a different bootloader (called hboot on desire, that has another partition layout. See Alpharev for instructions and downloads, there's data++ with 180MB and cm7r2 with close to 300MB free for apps at the expense of shrinking other partitions (/system, /cache/, ...). Not every ROM fits all of these though. WARNING: Not for the faint hearted! Read about the risks!


How to remove Google Play services? I want to increase my ability to remain anonymous, or at least make it harder to track me. I want to remove Google Play completely from a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 5.0.1.

Android works fine without Google Play. I've been running Cyanogenmod without it for a few years. Besides a few dysfunctional/crappy apps that crash because there's no Advertising ID, everything works fine.

I also don't play games or use their app store. When I find something I want, I build it from sources and install it over adb. Or I write it myself since I have a development background.

I tried to remove and disable all the Google Play stuff through Settings, but nothing has worked to date. Usually the option to remove or disable is not available (its greyed out). Or if I disable it, then the phone ignores my wishes and immediately re-enables it.

How do I remove Google Play services?

I think your best solution would be to root the phone and then you can uninstall all the system apps you don't want.

To root the Samsung you could install TWRP custom recovery; boot into it (Home + Vol Up + Power) and choose to root the phone.

You could go a step further if you wish by installing cyanogenmod which does not come with Google apps by default.


I deleted Android OS from my Karbonn device I have a smart phone (Karbonn A50,Android version 2.3.6) which was rooted earlier.

While accessing my files on the memory card, I came to know that I can access the system files and apps:think OS. I've selected all the files and tapped to delete them and got a warning not to delete. On repeated trying, I was able to delete them to some extent and the device got stuck.

Then I removed battery and switched it on. Nothings works. The phone gets stuck on boot logo (karbon smart) and if try to switch it off it doesn't, until I remove the battery.

If connect to PC, it notifies that something has been detected but no device is seen in my computer. I can't access factory reset either.

Please help me.

You mean you deleted Files from /SYSTEM/ folder.

If yes then Bro you did a big mistake. Your device got corrupted.To recover  Download android ROM for your device from internet then go to download mode and flash it using ODIN .

You can download ROM from LINK: http://androidxda.com/download-karbonn-stock-rom-models
Download ODIN from http://odindownload.com/ (Requires PC)


Import 300 vCard files into LG v35 thinq Is there an easy way to import 250+ vCard (vcf) files into my LGv35 thinq phone running Android 8.0.0, Kernel version 4.9.65 and Security patch level July 1, 2018?

Firstly, the contacts app on my phone has no option to import contacts. Most examples I found online show how to use this "import contacts" that appears when you press the three dots on the top right after launching the Contacts app. The app, however, lets me browse through google contacts. Again, I don't see any options to import these into my phone.

A related question: Is there a way to import multiple .vcf files into gmail at once?
The browser only lets me choose one file at a time.

The Phone app has a settings field and it too, doesn't have any options to import contacts.

I downloaded Coolmuster Android assistant and the option to import contacts requires me to buy the software.

I've successfully managed to download all the .vcf files into a folder on my phone. Is there a way to import all of them, at once, into my phone's memory?

You can simply merge all .vcf files into one file. On Linux just use cat *.vcf > all.vcf.

Common software should support this all-in-one vcf file (e.g. GMail import). Just import it and all your contacts should be added.


Can anyone explain to me what the % really refers to in the Android system, battery usage? I am wondering what the different percentages really refer to in the battery usage section. I mean...in total I see more than a 100%. So it is easy to presume that it doest mean a certain percent out of 100%.

On my phone (ICS) the apps seem to use less than 100% in total. These must be rounding errors: if you had three apps each using a third of the total, that would be 33.3..% for each one. Android would round this to 33%, so the total would be 3*33%=99%.


How to recover deleted photos? By mistake, I've accidentally deleted the folder where my phone camera saves the photos; I was trying to delete just a couple of them, but inadvertently the whole folder was selected, and all the pictures that were inside were lost; the folder was residing in the external SD card, not on the phone internal memory.

What is the best way to recover them?

Please don't write anything on your SD card.
Connect it to a PC using card reader or, USB

if you are using windows

use Recuva recovery software

if you are using linux/ ubuntu

use TestDisk app

Both of these software are free.
Hope this helps.


Install custom ROM from Linux on a LG GT540 I'd like to install a custom ROM on my LG GT540.

It looks like that in order to enable fastboot and make the whole process a lot easier, a custom ROM must be installed the first time with a program called KDZ. This program seems to work on windows only.

Is it possible to enable fastboot and/or install a custom ROM using Linux?

I also have that phone and it had fastboot disabled. To quickly answer your question, I haven't found a method to install a fastboot ROM from Ubuntu but it is possible to flash a custom ROM from it.

Assuming there is fastboot ROM installed, you should first boot it into fastboot mode (if you have ADB running, just use adb reboot bootloader):

turn the phone off
hold the camera button and then the power on button
keep pressing the camera button until you see the LG logo

The phone will be in fastboot mode when you see a blank screen (just the back light will be on). After that, you should be able to use Ubuntu to flash a custom ROM. All you have to do is open a terminal in the folder containing the extracted files and type:

sudo -s
fastboot -w #this wipes user data! don't forget to backup :)
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot reboot

This process should take about 10 minutes to complete.

Just for the record, I downloaded fastboot binary from here and Swiftdroid 2.0 from here, but I believe you can use any fastboot-ready ROM (in other words, ROMs with boot.img and system.img). If you don't have a fastboot-enabled ROM installed already, you can do it using the KDZ Updater as described here, but you have to use Windows and the fastboot ROM.

Reference thread and post


Sigmachip Keyboard is not functioning on Tablet I have an new Tablet Micromax P681 and Sigmachip Micro USB keyboard but it is not functioning, what can be the issue, please help

Dude check the stripe underneath keyboard.

I had the same problem, at morning a tablet keyboard case was delivered home after connecting to tab input keyboard was detected as Sigmachip Micro USB keyboard but I was unable to get any key like "B" "R" "T" "P" etc. so I open up the case & notice there was strip underneath the keyboard (strip is located just below those keyboard leds in front be very careful while opening the front side of keyboard you might tear a part those strip by profession I open such items regularly) which was not connected properly I reconnected the strip now my keyboard is operational. Open your case in a clean way so that even when you fix it to after.

But I am still going to replace my product as few keys are not working at all, from customer point of view I didn't buy that product to fix it by my self.