Avoid porn/nude recommendation in feed of android you tube app? How can i avoid video containing porn/nude content from appearing up in feed/recommendation of my youtube app?

Open Youtube's settings, click General.
Enable "Restricted Mode".
Restart Youtube.


How to set http proxy filter? I have an http proxy, which works OK, but there are some address on my lan which provides some web services.

I want to configure my device so that for some range of addresses the proxy is bypassed.

I have tried with 10.0.0.0/8, but it doesn't work!

I don't think it understands ranges in that notation, have you tried 10.* or 10.*.*.*?


Can I have a separate notification sound for my Twitter alerts As above, I want a different sound for incoming Twitter alerts so they are not the same as my normal texts. It's so frustrating to keep looking at the phone when I am waiting for a particular private text, but I dont want to get rid of my Twitter alerts. Surely like email sound can be different this should be too. How do I do it please? I have an HTC Sensation.

In the Twitter app...

Tap the Overflow menu (three vertical dots) and choose "Settings"
Tap the account (your username, not general) you want to change
Under "Notification Indicators" tap "Ringtone"
Choose the Ringtone you want to use for Twitter notifications for this account

For more recent versions of Twitter, this something controlled at the OS level.

Long-press the app icon and choose App Info, or go to Android Settings, Apps & notifications, and choose "Twitter"
Tap "App notifications"
There, for each Twitter account, you can control which notifications you get, whether they make a sound, and whether they also show a pop-up
Tap the notification you want to change, make sure "Make sound" is on, and then tap "Sound" to choose the alert ringtone for that notification.

(These instructions are based on Android 8.1 and Twitter 7.40.0.)


Problems After Android update I have a Samsung S6, I've recently (2 days ago) received a notification for a new update rolled out by Samsung which installed instantly. However, from that time i am in trouble with charging my phone. I am unable to charge it even if I've tried many Samsung original chargers. I get a gray battery icon, and i can barely switch on the phone (with 0% charge)

Do you have any solution for me other than reset my phone?

You could try checking your charger, if you buy a charger doctor (cost about £1). You can see if you have 5V and any current flow.

You could also check your battery voltage for around >3.6V - very carefully using a DMM. Those are suggestions I can think of from a hardware perspective.

I try to avoid updates, but it seems hard to believe it would cause that much trouble!?


Update mksh to latest version Android ships with mksh as shell, how can I upgrade to latest version (now R57, mine still on R43)?

Official site https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm offers to compile from source, anyone building ready to run binaries?

mksh developer here ☺

The problem with distributing binaries is that the binaries need to be built against the exact same bionic libc as your phone provides, which needs both the libc binaries (as shipped on your phone) and the development headers (only present in the AOSP source tree of the person who built your image).

If you wish to use a generic ARM mksh binary instead, you can use one statically compiled against another libc (such as musl (recommended), dietlibc or klibc). However, these will differ in behaviour from the one shipped by Android:

Android has a different default PATH, using something like /sbin:/vendor/bin:/system/sbin:/system/bin:/system/xbin instead of /usr/bin:/bin
Android has different directories for /etc (/system/etc), /tmp (/data/local), and the locations of ~/.mkshrc and default EXECSHELL differ

For these reasons I’d recommend to keep your /system/bin/sh as is and only add a /system/bin/mksh or even /vendor/bin/mksh executable with a newer version if you really need it and use that explicitly in scripts and/or interactively.

If you go to the Debian mksh package page you can download the Debian package for your architecture (arm64 for 64-bit ARM systems, armhf for 32-bit ARMv7 or newer; it’s unlikely you’ll need older ones; 32-bit might work on 64-bit systems but not the other way round), then once downloaded to your local computer, you can extract the package as follows (I’ll use the 32-bit version for this example):

ar x mksh_57-2_armhf.deb
tar xaf data.tar.*
find usr/lib/ -name \*ksh -ls

The last command will list all possible statically-linked-against-not-GNU-libc binaries; for the version 57-2, the output is:

  2633594    184 -rwxr-xr-x   1 user   user     185584 Sep 26 00:52 usr/lib/arm-linux-musleabihf/bin/mksh
  2633596    124 -rwxr-xr-x   1 user   user     126816 Sep 26 00:52 usr/lib/klibc/bin/mksh
  2633595    152 -rwxr-xr-x   1 user   user     152716 Sep 26 00:52 usr/lib/diet/bin/mksh

So, you can choose any of these three binaries; I really recommend using the musl-compiled one (that is usr/lib/arm-linux-musleabihf/bin/mksh, the path differs for arm64) as it’s the most correct and complete C library.

adb push usr/lib/arm-linux-musleabihf/bin/mksh /sdcard/mksh-new
adb shell
su
mv /sdcard/mksh-new /vendor/bin/mksh
chown 0:0 /vendor/bin/mksh
chmod 555 /vendor/bin/mksh

Now, unless another mksh executable is in the PATH before /vendor/bin/, running mksh script.sh or just mksh (or mksh -l for a login shell) will start the newer binary (but not read /system/etc/mkshrc unless you start it as env ENV=/system/etc/mkshrc mksh), but the system boot process will keep using the version it was designed for and tested with. (Newer mksh versions may contain bugfixes that cause scripts relying on those bugs or older interpretations of the POSIX sh standard to fail.)

As I am also the Debian Developer maintaining the mksh package there, you can consider those packages as official Linux/ARM builds of newer mksh versions (although lacking the Android specifics).

If you really need a binary with the Android specifics, I can access a Debian/ARM porterbox and compile mksh from source, with the different definitions (as listed above), manually and provide it for downloading; contact me (by eMail or IRC) if you need that, as it’s manual effort and costs me extra time.


Which apps do gapless music playback? Are there any apps around that are good at gapless audio playback? I listen to a lot of music that continues from one track to another and the stock app puts a small but noticeable gap between tracks.

Try the latest Museek player. It has support for gapless playback. You need to enable it from within the ADVANCED settings in the app.

There's also PowerAmp and Winamp which seemingly offer decent gapless playback quality.


Share my account info doesn't appear in Account menu My wife doesn't to share her Whatsapp account information with Facebook. When she  got the Whatsapp notice, she clicked the phone's back button. We tried to follow the official FAQ or any number of article repeating the same insstruction, but Whatsapp's Account menu doesn't have the new Share my account info checkbox shown in the article. Is this because of Whatsapp version? What can I do to stop this sharing?

On my phone I cleared the checkbox and clicked "I agree". I don't see this option in my account menu either...

Phone: Samsung Galaxy S3 i9305, Android 4.3, Whatsapp version 2.16.225
My Phone: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows Phone 8.1, Whatsapp version 2.16.172

I am having the same problem. I believe I pressed "not now" (back button) instead of agreeing immediately to the terms of service.  According to an 'idigitaltimes' article* from two days ago:

"If you want a little time to think over your decision, you have until September 25 to accept the terms. You can press “Not Now” which essentially means you haven’t agreed to the new terms. As the expiration for the new terms agreement draws near, WhatsApp will remind you again to agree to the terms. You can then choose to leave the green Facebook sharing check marked to share or uncheck it to opt out of sharing."

We want to address this issue right now... But it looks like we will have to wait until Whatsapp 'offers' the new terms of service again.  It's fishy.

*ARTICLE:
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/whatsapp-facebook-opt-out-how-stop-ad-related-data-sharing-between-your-accounts-552594


Erasing SD Card contents and personal data I have an SD card in my Droid Global or Droid X, not exactly sure which model. I go to the files and click on the SD card instead of shred files and delete all of its contents. I then go to Privacy and click the Manufacturer Reset and also click the box to erase SD Card. My phone does a hard reset, and it turns back on.

After this process, what is readable on my SD card if someone took it and hooked up to a computer or anything else?  If I hadn't done the reset, would someone be able to see text messages, phone calls, or browsing history if I've deleted them all from my phone?

The other answers are a little misleading.

First, it doesn't really matter from a security standpoint whether you've got things stored on the SD card or on the internal storage.  The SD card is easier to remove and read outside the phone, but the internal storage can be read as well (most easily from the device itself but also from a PC).

The second thing is that I would expect this wipe to be insecure, i.e., file deletion rather than zeroing of the storage.  (I haven't checked myself.)  I recommend using a program like Eraser to zero your SD card.  I don't have a good recommendation for the device storage, unfortunately.


Samsung Galaxy S3 Latest Firmware Contacts App Lag Issue I have upgraded my phone to the latest firmware which is MainBand : I9300XXLFB.

Before that release no problem was recognized with the contacts app. But now; I am facing with an issue that; it takes 3 to 5 secs to load the contacs list.

Is this a specific one for me or a global issue ?

Regards

I had a similar issue right after the update. My situation was far worse. If I were to receive a call from 'specific' contacts, the phone would crash (com.android.phone module) and I wouldn't be able to answer it, let alone identify who was calling.

The simple solution for this problem is to Export all your contacts onto your internal SD card. Transfer them over to your computer and Import them by Kies. (This method solved my issue. Maybe it will help you too.

Regards,
Sterex


How do I see number of or icon for unread messages? My device: I use Android 9 on samsung galaxy s9.
Background: I believe there was a feature before (or maybe currently still, but I turned it off) about showing number of unread messages on apps like whatsapp, viber or the SMS app (and i guess gmail or facebook) or at the very least there's some kind of dot or something on a corner of the icon of such an app that indicates there exists at least 1 unread message (so the dot is an alternative to a specific number of unread messages).
My situation: I do not have such number or dot on icons on apps on my device. If I get a message on whatsapp or viber or regular SMS but say I have to install some updates and so my phone has to turn off or restart, then the notification of this message is gone.
Question: How do I see number or existence of unread messages on icons of apps such as viber and whatsapp and the SMS app?
I have tried looking this up, but

I wasn't able to find any articles specifically on Android 9 and Samsung Galaxy S9.

The solutions proposed in articles I've found on Android 9 but a different phone or on different versions of Android have not worked for me.

I've tried looking up some apps on the play store, but I haven't downloaded any because of the reviews.

I found out, both online and even in settings, badges go away when you swipe...Guess I'll have to resort to nova or some other launcher.

Some sources:

Source 1:
DudeThatsErin
It goes by what is in your status bar. If you swipe them away the number will disappear.
dark_sage94
They notification bar disappears for me once I read one text
LoyalRoyal18
Nova launcher does what you want, I believe.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS9/comments/9e66n7/notifications_badge_on_icon_disappears_even/

Source 2:
Eh can't find anymore right now


Switch to default keyboard in password fields I primarily use SwiftKey keyboard on my Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet. I want to find a way to automatically switch to the default Samsung keyboard when I enter a password. Currently I have to pull down the notification tray and choose "Select input method". I want to have this automated. If it is not possible to detect whether you are entering a password then maybe I can do it on a per app basis.

The goal may seem to be switching the keyboard app when the password is to be entered, but the real issue is to protect the password from being logged by third-party keyboard apps, or at least be restricted from being uploaded somewhere. In that case, I suggest using a firewall so that you can restrict any app from connecting to Internet, let alone it can send the passwords among other things.

Be it a rooted device or not, there are firewall apps available to suit your needs. Some of them are mentioned here:

Closing internet access for some apps (see my answer here)
Block apps from accessing the Internet on Android device

I've tested two firewall apps: AFWall+ (needs root access), and NoRoot Firewall, former tested on Android 4.2.1, 4.4.2 and 5.0.2, while the latter is tested on Android 4.2.1, and 4.4.2.

Since your device is rooted, I suggest using AFWall+ to be in control of the device. It runs default in White list mode i.e. all the apps including System apps and Kernel are denied root access. You can change that mode however.

Things to do

Install the app
Tap the three dots vertical line next to lens icon → Preferences, and check the options suitable to you. I prefer:

Show notification icon
Show filter option -- it will break the app list into "All", "Core", System", and "User".
Active Rules
Confirm box on AFWall+ disable
Enable Firewall logs
Turn on log service
Device Admin; and others you won't need

Choose Blacklist mode over White list mode if you intend to block specific apps while allowing Internet access to everything apps

 (Click image to enlarge)

Find your app in the list (under "All" or "User") and check the boxes at its left if you're in Blacklist mode, or have it unchecked for White list mode.
Choose Apply by tapping that three dots vertical line, and you're good to go. You can check Firewall logs after sometime for assurance.

As for NoRoot Firewall, it's very intuitive, straightforward, runs in Blacklist mode, so you would know what to do.

However, if you're still adamant to use the idea of switching the keyboard app, then I suggest you take a look at my comments:

Delve into settings.db

  The table secure of settings.db (Settings Storage) has keys like default_input_method (Samsung/Swiftkey) and some related keys. Change their values using Tasker when your specific app is launched and you're good to go.

Enable/Disable the app on-the-fly

  You can on-the-fly disable the SwiftKey when your specific app is launched, because when SwiftKey is disabled (i.e. not available), Android will tend to fall back to the available keyboard which would be the Samsung one. This technique can be achieved by Tasker, and while it's theoretical, I believe it would also work.


How to install apk in 2nd user of android 5.0 without playstore So, android 5.0.2 doesn't allow side loading of apks for 2nd user (irrespective of whether it is guest or standard user). "Unknown Sources" is disabled and is uncheckable. And I use a pure Cyanogen Mod 12 (android 5.0.2) without any Google apps. So, there is no Play Store app.

But I have root access.

As shown in the pics, Unknown Sources is Uncheckable and installation is blocked.

(Click image to enlarge)

With this situation, how can i install apks on to the 2nd user account??

EDIT:

It seems Google intentionally (in the name of security) blocked sideloading apks for 2nd user in android 5.0.2. There is a bug report here. And sideloading was reenabled in android 5.1.

I will post how to sideload apks on lolipop 2nd user using adb. If this can be done without adb please post.

Using the command,

adb install -r whatever.apk

will install the application in 2nd user of android 5.0.2 .

Source


FFMpeg stream to FFServer from Back Camera I'm looking for a way to stream my camera video from my Android phone to an FFServer, like I would with FFMpeg from the command line in Linux:

ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 http://IP:8090/cam1.ffm

This command works perfect from any Ubuntu machine, of course. I'm looking to be able to do both audio and video from my Android to my FFserver.

I tried installing FFmpeg 4 Android. It installs fine, starts and binds, but it won't stream. No error message or anything passing it this param:

ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/graphics/fb0 http://IP:8090/cam1.ffm

Not sure if it's just that program or what since there is no error message at all. Or is there another software that will allow me to do this?

Some device manufacturers dont use /graphics/fb0 to access camera due to different camera drivers. My help to you is going on a native NDK application to do that. Look in here http://javacv.googlecode.com or https://code.google.com/p/spydroid-ipcamera/. Regards


Consequences of disabling com.android.SystemUI I have not been able to find the consecuences of disabling the SystemUI app (com.android.systemui) on Android Lollipop. The tablet is rooted so to disable it I just have to send the command pm disable com.android.systemui on ADB.

So far no app has crashed or have I seen any issues. The soft buttons and the quick settings and notifications bar dissapeared. Does someone know if there are any other consequences?

Is it safe to disable com.android.systemui? from Stack overflow :

  If you completely remove SystemUI.apk from the system, your device will hang on start-up and never fully boot again. Tried it before. ;) Framework-res and the system have some dependencies on SystemUI.

Please also read the comments where OP did what you proposed and is warned that it could result in soft bricking the device.


Gear 2 Neo Not Connecting Galaxy S3 CM11 So I was able to get Gear Manager, and it finds the Gear in the list. When I click connect, it just tries to connect forever.

Is there any way to get the gear working, even without Gear Manager?

It is a Galaxy S3 running CM 11 M9. I am open to changing roms if necessary....

If you look on this XDA Link you'll notice your not the only one with this issue, in the forum there is a "Fix forever connecting issue" section which will prompt you to download a file and install it on your phone and it should resolve your issue

By doing this you should be able to get gear manager working properly as if I'm correct its the only way to use the gear 2 (neo) with a mobile device, also switching custom ROM won't fix the issue without doing the above.


Have oem unlocking option available in nokia 3 ,do i have to unlock bootloader? there are guides on rooting and it first requires to unlock bootloader on nokia3, at first i did do it but due to some issue i had flash firmware ,after flashing back there was a option available of oem unlocking .
So do i have to unlock bootloader even if i had oem unlocking option available in settings and also can you tell on starting device i get red state warning is it a big issue or should i ignore it.

That option does not do the unlocking itself – it just prevents it (when toggled off) or permits it (when toggled on). So yes, even with this option present, if you want to have the bootloader unlocked while it isn't, you will have to run fastboot oem unlock – after permitting it here.


Is there any way to control the stereo balance of the audio playback I cant find any controls/settings that allow this...not all of us have perfectly balanced ears

Apparently there is such an app that can do this (see this XDA post).

However, it's my understanding that to do this would require at minimum a rooted phone, and probably a custom kernel as well.  I don't know of any custom kernels that have this functionality, however.  You could also buy headphones with separate L/R volume controls.


Can I prevent tethering from using cell/mobile data? I have been using USB tethering to connect my laptop to a wifi and am scared I might lose connection to wifi and begin using mobile data without noticing

Ideally an app that lets me react to USB tethering being active and turns off mobile data would be great unless there is a setting that accomplishes this somewhere?

Thank you

If your mobile connection is properly deactivated, there is no chance to switch from Wifi to Mobile Data.

You can use the tiles in the status bar to do so (if you don't have it go to Settings > Status Bar > Tiles), or you can just go to the Settings menu and switch off Mobile Data from the main Settings panel.

If you want to switch automatically from Mobile to Wifi AND deactivate Mobile when you use Tethering, you can use apps such as Tasker to automate this.

If you have the "Developper" menu activated on the Settings, there is a option there that forces Mobile when Wifi is weak.
If the option is activated, just switch it off.


I want to use my bluetooth headset (Sennheiser MB660 UC MS) with an app that doesn't support bluetooth I work as a freelance consultant using a platform that aggregates my clients who buy hours from me in blocks. Billing is done per minute when a client makes a voice/video call. Voice clarity and noise cancellation is of the utmost importance. Clients are able to leave reviews after a call.

The problem is that the platform (two versions exist: Android and iOS) was built by a small startup who haven't invested in Bluetooth support (yet). As a result, headsets have to be plugged in to the the headphone jack of the device.

I invested in the rather expensive Sennheiser MB 660 since I was looking for the ultimate purpose built headset for knowledge workers. The trouble: I had assumed that all of its built-in noise cancelling microphones will continue to work even if I had a wired connection, and could live with that until the app added Bluetooth support.

HOWEVER, I belatedly discovered the MB 660's are designed such that Bluetooth AND the noise cancelling mics are switched off as soon as a wire is plugged in (some German engineering choices I find perplexing), and the only active microphone is then the one on the audio cable itself (not noise cancelling). Which beats the purpose of having such a sophisticated headset in possession.

Now that I have this headset anyway, and love it otherwise, I want to find a way to indirectly connect it to my Android device in a way that I am able to use it without connecting the wire. The only way to do that seems to be to plug something (henceforth, SOMETHING) in to my Android device's 3.5mm headphone jack. That SOMETHING will be a two-way Bluetooth contraption of some sort that can send and receive audio and able to pair with my headset too.

Does this SOMETHING already exist in the market, or will I have to make one? If I must make one, what components do I need and how to do I put them together?

Thank you so much!

The MB 660 can be used in 3 different ways

Bluetooth: Here we are powered by ourself and handle NC using 3 microphones build in to the right earcup
USB: Here we offer the same performance as Bluetooth and could be used as an alternative for the customer smartphone
Analogue: Here we force OFF the Bluetooth and only drive the ANC circuitry for the speakers. Only the in-line omni dir microphone on the cable can be used for communications


Screenshots on Nexus 7 are 0 bytes I am taking screen shots for testing an app. on Nexus 7. Yesterday I could take the screen shots perfectly. Today when I press Power+Volume Down together it makes the screenshot sound but gives me .png with 0 bytes. What happened, and how do I fix this?

If you take screen shots with the Nexus 7 connected to your computer the screen shot images don't seem to update in Windows Explorer correctly (they show as 0 bytes) and they are not viewable.

The fix is to unplug then plug your USB cable back in and they will show up with the correct size and be viewable.  Either that or unplug your USB cable before taking the screen shots then plug it in to download them.

I guess this is a feature?  It is certainly annoying because I keep forgetting about the fix and wondering why my screenshots are 0 bytes.


Delete the "Phone" part of a contact whilst keeping the "Google" part? HTC Hero with HTC Sense - Android 2.1.

Contacts can be either stored on "SIM", "Google" or "Phone". Many contacts are duplicated on "Phone", but I want them all in "Google" so I can manage easily. I've managed to copy all "Phone" to "Google", but now want to remove from "Phone".
However, whenever I try to delete a contact (e.g. Bob), it deletes Bob from "Phone" AND "Google". I can't find a way to delete Bob from just "Phone" - any ideas? Factory reset is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and not a great technical solution...

To answer my own question - here's a different approach to achieve this (Google-only contacts)

Ensure all required Android contacts are synced to Google
Export the contacts to CSV on a computer
Delete all contacts from the Android (that'll be both "Phone" and "Google")
Import the contacts from CSV to Google
Google will then sync to the phone

Kind of obvious in hindsight. Hope this benefits the community in some way!


OTG mouse not working in Android 4? I have Nexus 4 with broken touch screen and with Android 4.4.4 installed. I tried to connect a USB mouse using a OTG micro-usb adapter, but it doesn't work. The mouse doesn't even light up. Any idea why?

The adapter and the mouse are ok because I tried it on a different phone (Sony Xperia Z) and it works, mouse lights up, moves etc.

Nexus 4 doesn't support OTG as you can read here and see related questions on this site

It is possible if you overcome Kernel and power limitations as explained in Android Advanced: USB OTG on the Nexus 4

  The first problem with getting OTG working on the Nexus 4 is that the kernel does not support it. This has been solved using a modified version of Franco's kernel. The second problem is that the Nexus 4 cannot physically supply the necessary 5 volts. The way around this is to use a Y-cable, and supply the needed voltage from an outside power source such as a wall outlet or external battery pack. Some users have also reported success using a powered USB hub.


Force Close loop.. need help I have a force close loop on my galaxy s2.

I want to retrieve my data which isnt stored on an sd card.
But I cannot get into my phone.

I tried plugging into my laptop but it doesnt pick up the phone.
I tried booting in safe mode to disable the apps. But the phone just turns off again even in safe mode.

I dont care about the phone, only the data, which I stupidly havnt backed up anywhere.

Would appreciate any help.

Well, if you care about data, its a good practice to backup always.
In your case, anyway, you don't have backup available with you. So, the only option available for you to avoid 'force close loop' is to goto recovery and flash it with the appropriate rom. Please note that you will lose all the data present on your sdcard, however, the data present in memory card would remain intact.


Network quality related battery discharge I'm seeing a ridiculous battery drain on my Android/Samsung Galaxy S4 seeming to correlate with network traffic/signal change (see images below). Please keep in mind that the phone sits idly on my desk during the periods in question. It is stock (Android:4.4.2, Kernel: 3.4.0, Hardware: I545.07).

Has anyone had else already solved this issue?

I had a similar issue with an S4 mini.  I found the best solution to turn off airplane mode and then turn on wifi, which essentially keeps it from searching for a cell signal when one was poor or non-existent.  You can create reminders or macros to do some of this on a non-rooted phone.


How to root a Xperia SP (C530x)? Simply, how to root a Sony Xperia SP device?

There are two ways, depending on your firmware version. They work on both locked & unlocked bootloader.

Requirements

Having adb drivers installed (usually installed with Sony PC Companion)
Having enabled Unknown Sources
Having enabled USB Debugging
PC Companion must not be running

12.0.A.1.211/257 (C5302,C5303,C5306) ; 12.0.A.1.284 (C5302 only)

(credits for DooMLoRD, guide from this thread)

Download this archive and extract it.
Connect your phone to your computer.
In the extracted folder, double click on the RUNME.bat file.
Follow the instructions (usually one key to tap).
Reboot your device if it doesn't do it itself.

12.0.A.2.245/254 (any device)

(credits for DooMLoRD, guide from this thread)

In these versions, Sony has patched the exploit, so we need to flash an older kernel that has the exploit and then reflash the kernel of our actual firmware version. This requires flashtool.

Download this archive and extract it.
Download the kernel file from 1.257 firmware.
If your actual firmware version is 2.245, download this kernel file. If it is 2.254, download this one.
Open flashtool, click on flash icon (see image), select flashmode, browse to 1.257 kernel ftf, validate.
Disconnect your device, shut it down, then while pushing on the volume down button plug your device to your computer. The illumination bar should go green.
Wait for flashtool to finish, then reboot.
CLOSE FLASHTOOL
In the extracted folder, run the runme_ file (exact name depends on your OS).
Once it is finished, shutdown your device.
Open Flashtool again, repeat the same steps as before, but select the kernel FTF for your actual version (2.245 or 2.254).
Plug your device in Flashmode.
When flashtool has finished, you can reboot and finally enjoy your root!

Jelly Bean 4.3 (12.1.A.0.266) (any device)

As for 12.0.A.2.245 and 12.0.A.2.254, the exploit is fixed, so we need to root while being on an older firmware (2.254 preferably), flash the new stock rom zip via recovery and flash the new kernel via Flashtool.
(thanks to niaboc79 for this method).

Downloads:

12.1.A.0.266 FTF (Full or Kernel Only)
Recovery
Stock ROM deodexed or any stock based ROM of your choice
SuperUser Fix

Update to 12.0.A.2.254.
Root using the 2nd method.
CLOSE FLASHTOOL
Unzip the recovery archive and run the .bat file.
Put the ROM and fix zip on your phone.
Reboot in recovery (Power Off your phone, then power on and press (not maintain) volume up on multiple times until it vibrates).
Flash the ROM.
Flash the fix.
Advanced -> Power Off
IF IT ASK YOU ABOUT A SU OVERWRITE, SELECT NO
Open flashtool and flash only the kernel from the .266 ftf. (see screenshot from niaboc79)
Unplug, power on and enjoy Android 4.3 with root!


How can I get an .apk file to my phone? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I install an app given only its APK file?

I just made a 'Hello World' app using Eclipse. Now I'd like to know how I can actually put the app onto my phone.
Must all apps be downloaded through the marketplace, or can I simply transfer it to my phone?

Right click on your project -> Android Tools -> Export Signed Application Package.

Export Android Application pops up.
Select your application press Next button,
Select Create new keystore radio button,
Give some location path and enter some passwords and press Next button.
Enter values into Alias, Password, Confirm Password, Validity and First and Last Name fileds. Press Next button.
Enter Destination APK Path. Press Finish button.

Now your application apk file is ready to be installed on your phone.
Use Bluetooth or USB cable transfer or any other way which you prefer to transfer the apk file to your mobile.

Use Explorer to locate your application and install the apk file.


Does Viber app have a menu to close the app? I would like to use Viber only if I need it. I want to turn it off if I do not use it, regardless if I can be reached or not.

I do not wish to have a program running and using energy all the time. However, I can't seem to find any close menu to kill the app. Does it even have a close menu / function?

Just installed Viber on my Samsung Galaxy S4 (Android 4.2.2), and I can find an exit menu via More Options > Exit.


Always Show Navigation Bar Nougat / Disable Immersive Mode On some apps, the navigation bar and status bar are automatically hidden, and you have to swipe up to see them. Is there a way to force the navigation bar to always be visible on Android Nougat, like on top of the app or next to it?

Edit: In other words, is there a way to disable the immersive mode on Android apps?

To force immersive mode and to force non-immersive mode, you must be rooted with Xposed framework installed in it. To do the same use app Immersive forcer. This is a xposed module and will work only if used with Xposed framework.

Remember you are not forced to root and by Rooting your phone can be risky and dangerous for your device.
Also, Rooting voids your warranty.
MAIN THING is there is no xposed framework (official) for nougat till now and installing unofficial version if available can brick (soft/hard) your phone.


Why some apps can't access internet using wi-fi? I've been trying to update several antiviruses, they can't find server. Duck Duck Go app can't access internet too. Google Play and Chrome works fine. I'm using wi-fi shared by my laptop, in properties: WAP & WPA2 Personal, mode -infrasturcture.

Are there any proxy settings to access your WiFi? (proxy settings might be provided by your network provider). Most of the apps can't access the proxy settings provided by the android. For resolving that you can use ProxyDroid app (but it needs root-access).


Blue line following my touch on the screen of Huawei devices Sometimes strange 'worm' and 'dust cloud' starts to follow my finger when browsing with my Huawei Honor 7.

When the finger is not touching the screen anymore, the line disappears.
I can also draw over the navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen.
What is going on here?

It is Huawei's Knuckle Gestures.
From Use Your Phone with Your Knuckles,

Knock the screen with a knuckle and hold it until a blue dot appears. You can then drag your knuckle [...]. As you move your knuckle, a blue line will appear on the screen [...].


Samsung tablet keyboard gone Its my mums tablet she recently downloaded the new update on her tablet and since it downloaded the keyboard has gone and all she can do is speak to the mic but its not working properly and its too hard for her to use and now we cant connect it to the internet either.  any help please???

Go to Settings -> My Device Tab -> Language and input and check if the settings are correct. If the default keyboard is set properly and still not working, try to install another keyboard application like SwiftKey and make it default keyboard.


Moto G 2nd Gen - looping on optimizing apps I believe I have a Moto G 2nd Gen (may be 1st or 3rd, not really sure). When I turn it on, it displays the Motorola splash screen animation and then displays "Optimizing app 1 of 150", then 2 of 150, etc. until 150 of 150. Then it restarts the process from 1 of 150 again forever. I have run it overnight and it still keeps repeating.

I have all my data backed up already, so I wanted to try an external factory reset. However, following the instructions (pressing power button and volume down, selecting "Factory") only led me to a picture of a green robot with an open chest plate with the caption "No command." This forced me to restart and led me nowhere.

When I tried to boot in recovery mode, the white notification light began blinking slowly, but nothing really happened.

What should I do next?

When you get to the "Dead Andy" screen and it times out saying "No Command" hold POWER and tap VOL UP and release quickly. It should open the stock Recovery menu where you will see the various update and reset options.

I would first try to Wipe the cache partition and reboot and see if that clears the issue. If the problem persists, go back to the stock recovery menu and perform a factory reset.


creating a cron job in android I want to write a bash script (similar to Linux) to run a cron job every 10 hour. The task is fairly simple, e.g. deleting files from cache folder.

According to this topic, I installed busybox and terminal emulator and phone has already been rooted. Here is what I did:

su -
echo "*/5 * * * * root reboot" >> /data/crontab/root
crond -b -c /data/cronjob

Note that for the test, I set the phone to reboot every 5 minutes to see if crond is properly working.

Problem is, it doesn't work! Any idea for that?

Requirements

Root access
Busybox : for 'crond' service
/system/etc/init.d folder to start 'crond' service at boot

Creating cronjob
Create the cronjob file in directory /data/crontab/ with filename root. Write your cronjob inside the file 'root'. Set executable permissions for the file 'root'

Test without rebooting
Now open any terminal emulator in device and run the following commands..

su -
crond -b -c /data/cronjob

Now the crond service will start, to check type...

top | grep crond

Start crond at boot

mount system partition in read write :

su -

mount -o remount,rw /system
Create a file 99my_daemon at /system/etc/init.d with executable permission and enter the following lines

crond -b -c /data/crond
Close writing the /system partition

mount -o remount,rw /system
And reboot

Example of cron filename root

*/15 * * * * reboot

Will reboot your device every 15 minutes from o'clock.


Root access via adb only, not any Android applications I'm running a stock Android 4.2.2 on a Nexus 4 device. After following some instructions on how to root it, I managed to get a partially rooted phone. Now on adb shell I can do:

shell@android:/ $ su
shell@android:/ # whoami
whoami: unknown uid 0

With adb shell I can get access to /data/data, etc. No problem. And my SuperSU.apk automatically grants it super user permission. However, nothing else gets super-user permission, not even SuperSU itself. No notification/prompt ever comes. Even after setting SuperSU to default to allowing access after timeout.

Any ideas on possible causes? Any suggestions?

Flashed this zip from (http://download.chainfire.eu/282/SuperSU/).

 4c3054dfecb6d21dc6a01d67c25588af CWM-SuperSU-v0.98.zip

You must go in Settings -> Developer Options and there must be an option called "Root Access". Set it to ADB + Apps.


Does the Google Nexus 10 tablet-PC have a standalone GPS? Does the Google Nexus 10 tablet-PC have a standalone GPS, or does its GPS rely on GSM data?

I believe Nexus 10 has GPS hardware which can provide location information without any aid from GSM or Wi-Fi sources - same as my Nexus 7 Wi-Fi only model.

I have used my Nexus 7 on road (without any data connection) and used is GPS capabilities.

I'm just wondering how a did you get this suspicion when the specification clearly says about availability of the GPS?


Bluetooth reverse tethering Hey all so I have connected my HTC to my laptop via Bluetooth ( they're paired and connected)

the Bluetooth Tethering option in the phone is Enabled
I can see a Bluetooth network connection has been added in network
connections and adapter panel
I'm stuck after this....
the problem is that when I go to the sharing tab of the network
connection which I'm trying to share it's internet, there it asks you
to select a network connection which the internet is going to be
shared too but the Bluetooth connection wont show so I could select
it...

Bluetooth reverse tethering for Android on Windows 7/8/10 is not possible out of the box. It might be if you have installed the Toshiba Bluetooth Stack (see below).

As of Windows 10 1809 the Bluetooth PAN network generated by Windows' own BT drivers technically is not a "full blown" network like wired LAN or WiFi. Thus it does not show up in the list of network adapters to use the shared internet connection.

For the same reason you cannot bridge your wired LAN ethernet adapter with the bluetooth PAN (Microsoft documentation says bridging needs two "highspeed" connections - which PAN obviously is not).

As some googling reveals Mac and Linux folks are better off because these OSes can do reverse tethering with bluetooth.

If you really desperately need to do it based on a windows machine your only choice is to set up a virtual machine with Linux as guest OS and do it from there. There is a how-to in German on this solution at PC-Welt.


Reduce the screen brightness below given permissible level Is it possible to reduce the screen brightness below given level? Well if possible does it really reduce the energy consumption.

Yes it is possible to reduce the brightness level below the default screen brightness slider level. You can use, Night Mode app from Play Store.

As mentioned in the app description,

  Night Mode's main goal is to reduce the brightness of your screen
  lower than you can achieve with the default settings.

And this app doesn't require you a root permission.

Does this setting saves battery?

It depends upon the screen you have for your phone. If you have AMOLED screen it will save battery for you.

See this post for more explanation How does reducing brightness of screen increase battery life?


Can I pair 2 Android Devices via Bluetooth for internet access? This is pretty much hypothetical at this point but I'm curious...
Let's say I get one of the Android tablets likely to be coming out in the spring and get one that only has WiFi and no WWAN access built in...
I've got a Moto Droid running stock 2.2.1 and unrooted.  I know I can obviously tether via wifi if I root the device, but there is also the application PDANet that allows you to tether with your computer via USB or Bluetooth.  USB is probably out of the question on most tablets, but is there any way that I would be able to tether the phone to the tablet via Bluetooth?

From what I've read, PDANet uses the DUN (Dial Up Networking) BT profile for tethering, which Android can obviously host, but is there any support in android for BT DUN client mode?

In all likelyhood I will just root (again actually... CyanogenMod almost bricked my phone) and go with that... but I'm also trying to look to the future when I will hopefully replace the Droid next summer and I don't want to become used to WiFi tethering, and then have no option upon purchasing a new phone unless I make sure that whatever I get can be rooted and run wifi-tether.

It's all possible, but it's is going to depend a lot on the particular tablet you buy.  I can tell you right now that PDANet is not going to work Android to Android.  I emailed them about this and that was their answer.

Bluetooth tether is possible and again is going to depend on the device.  All the Archos Gen 8 tablets have BT Tethering capability (to use your phones internet) baked into the stock os, however, people are getting mixed results (by and large, this seems to be the most successful way to do it).  They had USB tether ( also to use your phones internet) but then removed it, but it is possible, it must may require some hacking.

As far as rooting and using the Wifi tether, again this is possible but people are also getting mixed results with this, myself included.  I am rooted and use Wireless Tether but my Archos 70 can't see the connection because all of the wireless tether apps create an Ad Hoc network and Android supposedly doesn't support Ad Hoc.  From what I've been told in other forums I just need to experiment with other kernels.

If you have one of the phones with "Hotspot" capability and you pay for it through your service provider that signal is discoverable because it's an actual AP and not Ad Hoc.

Long story short, it is possible, but there's no sure bet.  Before you buy, go to the forums for the particular tablet your interested in and read up on what it takes to get the tethering going.


What reasons would an Android Phone's Network Radio turn off Sporadically I have an android phone that is experiencing an issue that I suspect is hardware related. Randomly, service will no longer work on the phone and the only way I have found to temporarily resolve the issue is to dial *#*#4636#*#* and manually turn the radio back on. This will restore functionality, but only temporarily. It seems to be indeterminate when it stop working again.

I can't think of a good methodology to pinpoint the issue, so any insight would be helpful

If you are able to turn on immediately by your manual method, then it seems to be a software issue.

Did you try a factory reset? It resolves most of software issues.


No sound through handset speaker of Nexus S Suddenly when I was playing music on my Nexus S it stopped playing all sounds through the handset speaker. It still works though if I use an external headset though.

I don't really have that much knowledge of the Android internal workings to see what the problem is, although I tried rebooting it.

I also can't really leave it for warranty repair because the boot-loader is unlocked (although I later reflashed back to the stock ROM).

I just saw this googling around, maybe it could be of help to you:

  okay, I had the exact same problem. My speaker suddenly stopped
  working even though the ear phone plugin was still working good. I
  also found that sometime the sound came back but it is very weak,
  barely audible. and then it would disappear again. What I did to fix
  the problem is to open up the N1, disassemble instruction is on
  youtube. Open the the 3 screws to remove the board with the attached
  speaker from the main board. clean up the speaker attachment surface
  really good. Then reassemble the backboard and its speaker together.
  Then the sound came back loud and strong.

  My guess is that the contact of the speaker could get dirty and
  limit the electric supply to the speaker hence it didn't work
  properly. By cleaning the surface I helped to get the current going
  again and the sound came back. Hope that this could help someone since
  this problem had driven me insane for a while.

I found this on the following website: http://www.nexusoneforum.net/forum/nexus-s-general-discussion/12468-external-speaker-not-working.html.

Cheers, and I hope this helps.


Does Android Jelly Bean supports NTFS SD card formatting? If I format my micro SD card as NTFS, will my phone see it? I need this because I want to transfer files larger than 4GB on my phone microSD card, but FAT32 allows just files up to 4GB.

Honestly speaking, It depends on the manufacturer. As far as I am aware, the company has to get some license from Microsoft to include NTFS support. Speaking from experience, most (high-end) Samsung and HTC phones do while custom roms typically do not.

The only sure-shot method to confirm is by trying it out with an extra sd card...


Backup of my Droid X How (What App) do I use in order to do backup? What is good backup apps out there? I primarily want to save calling logs & SMSs, as all of Applications I can just re-download from Market.

I use Droid X!

Titanium Backup is probably the best.  It can back up and restore data like SMSs and call logs.  It can back up the apps themselves too, which is much easier than making a list (or trying to remember) and manually restoring them.  There are others but I don't think any can compare to TB.


Boot loop after messing with the smallest width option in developer options. (Redmi 5 plus) so I was bored and I decided to check some developer options to see what they can do...
I found this option called 'smallest width', at first I set it from 392 to 100 and it automatically set itself to two hundred something I believe. So I did the same thing but this time I set it to 1000 thinking that it would automatically set itself to the max value possible... But it didn't. Right after pressing 'Ok', my screen became soo small and a message pooped up saying "System is not responding", then my phone restarted to recovery. Unlike many people who were facing this problem on the internet, My phone's bootloader is unlocked, I have TWRP recovery installed, my phone is rooted and I had USB debugging on. I rebooted to bootloader and tried "adb devices" but my phone wasn't there. After that, I booted to TWRP and clicked Mount then checked all boxes (I couldn't check storage) and clicked Mount USB Storage. This time my phone showed up in the list. Check the image below.
I don't know if it's okay that it's saying recovery instead of device, but I ran "adb shell wm density reset", it didn't work and same with "adb shell wm size reset".
As you can see in the image below, there was no error but the phone still didn't want to boot. After that I tried to check my current screen size and density using "adb shell wm size" and "adb shell wm density", but there was no response.
I also checked the build.prop file in /system and found this line "persist.miui.density_v2=440", I changed it to 220, nothing happened.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/zalow.png
Now my question is, why is there no response when I run "adb shell wm size/density"? It doesn't work in the TWRP terminal as well. Is this command supposed to be in the /sbin directory? Because I couldn't find it there. How can I add it if it is not there? And lastly, if you can suggest any other way to fix my phone that would help me a lot. Thank you so much.

Wipe all data and restart. That's what I did after I made the same mistake of changing the width drastically from 392 to 1000.
It messes with the UI and goes into a loop.


How do I backup my contacts that are on an excel file into my nexus 5 phone? I have all my contacts saved in an excel file with name and phone number headers :)
Does anyone know how can I restore them into my new nexus 5 phone ?

Check its format
If .CSV
Put that .CSV file into your SD-Card or internal then.
1. Go to contact > Menu

Import from storage
Select that .CSVfile
Then it automatically scan and add them to your contact list.


I want to know what the middle notification symbol means please. the one That looks like a sheild with lines in it I want to know what the symbol inn the middle means..the one with the lines:

Screenshot (click image to enlarge)

It's the logo for Lookout .

Found it here.

Hope this helped.


How can I choose a music player? I am looking for a music player for my android device which has a number of specific features (such as having a play queue, lock screen controls, etc.) I am finding it difficult because there are lots of music players out there and they don't list all of their features "on the box".

For example, Double Twist has an "add to play queue" option, but it doesn't say so "on the box", so I had to download it and try it to know. I was wondering if there were any resources out there which provide complete feature lists or some other means of helping me find what I want.

This is the method I use for finding important apps which have to fit certain requirements:

Make a list of all the features you want.
Have some music in the standard music folder which the standard music app uses. Don't have too much music as it may take a new app a long time to read it all.
Find an article which compares popular music players like "10 best android music players". Popular ones will be most likely to have lots of features.
Download the music apps mentioned in the articles.
Start it and test it to see if it has the features on your list. Keep a record of the ones that meet most of your requirements, as there is a chance you might not find exactly what you want.


How Google Play updates itself? A few days go I launched my old phone with old version of Google Play. I launched it, but in few seconds application crashed. When I launched it again, a new version (this one that I have on my current phone) was shown infront of my eyes. I'm asking, how? I have a theory that Google Play checking content of server and when detect a new apk, it install it in the background. Am I reasoning it right?

When you're connected to Wi-Fi and Google Play Store is running, it will automatically download any updates for Play Store and Play Services. If you have something like a network monitor, you'll occasionally find Google Play Store occupying large bandwidth and stops after tens of MB.

Updates for Play Services will be installed immediately while updates for Play Store will be installed after you quit it (by pressing back multiple times or home). As noted by @Matthew Read, apps with system privileges do not require user intervention while installing or updating apps.


Display Name of Connected Cell Tower On older Nokia phones, the name of the cell tower you were connected to was displayed, often the name of the neighborhood you were in. Is there a way to view this data now?

OpenSignal have an App which will give you a lot of information about the tower that you are connected to, which direction it is in, which other towers are available in the area, including ones on other networks, etc.

Free App
Gives all the information that you have asked for
Allows you to monitor your coverage through the day
Allows connection testing
If you are willing to share your data it is added to the data available to everybody.


Is there a way to remove the Guest account? Lollipop has put an emphasis on multiple users, which is just irksome on a personal phone. I don't need a guest account and I don't need a bright blue user icon reminding me I could be someone else.

I've disabled adding a guest from the lock screen (really a sensible default?!), and I've logged in as guest, pulled down and clicked "Remove Guest". But back in my normal account I still see the guest account icon when I pull down the top bar and click the blue user thing.

Is there a way to completely disable the guest feature?

Edit: Firstly, please follow the answer here. It offers an easier approach and is tested with Android 7.1.1.

Some users have reported that the following solution didn't work for Android Marshmallow and above. That may be so since I tested this with Android Lollipop and worked well on it.

Yes and No! It depends upon how you want to use this answer.

I still see the guest account icon when I pull down the top bar and click the blue user thing.

You don't need to go that far by completely disabling the guest user to avoid that guest account icon when you pull down the top bar and click your profile image. All you've to do is remove all other users from Settings → Users and change the value of a key.
The key is guest_user_enabled under the table global found at /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db. This database belongs to Settings Storage app. Its current value would be 1. Change it to 0 using adb with the command:
adb shell settings put global guest_user_enabled 0
Changes should take place immediately, otherwise, simply restart the phone.
Now, whenever you would tap your profile image in the top bar you would see the profile contact (if already created) or a toast saying "The contact doesn't exist". That icon wouldn't show itself as long as you don't create any more users.
Note: As noted above, it is important to remove all other users since the said method wouldn't work as long as any secondary user remains in the system.

The aforesaid technique simply deals with the nuisance that icon is to some users. It doesn't restrict the primary user (owner) to switch or create new user from Settings → Users.
What if I'm happy with having a single user (me) and don't want to see that User in the Settings?
That would require root access. There are devices under the banner Android One which are now running Android Lollipop yet do not have multi-user functionality. It turned out that the [multi-user] feature is disabled (the feature is disabled using framework as noted here) [can be enabled] using few entries in build.prop. Why not use that technique for our advantage?
Hide Users from Settings

Install a file manager with root explorer feature or  a build prop editor app.
The location of build.prop is /system/build.prop. Open the file, go to the end, create a new line and enter fw.show_multiuserui=0.
Reboot the device.

Go to Settings and you would notice that Users entry is missing. As a side-effect, the result in first section i.e. the removal of the guest icon is also covered by this solution.
The good part is that while guest/secondary user is nowhere to be found which you can switch to using GUI, you can still use that multi-user feature. adb shell am switch-user USER_ID can switch the user easily provided that you know the USER_ID of the guest/secondary user which you can obtain from /data/system/users/.
On the other hand, adb shell pm create-user USER_NAME can create a new user too. All good here.

What if I don't feel the need to have my device being used by a secondary user at all? I don't want multi-user functionality in my device?
That can be done. Thanks to Android One technique.
Remove multi-user  feature
We're not removing the feature from the system but simply restricting the system to a single user. As mentioned in the last section, we need to edit build.prop which requires root access.
Add fw.max_users=1 in build.prop and restart the device. This would restrict the system from creating any new user since the maximum user is set to one. It would also hide the entry Users from Settings as well as the guest user icon aka the nuisance.
Note that you can always switch to the guest/secondary accounts using adb shell am switch-user USER_ID even after restricting the maximum users to one since the restriction is set to curb further creation of the users. If you feel the need to remove those users but find it bit problematic that there is no option now to remove them from GUI, then simply do adb shell pm remove-user USER_ID.


Is it possible to call AT-commands in android? I am newbie in android, I have a very simple question for android experts:-
" Is it possible to call GSM AT-Commands in android just like we use in microcontroller programming through USART".

Unfortunately the response is "it depends".

If the modem is used by the Radio Interface Layer (RIL), i.e. it is in use by the system, no, unless you stop the ril daemon. You can stop it by using the "service stop rild" command from the android shell.

Stooping the RIL will prevent all functionalities depending by the phone framework to work: receiving, making and detecting calls, texts, etc.

If you stop the ril, or if the modem is in a secondary serial port (for example, it is a secondary modem), you can open the port and send AT commands as you'd do in a standard posix system. You can also use pppd, chat, etc.


How to run a program in an app context with Magisk? Let's say I'm currently as root in Bash on a terminal, outside any app like Termux. I'm running Magisk.

Now I want to synchronously invoke Termux's Bash, such that it behaves the same way as it would if I had directly started the Termux app (i.e. with the same permissions and SELinux context and user/group and everything else).

How can I do this?

Android framework takes care of a lot of things when forking an app from zygote. In short, it's nearly impossible to run an app process from commandline so that it behaves “exactly the same way” as if the app was properly launched. Continue reading to have an idea of why it's so.

In order to run bash in Termux app's context so that it behaves exactly the same way as if it was started from the app, it must be run at least:

With UID/GID of the app assigned by the Package Manager at the time of installation
With supplementary group inet (3003), which is required to create network sockets and is assigned to any app at the time of installation which declares android.permission.INTERNET in its AndroidManifest.xml. For details see How Android's permissions mapping with UIDs/GIDs works?.
With supplementary group everybody (9997) which is used to control app's read / write access to /sdcard. For details see What is the “u#_everybody” UID?.
With supplementary groups <uid>_cache (UID+10000) and all_<uid> (UID+40000) so that app can access its cache, native executable code etc. But these aren't required necessarily since we are not running the app itself.
By entering the mount namespace of Termux app (com.termux process) which is required for supgid 9997 to work. If the app isn't running (e.g. if running from adb shell), supgid 1015 can be used to get write access to /sdcard but that's not how the app works.
By dropping all Linux capabilities (granular root privileges in Effective, Permitted, Inheritable, Bounding and Ambient sets) as well as setting securebits and process control attribute NO_NEW_PRIVS which make sure that app isn't able to elevate privileges by making use of setuid or file capabilities.
With blocked syscalls by applying seccomp-bpf filter.
With SELinux context of the app, which is determined at install / runtime based on MMAC (1, 2).
By adding the process to relevant cgroups e.g. cpuset, memcg etc. as the Android's framework does.
By catching, blocking and ignoring the same signals as the app would do.
By setting the environment it relies on. E.g. Termux's bash won't execute without LD_LIBRARY_PATH which it requires for dynamic linking.

There isn't a single commandline tool available which can do all of this sandboxing, it can be achieved fully only programmatically (see Minijail), or might be using multiple tools e.g. nsjail/firejail for setting seccomp filters, runcon to change SELinux context, capsh to alter DAC/capabilities, nsenter to enter mount namespace etc. setpriv from util-linux package can do the maximum:

~# uid=$(stat -c %u /data/data/com.termux)
~# pid=$(pidof -s com.termux)
~# label=$(cat /proc/$pid/attr/current)
~# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/lib
~# exec nsenter -t $pid -m setpriv --reuid $uid --regid $uid --groups 3003,9997 --bounding-set -all --selinux-label $label -- /system/bin/sh -c 'exec /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/bash'

* nsenter and setpriv are busybox applets but with limited functionality. For aarch64 you may get static binaries here: nsenter, setpriv.

However we need to define shell_exec (label of /system/bin/sh) as entrypoint for execution by untrusted_app context which is not part of stock sepolicy (at least on Pie):

~# supolicy --live 'allow untrusted_app shell_exec file entrypoint'

Executing /system/bin/sh before executing /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/bash is required because /data partition is mounted with nosuid option which prevents SELinux context transition (from magisk to untrusted_app) (3) and you get permission denied. You may consider mounting /data without nosuid to skip this step.
For the same reason --no-new-privs and --selinux-label can't be used in conjunction.

All this happens in native world, nothing in Java stack. So we have no direct control on things like manifest permissions which entirely operate inside Android framework. However manifest permission enforcement is also based on UIDs (4). For instance if Termux was granted android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE the bash we are running with Termux's UID will also be able to write to /sdcard.

From your comment:

  It doesn't make sense to me how this is possible. Like, consider the output:

u0_a129 ~$ /sbin/su --context=u:object_r:app_data_file:s0:c512,c768 u0_a129 -c /system/bin/id
uid=10129(u0_a129) gid=10129(u0_a129) groups=10129(u0_a129) context=u:r:magisk:s0
u0_a129 ~$ /system/bin/id
uid=10129(u0_a129) gid=10129(u0_a129) groups=10129(u0_a129),3003(inet),9997(everybody),20129(u0_a129_cache),50129(all_a129),99909997(u999_everybody) context=u:r:untrusted_app_27:s0:c512,c768

Well, according to my understanding that's how Unix Discretionary Access Control works. First of all passing --context to Magisk's /sbin/su makes no difference as explained here:

  the option still exists for CLI compatibility with apps designed for SuperSU. However the option is silently ignored since it's no longer relevant.

So the context isn't switched as you can see it's still u:r:magisk:s0. Secondly Magisk's su isn't the actual switch user (5), it provides a minimal functionality of standard su binary (the one we have on Linux). For details see How Magisk works?

In your first command it set UID, GID and supplementary groups to the UID you provided. You didn't ask su to set any additional supplementary groups, neither it can.

In second command you see the UID, GID, supplementary groups and SELinxu context which were set by zygote when it forked the app's DVM/ART (com.termux in case of Termux). Supplementary groups are explained above. 99909997 is also explained in the link given above.


Disable back and recent keys while gaming The title speaks of itself, I keep pressing them by mistake and lose my games progress , is there anything like Samsung game launcher to disable those keys? (I can't install game launcher for some reason)
My device is Samsung Galaxy J7 core and I have root privileges with magisk installed (and automagic if there's some automation trick)
Thank you

SOLVED!

I found a solution, by using Automagic and Tasker Autoinput plugin we can easily Remap everything in the screen.
In the flow below , when a game (brawl stars) starts then do the below actions (disable keys, display ongoing notification to enable keys whenever I want, and a toast)


SMS Delivery reports in Ice cream sandwich dont show up After I send a message I used to get a delivery report confirming the delivery of a SMS message in my old (non-Android) phone.

But in my Intex Ibuddy Connect with Android 4.0.4 I am not getting the notification of delivery.

I have checked the option for the delivery report in the settings still, no change.

What could be the issue?

In android, (particularly in ICS), you don't get a pop up delivery notification as the ordinary phones. Instead there will be a tick in front of the date of your message. That's the maximum delivery notification you get.

If you really need some bigger notification, you can use an apps like Delivery Reports, Delivery Reporter+, Messaging Notification, etc.


File Explorer Can See Folder But Can't See File Windows 10 Network Sharing I can't seem to see the files in the folders from my shared folder. I turned all of the password and everything off for ease. But it doesn't seem to work. I can see the folders and everything. But not the files. Just folders.

Most apps that can access SMB/CIFS shares only support SMBv1 which is deprecated and disabled on new Windows systems. Windows 10 by default only suports SMBv2 and SMBv3.

SMBv1 is mainly disabled because of security problems that simplify an infection of your computer e.g. by a worm.

From what I have read ES-FileExplorer currently only supports SMBv1. Therefore I assume this may be the cause for the problem you have observed.

The number of apps that support at least SMBv2 is currently not very long. The following apps seem to support SMBv2 or at least claim to do so:

Solid Explorer
AndSMB
FX File Explorer
X-plore File Manager


Internal Storage calculation wrong The calculation does not really add up. Previosly more storage was occupied by Spotify although the downloaded music is saved to the external SD card. How can I get Android to recognize the correct free space?

Motorola G 2015

Sometimes the phone just needs a quick restart. Try that and if it doesn't work then let me know.


How can I see only phone contacts, not SIM contacts? I have a Dell XCD35.

My phone book was showing phone contacts as well as SIM contacts.

So when I see the list it shows some contacts twice. I don't want that, so in display option of contacts I just unchecked SIM contacts, which solves the problem in the Contacts app.

But I face the same problem when I am composing a SMS message. When searching for contacts it shows both Phone and SIM contacts.

Is there any way to disable SIM Contacts everywhere?

I solved this by erasing all contacts on the SIM. Here's how:

Contacts app -> Menu -> View. Uncheck all but SIM, press OK.
Menu -> Delete.
Menu -> Select All.
Press Delete.

After a while all SIM contacts are gone. Now re-enable showing the Phone and/or Google contacts and you're good to go!

(My phone uses Swedish so maybe the menu items/buttons above have other similar names)


Why does my phone charge more quickly at some outlets than at others (with the same charger) My cell phone seems to charge slowly, especially at my home (I've tried different outlets).  But recently I was in a coffee bar, and it seemed to charge a lot - a lot! - faster.  I was using the same charger. (My phone is an inexpensive Samsung Galaxy phone, I paid like $50 for it.)

Could be because

Coffee bar may  be using charging stations which may look like regular charging wall outlets but seem to be designed to charge faster (have not been able to get technical view to back that yet and am searching)
Outlet at home is not providing sufficient wattage either in terms of voltage or amperage, may be because of poor electrical earthing


Is battery consumption linear? I am benchmarking an app using the batteryhistorian.
The result is a chart where every percentile is a "tick".

After I've measured the battery consumption
and let the battery drain to half, I would like to be able to save time
by making  a change and restarting a measurment without having charged
the deviced back to full.

Is it a fair approximation to assume that a drop from 85% to 84% is the same
as a drop from say 64% to 63% when benchmarking an application?

Li Ion battery discharge is not strictly linear, (unlike a capacitor ). This ensures available power is utilised till the end of battery charge

But it is fairly linear, more so at lower loads as can be seen from this figure, where C-rate or charge rate is the discharge/ charge rate

Assuming your app is not a heavy power hog, it is reasonable to extraploate discharge. But, since the discharge isn't strictly linear, it would give better results if

Battery drop interval is more , say 5 to 10% and not 1% as proposed
Battery drop is not measured below 30% of battery ( to avoid greying into non linear portion of curve)
Measuring at 1% drop inherently introduces rounding off errors- if your phone has two digit accuracy, anything between 75.90 to 75.99 would show 76% . In the worst case, the error could be doubled (it won't fall to 75% till it goes below 75.90). Which means a 20% error, and that can be reduced to 2% over a 10% drop
Avoid measuring when the battery is fully charged to reduce errors. Measure at about 85% for the first reading and around 50% (or higher ) for second reading after tweaking your app


How can I identify the cache if I see its name? One name is suspicious If Device maintenance app is launched in Samsung S8, after pressing Clean Now button, storage cleanup briefly shows different apps, storage space of which is being cleaned:

System cache
OneNote
TopBuzz

Actual view visible for about 2 seconds:

I know that the last one is not among installed apps (when checking by name) so it must be part of some other app, but how can I find out to which app it actually belongs? No antivirus which I tried so far reported this as the malware. But maybe there is some system analyzer which shows similar cache ownership like the above app, but with more details?

(Or maybe there is another method how to find origin of that TopBuzz symptom.)

The phone is not rooted.

First, I have no affiliation with the app SD Maid.

Without root the app SD Maid can show you the emulated path and name of its public cache of user installed apps.

Within the apps settings menu
Go to AppCleaner
then press the green circle at the bottom right corner to start the scan.
Next press the circle on the right with the i in the center of it.

This will show the path and name of the apps public cache.

Edit: Thanks to darken who is the app developer whom suggested:

  "Enable 'Show Systemapps' within in SD Maid's AppControl settings"

  "After a scan just search for "buzz", if it is a distinct app it should find something."

  "The search will look for both packagenames and app names of all types of apps except maybe instant apps if you don't have root."

I was also playing around with settings.

within the AppCleaner settings select show inaccessible items
next start a scan within the AppCleaner
scroll down and select the i if suspected app shows up

This will broaden the scan to show inaccessible app caches. This possibily will help narrow down the probable malicious app.

That is about the best you are going to be able to get without root.

Root access is need to access the apps private cache which is stored within /data/data/.


How can I send many files (> 25MiB) at once as attachments? I have 100 compressed pictures. Each of them is 2 MB. I would like to send via email everything at once as attachments (no hosting on Gdrive or somewhere else). Basically pictures will have to be sent in several emails. Is there any way to do it at once?

To put it otherwise, I'm asking for a way to automatically send multiple email messages to send all the files. Ideally not one email per file, but each email should contain as many pictures as possible based on a maximum that I would specify.

I use a Samsung Galaxy S3. I know the max size of the recipient's mailbox and pictures cannot be further compressed. I don't mind filling my recipient's mailbox.

It would be a long and hard way, but if you have enough time and resources you could cross compile the mail software of GNU CLI and use it from an Android app.

This way you can be sure the software won't be limiting your messages by attachment size. And if it did you could properly refactor the source code.


Application stuck in "Installing..." stage in Market I'm having the problem mentioned in the title on my Samsung Galaxy S. I updated the app Dock Simulator and for some reason it got stuck while installing. Now it shows the scrolling green bar in the downloads section of the market but the program itself works fine. How can I get rid of the constant "Installing..." status?

Oh yeah, reboot and uninstall didn't fix anything.

I just had this problem, and somehow I got this solved.

What I did:

Entered Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications.
Selected the Market app, and "uninstall updates".

After that, I entered the Market app again, and I was able to reinstall the app who got stucked.

PS: I'm not sure if this was just a coincidence, or this procedure works always, but it worked for me.
PS2: My Android version is actually in portuguese language, so I'm not sure the option names I referred to above are correct in english.


Error in connecting Samsung A3 to Ubuntu 14 (USB); adb unauthorized (no pop up on device too) I have a Samsung A3 with Android 4.4.2 (not rooted) and a computer running Ubuntu 14. I am trying to connect my device to my computer through USB to be able to perform some tests on it.

I have activated the USB debugging mode.
But when trying the adb devices command, it keeps telling me the device is "unauthorized". Also, no pop-up appears on the phone which makes it impossible for me to authorize it.

Here is what I have already done:

I've updated and upgraded multiples times my ADB version
Installed mtp, mtp-tools;
Configured the USB access for the Samsung in /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules:

#Samsung Galaxy A3
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6860",
MODE="0666" GROUP="androiddev", SYMLINK+="android%n"

Even installed the PPA ppa:langdalepl/gvfs-mtp (usefull only in Ubuntu 12 and uninstalled it later);
Tried to find and delete some previous adb-key file, but there were none. (The device was never connected to that computer before.)
Changed Cables;
I also tried with a Samsung S5 under Android 4.4.2. The ADB command
on those two devices works when on a windows machine.

Do you have any ideas as to why it does not work, or of any thing else to try out without rooting the device?

Thank you for your help.

You might be able to clear the list of authorized devices so the authorization list is reset to its default if it is in some kind of corrupted state right now. You can do this under Settings > Developer options > Revoke USB debugging authorizations.

Another thing that is frequently overlooked is rebooting: rebooting both your Android device and your computer might make it work. Another thing to try is connecting the device to your computer and then disabling and re-enabling USB debugging, my personal experience is that this fixes a lot of ADB problems.

Users on stackoverflow reported that switching the device to camera mode might work as well.

If all else failes, you can also try to manually authorize yourself on the device, using Flavios answer on Stackoverflow:

Move the authorized key file: mv /data/misc/adb/adb_keys /sdcard/adb_keys_backup (you can also delete it if you want)
Send your adb public key to the device (look in the ~/.android directory)
Stop adbd using the command stop adbd as root
Copy your key to the authorized devices list: cat adbkey.pub >> /data/misch/adb/adb_keys
Start the ADB daemon again: start adbd (as root)


Mount a folder from external sd as /data How do I mount /mnt/sdcard/data as /data. Right now the /data has its own partition but it's too small (~500mb) and I would much rather give it more space than move apps and other things to my SD card.

My device is Micromax Canvas 2 A110.

It has a ~2GB internal sd card mounted at /mnt/sdcard2
and an external one at /mnt/sdcard and /sdcard
(I'm on some custom rom that switches internal and external default mount points like that)

I don't know what filesystem those are in.

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

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

The main problem is that /data could be EXT2/3/4 partition, while the SD Card is FAT32. The best thing to achieve what you want is to create an extra partition on the SD Card as EXT2/3/4 filesystem. Then you can link the directory /data with the partition.

When the phone restarts, it will mount the data partition more or less like this:

mount <args> /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data

Since /data is pointing now to /mnt/sdcard/data, the above command is equivalent to this one:

mount <args> /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /mnt/sdcard/data

So in the end, we would have our data partition mounted in the SD card. Again, it should be in a separate partition, so we have the SD card as FAT and the extra partition as EXT2/3/4 so it won't fail when it mounts due to the filesystem.

If you want a more elegant solution, you can try any of the XDA Developers App2SD scripts, they let you achieve the same but without symlinking (it will mount it and bind it to /data). You will only need a Custom Recovery to be able to flash them. You can check them here.


Can someone receive my calls on viber even I deleted the application, I called by mistake Had called someone on viber by mistake, how can I let him not receiving the calls notification, I already blocked him; should I delete theapplication? Tour assistance is needed please

If you already called the person there is no way to delete the notification.


Can I make a flashable zip executing commands? I'm using cm13 on my OnePlus 3, along with systemless SuperSu and suhide. When I update cm (often), I need to flash both SuperSu and suhide. The problem is that cm comes with root access and when updating, makes a su directory in /system/bin/su that suhide detects so that it won't install. I need to delete that directory in between of the flashes, and I would like to make a script that does that for me when i flash it so that I can flash all files together on update using CyanDelta. I know that this is possible because I have seen other zips that execute command scripts as i flash them.

Find an empty flashable package somewhere; edit META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script and add delete_recursive("/path/to/your/directory"); to remove the directory in question.

(On second thought, is it really necessary to make a flashable zip for this single purpose? If your phone has TWRP recovery available, why not just use its built-in file manager?)


Got stuck with signing in So i factory reset my J1 phone since it kept on turning itself on and off and then "The process com.google.process.gapps has stopped" "Google play services has stopped" kept on appearing, and when I was about to sign in with my existing g-mail account, it got stuck with Signing in...This can take a few minutes. I just don't know what to do with it anymore. I tried everything i saw on the net and none of them worked. I can't even use my phone. :(Your response will be highly appreciated. Thank you in advancse

You can just skip the SetupWizard if you want by tapping each of the 4 corners of the screen in the next order:

1.top-left

2.top-right

3.bottom-right

4.bottom-left.


Unidentified files stored as Facebook cache I found several large files stored as Facebook cache in the emulated path.
277_428_10_0_en_us_1013.0,%   is one example of close to 1,000 files. What are they? I believe I have had a my phone to have been ha ked or tapped by an ex-boyfriend and when I try to open these files it says I don't have they ability to open theses audio files. I have found several other hidden audio and video recordings he made secretly and these files make . E extremely nervous. Please can you help me?

Your question is vague..

Open Settings
Open Apps
Look through your apps and try to identify any suspicious applications
Open Google Settings
Open Google Play Protect
Scan your device for any potential threats

Using a RAT ( Remote Access Tool ) without permission is highly illegal and constitutes as invasion of privacy along with many others.

You should probably back up all your pictures and files you'd like to keep and do a factory reset ... After factory reset, reinstall your apps from the Play Store and put your files back on it.... This way you'll eliminate any hidden spyware.

Remember to place a Lock Screen on your device, and don't let your partner or EX partner touch your device again...

The cache files could potentially be used as a form of log, logging your activities online and offline.

In the past I have installed spyware on my partners device ( with her permission ) but I at least made sure she knew it was on, and she knew how to remove it if she wanted too... Maybe if you are going through some trust issues, they should be addressed and openly discussed with your partner.


Rooted Nexus 7 v2: Using Tor and Adblock Plus I'm having success using both Tor and Adblock Plus, although independently.  I'm trying to figure out how to get both to work on the device at the same time.

When successfully using Tor, I get ads yet adblock works when Tor is disabled.

Adblock Plus 1.2.1 build 318

Android build KTU84L

Orbot 13.0.7-BETA-1

My question is, have any of you been able to get the two to cooperate and if so, how?

Yes they both use a proxy. Root rqd. Proxies on the wireless nic I believe. They don't interfere with each other. Abp uses port 2020 which I dont think you can configure. So configure tor to use localhost:2020 and if abp is running all good.

Sorry for bad english. Usibg android keyboa rd and no good on them.

Part axe.


Which Google apps can be deleted or disabled without harm to the system? There's that common Google bloat ware on my smartphone's stock Android 6.0.1. I was wondering, what google apps I could savely either delete or at least deactivate without harming the OS's stability?

Device: bq Aquaris X5 Plus

OS: Android 6.0.1

All I actually need is the play store and for this, the google account. I've no intention to ever use gmail, drive, hangeouts, play music/books/games, google+ e.t.c., nor do I want to sync any data with google.

Any help is much appreciated.

This very much depends on the device and the Android version running on it, plus where you've bought it – as the lot of pre-installed apps might differ based on that. I'm not sure about Gmail – but the other apps mentioned (Drive, Hangouts, Play Music/Books/Games, Google+) are the first ones I always disable, and never had any side effects. At least Music/Books/Games and G+ should be even safe to remove. You can also deactivate/disable the contacs sync adapter and calendar sync adapter if you don't plan to sync your contacts and calendars with Google.

What you definitely should not touch is the Google Services Framework – or you'll break "all things Google" on that device, including the Playstore.

If you want to get rid of almost all the crap, and don't need the ability to buy apps on Play or use apps that check their licenses against Google Services, flash a custom ROM and microG, plus install either Blankstore – or, if you need to buy apps and check their licenses, the original Playstore app. Details I have described in my article Android without Google: microG.


Media files don't show up in file manager but their folders can be seen I was tinkering with my Android's internal storage connected to my PC when suddenly all the media files (music and pictures) got deleted. The folders they belonged to remained unchanged. What happened, and is there a way to retrieve them?

Thank you.

You probably have 6.0 android.
You need to go settings>apps than tap on three dot button and select "show system" than find "External storage" and "Media storage" and clear cache and data for them. After that reboot phone and wait 5 minutes after booting to phone index files than connect to PC and see if you can find files now.


Missing Google Apps after 4.1.2 was built in Nexus S I built Android 4.1.2 from source for my Nexus S using these instructions. Later I found that there are no Google Apps on the phone and so I cannot set up my Google account or use the Play Store or Google Maps. I tried to download the Google Apps from here and installed them from the SD card but nothing happened. How can I get them installed?

Also, is there any other way I can install Google Apps?

I tried to download the Gapps from here and installed them from the SD
  card but nothing happened. How can I get them installed?

perhaps there is not enough memory in system. Check and flash a lighter version with only essential apps(or trim down the package on your own)


Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 version 4.1.2. stuck and freeze I have Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 version 4.1.2. Lately it freezes very often and only a restart helps solving that.

I ran Factory data reset, but it does not help.

I don't know how to solve the problem. I bought it less than 1 year ago via E-Bay so I don't know who can help me.

As a recommendation, try installing a custom ROM like CyanogenMod 10.1. You won't lose your apps, and this happened to me on my BN Nook Tablet (rooted) and installing CM fixed it.


How does Snapchat detect screenshots? I'm wondering how Snapchat detects if a screenshot is taken and how to disable/spoof the method. If using a screen recording (video) app, Snapchat can't detect it.

So basically, when you are putting something in the file system (like when you are taking a screenshot)  you have to broadcast ACTION_MEDIA_SCANNER_SCAN_FILE so that other applications are aware of it (otherwise android photo gallery can not display your screenshot). So Snapchat has to wait for that broadcast and when it receives the broadcast it just has to check if you are watching a snap and if it is the case they know that you just took a screenshot.

That's probably how they do it.


Connect USB stick using fdroid I know there is stickmount on PlayStore to connect a USb stick to android, but is there an alternative on fdroid?

Not sure why you need it specifically from f-droid but you can get it from other stores like aptoide, chainfire (the author) is currently temporary retired from developing, so dont worry about missing a new update for now.


Can't add one of my Google Apps for Work accounts I have several Google Apps accounts, and two of them I've added without a problem. I'm trying to add a third, and after I enter my email address, password and two-factor token from Authy, it tells me "Sorry, there seems to be a problem. Please try again." I've tried this over several days.

I did use to have this account on my phone, but it seems I can't add it back after a factory reset to revert from an Android N preview.

I can sign into this account just fine from a desktop browser or from the Android browser in incognito mode.

Try again? I think they fixed whatever was wrong, as it has worked for me today.


Encryption and Screen Lock without SIM card I'm have a Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1.2 which I am trying to encrypt through Settings -> Security -> Encrypt Device. The process I am following is described in this article at Step 2.

Upon entering the Encrypt Device screen I am told to "Set an unlock password". How is this password set? My first guess was the Android Screen Lock, but within Settings -> Security I have no Screen option as I would have expected (shown in above article at Step 1). Could this be because I am using the device without a SIM card? If so, is there any other way of using this encryption method, potentially with an inactive SIM card that is not connected to any network?

The screen lock is set in Settings -> Screen Lock. The device can then be encrypted without  SIM card.


How do I uninstall an application? If I want to completely uninstall an application from the home screen or list of applications; how do I do it?

You can uninstall an application from the Market or from the Manage Applications settings screen.

From Marketplace:

Start the Market app.
Hit the menu button and select Downloads.
Find the app you want to uninstall and select it.
Hit the Uninstall button at the bottom.

From Manage Applications:

From your Home screen hit the menu button and select Settings.
Select "Applications"
Select "Manage Applications"
Find the app you want to uninstall and select it.
Hit the Uninstall button at the top.

EDIT: I wanted to add a 3rd method that Rohan Singh had in his answer.

From your Home screen:

Tap and hold on the icon of the application you want to uninstall.
When the trash can appears near the bottom center of the screen, drag and hold the icon there.
After the tap & hold / drag & hold some text will appear indicating that you can uninstall by dropping the application's icon on the trash can.
Release your finger over the trash can and you'll be taken to the same uninstall screen you can get to through Manage Applications in your Settings.


how to clear RAM on the click on a button? I need some help regarding the performance of my phone. I have to clear RAM every time to free some space through the task manager. Can anybody please help me clearing RAM on the click of a button?

Android's RAM management has gotten quite good over the years, but if you really need to free up ram, I recommend this app: Taskmanager. It also features a widget to put in your homescreen.


How to replace SD card formatted as internal storage? I need help..

I have a redmi 4a device, with android 7,
 I formatted a 64 gb ADATA SD card as internal storage, worked great for long, until after a restart the SD card is corrupted with precious data on it..

It says tap to format, but it doesn't format, I tried on my laptop and windows cd and Easeus partition manager, but none worked..

I lost hope to fix the SD card, but the phone isn't accepting to show photos or store any data, even with new card identical to the old is mounted.. it says unmount usb storage..
When I try to see a photo status on whatsapp, says can't download because no internal storage is available, please unmount it as a disk drive, and try again..
Also I can't see any picture sent to me in chat..

I tried to format the new card as internal, but same problem..

Any help?

In general fixing an sd-card with corrupt data should be done on raw disk not on partition level, overwriting potential corrupt partition data.

Assuming that the sd-card is physically fully working the best way to reset it is by overwriting the first blocks with zeros.

Unfortunately I don't know a good erase tool that works on Windows and that works on RAW disk level. On Linux this can be easily done using dd writing to the block device of the sdcard (e.g. sdb, sdc or something like this).

For Windows the Hex editor HxD may be an alternative if you know what you are doing. It allows to open the full disk in read-write mode and then you can overwrite the first few kilobytes. Just make sure you are writing to the correct disk (and not overwriting e.g. your main HDD/SSD).

Once you have managed to reset the sd-card eject it and then re-insert it. Then format it on the PC and apply then test it using the tool H2Testw. It fills the sd-card with dummy data and then verifies if the all the written data can be read.


Is there a good app that lets me to the app updates in one go? Right now in the market you have to manually update each app, is there an app that automates this?

I use AppBrain it automates the install procedure a bit.


How can I print a conversation on Samsung S7? I need to print a conversation that contains over 200 messages, can it be done?

Print Text Messages is useful if you need to print SMS messages for legal or business reasons.Using this you can print or save as pdf. App contain two options, Quick Print and Advanced Print.

Quick Print : select a conversation and print all messages in it.

Advanced Print : Based on a date range.

Source


Can I install packages to external SD card on Termux in Android? I am using Termux in my Android device and it is awesome. I've installed it from Google Play. Now the packages that I install using the command pkg install ..., install those to the internal storage. Since my internal storage space is running low, I am thinking to install these packages to the external SD card. Can I do it? Thank you.

Unfortunately you can't.

The packages you install using pkg install, which is actually a wrapper for the frontend of the famous Debian Package Manager, APT. APT downloads packages provided by Termux and installs them. So the packages are just Debian packages. Witha bit of Googling and/or digging, you'll find that file paths are hardcoded, i.e., they'll always be extracted (installed) into /data/data/com.termux/files/usr.

Possible tricks are, apparently, possible. However it's not recommended to try any as Termux is highly similar to a real Linux environment, which means any bad SELinux context or wrong permission can cause programs to malfunction.

Answer: Try to free up your internal storage if you plan to install more packages in Termux, instead of thinking about installing the packages to elsewhere.


Battery life in dual-boot HTC HD2 I own a dual-booting HTC-HD2 with MIUI on SD card.

I already knew, from tutorials, that in order to maximize battery life I should first-boot Android only with 100% of charge.

This is currently unclear to me. First, I run Windows Mobile 90% of time, and I use Android occasionally only for some programs that are not available in WM.

It happened that I needed to boot Android when on the street, with less than 100% battery. However, I recently noticed that my battery is descharging really fast, for example today from 7:30am to 10am it ran from 100% to 68%, and I really wonder if it could have lasted till 8pm (when I get back home).

Is it because Android should always be booted with 100% of battery, or because I run 24/7 Skype and Windows Live Messenger in HSDPA from Windows Mobile?

Thanks

No, it is because at first boot (ie: inizialization), Android creates a Battery stat file to calibrate the battery.
After the first boot, you can start Android with any battery percentage.

If you think that after a long time, the battery percentage is not correctly reported, you can force Android to recreate the stats file with some root utilities available in the Market

Skype/MSN do draw a lot of battery, anyway, if you are using them from Windows Mobile, they are not running from Android.

You could try using greenpower or juicedefender to see if the data connection is the problem


How to add folder shortcut I'm trying to create a folder shortcut inside another folder. I tried Es file explorer but it shows option to add shortcut to the homescreen only.. Does anyone know how to create a folder shortcut inside another folder in android.? .. thank u in advance.

To create a "shortcut" to a folder on a file system, you can use symlinks(symbolic links) or bind mounts. You can use an app(e.g. Apps2SD) to do that, or run the command through adb or terminal emulator.

1. Using Apps2SD

You can use an app like Apps2SD to create symlinks(symbolic links) or bind mounts.

You can download Apps2SD from xda or google play(here it's renamed as "App2SD", but the package name is the same).

You can go to its official site to look for some more help. But according to my experience, you need to be careful about the SD card partition whose underlying filesystem format is vfat / FAT32 / extFat(Type 1), in contrast with the internal storage or the 2nd partition on the SD card created by Apps2SD, whose filesystem could be ext4 / ext3 / ... (Type 2).

You can freely create symlinks from a place in Type 2 to another place in Type 2.

But when it comes to file system Type 1, you might have to use bind mounts, which is not exactly a shortcut. For example, using rm -r on a parent folder may have different consequences, as mentioned here:

  I should warn against rm -r on a mount --bind. With a ln, it
  removes the link, whereas for a --bind, it has the same effect as
  running the rm -r on the target. Not good, as I found shortly before
  rebuilding one of my servers...

You can, however, create a mount bind using Apps2SD, with the source being in the internal storage(Type 2) and the destination(where the data really is) being in the 1st partition of the SD card(file system of Type 1), in order to save space in the internal storage.

The usages of Apps2SD mentioned above are my personal experiences. You will have to try it yourself if you want to use it differently.

2. Using shell command or shell script

You can do it yourself using commands like ln or mount --bind to create symlinks or bind mounts, respectively.

Check out the command manuals: mount, ln

Other info that might help(provided by Irfan Latif):

How can I make a symlink (or equivalent) inside /storage/emulated/0? - Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange
This is about how to make a "shortcut" in the SD card. Note that /storage/emulated/0 is the SD card.
sd card - How to create a shortcut to some file in another folder? - Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange

PS: Below is my previous answer to this question. I misunderstood this question as the OP was trying to create a folder shortcut inside another folder on the desktop.

You can use an APP like Folder Organizer or Glextor Manager.