windows 8 - keeps disconnection samsung from computer I recently upgraded from windows xp to windows 8 and I have a problem with the USB-connection. When I plug-in my samsung galaxy s3 to the computer - a symbol pops-up and the adb-client can comunnicate with the server on the device. No problem here. But very often - the connection between the OS and the device suddenly dissappears - as if I hade disconnected the device from the computer. I do not know what causes this but I have a strong feeling that there may be a bug in windows 8. Why then - I have tried the following:

changed USB cable
reinstalled all drivers, including KIES
even tried with my other cellphone - samsung galaxy s4 - same same same!!!!
NO problem whatsoever when developing on XP
tried with every USB-port on the computer
AND - its not the usb-ports since this does not occur with other devices such as usb-memories

It feels like something in the OS close the samsung-driver but I cannot understand why?

One more thing - I am not sure about this - but this problem seems to be more frequent when I develop apps in eclipse.

So my question? Does anyone recognize this issue? I have googled and can only find problem with the adb-driver. Not issues with connection-problems. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

thanks in advance!!!

May have been USB power management. This would have affected recently updated Windows 7 and Windows 8.x. This issue can come from both the Windows OS and the Android OS. For Windows, try https://superuser.com/q/749982/ For Android, try using the developer option "Stay awake", and turn off screen timeout. However, none of the options will keep USB powered up indefinitely - they still get disconnected, they just wait longer time.

To reconnect after being disconnected due to USB power management, go to Settings - Storage, and toggle between the MTP/PTP/None modes. A nudge should be enough to get ADB to reconnect. If it still doesn't reconnect, use adb kill-server, adb devices. The second command automatically issues adb start-server and wait until it's running, and then shows the status of connected devices. That way, you can quickly find out whether the USB connection has been restored.

Note that you may have to close and restart Eclipse.

If the advice doesn't work, I have a long list of troubleshooting guide that maybe I can share some time in the future, somewhere.


How much free storage does Android need? How much free storage does Android KitKat need?

I've noticed that when storage (not RAM) gets down to somewhere between 200 and 300MB, Android starts to complain that it will not be able to function properly unless some storage space is freed up.  This seems a bit surprising as 200MB is a huge amount of space.

What is the actual amount of storage required to be free, and why is it so large?

Having worked for a major phone carrier  in tech support for the last 3 years I have noticed that a lot of the common procedures for androids typically recommend to have at least 150 MB of storage available to run efficiently with your basic preinstalled apps.

But I have gathered that the more apps you download on your phone, the more notifications and updates are constantly being pushed to your phone in the background which will slow it down quite a bit the lower the available amount of space gets.

Typically disabling automatic push updates, notifications and turning the data off in the background will help to keep your battery life longer and your phone running smoothly as long as you remember to keep going in and manually updating your apps.

If you use multiple social media apps and streaming video apps take lots of photos and videos, text and call a lot as I personally do, while continuing to keep updates and notifications on, I would personally recommend having at least 500 MB to 1 GB free. And make sure to have photos and videos synced up to a cloud service like google photos or dropbox so you can free up space on your phone quickly.

Some people use SD cards which can help, but I have noticed SD cards can be easily corrupted and if not purchased in the right speed class or storage size can actually slow your phone down.


Is there a good index of pre-installed apps? If so, where is it? I have had a few errors on my phone that generate error messages that name the app that failed – but the error message dialog box names the failed app by process name, not by the app's common name.

To clarify with an example, I asked "Unfortunately, the process com.sec.ims.android has stopped." What does this error message mean? a couple of days ago. The error message said that "com.sec.ims.android" was the process that failed, but that name doesn't make it very obvious that it's a pre-installed Samsung app, let alone indicate what pre-installed Samsung app it was.

So, is there some list that explains the process names like this?

"aaa.*" processes are native parts of Android.
"aaa.xxx.*" processes are native to a particular section of Android.
"mmm.*" processes are installed by this or that phone manufacturer.
"mmm.yyy.*" processes are parts of manufacturer app "yyy".
"ccc.*" processes are installed by this or that cellular carrier.
"ccc.zzz.*" processes are parts of carrier app "zzz".
And so forth.

These names are created by the developer. Some are by google, some by samsung, some by independent developers.

The may not necessarily have a "grouping" to them. Especially ones like "installed by carrier". The name is called a package name. There is no actual restriction of the package name, except there cannot be two packages with the same name.

To actually compile a list of all the packages, even just the ones installed by Android OS, would be massive, and not maintainable as they can, and likely will, have additions and removals with each release. Not to mention the additional packages that are created by other manufacturers for their hardware. Even different devices, that have essentially the same version of Android, from the same manufacturer, may have additional packages, or less packages.

In most cases, you may be able to tell what the package is for or who created it. But that may not always be the case. Take this package name. com.facebook.katana you can obviously tell it is made by facebook, but what is it? Well, it is the actual facebook app. And com.amazon.venezia, again, we can tell it is amazon, because they do follow the de facto standard, but they don't have to. This is the name of the package name for their app store.


What are the implications of an old Android version? There have been various bugs and security flaws found in different versions of Android. Many have been pached in newer versions, but the non-updated devices remain bugged/vulnerable.

My questions are:

Are all Androids with the same version bugged/vulnerable in the same way, e.g., does a Samsung running 4.0 have the same problems as a Sony running 4.0 or as a Nexus device running 4.0?
Is there an overview somewhere what bugs (and especially which security flaws) are there in which versions? Many devices sold today do not run the newest Android; can I tell before buying which bugs/security problems I might encounter? (I am not interested in missing features introduced by newer versions)

Just to make it clear: bugs that can be solved by updating some apps are not relevant. (They are relevant if the update solving the issue would require a newer Android version).

This question cannot be answered in general. Android is open source and therefore can be modified by the mentioned enterprises. These enterprises will be based on the same "stock | untouched" Android with many of the same bugs and "vulnerabilities".

But:

Nearly all enterprises are modifying Android (interface, core) to match their wishes (e.g. Samsung TouchWiz, Sony XperiaUI, etc.). They are changing they way the software works, causing or eliminating bugs and security problems. So it's possible that some problems are fixed/caused by enterprises themselves. Therefore it's not likely for them to have exactly the same problems.
There is no official list of security flaws available. But there is an official bugtracker: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list


How to monitor Wi-Fi usage? Is it possible to monitor Wi-Fi usage in a similar method to how 3g watchdog monitors 3G usage?    I have android 2.2 on my phone.  I doesn't need to do everything 3G watchdog does, all I need to see is how much data I am using.

Netcounter can monitor both cellular data and wifi usage levels.


Uninstall from emulator doesn't work I'm doing my first steps with Android. I'm using a Mac, and no Eclipse.

I've installed my first toy application with

adb install bin/*.apk

and verified that it existed in the emulator. Then I made some changes, reran the build, and tried to install again, which brought the error message

   pkg: /data/local/tmp/DefaultActivity-debug.apk

Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_ALREADY_EXISTS]

Fine, so I have to uninstall first. So I tried the following:

adb uninstall DefaultActivity
adb uninstall de.rf.DefaultActivity
adb uninstall DefaultActivity-debug
adb uninstall /data/local/tmp/DefaultActivity-debug.apk
adb uninstall de.rf

but all of them just brought the error message "Failure", with no further explanation.

It's not a really big problem, because I can simply restart the emulator and use "adb install ....", but I'm curious: How do I correctly use the "uninstall" command?

My activity looks like this:

package de.rf;
...
public class DefaultActivity extends Activity
{
  ...
}

You don't have to uninstall, when you install an app already installed, you have to use adb install -r. (for more help, juste type adb)

To uninstall an app, you have to use adb uninstall package-name (e.g. adb uninstall com.example.app).


How to run a firewall and an AdBlocker on a non-rooted phone at the same time? I have a non-rooted Android phone and would like to use both a Firewall and an Adblocker at the same time. How can I do this?

I could only find Firewalls and Adblockers for non-rooted phones that use use VPN with only one VPN connection being allowed.

You can use adguard for this purpose which has the capability of both a firewall and an adblocker. It sets up a local vpn for non rooted phones. It also has a proxy mode. ( inorder to use with other vpns).


Xperia Sola- Whatsapp Web not being able to scan the Bar Code I have successfully managed to chat on whatsapp web two times, but since yesterday it just won't read the bar code. I have tried it horizontally and vertically, placed it for minutes and also tried moving the phone throughout the code so that it reads at least somewhere, but it just would not work. Advise.

Make sure your internet is working smoothly. As after scan it need to send data to server and then it get connected to web. I think your device is scanning clearly bt reason its failing is due to poor internet.. Let me know you succeed connecting??


How can I undo an edit in Gmail's compose field? How can I undo an edit in Gmail's compose field?

For example, I write a draft email, select the entire text and remove it, how can I undo my remove action to get the text back?

@JinaneK was on the correct path suggesting to used Ctrl+Z. You will need to install a keyboard that has Ctrl key such as Hacker's Keyboard if your keyboard app does not have it.

After you delete a text, open Hacker's Keyboard (if it was not already opened), press Ctrl (you will see an indication on the key that it is activated, on my phone, the indication was a blue line), then press on Z. You can even use it to redo by using Ctrl+Y

Disclaimer: I am just a user of the app.


com.qualcomm.embms keeps popping up every few minutes In Lenovo Phab, a message : "Unfortunately, com.qualcomm.embms has stopped." keeps popping up exactly twice every few minutes, to which I've to click 'OK' every time.
I've tried force stopping it from the settings manually but it's still going on. I've scanned the device with McAfee but there are no threats. But a Quadrooter scan tells me I've the following vulnerability : (CVE-2016-2504).
Is it possibly popping up because of that? Or is it just a bug? What should I do to make it stop popping up? Help would be appreciated.

A new widespread vulnerability that affects millions of Android devices around the world could allow hackers to read your SMS text messages, phone records, and perform any capabilities the radio allows.

This hack involves the netd daemon, which is the network interface in Android. The problem arose when Qualcomm released new Application Program Interfaces (APIs) as part of the network_manager system service, which also involved the netd daemon. These APIs allowed additional tethering capabilities.This vulnerability is labeled as CVE-2016-2060 with a medium risk.

Devices ranging from Gingerbread to Lollipop are likely affected. So, if you can upgrade your android that would be the best option.

Also, The FireEye Mobile Security app will detect the Qualcomm vulnerability, but it’s only for enterprise customers. If you have a corporate phone, check with your administrator to find out if your company subscribes to the service.

The good news is that FireEye has been monitoring the use of the API, and hasn’t found any occurrences of it being exploited. However, that could change as hackers learn of the flaw.

Looking at the big picture, it’s still more unlikely than likely that you will fall victim to an attack.

You can read more about this issue in this blog.


Micro USB cables that only charge but no data, no mounting etc (Samsung Galaxy S) Not all cables seem to be created equal but I've never got to the bottom of why so many (cheap) cables I try only charge - no data. Anyone know why? Certain pins not connecting?

I do know that longer cables or car to usb converters fail to transmit enough power for the phone to register and not charging but I'm getting the opposite. I don't think I am alone (same problem for Nexus One users here)

Broadly speaking, if you have a "USB" cable that only connects pins 1 & 4 then you will get power and no data (Best Buy was selling cables like that as Universal USB Charging Cables a while back, not sure if they still do). Likewise, if you have a cable with only 2 & 3, you will get data but no power. If you're curious, here's a Wikipedia page with the standard USB Pinout.

Note: Micro uses the same pinout as USB A.


Help for `fat finger` on Google Galaxy Nexus I often have trouble with the on-screen keyboard, e.g. pressing the wrong keys etc.

I looked around and found that ThickButton looks like a good solution; but sadly it is not compatible with my Galaxy Nexus.

What can I do to get rid of mistyping keys?

If you can get the APK of Thumbnail, you can try to sideload it on your Galaxy Nexus.

You can try Swiftkey Keyboard, it works well for me as I have fat fingers too.


Problems with drivers for Nexus 10 when building Android 4.3 from source I followed the steps in the Android Source web page to download android-4.3_r1 and build it for Nexus 10.

What is the problem?

When I download and install the drivers for Nexus 10 for Android 4.3 (JWR66Y) form the drivers web page, the device stucks at the Google logo.

It seems that Google put the wrong drivers in their drivers web page for Nexus 10 for Android 4.3 (JWR66Y).  You can get the correct drivers from this page. For more details, see this post.


Droid Turbo Bluetooth Microphone with Touchless Controls? Can you use a bluetooth microphone to activate the touchless controls on the Droid Turbo? ("The "Ok Google Now" feature)

No, you cannot. It's built entirely to listen ONLY through its built-in microphones, as it can do so with minimal power drain. Activating touchless control through any normal Bluetooth headset would require that the Bluetooth headset's microphone be always listening and always transmitting to the phone, resulting in a massive power drain to both devices.

The only exception that I'm aware of is the Motorola Hint Bluetooth headset which is specifically designed for this, as it uses similar technology to the Droid Turbo and Moto X line to always listen with minimal power usage, has its own voice commands, and can tap into the Google Now voice functionality. Presumably, with time, we'll see other devices add the same or similar functionality.


Upgraded to 8.0.0 (Oreo) and Notification Vibrations Won't Stop I didn't change any settings between 7 and 8, but suddenly I'm getting overwhelmed with my phone vibrating for every single notification. I still want to get my notifications (of which there are many) but I can't stand having my phone vibrate nonstop.

The way it used to work (for me) was that my first Gmail notification would vibrate; but then subsequent emails wouldn't trigger the vibration until I had cleared out all of the old notifications. Also, none of my Twitter accounts ever made any vibrations, but now they are all making them, for every single tweet. It's insane.

I've searched around in the App menues, in the phone settings, and online, but I can't seem to figure out what I need to do to turn off vibrations (but still get notifications.)

Any help would be much appreciated.

I experienced the same issue. I ran a google search, and came across this thread. I hope it helps for you too!

https://forums.androidcentral.com/google-pixel-pixel-xl/828108-turning-off-vibration-oreo.html

(One mentioned in that thread, that Twitter doesn't have a setting to shut it off. I don't have Twitter installed, so I can't verify) I did go into all of my notifications (each and every one) and had to turn off the vibrate. It is very tedious, but hopefully helps you too.

UPDATE: Just in case that thread mentioned above, disappears. Here is the quote from the user on how to disable the vibration on each notification

"Super annoying thing Oreo started, happened to me too. For some reason Google thought this was a good idea?!

Go into settings, apps and notifications, app info, messages, app notifications (again sheesh) and then you have to go into each and every category and uncheck vibrate. Thanks Google"


Android - Phone storage full I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace. Every time I try to install a new App I get a message saying my internal memory is full (the SD card has plenty of room). The phone has 180MB of internal storage. I counted the memory that all my apps should take and it came out to 50MB so something is taking up 130MB and I don't know what that is. I rooted my device and moved all the apps that could be moved to the SD card. It still says that I have only 20 free MB. I was wondering if there are any apps out there that can tell me what is taking up all my memory. If not is there any way to programmatically map out the internal storage of the device? Does Android block access to this storage, or can I view it from my computer in any way?

I like Disk Usage to show simply where are the octets.


Is there any highlighting or annotating software for ODT -format: LibreOffice or OpenOffice? I read my LibreOffice/OpenOffice documents with tablets and smartphones.
Is there any software for the ODT -format which allows me to edit such files.
I often find things which I should fix and would like to note that to the file.

Currently there is no such software. However, the LibreOffice team is working on an app. A prototype was reviewed e.g. here, if you want to take a look. No release date so far, but it will hopefully hit the market soon -- it is really strongly needed, as there is not a single Office app capable of working with OpenDocument formats (aside from AndrOffice, which is a spreadsheet-only app and obviously discontinued, as it is no longer listed on the playstore).

Until then: There's a Viewer app available at least, OpenOffice Document Reader...

UPDATE: Meanwhile, things have changed, and you have the choice between AndrOpen Office and TextMaker Mobile for read/write access, as well as Coffice and the already mentioned OpenDocument Reader for read-only access.


How to install stock app on custom rom? I flashed a custom rom but I didn't like it's default Contacts app (I prefer the stock app).

How can I install the stock Contacts app in a custom rom?

BTW the ROM I have is CM7-APOCALYPSE-FINAL

Simply copy the desired app from your favorite ROM (the apk is usually in /system/app) to your destination phone and then install it normally.


Can I enroll my device in Android Enterprise to install a root CA? My phone can't be rooted but I want to MITM my own traffic. Is there any downside to enrolling my device as a managed enterprise device and installing a certificate through the program? It seems possible, but I have not come across this solution anywhere on the internet so I was wondering if there is a downside.

Your question (or at least the answer) is more development-oriented. But I take the opportunity to share my limited knowledge from an end-user's perspective.

Is there any downside to enrolling my device as a managed enterprise device and installing a certificate through the program?

Yes. The cost, and complexity.
In order to use Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) on Android, you need to buy a Mobile Device Management (MDM) suite. Usually organizations do that for their employees; it has an initial setup cost and a recurring subscription fee per device.
Or you may think about developing a solution of your own. Developing a full-fledged EMM solution may take months and years. It may include building an EMM console (usually a web interface) to set policies, a back-end EMM server to hold policies, and a Device Policy Controller (DPC, or Work Policy Controller) app which fetches policies from server and enforces on device.
But as mentioned by @Robert in comment, Google doesn't want you use your own DPC app (which was a part of Google Play EMM API since Android 5):

"Android Enterprise is no longer accepting new registrations for custom device policy controllers (DPCs). Learn more."

The latest recommended solution is to use Google's Android Management API (after doing a partnership with Google as EMM solution provider) which enforces policies on devices using Google's Android Device Policy DPC app, and also provides additional features (by making use of privileged Play Services) which haven't been part of previous implementations. It covers all possible scenarios including Work Profile (on user-owned or company-owned devices) and Fully-Managed devices (with no personal profile). Both should not to be confused with Android's multiple users.
THE SOLUTION
So I don't think you'd want to go this far just to install a root/leaf CA. However there's a possibility to develop a simple standalone DPC app based on Android's Device Administration API (which the above stated solutions use under the hood), without integrating with any remote API. Shelter is an example of such use case, which provides app isolation / duplication by creating a Work Profile (it's open source, I've no affiliation). Using admin APIs it's possible to grant access to a client certificate, that's what you want. However as stated in (the link you provided: "... certificate is available to ... apps installed in the work profile", and) the official documentation:

"All apps within the profile will be able to access the certificate chain and use the private key ..."

So if you want to use the installed CA for all of your apps (including those installed in the personal / device-owner profile), your DPC must run in Fully-Managed mode, not a Work Profile. Luckily Google provides a Test DPC app which may run in both modes. It allows installing a CA, so can be a good starting point:

THE CAVEAT
Quoted from Android Developers Blog:

"Apps that target API Level 24 and above no longer trust user or admin-added CAs for secure connections, by default."

"But app developers can choose to let their apps work with manually added CA certificates" by adding <certificates src="user" /> to Network security configuration. So in this case an EMM- / admin-added CA is no way different than a user-added CA, while the latter is very simple to achieve.


How do I root my device with Mac OS X? Similar to How do I root my Android device?, except using Mac OS X.

Everywhere I try to find the answer to leads me to Windows applications. Are there any guides or tools for OS X?

It's very device-specific, of course, so you'll have to follow the directions given for the device.

Generally it works to follow the Linux directions for the device, except that you need ADB for Mac OS X.


How can I do factory reset on Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tab? After more evidence of my son breaking into my tablet (darned 11-year-old... going to be a true Social Engineer hacker, if I can't get through his thick head that he'll lose all computer privileges...), I changed the password this morning... and can't remember it now.

Unfortunately, after multiple failed password attempts, IT IS NOT ASKING FOR MY GOOGLE LOGIN TO UNLOCK. I don't seem to be able to get to the "failsafe" unlock mechanism any more, and so am looking to do a complete factory reset.

I've seen instructions to hold down the Volume-Up + Power buttons to initiate this (remember, I can't log in, so I can't do this from settings.) All that happens is that the tablet goes into a mostly-blank screen showing what is probably a newly-opened box, and a blinking Android that says "Downloading...". I let it sit for close to two hours in this state, and nothing. It did respond to a power-down from here, but just came back up to the password login.

What am I doing wrong? (Apart from choosing such a simple password as 10 U/L/num characters... obviously not sufficiently complex...).

Brian

If you were able to unlock the device, you would go to Settings ~> Privacy ~> Factory Data Reset & follow instructions. Done!

Since you don't have access to OS, press and hold "Volume Down + Power" for 10 seconds. Screen will appear with standard Droid recovery icon. Select it with volume down key & press volume up to enter. Now, you're in recovery mode from where you can factory reset your device.

Depending on your device sub-model, if its not working, try "Volume up + Home + Power" for 10 seconds. When something is displayed on screen,  release power button while holding other ones.

If this one is also not working, turn on device with power button and just after first display, press and hold "Volume up + Volume down" for 10 seconds.


What do I say to make a new line when using voice recognition? I've found I can make punctuation happen by saying "comma", or "period", but I can't find the word for new line.  I tried "paragraph", and "line break", but it just prints those words.

I found that saying period newline gives you a new line, after putting a period on the current line.
Also period new paragraph work.


vCard sent to my Android shows up as text A friend sent me a couple of contacts via vCard mms.  I received them as text messages, with for example the contact avatar rendered as plain text and some of the characters replaced with android emoticons.  I could dig the relevant info out of the text message, but I would like to simply import it as a contact to save doing that tedious process.  If I press and hold on the text, I get option to save the email or the phone but it is just scraping the text - not properly importing the vcard format.

Is there an easy way to import the contact?  (note: for something so simple as this, I would not really be interested in a paid app)

My friend was using iPhone 4.  I am on Galaxy Nexus.

I found some encoding issues when dealing with vCards, but generally, I was able to open any vCard file with the native contact manager application, have you tried to open the file with your computer?

The vCard is a text format file, so the image is encoded in Base64 (characters) if you open any vCard with a notepad, you will be able to see the contact picture encoded with characters.

This is a sample vCard:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Anders;Maria
FN:Maria Anders
ORG:Alfreds Futterkiste
TEL;TYPE=WORK:030-0074321
NOTE:Very Funny!
END:VCARD

So... To give you an answer, Android should handle vCards natively, without any special configuration. I'm running Android 4.x as well, and it works as expected.

In my opinion, the issue is about how iPhone encodes the vCard.

You can try downloading this vCard file: I's been tested on many Android devices


WhatsApp apk download I have a new phone, want WhatsApp, but don't want to share data with Facebook.

I am hoping i might be able to get an old apk (Trojan and virus free) that I could install in the hope of being given the option to opt out when I upgrade it.

Does anyone know if any of the many apk sites online are legit?

apkmirror.com is legit. It's run by Android police


How to upgrade Xiaomi Redmi 3 to Android Marshmallow? I have recently updated the MIUI 7 to MIUI 8. Thought it was based on Android Marshmallow. But it is on the same Lollipop version. How do I update it into Marshmallow? I know there is no official way to upgrade. So looking for other ways.

As of now MIUI 8 is still Lollipop (and will likely stay that way due to Xiaomi pushing Redmi 4 series), and there's no Marshmallow-based port either, so you will have to make a choice between up-to-date Android version and MIUI UI/features.

If you do decide that living on the cutting edge is worth the sacrifice, start unlocking and flashing custom ROMs. XDA-Developers will give you a good start, hosting a number of popular ROMs such as LineageOS (this would even bump you to Nougat).


How can I find my stolen android mobile? This morning one of my Android mobile has been stolen. I had ‘signed in’ in Google Crome and play store in that device with one of my gmail acount. I'm trying to find the mobile through’ device manager. But It says ‘location unavailable’. Is it because the stolen mobile is switched off or the stolen mobile isn't connected to the internet? My stolen mobile needs to be connected to internet so that I can locate the mobile? Or I can locate the mobile if it's just switched on and no longer connected to the internet? What happens if the thieft sign out my gmail account from Google? Please tell me

GPS is global positioning system. It is the setting/function on a phone that allows satellites in space to triangulate a position on earth, thus determining where that position is on a map. Sometimes users disable this due to security concerns or concerns of privacy.

There are several ways such a setting could be disabled though, even if you did not disable it. A thief or someone who found the phone could have enabled airplane mode which makes data, network, and GPS services disabled. Unfortunately, the phone could also be off due to power depletion of the battery.

I would recommend calling the phone periodically each day, checking the location each day, changing your Gmail password (just in case - I'm a little paranoid), and trying anyway you can to contact the new owner of the phone if it does have an owner. Additionally, if you had avast or some other anti-virus program installed, those programs also offer device locating. If your phone's GPS is indeed enabled, perhaps your Google location settings didn't work properly but the anti-virus location services could still help you find the device.


How can I root my Lava A97 Android 6.0 stock I have tried all the rooting apps including desktops one but none of them able to root my device.

I also tried to go through adb but not able to get '#' access in order to move files into intended directory.

Nowadays there is a lot of rooting apps and mostly depend on user's choice and ease. You may try the following apps since they do have a higher success rate when rooting.

CF-Auto-Root
Kingroot (Try Kingroot for PC if the apk method fails)

After rooting its up to you to find the SU management of your choice because there seems to be controversy around this topic (many users have complained of privacy invasion from some of the rooting apps)


What is the boot process of an Android device? From the user's perspective when switching on the phone, I see two boot animations in my LG P500 running CM10. The first animation is from LG and the second animation is from CM10. Then it settles in with a locked screen ready for my input.
What happens behind the scene (screen) during a boot process when an Android device is switched on? It will be helpful if the answers can help a non geek to understand various process and jargon (like, fastboot, bootloader, recovery, if applicable, etc.) regarding boot sequence.

You will find a good explanation including graphics to visualize what's going on in the article The Android boot process from power on. Basically, the steps are as follows:

Execute Boot ROM code. This is stored in a hardware-specific area and keeps information on where to find the first stage of the boot loader, which is then loaded into RAM. You can compare the Boot ROM with the BIOS in your desktop PC.
Execute first stage of the boot loader. On desktop computers, this can be compared with the boot menu, e.g. Grub/LiLo on Linux. It sets up some basic stuff, and then turns control to the...
Linux kernel, which will, together with the init process, initialize the base system, e.g. caches, file systems, etc., and then calls...
Zygote, which initializes the Dalvik VM, and then starts the...
System server. Now we are in the Android-system, and set up all Android-specific services, like e.g. telephony manager and bluetooth. Finally comes:
Boot completed -- this event will be broadcast, so apps having registered listeners on this will be started.

To help you visualize this, here's the last image from the mentioned site:


Stay Awake Option Not Available M9 I am using the HTC M9, and when I go into "Developer Options" the "Stay Awake" option is grayed out. Why? How can I fix? What would cause this?

I don't know about this but I can provide alternative solution for stay awake...

Stay Awake - Play Store

Try this... And if not working you may find other similar apps on store... :-)


Can I send IMs to an AIM user through the Google Talk app? I linked my Google Talk and AIM accounts on the GMail website, but it doesn't look like my AIM buddies are showing up in the Android Google Talk application. Is there something I'm missing or is this not possible?

I don't believe the Google Chat client supports this. Here are some alternatives:

Nimbuzz
Meebo
eBuddy Messager (via @Matt)


How to get Tasker CPU options available on MT4GS? myTouch 4G Slide [MT4GS/Doubleshot]
ICS Virtous Inquisition ROM

I cannot get the tasker CPU options available.  I've checked the common problems listed at http://tasker.dinglisch.net/userguide/en/cpu.html.  I can confrim that I have Superuser.apk installed in /system/app and that su binary is available.   I also have Secure Settings and Secure Setting Helper installed.  The frequencies are available and listed in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies but still no CPU option.  What do I need to do to figure out what is still wrong?

I'm not sure what did it but it must be OS dependent as once I installed CyanogenMod9 Alpha6 I had those options available under performance settings and they also became available in the tasker menus as well.


ADB Doesn't recognize device when on Clockwork Recovery Mode I'm trying to install another rom on my Samsung Galaxy S3 and when in the Clockwork Recovery Mode, the ADB quits recognizing the phone. When I boot to the SO, the pc normally recognizes it, I gave authorization, I have usb debugging on. When I boot into recovery mode, it quits recognizing, thus not letting me upload the rom.

I had similar situation with Xiaomi Mi3 W. It was totally working while in OS, but not recognized by ADB when in recovery (CWM). In this particular case it was driver problem. When phone was working normally, it identified itself as MTP device, so Windows had neccessary drivers already installed. But when in recovery mode, it isn't neither MTP nor USB-flash device.

Check Windows Device Manager, it should show some unidentified device (with yellow question mark). If so, right-click it and choose "Update driver", then install standard ADB generic drivers provided by Google (they are labeled "Composite ADB Interface" or "ADB interface" or something like that). Then reconnect the device and see, if adb devices shows anything. It should now display your phone id and say it's in "recovery" state.


Are there Andoid versions > 2.3 for my Sony Xperia ST25i (as of July 2012)? Possible Duplicate:
  When will my device get the Android 4.0 update (Ice Cream Sandwich)?

Like the question says, are there higher versions of Android for my phone? Will Sony release a 4.0 update for my phone?

Not officially yet. According to Sony, the Xperia U will be getting ICS in Q3 of this year.

That said I believe there are now some beta 3rd party ROMs floating around with various degrees of success.


How can I use the Dolphin 70E's hardware scanner in an app? I have a Dolphin 70E that has a hardware scanner. I would like to use this in a an app, but ZXing always uses the camera in the device instead. I have looked into Google Goggles as well, but running into the same issue here.

Honeywell has provided an example app that does exactly what I want, but I can't seem to find any documentation.

Finally found on the Honeywell knowledge base.

Under Power Tools > ScanWedge there is a toggle to enable/disable. When ScanWedge is enabled, the scanner buttons work as expected in any application (basically just keyboard input).


What are important things to look for when choosing firmware? I just got a Pandigital eReader and I'm browsing the firmware options(official and hacks).  What are important things to look for when choosing firmware?  Is there anything important to look for?

Stability
Battery life

You should be able to get an idea from reviews/comments/etc. about how well each ROM performs in those areas.  For an eReader that's really all you need.


Create link to custom URI-scheme on home-screen (eg. zoomus://zoom.us/...) to start app Is there a way to create an app-icon-link to a non HTTP-url and place it on the home screen?
I'm trying to add an icon to auto-join a zoom-meeting.
https://marketplace.zoom.us/docs/guides/guides/client-url-schemes
The idea are to pass parameters like meeting id and password to the app Zoom, that uses the URI: zoomus://
Eg. zoomus://zoom.us/join?confno=123456789&pwd=xxxx
I have done similar on iOS / iPadOS using the Shortcut app.
UPDATE: Maybe it can be done with Google Action Blocks (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.accessibility.maui.actionblocks)
Or this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.UrlShortcut
Thanks for advice!

The App URL Shortcut (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.UrlShortcut) works excellent!


Why is my phone ignoring OTG USB? I have 2 phones.
 1. Android 4.4.4 - When OTG USB is connected, it automatically mounts with no problems and I can manage files, watch movies from it, etc.
 2. Android 6.0 - when OTG USB is connected, phone fully ignores it (does nothing).

Why can't second phone mount it exactly like a first does? Do I have to install some application that takes care of it? First phone is rooted, second is not. Can that be a problem?

Its not the android version describes that it can connect OTG(On-The-Go), its the capability of the device. Huawei P8 Lite has no OTG connectivity as described here : P8 lite review


How to fix a Nexus 9 that bootloops after an official update? Summary

Nexus 9
Never rooted the device and boot loader is locked
Stuck in a boot loop since an android update
Factory Reset doesn't work
Recovery mode doesn't work
Can't flash anything
Can't unlock boot loader due to OEM setting
OEM setting can't be turned on due to boot loop

Context

I bought nexus 9 and I have never rooted this tablet or have done anything fishy to it.

Within few months I received a new android update and I got stuck in a boot loop with a message "Your device is corrupt..." and I lost access to my precious non backed up pictures.
However, I have abandoned the pics and decided to try factory reset.
I get stuck with a green android icon when I try to factory reset for about half an hour then it reboots, but it still gets stuck in boot loop.

So then I try to start the recovery mode but then I get stuck with a dead green android icon with red warning sign.

So what do I do next? I try to flash a custom recovery program, TWRP.img using fastboot but I can't because the bootloader device status is locked.

So I try to flush all preinstalled img to stock, so I try unlocking boot loader using fastboot oem unlock but I can't because I didn't turn on the OEM permission on before being bricked. If only there were way to turn on OEM from adb but I see a lot of people saying its not possible.

How can I fix my tablet?

You should still be able to sideload an official OTA update from the stock recovery. You can get the official OTA images here: https://developers.google.com/android/ota

Download the latest OTA image for the Nexus 9 from that page
Reboot into recovery mode
Press the volume up and power keys at the same time to activate the hidden menu
With the volume keys, highlight “apply update from ADB” and press the power button to choose it
From your computer, execute adb sideload otaFilename.zip


which of these files is the stock recovery image for the nexus 4 android 4.3? which of these files is the stock recovery image for the nexus 4 android 4.3?

https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images

https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/occam-jwr66y-factory-74b1deab.tgz

Is it

Or is it

So, is it bootloader-mako-makoz20i.img  or boot.img or recovery.img?

And what are the differences between these?

I will be doing fastboot flash recovery blah.img  I can guess that recovery.ing is the correct one. But I want to verify here and also it makes me wonder though what the other two are for and what command would replace them?

Go for recovery.img. Extra info below:

bootloader-mako-xxx.img -> bootloader. Flash with fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-mako-xxx.img then fastboot reboot-bootloader. Updates (upgrade or downgrade) bootloader for compatibility with corresponding generation of ROMs.

boot.img -> kernel. Flash with fastboot flash boot boot.img or boot once with fastboot boot boot.img. Only use original ones or ones that are known compatible.


List of installed apps not showing in Settings Perhaps naively, I switched the sd card between my phone and my tablet.

Trouble was some of my phone apps has been installed on the sd card and they no longer work, I felt at the time that I could live with that.

The thing is that as the internal memory starts to fill up again, I can no longer bring up the list of apps from the settings screen. When I click on it, it shows the circle like it's working on it but never finishes the job! I'm guesnig this may be because it's looking for apps that were on the sd card which I removed. This is a pain as I can't move or delete any of the apps that are left (in the internal storage).

However, recently my memory went critical and at that point the phone was able to show me a list of apps which allowed me to chose some for deletion, but this only comes up when the phone memory gets critical. So it must be possible for the OS to find the list of apps.

Is there a way to move the apps to the SD card using an app or a PC?

I have an HTC One_M8, Android 6.0 and HTC sense version 7.0.

You can use adb for that (please see the corresponding tag-wiki for details on what ADB is and how to get it working on your computer):

# list all user-installed packages
adb shell "pm list packages -3"
# now pick one app of that list you want to get rid of
adb uninstall com.package.name

That way you could clean up the apps you don't have access to any longer anyway. As for moving apps to the SD card, at least you can define it as "default storage" for new installations (as long as the apps do support that):

# 0=let the OS decide; 1=internal, 2=external storage:
adb shell "pm set-install-location 2"

However, I'm not aware of any command to move already installed apps. The only thing I know of is you can specify the install location explicitly when you install an app, see How to move spcific apps to/from sd card using ADB? on our sister site.


How to capture screencast video and root not required? I found a lot of solution to make a screencast on Android but each time the root is mandatory.

Does anyone have the solution without root?

Well, the reason Screencast and similar apps require root permission is that the video data has to be accessed using the administrative privileges (i.e. roots access)

But you can always use an app such as No Root Screen Recorder to video record your screen. But the problem with this option is that you have to connect your device to a windows computer in order to capture.

This is the only option which is available to given you have no root access.


How can I copy media files to my phone without adding them to the gallery? I keep my media files (such as music) on my home server. When I add a new album to the home server, and want to copy it to my Android 4.0.4 phone, I use a Samba client (such as AndSMB or X-plore) to copy the files to the phone. So far, so good.

The problem is that the images in subdirectories that I copy over (such as album art) automatically get added to the gallery during the copy, although the root directory I'm copying into has a .nomedia file in it. If I start the copy, then check the Gallery app mid-copy, I see the images start to appear before I run any other apps.

I don't want the images to appear in the gallery.

If I "clear data" for the Media Storage app, then reboot, the gallery is rebuilt without the album art images, so the .nomedia file does seem to be doing its job some of the time.

Is there a way I can copy media files to my phone over a network, without them automatically getting added to the gallery?

Clearing the data in Media Storage and rebooting the phone works, but is tiresome and has other unwanted side effects like resetting my ringtones.

Is there a way I can copy media files to my phone over a network,
  without them automatically getting added to the gallery?

I don't think it's possible.

After some googling I found this info:

1) Hide Album Art from Gallery

And the provided solution:

  I have all of my photos named folder.jpg/jpeg (I forget which
  extension) and they don't show up in the gallery.

2) [HOWTO] Make gallery remove album covers

  So I did this:

  Add .nomedia in my music directory, eg. "Music" (only on top directory).
  Rename "Music" directory to "Musicc"
  Run Gallery, exit.
  Rename "Musicc" back to "Music"
  Run gallery and thebthumbnails no longer appear.

  Also works with other directories that has thumbnails in gallery and
  adding .nomedia later. In my case the thumbs are still displayed.

Also take a look at this post:

How to Exclude Unwanted Images from Phone Gallery on Android

  Gallery Excluder is a dedicated Android application which removes the
  folders that you want to exclude its showing in the default Android
  stock version. This application is quite simple and does the job what
  it says with the application name. So if you have folders which you
  don’t wants to show it on your Gallery then install this application,
  select the folder which you want to show and done.


What Android version can I install on Samsung Galaxy S3 safely? My old Samsung S3 is getting sluggish. Really sluggish. I want to know which version of Android I can install on it? I cannot find on Samsung's web site some kind of reference table that says which OS version can be installed on which phone.
I have found a YouTube video showing Lollipop installed on S3. Should I do that?

Looks like Android 7 can be installed on S3:
http://wccftech.com/update-galaxy-s3-to-android-7-1


Can not send or receive a group text on my Android phone anymore I have the LG Optimus F7, until last week everything was fine. Now no matter the SMS app I use (and I've tried with about 4 different ones now including the stock app on the phone) I can not send or receive a group text. I was using Chomp and had been for months and it was fine, on Saturday it tells me it can not download because of my APN settings. No matter what I did, or changed it told me the same thing. I uninstalled and tried different apps, I don't get that message anymore, just that system is unavailable and will send when it can. But it never does.
How do I fix this? There are 4 of us that text as a group very often.

You need to fix your Access Point Names (APN) under settings.  For me, it's Wireless and Networks > Mobile networks > Access Point Names


How can I browse my Mac's hard drives with my Android phone? Is there any Android software that can understand afp or browse OS X filesystems some other way
?

Astro File Manager has an SMB module that appears to work for browsing the filesystem via Samba.  I haven't found any AFP or Bluetooth modules (yet); for the latter, Android likes Bluetooth OBEX-FTP but the only server implementation I could find for OSX is ancient and bitrotted.  Android doesn't appear to have any way to do the kind of OBEX stuff OSX wants — although I'd love to be proven wrong about that.


missing pictures/videos from HTC EVO after being encrypted I have an HTC EVO.  It's been encrypted at work.  Afterwards, all of my pictures/videos are missing from my gallery, everything else is still there.  How do I get them back?

It is possible (almost certain) that during the encryption process, they low level formatted your SD card which would make recovering your gallery items impossible at this point. They should have allowed you to backup your data before doing the encryption and/or made a backup of the device before they did the encryption. Might I suggest you ask them if they kept a backup before doing the encryption, that would be your only option at this point to get them back. Sorry.


Stylish for Android? I've occasionally used Stylish to improve usability of websites on the PC. Is there an equivalent for Android - either plugin to FireFox, the default browser (mine is a Galaxy Note), or other. Basically, there are some sites that don't have mobile-specific stylesheets that I'd love to improve with a bit of CSS...

Stylish 1.3b1 adds support for Firefox Mobile.


Checksum error after crash install Android I wanted to upgrade my Android phone (Acer Liquid Ferrari) from 2.2 to 2.3 but it crashed => I can't turn on my phone,

When I do a clean boot (power + vol up + vol down) there are no problem but my phone doesn't reboot

When I want to go into Recovery (power + vol up + cam) there are an error on the checksum

Partition: checksum
 splash: chsum =00000000 OK
 boot:chcksum=8fa17e51 != 0021fde4 **fail**
 recovery:chsum =00000000 OK
 system:chsum =00000000 OK
=====
<<FAIL>>

So when I want to do adb devices I have error device not found. The driver is correctly installed on my computer

How can I launch the recovery mode ?

Thanks

I solved my problem by connecting my phone to usb and pressing Vol Up + Cam + Power for await my PC recognize the device.
After that, I use Acer Tools to flash my device with the bin of Android


Access Android native settings manager I got a Lenovo K3 Note with Android Lollipop 5.1, my problem with this phone is the hugely modified Android system. For example, there's no Settings > Applications or Settings > More menu in the Settings app.

How to restore the default Android settings manager so I can unlock these settings features?

To expand on Andrew's comment, Settings is a core system app that is tightly integrated into the ROM.  There is no way to replace it without flashing a custom ROM, and modifications like enabling or adding features would require building the Android source for your device.

If you are rooted or can use ADB, etc., there are a number of other ways to manage applications and settings — for example, uninstalling apps.  Feel free to search the site and ask another question if you want to do something specific that hasn't already been covered.


Why does Google always need personal data? Whenever there is an app from Google Inc in the Android market, I am uncomfortable with their permission levels: Why do they always need read/write permissions to personal data/contacts and all our personal stuff?

Even though I believe Google, I am not interested in sharing my personal data with them. Can something be done -- like, limiting the permissions?

As Goggles is an app that you've said you're curious about, here are the permissions it asks for(copied from the Market web page):

This application has access to the following:

  Your accounts

  Google App Engine
  Allows applications to sign in to Google App Engine using the account(s)
  stored on this phone.

  access other Google services
  Allows applications to sign in to unspecified Google services using the
  account(s) stored on this phone.

  act as an account authenticator
  Allows an application to use the account authenticator capabilities of
  the AccountManager, including creating
  accounts and getting and setting their
  passwords.

  manage the accounts list
  Allows an application to perform operations like adding, and removing
  accounts and deleting their password.

  use the authentication credentials of
  an account
  Allows an application to request authentication tokens.

  Hardware controls

  take pictures and videos
  Allows application to take pictures and videos with the camera. This
  allows the application at any time to
  collect images the camera is seeing.

  Your location

  coarse (network-based) location
  Access coarse location sources such as the cellular network database to
  determine an approximate device
  location, where available. Malicious
  applications can use this to determine
  approximately where you are.

  fine (GPS) location
  Access fine location sources such as the Global Positioning System on the
  device, where available. Malicious
  applications can use this to determine
  where you are, and may consume
  additional battery power.

  Network communication

  full Internet access
  Allows an application to create network sockets.

  Your personal information

  read contact data
  Allows an application to read all of the contact (address) data stored on
  your device. Malicious applications
  can use this to send your data to
  other people.

  write contact data
  Allows an application to modify the contact (address) data stored on your
  device. Malicious applications can use
  this to erase or modify your contact
  data.

  Storage

  modify/delete USB storage contents
  modify/delete SD card contents
  Allows an application to write to the USB storage. Allows an application to
  write to the SD card.

Having used Goggles for a while, these all seem fairly innocuous, here are what Goggles does that needs those permissions:

Your Accounts
Everything under this heading is needed because Goggles links to your Google account and stores your Goggles history in your Google account, so that you can go back at look at your previous searches, even after you change phones. To do this it needs to access the Google account login credentials already saved in your phone's "Accounts" list, otherwise it would have to prompt you to log in to Google every time you open it, or re-save your credentials again itself, which is a bit silly when they're already stored centrally on the phone. If you have more than one Google account on your phone, then the first time you open Goggles it asks you which one you want to save your history into. There's a setting that stops it saving your search history if you don't want this.

Hardware Controls
The entire point of Goggles is to take pictures using the camera, it can't do that without these permissions.

Your location
Using Goggles you can take pictures of landmarks and buildings and have it automatically identify them. It uses your location to help it narrow down the guesses of what you're photographing.

Network communication
It uses Google's servers and massive databases to help it identify the potentially billions of different things you could photograph and ask it to recognize.

Your personal information
*read/write contact data* You can take a photo of a business card with Goggles and have it save the contact details from the business card straight into your Contacts.

Storage
You can set Goggles to save all the images it takes to your SD card for later viewing via the gallery app (this is in the Settings and is off by default).

So, as far as I can see, they have a legitimate reason for all of the permissions that the app asks for that fits with one or more of the apps functions or needs. Could they also use these permissions for other purposes? Yes, but personally I trust the app to only use the access for the required purposes, after all Google has plenty of other ways to get all of that info, as I'm already syncing all of my Contacts, etc up to GMail anyway!


Unbootable OnePlus 5T So, I rooted my device and everything was fine. It was like that until I used Freedom. It messed up my Play Store. There was nothing that could repair it. I tried doing a factory reset but my twrp did not let me do it, it said it cannot mount something. So, I thought that if I lock my OEM it will do a data wipe. So, I locked it, not my phone, when I want to load the system, it's stuck on the loading screen and when I try to boot in recovery it says "Your device is corrupt. It can't be trusted and will not boot".

Since you've installed TWRP, you cannot lock the bootloader. A locked bootloader will perform integrity check at boot time and if it finds anything tempered, it will refuse to boot:

The solution is simple: Unlock it again. You won't lose your data this time, so just proceed to connect your phone to a computer, boot into bootloader mode and run on the computer:

fastboot oem unlock

Exactly like when you did before rooting. This will make your phone boot up again.

Additionally, you may want to check for a newer version of TWRP and see if some bugs are fixed so you can do the data wipe.

For the problem of Freedom messing up Play Store, you can check out this answer.


How can i take picture to call a number I think there was option in some app, dont remember what it was. But you could take picture to call it.

I want to simply take picture of a number and call the number. Photo need not to be saved.

It'd be huge benefit to me.

I think it should be possible i'm not talking about hand written numbers, i'm talking about numbers on screen or billboard etc.

Google Goggles will do what you are asking. It does an analysis of any taken picture (without saving it to your phone). The results of the analysis will depend upon your picture (for example, if you take a picture of a famous painting it will tell you what the painting is).

In your case if you take a picture of a phone number, it will highlight the number in the picture allowing you to select and dial it.


Creating viber account on tablet So I get myself android tablet last nite and wanted to create viber account.  I put my cell phone number down,  and never received code on my phone. I still have flip phone, not smart phone. Could that be reason? I would be very interested in this product and I would appreciate if someone could help me.

Another question would be is it possible to create viber account without phone number?

Thanks in advance


How to remove a certificate Authority installed on my Android mobile ( redmi note 5) I installed an app LUMEN that app installed a certificate, ever since it installed that certificate it is showing that your secure network maybe monitored or modified

You need to go to:

Settings > Security > Encryption & Credentials > Trusted Credentials > User

You can remove the installed CA from there.


Does my phone need an Internet connection to install apps from Google Play? First of all please excuse me if this too basic. I'm very new to the Android field. I just bought an Android phone. Now I'm looking to install some apps on my phone.

After some researching I found that Google Play is the place to get all the apps. So I logged in with my Gmail account on the Google Play website and installed Talking Tom app through the browser. It's showing under my "My Android Apps"

But it still hasn't been added in my phone. At first I thought it might take some time for it to get downloaded to my phone. But now it's been more than 3 hours and still it isn't listed under my apps in the phone.

This makes me wonder if this is not how Google Play works. If it's not, then what is the appropriate way to get an app to download to my phone.

PS : My phone does not have an internet data plan and is not connected to the internet. I'm beginning to think maybe that is the reason it's not been downloaded yet. But does it not work something like how SMS's work where you don't need the phone to be connected to the internet?

You do need an internet connection to install apps. It doesn't matter if you install them from your phone or from a PC.

In order to connect to the internet through a USB connected to your computer, you can use this app, but it requires you to have a rooted device.


Open a new tab in chrome from a shortcut or app Problem
Since updating to Android 5.1.1 I started using the new tab switcher merged with recent apps, however, every time I click on chrome I have to wait for it to open the last tab only to open a new one anyways, and if I wanted the old tab I could have opened it from the recent apps.
I tried creating a bookmark to use about:blank, which works except I don't have access to any bookmarks or history as from the new tab page, but when trying to link directly to the new tab page I am unable to find a method which works.
Using "about:newtab" I am given a transparent overlay on my launcher which shows as Chrome in recent apps.
Using chrome://newtab or chrome-native://newtab I receive a toast from the launcher stating "App isn't installed.".
I thought about creating a simple app with no UI which simply opens chrome to a new tab, or using Xposed to change it to open in a new tab on click, but am unsure how to go about this.
Question
Is there some file in system I could change to add Chrome as a handler for "chrome://" links?
What other method I could try in order to create a shortcut on my launcher to open a new tab for chrome?
More Info

Launchers Tested: Nova Launcher, Google Now Launcher
Chrome Versions: Chrome 45.0.2454.94, Chrome Beta 46.0.2490.34
Android Version: 5.1.1 LMY48M
Device: Nexus 5

Solution for Android 7.1 (API level 25) and higher

If you're using a launcher which supports App Shortcuts you can:

Long-press the Chrome icon to bring up shortcuts.
Long-press the New tab shortcut and drag to desired location.
Use the new shortcut to launch Chrome with a new tab.


Problem while trying to sideload ROM to my nexus 4 My nexus 4 was in boot-loop, so I tried to format and re-install android into my devices following instruction from a forum. I was able to reach the part trying to side-load ROM to my devices but unfortunately I failed. The file has been 100% sent over my device yet the installation was aborted. Anyone has any idea why it happens?? T.T

Try to use "push" ADB command instead of side-loading to transfer the files.


Why doesn't My phone recognize my SD card? My phone ( Trend plus) doesn't recognize my SD card. It's been working for almost 2 years now, I don't know what happened, did I damage it somehow, I don't know.

Try your SD card in another phone or a computer. If it works, then it's probably your phone. Try an SD card that you already know is working in your phone and see if it reads it. If it doesn't, then it's definitely your phone but it could be the SD slot itself or a software problem. If another card works in your phone and your card works in other phones, then I don't know what to tell you; use a working card, I guess. :)


Problem with intents :MacroDroid I am not able to get the intent running for this out loud app. App description says

Launch these activities to change the on/off state of Out Loud:
com.hillman.out_loud.activity.OnActivity

To change the on/off state through a broadcast intent, send a broadcast with these details:

Action: com.hillman.out_loud.ON_OFF
Data: out_loud://on_off?state=[state]

whether I use activity or broadcast.
What am I doing wrong?

If you want to turn on the Out Loud using automation app, do this:

Target: Activity
Package: com.hillman.out_loud
Class: com.hillman.out_loud.activity.OnActivity

Leave the rest entries untouched.
If you want to turn off the Out Loud, do this:

Target: Activity
Package: com.hillman.out_loud
Class: com.hillman.out_loud.activity.OffActivity

If you want to toggle the state, do this:

Target: Activity
Package: com.hillman.out_loud
Class: com.hillman.out_loud.activity.ToggleOnOffActivity

Check your notification panel/bar to see the changes. If toggled to On state, Loud Out would create a notification (low priority), else the notification would be missing.


How do I get the real file path of an image? When I look at an image on my phone in the gallery app, it tells me (under details) the path is /phone/Pictures/Messages/imagename.jpg. My native file browser can find this image in that path. A third party file browsing app tells me it's in /storage/emulated/0/Pictures/Messages/imagename.jpg. My computer can find neither of those directories on my phone or SD card, and a search of both for the image name reveals nothing. I'd like to move the images to my phone. How do I find the real file path of this file?

The second one is the technically correct path. The first one, /phone/..., is just the Gallery app simplifying the display and telling you that the folder is in phone storage (instead of external storage).

When connected to the PC using MTP, the root folder is /storage/emulated/0/ (you only see the contents under it), so you should be looking for the part of the path after it, which is Pictures/Messages/imagename.jpg.


What counts as "Connected Media" for the Music player? In the music app, there is a Connected Media tab. It shows up my router, a Belkin Play Max, but it does not show up my NAS device, which has an iTunes server and a "Media server" of unspecified protocol (at least it's not stated anywhere in the web interface). Neither of these show up.

What does this tab connect to?

EDIT: The device is the Desire HD running Android 2.2 as installed on it by default.

From the HTC Support Page:

What is Connected Media and how do I use it?
This is a new application that allows you to play pictures, music and videos stored on your phone or on a media server to DLNA supported device such as a TV, Music player or even speakers. To access Connected Media All programs (button on the lower-left of the screen) > Connected Media.

So, anything that is DLNA compliant should show up as a connected device.
Here is more information on Connected Media from HTC.


Why does the phone shutdown and battery drains super fast on 20% or less capacity when taking pictures? When the phone is 20%ish or lower battery, after taking pictures the os shuts down.
I have observed this behavior on 5 different brands (lg, samsung, lenovo, xiaomi, oneplus), across different android os versions, across different camera apps, even on devices with the battery replaced with a new part.

The system takes a picture then shuts down. The battery drains almost visibly upon restart, going from 20 to 15 in a minute or two.

I've seen it on official roms, flashed roms, rooted phones etc. Hopefully somebody who's an expert in these things can hit this nail on the head.

Long read with plenty of links. I will summarize so that one gets the key points and if needed dive in for details

Battery levels are not accurate

Firstly, battery levels based on voltage are an approximation and not accurate.Android battery levels are based on voltage See Are battery monitors accurate ? . Key points:

See this answer to understand why voltage based battery levels are misleading

  The voltage of a battery does not tell you how much charge a battery has, nor does any other characteristic of the battery. Battery voltage does drop as capacity drops, but the voltage drop is a function of the percentage of charge, not amount of charge.

In other words, voltage correlates to percentage of charge, not amount of charge.

Li Ion batteries display a "flattish" voltage drop even though the amount of charge falls relatively steep.
Frequency(how often) Voltage levels are updated to reflect the current state is
up to the OEM (so,phones may show different battery levels under identical conditions

Voltage levels at extremities are again inaccurate for safety reasons

When your device says it is 100% , it is not really so (see this answer
When your device says it is O or low battery , it is not really so since a prevention circuit kicks in stopping further discharge

Camera draws a lot of power

Power drawn by a camera is quite high 1000- 2000 mW based on this old answer.This excludes the full screen power. Present day phones with multiple cameras and complex algorithmsfor image processing will surely draw a lot more likely to the tune of 3500 mW
As pointed out in comments, if you are using a flash even more power is drawn

Critical or low battery shut down

From Android 5 , IIRC, this feature was introduced , with later versions allowing you to configure the low battery level. High camera power drawn drops the voltage level to low battery shutdown

To summarise , we saw that voltage based battery levels are inaccurate, camera draws a lot of power and there is a critical battery shut down which is likely triggered

Readings on reboot

When you reboot the phone , Hysteresis comes into play

  Hysteresis is simply the fact that once we've got the battery discharging, if we stop discharging it (say, by turning the phone off), it will keep on discharging by itself for a short while.

Your device is programmed to cater for this loss , maybe 2% or more or none

Voltage correction: Considerable power is drawn for reboot.In the first point , we said "voltage drop is a function of the percentage of charge, not amount of charge." . Percentage of change means there is a previous value needed to compare , i.e, N-1 (previous) value compared to N (current value). Now when it is 20% on reboot, it takes some time to estimate the current value (a minute or so in your question) and fall to the current value.

Hysteresis plus adjusting to the current value contribute to the rapid fall in a short duration

To add to all this is the degradation of battery performance over time and aging effect as described here Battery capacity wear-down, and its relationship to charging practices to be taken into consideration to answer your query in comments (why did the estimate work properly in the first months of life)


How to create a copy of a file immediately when it's created? I have an Android app that will create a file in /data/ and immediately delete it. I want to know how can I catch this file or create a copy or even disable user permissions to delete a file? I have root access to the device.

You can achieve this using busybox inotifyd. Your kernel must be built with CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER=y for this to work. You can confirm with:

~# zcat /proc/config.gz | grep INOTIFY

Or the existence of /proc/sys/fs/inotify directory. /proc/config.gz may not exist on all devices depending on kernel build configuration.

Let's say /data/data/com.xyz/files/ is the directory you want to watch. Write a script to execute when a file or directory is created in the given directory:

#!/system/bin/sh

# remove first argument: EVENT
shift

# create directiry to backup files
mkdir -p /sdcard/backup/

# copy newly created file/directory
[ -e "$1/$2" ] || exit
cp -av "$1/$2" /sdcard/backup/

Place the script at /data/local/tmp/copy_it.sh and chmod a+x. Now execute:

~# inotifyd /data/local/tmp/copy_it.sh /data/data/com.xyz/files:n

Note :n at the end of line, which is the event that reports that a file/directory is created in watched directory. However watches are not established recursively.

For more complex operations, use inotifywait from inotify-tools as explained here.

RELATED: How to identify the app/process which re-mounts partitions R/W, creates files and changes file permissions?


VW car bluetooth - Android 2.3.6 (Nexus S) phonebook display I have had great success using my Android Nexus S 2.3.6 with my new 2012 VW GLI Autobahn with RCD-510 stereo, which has bluetooth integration for A2DP audio thru the stereo and phone, as well as the built in speakerphone of course.  I'm very happy with how well it's worked except for one problem.

The display of the phonebook via the car's MFD (multifunction display, between the speed and tach gauges), shows all my contacts EXCEPT those on my favorites, like my wife, best friend, mom, brother, i.e., the people I call most often.  I can usually find them thru recent calls, but it seems silly that those don't show up in the phonebook when people I haven't talked with for years show up by virtue of not being favorites.

Anything I can do to help the phone show the favorites to the car as part of the phonebook?  I have done phonebook update a couple times, but no luck so far.

Thanks!!

For some reason this just worked itself out.  One day I did "update phonebook" in the bluetooth menu, and then everyone showed up.  Before that, I thought I was going to have to remove my wife, brother, mom, etc, from favorites to get them to show up in the car's bluetooth menu.

So, if this happens to you, try "update phonebook" in your VW/Audi bluetooth menu.


How do I prevent applications from restoring after a factory reset? I have a lot of apps I don't really use, and my phone has been misbehaving as of late.  I'm thinking about just doing a factory reset, but the last time I did one, it restored all my applications, I believe based on my Google/Android Market account.

Is there a way to prevent this so I have to 'opt-in' to all my stupid apps?  Or at the very least be able to remove the apps from the web interface versus going to the app on the phone...hitting uninstall...waiting...repeat a few dozen times?

Before doing the factory reset, you can turn off backup by unchecking Settings -> Privacy -> Back up my data.  The Market will remember your paid apps.  If you're not going to root and use something like Titanium Backup for the other apps you do want to keep, you could do something like ls /data/app > /sdcard/apps.txt to record what apps you have and then refer to it afterwards, or use something like App List Backup.


How can I determine the SD card's path? I'm on a Thinkpad with Android 4.0.2 trying to open an HTML file on an SD card, using the default browser. Answers here have indicated you should access file:///mnt/sdcard, file:///mnt/sdcard-ext, file:///sdcard, and many other combinations, but none of them work for me: I just get "Webpage not available".

Apparently different machines mount the SD card to a different path. How can I find out which path my SD card is mounted to? Or if that's not the problem, what is?

adb shell 'echo ${SECONDARY_STORAGE%%:*}'


Convert number in call log to Gmail Contact When I get a call from some number I know I want to convert it into a contact. I expected to be able to do something like long press, then type the contact name, but when I long press and select add to contacts, it just kind of disappears into my contact list.
I'm sure everyone does this all the time, and so I am missing a really obvious way, but perhaps someone can enlighten me how to do this easily.

[edit]
Samsung Galaxy S, with Samsung overlay on Android 2.2, TMobile

Both Dialer and Contacts apps can vary per phone model due to Android OS version, as well as manufacturer or carrier overlay.

Usually though, in the call log when you tap on the new number it gives you an "Add to contacts" option.  At that point it brings up a list of all contacts, so that you can add this number to an existing contact. However, there should also be a button to create a new contact, which is probably what you're overlooking.


My new tablet tells me that I am making a wrong pattern and I am not able to use it I have been given by a EE shop an Android on contract. Brand new it came in a sealed box. I went home, nuwrapped the box, got the tablet, put the sim in ant switch it on. I was confronted with a new type of request  for me that up to now I’ve always used Apple: it asked me to digit a pattern to join some dots distributed on the screen. I have never been faced with such request and I joined few dots randomly. I never pressed any save or done ani thing to record that setting. I then tried to do it again, after I understood that the pattern would be my password to access the gadget, but as soon as two Frits were jointed together the tablet told me that it was wrong please try again.  I went to EE Shop and the staff just patronised me and told me that it is not their problem. Now I am left with a new tablet that I am paying for monthly and no way to make use of it

What actually happened there is that:
You were setting up the tablet and it asked you to set a pattern for unlock.

You then drew the pattern and repeated the same on reprompt. It got accepted and saved.

Now, you need to draw the same pattern to unlock the tablet.

Here's what you can do if you have forgotten the pattern that you have initially drawn:
Go into the recovery mode and perform a factory reset. Now, since this is an unknown tablet, running on gingerbread, I cannot suggest the exact key combination to enter the recovery mode. So, just keep on trying all these combinations one after other when the tablet is powered off.

Note: Press and hold the keys mentioned.

Volume Down + Power
Volume Up + Power
Volume Up + Power + Home
Volume Down + Power + Volume Up
Home + Power

In the recovery mode, you will get the options for wipe or factory reset. Just do it and your tablet should start from fresh. Be sure to read the instructions while setting it up this time.

If you know the manufacturer of the tablet, then please try searching their website or directly on Google about how to enter the recovery mode on it.


How long does a posted review last on the Android store? I have given reviews before and then came back some time later and noticed they were gone.

What is the duration that the android store displays my reviews?

Thanks!

If you try to leave a review again from the same account, does it let you?  Does it show the previous review, or act like nothing has been input before?

Reviews shouldn't age off (unless they're removed for profanity or other reasons), but some developers have noted that ratings suddenly disappeared from their app.  Maybe it was a one-time bug.


Unable to modify file permissions.xml, get error Read-only file system I have a rooted Galaxy S5 SM-G900V, lineage_klte, ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v71), Kernel: 3.4.113-lineageos #1 SMP, Oreo 8.1 that a friend asked me to modify.

I need to modify the platform.xml file to allow the system to write data to the external sd card. I need the ability to modify this file. The current permissions are:
rw-r--r-- 1 root root, however I am unable to save any modifications.

I am unable to modify the file permissions and would like to know how to do so. Note, I am looking how to change the file permissions and not how to or what syntax to use in the xml file, or if it will allow me to have the system recognize the external sd card for saving data. I am perplexed on why I am unable to modify this file.

> adb devices  <-- verify I have the device
> adb shell    <-- enter shell
> su           <-- super user
# ls -l
drwxr-xr-x  17 root   root      4096 2019-03-20 10:26     system
# cd system
#ls -l
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root     4096 2019-03-20 10:25 etc
# cd etc
 # ls -l
 > drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     560 2013-12-31 21:23 permissions
 # cd permissions
 # ls -l
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  9116 2008-12-31 18:00 platform.xml
 # chmod 755 platform.xml
 >> chmod: chmod 'platform.xml' to 100755: Read-only file system

So, how do I change the file attributes for platform.xml allowing it to be modified? I thought that there was a hidden immutable attribute on the file but there is not(at least that I can determine).

Related question, is there any other website to post this question? Any help is most appreciated.

I was only able to remount rw after
- removing addonsu (by sideloading in TWRP "su removal" from https://download.lineageos.org/extras)
- installing Magisk (easy, sideloading current release from https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases)

I was under the impression that addonsu does not fully grants permissions -- after all I found myself heading down this road when attempting to configure Titanium Backup.

By the way, TWRP has a commandline guide at https://twrp.me/faq/openrecoveryscript.html , all the above is as easy as adb reboot recovery, then adb shell twrp sideload which makes TWRP waiting for a file, so just serve it by e.g. adb shell twrp sideload ~/Downloads/Magisk-v19.3.zip


Can't delete file in download folder A few days ago, I downloaded a file of 1.9gb to my phone using the utorrent app. Utorrent downloaded the file automatically to my internal storage, and since I only had 2 gigs of free space, the download did stop after a while. when I saw it I deleted some files, and the download went on. When the download was finished, I decided to take a look in my folder but the folder which did have the name of the file that I downloaded was empty. So I checked my internal storage, but it was almost full, so the file must be somewhere on my device.

Furthermore can't I delete that empty folder. By the way: my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) is not rooted.

How can I find that file, and how can I delete that folder?

You could try SD Maid, and see if it can find the file. It has a feature that lets you search for the BIGGEST files. If that file was cached somewhere before it was put into the correct folder, chances are SD Maid might be able to find it.

I can't remember though if you need the Pro version to use the feature, but do check it out.


How to fix "Cant play this video" error in Camera MX Live Shots after upgrade? I use a Galaxy Note 4.  To get 'live shots', a few months ago I downloaded the app Camera MX.  I just received an OTA update to Marshmallow, and now every time I try to view live shots created before the update I get the error: "Can't play this video".

So far, I've found that the app stores the video clip that comprises the 'live shot' as a standard .mp4 video clip in a hidden folder '.LiveShot'.  I've tried to find some sort of file that maps the .jpg pictures to the corresponding .mp4 in the .LiveShot folder, but I can't seem to find anything.  I even used exiftool on the .jpg files to see if it was embedded somehow, but exiftool doesn't see it.  Is there some sort of fix out there for this problem?

After using exiftool I went one level deeper and just opened one of the .jpg files with a hex editor.  Turns out the path to the 'live shot' is indeed embedded in the .jpg file, just not as EXIF data (or at least not standard EXIF data that exiftool can read).  I put my SD card into my linux laptop and tried using the following sed command to fix them:

sed -i 's/\/storage\/extSdCard\/Android\/media\/com\.magix\.camera_mx\/Camera MX (SD)\/\.LiveShot/\/storage\/3F25-4093\/Android\/media\/com\.magix\.camera_mx\/Camera MX (SD)\/\.LiveShot/g' *.jpg

This worked for some of the files, but others (with even older paths such as /storage/emulated/0) simply became corrupt afterward.  If anyone knows of a better fix I'd love to hear it.


How do app updates work if the system partition is read only? I have a Android phone (Samsung). It comes with a whole bunch of pre-installed stock apps.

Q1: Is it correct that these stock apps are stored in the read-only partition /system?

Since getting the phone, I have updated most (if not all) of the stock apps via the Play Store.

Q2: Assuming app updates can't touch /system, how do they work? How can apps be updated if they are effectively read-only?

A1: I'm pretty positive that they are on the /system partition because you can't delete them, if you could, that would mean they are in /data partition or whatever it is called where the userspace is.

A2: I think they install updates in userspace, not in /system. The reason for believeing so is that after you update a system app, and you go in Settings -> Apps, it allows you to uninstall updates only, meaning that the update that was installed in userspace will get deleted but the original app, the version you got out of the box, is still left untact in /system, and you can't delete it.


Is there a way to block access to or wipe my Google data for a lost/stolen phone If my phone was ever lost or stolen, my only real concern is data and apps associated with my Google account, such as my Gmail, the ability to purchase apps from the Market, and maybe Picasa albums.

Is there a way to block access to these Google associated programs if I change my password or do something else with my account?

I would also be interested in any solution that remotely wipes my Google data.  I know remote wiping questions have been asked before, but I feel that my question is a little more broad, in the sense of overall protection of data in which wiping is a possible answer.

FYI, I'm running a Gingerbread-based ROM on my Samsung Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate).

EDIT: I now personally use AndroidLost. In addition to everything listed below, there is also an AndroidLost Jupstart app that will launch the service remotely if your phone is already lost without any locating software on it. It's pretty sweet:

Read SMS'es
Read the latest SMS'es from your phone and send them to your email.
Remote control alarm
Have you ever misplaced your phone which was put on silent mode? Now you may sound the alarm on your phone from your PC!
View on map
Find the location of your phone on a map. With AndroidLost you can find your phone with GPS precision. Even if the phone is indoor you will get a nearby location by network accuracy.
Send SMS'es from your PC
You can send SMS'es directly from your phone by typing them on AndroidLost. All replies will still go to your phone.
Lock the phone
You can lock and unlock the phone from the web. If you forget your pincode you can simply overwrite it or remove it by entering an empty pincode on the web.
Wipe the phone
Don't want your personal messages in the hands of anyone else? With AndroidLost you may wipe the entire phone so all SMS'es, contact and google setup is removed.
Pop up messages on the phone
Send a message to the friendly guy who have found your phone so you may let him know where to give it back.
Forward your calls
You can send keys to the dialer of your phone. That way you can forward your calls from your mobile to a nearby phone.
No battery use
AndroidLost will not use any battery since it does not poll any server to find out if it is lost. It uses the latest technology from google to send messages to the phone.
No pre installation required
You didn't install AndroidLost on your phone? No problem! You can push the AndroidLost app to your phone from google market and initiate the connection to googles servers by sending an SMS with the message "androidlost register" to your phone.
Read status
Detect how much battery is left, display IMEI, SIM card ID and much more.
SMS commands
You can set up a phonenumber which can control you phone, i.e. start the alarm by sending an SMS to your phone.
Erase SD card
Click a button and your SD card will be erased! Very useful if you have some naughty pictures on your sd card.
SIM card changed
When the SIM card is changed an email will be sent to the owner of the phone.
Hidden SMS
When the phone receives an SMS it plays a sound and displays an icon in the notification bar. But if it starts with androidlost it will not play any sound and not display any notification.
Call list
A list of incomming and outgoing calls will be sent to your email.
Camera
AndroidLost can take pictures with the front facing camera in case the phone is stolen. Only for android 2.3.
Tablets Honeycomb
I think I have fixed it so AndroidLost works on tablets. The call functions will obviously fail if the tablet have no phone installed.
Text to speech
You can make your phone speak out load. Suppose you have lost it on a café then you can make the phone say: 'I am lost - please pick me up!'
Multiple phones on the same account

Here are some others you can use:

SeekDroid does the following:

Locate your device
Remotely Enable GPS
Display its location on a map
Audible alarm (even on silent) w/ custom message
Lock device w/ custom code
Retrieve recent calls
Remotely wipe entire phone
Remotely wipe SD Card
Hide from app drawer
Disable App from being uninstalled
Virtually no battery drain
Works without a SIM Card
Reteive SIM ID, IMEI, and active phone number

and WatchDroidPro does the following:

Get your phone position (by network or GPS)
Retrieve current SIM information (useful when someone put another SIM card in your phone)
Share your position to friend
SIM substitute protection
Make it ringing even if the ringer is off
Wipe data
Lock your device

All of these should do what you're looking for :)


Do the rounded edges of the Galaxy 7 Edge cause distortion with Samsung Gear VR? I plan on buying a Galaxy 7 and a Gear VR. I know the Gear VR is compatible with both Edge and non-edge models. But, do the rounded edges of the Edge model create clipping or visual distortion when viewed through the Samsung Gear VR?

I have the S7Edge and purchased the S-VR latest (black) model and have had nor seen any issues with the edge of the screen at all.  Graphics are smooth and I didn't even think about this until stumbled across your question.  A nice combo but you can't go too long (30min) before the S7 heats up and you need to take a break.


Where to get or create an Android Lollipop iso for x64 environment? My question is simular to this question about iso for x86.

I am looking to dual-boot my Lenovo Yoga 3 pro with Android L and I need an x64 iso.
I can not use an x86 as it is not able to install to my hard disk partitioned with GPT.
Where can I find an Andorid L x64 iso?

I am willing to try to create an iso on my own. Does anyone know how to do this?

To get Android Lollipop or another flavor of Android on your x64 laptop I recommend to use an Android disto called RemixOS. They have 64-bit support. There is another Android project called Phoenix OS that is similar but only x86.


Missed calls log not showing in Lenovo A7000 My mobile is Lenovo A7000 with Android lolipop
Recently I the missed call logs not showing, sometimes for one or the other number it shows, it might be stored contact or new but the log is not happening, I also cleared the logs and cleared cache memory of call logs, but not fixed.
I tried updating firmware too but no use.
Please suggest me, thanks.

Today I was checking my phone for call log but didn't find anything, but after while I open securezone from statusbar on home screen all call logs are visible. So turn on secure zone.


Is it possible to update from Android 4.2 to 4.4 without disturbing the bootloader? I have, for example, downloaded an update from android 4.1 to 4.2. All it consisted of was 10 new system apps, 5 libraries, 3 fonts, and a new bootanimation.
What I would like to know is if an update from 4.2 to 4.4 could be done as simply, like by changing out some system apps and/or libraries?

KitKat has introduced SELinux therefore you can't just update by changing out some system apps and/or libraries.
Nevertheless, while this is a broad statement you may succeed for updating single apk files.


How to reset location_provider_allowed as the first, my environment:

Samsung S7, LineageOS 14.1, which is Android 7.2.1.

I'm using tasker to set GPS On and Off in this way:

GPS On:

settings put secure location_providers_allowed +gps,network,wifi

GPS Off:

settings put secure location_providers_allowed -gps,network,wifi

Both script are running as root.

Somethink happend (maybe during I tested this scripts) and now I can't switch my GPS Off (in Settings menu), and when I list my settings in this way:

settings list secure

I can see this:

  location_providers_allowed=wifi,wifi,+network,+wifi,+network,+wifi,+network,...+wifi,network,network

It is very long line with cyclic contents.

Please, is there a way to reset this setting (perhaps another than factory reset of phone)?

Thanks in advance.

You should be able to change it to blank by executing

settings put secure location_providers_allowed ' '

If that doesn't work, directly modify the file settings_secure.xml located at /data/system/users/0/. Look for the line containing location_providers_allowed and edit the value for it.


Given that every application runs as a separate user, what happens when you want to add a new user account? According to this, every application in Android runs as a separate kernel-level user, with a unique user ID and group ID.

So, what happens under the hood when you add a new user (e.g. to your shared tablet)?

The Linux user IDs that Android uses to isolate apps from each other are completely unrelated to user profiles on Android 4.2 tablets.

In Android, each app gets its own directory for saving data. The Linux user ID system is used to make sure apps can't read each others' data. But all these data directories are inside one directory on the filesystem, /data/user/0. Let's say the first user is called Abulurd, and he installs the app Showr. It might be given user ID 1004, and the directory /data/user/0/com.shadowburst.showr.

Now, let's say you create a new user profile for Beatrice. She gets a fresh directory, /data/user/1, which starts off empty. When she logs into the device, and installs Showr, it doesn't download the app again (because the Android app installer knows the APK file is already on the device), but it does create a new user ID 1007 (for example), and a new directory /data/user/1/com.shadowburst.showr.

Android uses Linux filesystem permissions, and the different Linux user IDs, not only to make sure that Abulurd's Showr can't read the data of Abulurd's other apps, but also that Abulurd's Showr can't read the data of Beatrice's Showr. The two instances of Showr run in different processes, with different user IDs.

If you're familiar with Linux terminology, making a new user profile is similar to using chroot on the device to get an isolated part of the filesystem to run apps in.

What I've described is the usual process, but just as apps can be written to share a data directory with other apps by the same developer (signed with the same key), Android gives apps the opportunity to say they work with multiple users. This way, an app can be written to have one process for all the user profiles, to let them share data or perform some special function. The lock screen has to work this way, for instance, because all user profiles share one lock screen app, which has to read all users' lock-screen settings.


Add multiple Gmail accounts in Gmail app Is there a way to do this?

I currently have Android 4.1.2 on an S3, and while I can do this on the e-mail app, I much prefer to use the Gmail app for its interface.

I know that this was possible in earlier versions.

Is this still possible, and if so how?

There's nothing special you need to do within Gmail. (In fact, there's nothing you can do in Gmail.)

Simply add the Google account(s) to your device under Settings > Accounts > Add account. (It will then appear there listed under "Google Account".)

After that make sure you're syncing Gmail plus whatever other Google services you want (or not).


If I select 'lock device' in Android device manager, will it affect scheduled alarms? I have left my phone at my girlfriend's house - it's definitely there according to the location feature in Android device manager.

There is an alarm set for really early in the morning, which it would be great to turn off.  If I select 'Lock device', will this have any effect on the preset, scheduled alarm set in the stock clock/alarm app?

Presumably I could definitely stop the alarm if I selected 'Erase device' but this seems like a drastic option!

No,no effect on the preset, scheduled alarm set in the stock clock/alarm app because the alarming processes are generally given in a 'Android Service', that is a background process. Lock screen will not affect a background process.


Set TreehouseGO app to use the memory card for downloads? I installed the TreehouseGo app on my wife's Galaxy S4 phone so that she can entertain our daughter while she goes on a trip with her. However, when I tried to download some episodes, I found that there is only 9 MB available to it and that it won't download anything as a result.

So, I went out and got a 64 GB mini SD card, but the app didn't see the new storage. I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, but it still only sees the internal memory.

How do I get the app to see the SD card so that I can download some of the videos? I can't seem to find any settings for that in either the app or the App Manager settings for the phone.

I got in touch with the help desk for the TreehouseGo app, and they told me that it's not even an option to let the app use the SD card; although they did say that it was a great suggestion and that they would consider implementing it.


Micro SD Card Suddenly not Recognized in Phone Slot Only This has been bothering me for weeks. I have an android phone (Moto X Pure) that allows for an external storage card to be added. I have one SD card that I was using for a while but I got a new one that I wanted to switch to. The first time I put this card in my phone, it saw it and was happily ready to format it and everything. I accidentally formatted it as a media transfer card instead of an addition to internal storage so I took it out to format it on my computer (with fat32) but when I put the card back in the phone, it wasn't detected. At all. All of my computers seem to like it just fine, a friend's phone was even okay with it. It is literally only my phone that seems to have issues with it. My other micro SD cards are fine in my phone as well. If I connect the SD card through the USB port, the phone recognizes it, but only as a file transfer drive.

I've tried rebooting the device, formatting the card, formatting the card from another phone, and trying to find the card with a file manager from both the phone and a computer with the phone hooked up to it. It seems as though that one SD card just refuses to work with that one slot!

Any help getting the micro SD card to work in my phone would be greatly appreciated!

You may be experiencing some specific partitioning incompatibility. Try to compare the partition table of cards mountable in your phone with the unmountable card.
Here are some things you might want to take note of:

File systems (exFAT, FAT32, ext4, etc).
GPT vs. MBR.
Hidden partitions or unused spaces preceding the main data partition.