Is there a way/app to block outgoing international calls, without activating the network provider's International Call Barring? I 'accidentally' dial international numbers a lot - don't ask why, long story :). Is there an app that would restrict me from calling international numbers, or warn me before connecting the call?

I can put in a request for International Call Barring with my network provider, but that disables calling premium UK numbers as well (I'm with O2 in the UK). Plus I'd like to make the odd intentional overseas call.

there seems to be a range of apps that may do what you are trying to accomplish.

here are a couple that look like they have potential.

Root Call Blocker Pro
Call Guard
Call Blocker Gold
Outgoing Call Blocker


SSHDroid allows access into a subdirectory by default. How do I access other directories? When I ssh into my phone via SSHDroid, it sets me at the following path by default.

/data/data/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/home/

I can use cd to maneuver around but it causes problems when I try to use scp because files are obviously not stored in this directory. It there anyway to change this setting?

try pushd and popd, [not exactly an answer to your settings question but, it might work] assuming you have root privilege.

Okay for this example i am starting in /storage/extSdCard and need to copy target tass.txt from /sdcard/tess

extSdCard # HERE=$PWD
extSdCard # echo $HERE
/storage/extSdCard
extSdCard # pushd /sdcard/tess
~/tess /storage/extSdCard
tess # pwd
/sdcard/tess
tess # ls $PWD
tass.txt
tess # cp * $HERE
tess # popd
/storage/extSdCard
extSdCard # ls tass.txt
tass.txt
extSdCard # popd
tmp-mksh: popd: directory stack empty
extSdCard #


Select my own ringtone on Samsung s7 but only Sound picker is available I can select only Sound picker as source for my own sound files when choosing ringtone. Right before I could select Google drive and some more.

How can I get the choice back?

TL;DR

When going Settings->Sounds and vibration->Ringtone->(+)Add from phone I got 3 or 4 choices of source. GoogleDrive, Soundpicker, ...
I picked Soundpicker just to see what it was. (but decided I don't want a Samsung app to get even more of my data)
So I did the Settings->...->(+)Add from phone again but this time I could not choose any source any more but Soundpicker was automatically launched.

Is there a way to reset this setting? so I can choose, say, GoogleDrive.

Or any other way to get a sound of my own as ringtone?

All you have to do, is clear defaults for the sound picker app. To do so, go to settings → application manager (apps) → in the three dots menu, select "show system apps" → sound picker → defaults → clear defaults.

After clearing defaults, you will now be able to choose between the other options.

Oh and usually even within the sound picker you should be able to scroll all the way down, and it will have an option to choose a track from your phone.


How can I change the behavior of the volume buttons vs. the orientation of the screen On the Acer Iconia A200, when you change the orientation of the screen, the function of the volume rocker flips. In landscape mode, with the volume rocker on the right side and at the top, you find that 'down' on the rocker turns down the volume.

Now, flip the device 90 degrees left to a portait orientation, with the volume rocker on the top left. Now the same press that was 'down' before is 'right' and it turns the volume UP.

In other words, the action of the volume rocker is sensitive to the orientation of the device.

I haven't found any way to control this yet in the settings - is there any way to change this behavior? I'll eventually get used to it, but for the moment it's driving me batty.

Added: After seeing Zuul's answer talking about the gpio_keys.kl file, AND getting a bluetooth keyboard, I did some experimenting. When using a bluetooth keyboard, the bluetooth vol up/down buttons are independent of tablet orientation. So either some bit of software checks where the key is coming from and remaps or not as appropriate, OR the swap is happening at some lower layer (i.e. before it becomes a key code).

How things currently work

The Android OS uses a file to map the volume buttons in order to know what to do when they get pressed:

The file:

/system/usr/keylayout/gpio-keys.kl

Contains two lines for the volume buttons:

key 115 VOLUME_UP WAKE_DROPPED
key 114 VOLUME_DOWN WAKE_DROPPED

They aren't "orientation sensitive", just like their physical position on the device.

The issue you're facing, many other tablet owners face, that has to do with the logical position on the action. If we press the down part of the button, the volume should go down, but depending on the orientation, the down part actually raises the volume.

I do believe that the device rotation should account for factors such as this, as to prevent users from having to "create" weird habits for a simple "lower the volume" action. But on the other hand, that's why the volume buttons on your tablet are punctuated by three raised dots for easy tactile recognition.

Possible solution for rooted devices

Since this buttons in order to be changed need to be altered at a "system level", the action must be performed with root privileges on the device.

While the following two solutions cannot deal with orientation-specific scenarios, they are useful to remap the buttons as to have them adjusted to the tablet orientation in which we get most confused about:

Application: ButtonRemapper - Beta v0.2.4

  Tool to remap the hardware buttons. Or better: a generic tool to edit the key layout map file Android uses to map the keys.

XDA Developers forum thread with extensive details by the author

Manual Edit of the file: gpio-keys.kl:

With a root File Manager, travel to /system/usr/keylayout and long touch the file gpio-keys.kl;
From the pop up menu, select "Properties";
Change the file permissions to rw-rw-rw- in order to be able to alter its contents;
After having the new permissions, open the file with a text editor;
Search within the file for the following two lines:

key 115 VOLUME_UP WAKE_DROPPED
key 114 VOLUME_DOWN WAKE_DROPPED

Update the lines by swapping the key numbers so it becomes:

key 114 VOLUME_UP WAKE_DROPPED
key 115 VOLUME_DOWN WAKE_DROPPED

Save the changes and reboot your tablet.

You should now have the actions of the volume up/down buttons toggled as they best fit your portrait orientation.

To undo it, just reverse these directions.

Credits for the file edit solution are attributed to user jbeige from thriveforums.org.

After reading your device manual, other tablet manuals and the specifications from the Android OS, this are the best solutions I was able find to work around your issue.


Why isn't Xposed framework available on Google Play? So why isn't Xposed framework available on Play Store? Also, why are modules available there?

From XDA - Xposed FAQ,

  Why isn't the Xposed Installer available via Play Store?

  I [read: the developer] have several reasons for that. I wrote about it in this post. And as I learned, Google does indeed sometimes remove apps which interfere with other apps.

  From my point of view, you are free to publish the modules you develop on Play Store (at your own risk - Google might remove them). However, be careful if you plan to get money from them. Paid apps are stored in encrypted containers, which means Xposed can't load them at boot time.

From "this post", which explains a number of reasons,

  Currently, I don't plan to release the framework elsewhere. I had some vague plans to release it on Play Store, but there are some reasons for me not to do it:

  The rudeness in comments and ratings is unacceptable. This isn't for single apps, it's the overall feeling I have. I spend much time on Xposed and everything around, I don't want someone to insult me for it.
  Limited supporting capabilities. I think you can reply to comments now, but a dialog with the affected user would be required to fix bugs that may occur.
  Unexperienced users. In the best case, you just need to install the Xposed Installer, click the button, install a module and activate it. Restart and you're done. But problems do occur, sometimes resulting in bootloops. I hope that most users here will be able to make their phone boot again (if only by restoring a nandroid backup). I don't expect that from the average Android user, even if the description says "ROOT" and "BE CAREFUL!!!". I recommend these users stay off from risky modifications like this one.
  When somebody writes a module and publishes on the Play Store as well, their users might have trouble using it. Then these users will need to communicate with the developer of the module, but they might also contact me directly. Or if the developer doesn't know the answer, he might contact me. I would have to expect more support requests on different channels. More time spent on support => less time for private life and coding => less fun.
  Not sure what Google thinks about apps which interfere on such a deep level with their baby.


Phone number and Google+ account Google recently updated Hangouts so that SMS and hangout are in the Same chat. Some of my contacts have multiple email with multiple Google plus accounts. My issue is that it randoms picked the account and they aren't the accounts I want them to be. Does anyone know of a way to fix this?

Can't you just split the contact up in two? so if the account have two Google accounts it is just two contacts on your address book.
It looks to me that you are only able to choose between more numbers, so if your contacts have multiple phone numbers you can choose between them, but emails you aren't. (even when they are added as Hangout emails and is a verified Google+ account.)
The way i would do it is split them up in multiple contacts and then make a group chat with that person that have more then one Google account.


LG V20 turns off wifi when phone goes to sleep LG V20 WiFi turns off sometime while in sleep mode.  Have to go into settings, Turn on WiFi and Connect to available WiFi when I want to use the phone.
I found other people that have the same problem on other brand phones but answers to the problem do not help me with the problem no matter how I try to apply those answers. My phones settings options are not the same as other brands/models.

Go to WiFi settings and check whether "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" is set to always. Hope this helps


Set the background image of the main menu in Lollipop Since Lollipop it seems like the background of the menu you reach when pressing the "menu" bottom at the middle of the bottom of the phone is not the desktop background anymore but rather is just white. Can I somehow set it to be again the desktop background?
This is Android 5.0.2 on a Moto G (2nd gen)

From what I'm reading, this must be something they took off for Android 5.0 Lollipop, as it sounds as if you need a custom ROM, or a special launcher to make this happen again.  It no longer supports having the background image on the menu.

In Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google introduced a white background to the app drawer screens. This follows their material design philosophy, but may be too bright for some of us.
There is no setting to switch app drawer themes or get KitKat's dark semi-transparent background back, but you can change this by installing a different launcher app.

Source 1
Source 2


Phone app comes up when the phone is unlocked by swiping I have a Motorola Moto G and have just upgraded to Lollipop.
Every time I wake the phone up by swiping/logging in, the phone app comes up as if I want to make a call.

Is there any way to stop this happening? I'd prefer just to see my home screen.

If you just upgraded to Lollipop, my guess is you're swiping from the left side to the right side, the way you did pre-Lollipop. That doesn't work on Lollipop. Lollipop is unlocked by swiping from the bottom to the top. Swiping from the left to the right unlocks you directly into the phone app (which is why its icon is in the bottom left of the lock screen), and swiping from the right to the left unlocks you directly into the camera (which is why there's a camera icon on the right).

Takes a few days to get used to swiping up instead, but once you do, you're golden.


Why does my phone need to connect to google servers? You can tell the difference between when your phone is connected to Google's servers, and when it isn't by the following in 4.3:

Connected

Not connected

Please note one is blue and one is grey.

My question is why is it necessary for the phone to connect to Google's servers at all?

Lots of apps use this connection to do their work. As well as Google's own apps such as Gmail and Hangouts, third-party apps that use any of the following features via the Google Play services library need such a connection to work fully:

license verification or in-app purchases
push notifications using Google Cloud Messaging
Signing in with your Google account or syncing or backing up your data to Google's servers
Most Google Play Games Services features (e.g. online multiplayer and leaderboards)

Even so, the indicator isn't really meant as an indicator about Google's servers. Since Google's servers are always there, Android checks if it can reach them as a way of knowing whether it can reach the Internet in general. That way, it's easier for you to know what is wrong if you're on a captive Wi-Fi network; that is, the kind that redirects you to a login or terms & conditions page.


Enable hotspot / tethering on Nexus 5X + 6P without a subscription plan? Root and no Root Is there a way to enable hotspot / tethering for the Nexus 5X and 6P even if you don't have a subscription plan for it? How do you do it via rooted phone and a non-rooted phone?

With rooting

(tested on 6.0.1 on 2016-05-10  and 7.1.1 on 2017-02-09)

Flash TWRP 3.0
Root your system with superuser.zip
Download ES file explorer
Remount /system to be read-write
Goto /system and edit build.prop
On the last line enter: net.tethering.noprovisioning=true
Then, adb shell settings put global tether_dun_required 0
reboot

Without rooting

You only need your sim tool and the phone.

open the sim tray but don't take out the sim card.
push the sim tray back in the phone.
wait 4-5 seconds and then activate hotspot in the settings->more->tethering

Works for Verizon and AT&T. I have not tested this on any other carriers. This works by turning on the hotspot while the phone is provisioning. If you attempt to do this too soon or too late you will trigger the subscription check.
You will need to perform this everytime you want tethering if you turn tethering off or reboot the phone.


What is the MIN # that looks like a cell number under my actual cell number? When I go to settings, scroll all the way down to "About Phone", and tap on it, all this info pops up. Like MAC address or IP address if you use data. Phone Status and so on. I see my cell number then under it is a MIN # that looks like an actual cell phone number. I called it and a dude named Bill answered. I'm so confused. What is this??

The MIN # is the Mobile Identification Number.  This number is used to uniquely identify your phone within your mobile carriers network and may or may not be the same as your cell phone number, also known the Mobile Directory Number or MDN.  The MIN, just like the MDN, is limited to 10 digits so it appears to be a phone number but is not.


Any reasons to update Android from stock firmware (via PC) rather than OTA? Is there any reason to update Android firmware (5.1.1 -> 6.0.1) via PC using software like Odin, rather than just doing an OTA update? Is there any difference between the two methods in terms of performance, battery life, etc.?

Is there any reason to update Android firmware via PC using software like Odin, rather than just doing an OTA update?

Yes.

Since Android Lollipop, Google has moved to block based OTA updates which means if the system partition is tampered with (often done when rooting the device) the OTA upgrade would and should fail. How would you update the OS then?
In Android versions prior to 5.0, OTA update still fails sometimes because checksum for a file in system partition doesn't match. How would you update the OS now?
During OTA upgrade, some users report the device being stuck in recovery mode. How would you update the OS now?

Note: I've never found an incremental update that can be flashed via fastboot and I'm not familiar with Odin or the likes of it.

  Is there any difference between the two methods in terms of performance, battery life, etc.?

I can't give an objective view but note that there are multiple reports on this site where you would notice that OTA (it usually do a dirty flash) upgrade  caused performance issues, such as sluggish animation, frequent app crashes (result of dirty flash), automatic reboot and issues with functionality of some apps. Often, a factory-reset fixes them.

In the case of flashing the OS from PC, you're most likely going to clear the data partition as well so the resultant, once the flashing is completed, would be equivalent of buying a  device with OS shipped from a vendor. If the OS isn't faulty, you shouldn't be having major issues.

I speak from experience with OnePlus One. OTA never worked for me. They either caused overheating or radio issues.


I want to delete my Whatsapp account I don't want to appear on my friend's phone. I want to delete my Whatsapp account. Will my number disappear from my all friend's Whatsapp friend list when I delete my Whatsapp account? Basically, how can I remove my number from everyone's Whatsapp account?

You can delete your whatsapp account through the following steps.

Open WhatsApp.
Press the [Menu Button] => Settings => Account => [Delete My Account].
Enter your phone number in the full international format and tap [Delete My Account].

Please keep in mind that deleting your account is an irreversible process, we cannot undo a deletion if you complete the process by accident.

Goto whatsapp FAQ for more infomation


Open source flashlight app? On my new phone, for security reasons I decided to stick to Open Source apps as much as possible.

Is there an Open Source flashlight app?

The most popular flashlight apps (1,2) are asking for crazy permissions: GPS, camera, Internet, GPS, SD card...

If no Open Source is available, at least one I would be happy with a very simple one, such as this one (white screen, brightness 100%, lock screen) which for some reason is not available for my new phone.

Search Light is open source, has no unnecessary permissions, and has a nice set of operating modes.


Can I connect my Android Mini PC to my VGA Monitor through Adapter? I am buying a new Android Mini PC. It has HDMI Output but I want to connect it to my VGA Monitor.

So, Can I use this HDMI Male to VGA Female Video Converter Adapter to connect the VGA cable of my Monitor and use HDMI to HDMI Joiner Connector to join the main adapter cable and the Mini PC?

Will this work? Any Help would be appreciated.

Yes it will work. however i can see that this will have lag and will not be sutiable if your going to be playing games and some heavy HD Movies. you'll just get the bare minimum quality. I Would recommend http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-DA-HDVG-Converter-Adapter-INCLUDED/dp/B006FYPT60

Ofcourse if you only need the bare minimum of surfing the web, email, photos, videos, music. i would go with http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Measy--H2V-1080P-HDMI--to-VGA--convertor-cable-for-Android-TV-Box---TV-Stick---MINI-PC-314924.html
as it has audio output also. :) Hope this helps


What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc.? What is the difference between:

Unlocking the bootloader (prerequisite for doing many, though not all, other things below)
Rooting
Jailbreaking
ROM
NAND and Nandroid
Operating System
Mod (e.g. CyanogenMod)
Recovery (ClockworkMod, Amon Ra)
Custom Kernel (e.g. LeshaK's kernel)
Firmware
Driver
Over The Air (OTA) update
Fastboot
SIM unlocking
Flashing
SPL (Second Program Loader)

(any other often-confused terms that I've missed?)

Rooting and Jailbreaking are essentially the same things, Jailbreaking is the iPhone users' word for what Android users call Rooting. Rooting is when you gain "Root" access to the phone giving you the power to do anything you want to it (it comes from the Unix Root User, essentially the Unix equivalent to the Windows Administrator account). Normally you're prevented from being Root for your own good, as it's very easy to break your phone once you have root access, and quite hard to break it without. More info: What does “to root a phone” mean? and I've rooted my phone. Now what? What do I gain from rooting?

A Nandroid backup is a backup of your phone that is an exact image of the state of your phone. So you could make an exact copy of your current phone, then do major changes to it, and then restore to your previous backup by flashing the backup back to the phone. Flashing means to copy or to install.... you are essentially wiping the device and restoring a previous state (a backup) or you are flashing a new ROM (see below).  NAND is your device's flash storage, which is why copying files there is called "flashing".

The Android operating system is the software that manages the hardware in an Android phone such as the screen, data communications, storage, camera and GPS. It provides a common layer that allows applications the use of and access to these resources on a range of different devices without the app having to know anything special about the actual hardware that it is running on. The Android Operating System also includes a number of standard apps and services such as the Contacts, Camera, Photo Gallery and web browser apps and allows the user to do such things as control the screen brightness or connect to wifi networks.

Although the real definitions are different, in the Android world, ROM, Mod, and Firmware are all used as if they mean essentially the same thing. They all refer to a customised version of the Android operating system that has been modified to work on a particular brand of phone with a specific set of customisations or changes. This can be done so that an old phone like the G1 can be given a brand new version of Android, such as 2.2 even if the manufacturer has decided not to provide it. Or could be to provide extra functionality not available in the manufacturer's supplied version of Android, or to fix problems in the manufacturer supplied version.  More info: What's the difference between an AOSP ROM and a stock ROM?, What are the advantages of a custom ROM?, Why are there so many different Android kernels and Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?

A Driver is what tells the Android software operating system how to talk to all the different hardware that is in an Android phone. When someone is putting together a ROM for a particular phone model they will need to include of all that phone's drivers inside the ROM (for things like the cellular modem, WiFi access, the particular camera type, the specific processor, etc) otherwise the ROM either won't work on that phone, or will only be able to work certain parts of the phone and, for instance, may not be able to use the front-facing camera, or may not be able to connect to a WiFi network. This is exactly the same as when you plug something new into Windows and it runs the New Hardware Added wizard and goes looking for a new driver before you can use it.  Drivers are loaded by the kernel, the core of the operating system.

An Over The Air (OTA) update is when your phone receives an update to its Android operating system "over the air", ie it is sent the files automatically over the cellular network from either Google or from your phone network without ever needing to be plugged into a PC. This contrasts with the way that, for example, the iPhone was originally updated where it needed to be physically plugged into a computer running iTunes to get its updates.

The bootloader controls how the device boots.  Google's PC-side tool for getting into the bootloader and other related tasks is called Fastboot, and running the bootloader interactively may be called "Fastboot mode".  A locked bootloader will verify the Android system partition and restore it to stock if it doesn't match, whereas an unlocked bootloader doesn't do the same checking, which is why unlocking the bootloader is required to permanently root a device.

The term recovery is often used to mean several different things. It could mean a mode of operation for the phone. For example, to boot into recovery mode on Atrix 4G MB860 olympus, one must:

power-off the phone
hold PWR and VOL DOWN buttons simultaneously until phone display shows "Fastboot"
touch and release VOL DOWN repeatedly (seven times) until "Fastboot" changes to read, "Android Recovery"
touch and release VOL UP button to choose this option
Finally, when the phone displays a triangle surrounding an exclamation point adjacent to a green android robot, then either:

if using Android 2.2 (Froyo), then touch lower-right corner of phone display
if using Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), then hold both VOL UP and VOL DOWN buttons simultaneously

to enter Android Recovery mode.

This is a mode of operation that allows the user to make major changes to the phone. Or recovery could also mean the recovery partition on the phone. Or recovery could also mean the image file (filename.img) that can be flashed to the recovery partition. For example, the Atrix 4G MB860 olympus ships with a stock recovery image flashed to the recovery partition, and booting into recovery mode on such a stock phone allows the user to make some major changes to the phone:

reboot system now
apply sdcard:update.zip
wipe data/factory reset
wipe cache partition

It is possible (though this usually requires an unlocked bootloader) to replace the code that executes in Android Recovery mode by replacing the stock recovery image that the manufacturer installed on the recovery partition with a custom recovery image like ClockworkMod. Installing and executing the code in a custom recovery image often allows the user to make many more comprehensive changes to the phone and also often allows the user to make Nandroid backups and restore these backups to the phone.

The bootloader may also play some part in flashing firmware, though this is usually part of recovery.  While you normally don't want to mess with the bootloader, advanced users will often flash a custom recovery like ClockworkMod (though a locked bootloader may prevent this).  This allows one to flash firmware that hasn't been signed by the manufacturer (such as custom ROMs), since stock recovery usually checks for the signature, and do advanced tasks like complete Nandroid backups.  Recovery is a bit like the BIOS boot screen on PCs in that you get to it by pressing a special combination of buttons as the phone starts up.  Recovery can also do things like run an update file from the phone's SD card, or let you connect from a PC via ADB (Android Debug Bridge) to manage the device from the command line.
More info: What is the relation between ROM Manager, ClockworkMod and Nandroid? Which one(s) do I need?

Many mobile phone networks that sell GSM phones on a contract restrict the phone so that it can only be used on their phone network, this is known as a SIM lock, network lock or subsidy lock. This allows a provider to ensure that a phone that they've subsidised can only be used on a network that will help them them recoup that money. The phone reads the IMSI code of the inserted SIM card and checks that it corresponds with the allowed country or network codes that the phone has been programmed with. SIM unlocking removes this restriction from a phone so that any network's SIM card can be inserted and used. This generally involves typing a code into the phone's dialler that removes the lock. There are different ways to get this code depending on your device and network, some networks will give you the unlock code once you reach the end of your contract's term, some manufacturers publish these codes on their websites, some manufacturers embed these codes into their devices in a way that can be extracted by an app and some require use of special PC software to reprogram the phone. The SIM lock is usually implemented in hardware/read-only firmware, so it's generally not possible to unlock your device without a code.
More info: Can I use my device on a different carrier?

Related: Another question that explains some parts of the Android platform in terms familiar to users of traditional computer systems is:
In normal computer terms, what are the different parts of an Android system?


Galaxy Tab 10.1 wifi stuck in 'Obtaining IP Address' mode Using 'Virtual Router Plus' to set up a wifi hotspot on my desktop. I can manually connect with my tablet devices a first time, but after a couple hours it times out, disconnects.

I am unable to connect a 2nd time, my Galaxy Tab is stuck in 'Obtaining IP Address' mode. Is their a way to force an Android device to 'remember' and automatically reconnect to a previous hotspot?

"Obtaining IP Address" message means that your device has automatically reconnected to the AP.  Most likely than not the problem is on the PC side.


Error message in Words With Friends is preventing download? - "You already own this item." I am trying to setup my replaced phone back up for Words With Friends as it was before, but
I am getting this error:

  "You already own this item."

when trying to re-purchase the Ultimate Play Pack.

It may be related to the fact that Words With Friends was moved to my data originally. How do I get past this and/or re-purchase ultimate pack and other items?

I have a few apps that I want back on my phone. Will I have to re-purchase them or is there a way get re-installed with or without repurchasing?

You may have to contact the Words With Friends developers and request that they restore your purchases. They should restore automatically if you're logging into app with the same credentials however, some developers tend not to use this method so you have to buy the packs again. It's an easy way to make a few extra dollars.

The fact you're getting the message that you've already purchased the pack is a good sign. Get a hold of the developers and see if there is anything they can do.


Unable to access files in Samsung Galaxy Android 4.0 I am connecting a Samsung Galaxy Note II(Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich) to Ubuntu 12.04 laptop through USB. I am able to see the directories like Music, files, Bluetooth, ShareViaWiFi etc. I also see a message at the top right corner which says "These files are on a digital audio player" but when I open these directories I am unable to see any file. I want to copy a media file located in ShareViaWiFi folder to my Ubuntu laptop. But I am unable to see the file when I open the folder in Ubuntu. I can see the file in the Samsung Galaxy, so I know it is there for sure.

To start make sure your device is unplugged. Then run:

df -h

that will show you the list of currently mounted devices. Now plug in your device and run the same command again. You should see that there is a new device mounted. Now all you have to do is cd into that mount point to access the files. Here is my example output:

john-macbookpro:~ John$ df -h
Filesystem                          Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused     ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                       297Gi   68Gi  229Gi    23% 17872734  60060168   23%   /

#plugged in device

john-macbookpro:~ John$ df -h
Filesystem                          Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused     ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                       297Gi   68Gi  229Gi    23% 17872734  60060168   23%   /
/dev/disk3s1                       983Mi   13Mi  970Mi     2%      512         0  100%   /Volumes/BACKUP ONLY
john-macbookpro:~ John$ cd /Volumes/BACKUP\ ONLY/
john-macbookpro:BACKUP ONLY John$ ls
hello.txt
john-macbookpro:BACKUP ONLY John$ cp hello.txt /Users/John/Documents/
john-macbookpro:BACKUP ONLY John$ cat /Users/John/Documents/hello.txt
Hello!

If for some reason your device is not getting mounted, you should try to download ADB:

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/installing-adb-on-ubuntu-the-easy-way/

run ADB and it should try to manage your Android device.

adb start


Are there browsers that automate download time? Are there any browsers that automate downloading time? For example I want to download a huge file during a certain time that I would be unavailable with my device but I'd like the file being downloaded at that exact time. Are there any android browsers that support this kind of feature?
If there aren't what are the ways that I can achieve this?

ADM - Advanced Download Manager

It has a browser and scheduled download capability.. It also can intercept the clipboard for download links etc...


Should I charge phone overnight or let battery down to a minimum? For many times I found myself in a situation, that my battery charge was about 25-30% when I was going to sleep. Since I was always told to not let battery down below 20% (correct me, if that's wrong) I was faced with two options in this situation:

plug phone to charger and let it charge for entire night,
leave it and let it down to about 10-15%, that is below wrong level for battery charge.

I was always wondering, what option is best for my battery's life and phone's overall performance.

Can someone provide information, which option is better in mentioned situation?

Never let it run down below 10% if you can help it. Running down to "absolute zero" harms your battery (and might even render it inoperable – which is why most devices shut-down before reaching that point). Modern LiIo batteries don't suffer from "memory effect", so ideally you'd plug-in a charger whenever possible: "trickle-charging" doesn't hurt them, low charge (less than 5% definitely) shortens their life-span.

For details, please check with...

our battery-life tag-wiki
What can I do to increase battery life on my Android device?
Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone?
Wikipedia: Lithium Ion batteries
our battery tag-wiki
When should I start charging my Lithium battery?
How frequently is it okay to let the battery discharge fully or as low as possible?


Sync music tags to PC My music library is located in my PC, and it is copied to my phone SD using the media player I use in the PC.
Now, I listen to music mostly out of home, using the phone. I think it is safer to keep the music library master in the PC (I can lose my phone or it can be stolen). It often happens that I find a song which tags (ID3 for instance) need to be edited/corrected.

Is there a way to correct them and ensure the music in the PC is synced later?
I would like to get a solution which operates on the player level. For example, I would like to edit tags while listening to music in the phone, that would sync later on with my PC.

I use Ubuntu in my PC, with Rhythmbox player. Anyway I am open to alternatives.

If you are open to alternative ways of syncing, you might want to take a look at e.g. FolderSync:

It enables you to sync selected locations with different cloud services, but also with your local "home network". You can set it to automatically synchronize, or have it done manually on-demand.

For your issue, you could set either the base directory of your music to completely synchronize between your Android device and your PC, or chose selected directories. So when you updated some tags, only those files should be "copied to the other side", as the others have not changed. Same applies if you add new music files.

There are some other apps in the playstore doing the same job, just in case you want some alternatives. One of them would be FTPSyncX which, other than its name suggests, also handles different protocols (Samba/Windows Shares, SFTP/SSH, FTPS).


Can you link an Andoird phone into your home internet without having to pay for a monthly service? I have never had a phone before. Can phones do this?

I want an Android phone.

I want it to be able to download stuff from the Google Play store.

I would like it to be able to do this using my existing home internet router, without the need for a further monthly subscription to some phone-based data plan. (I only intend to use this phone from home. I am with Sky Broadband for my home router.)

I would like the phone to be as cheap as possible, about £50 or slightly above. (I want to make sure it is right for me before spending loads of cash.)

I would like it to be able to play simple games like checkers, chess etc.

I live in the UK, if that is important.

I bet your home router supports WiFi. It's the same wireless networking technology that laptops use to connect to the Internet. Android devices have WiFi too, you can enable it and connect to your router to use its Internet connection.


Missing internal flash memory and SD card does not mount Some time ago I installed a custom firmware (YAR28) on my Archos 7HT. This worked fine for a while, until some day when I switched it on it showed the initial startup screen, and after that all my installed apps were gone. So I re-installed the stock firmware from Archos. But then I found out I could no longer access the sd-card. It was not mounted when I inserted it. But when I connected the device to my PC using USB it did show up as drive F: and G:. I could access F:, which was obviously my sd-card, but G: (which should be the internal flash) could not be accessed, and Windows even asked if this should be formatted.
When I open the Files on my tablet, and select 'SD Card' it gives the 'SD card is unmounted' error. And when I select 'Internal Memory' it is completely empty. So it looks like the file system is still working, but the internal flash part somehow is no longer accessible.
I have a feeling that some low level setting has changed and that I could somehow solve it if I could get access to the underlying Linux system, but I do not have a clue how to proceed.

Indeed the internal filesystem somehow got damaged. To fix this you need access to the filesystem itself, which can be done using ADB. (Android Debugging Bridge)
Instructions for connecting to the Archos Tablets using ADB can be found here:

http://www.archos.com/support/support_tech/updates_adb.html?country=er&lang=en

Although the description is complete this still sometimes can be hard. You might have to restart your computer a few times, but eventually it is possible.

Open a command window in the directory containing the ADB.exe program (it is in the 'platform-tools' directory under the androis-sdk-windows folder)
Type:
ADB SHELL
If the connection is OK, it will start a server and after e few seconds show the '$' prompt. this means you are connected to the tablet and have direct access to the linux shell. If you type 'ls' you will see a list of folders that contain the operating system and all supporting files that make your tablet work.
Now navigate to the folder containing the Flash file system by typing:
cd ./dev/block/vold
If you now type 'ls' again you should see three or four folders that have numbered names. One of them is '31:8'. This is the folder that points to the internal flash. Now we can fix our problem by recreating the MS-DOS (FAT32) file system on this partition. Type the following:
mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/block/vold/31:8/
This will fix the FAT32 filesystem. Now leave the shell by typing 'exit', disconnect the USB and restart your tablet. On my system this made  internal storage re-appear, and after that it also mounted the sd-card. Problem solved.

Many thanks to this post on SlateDroid that contained the answer.


Google Messenger: Incorrect profile letter I recently moved from Hangouts to Messenger as my default SMS app.

The profile letter icon against the messages I send is showing to be incorrect (letter 'S' instead of 'R' which shows up on other Google apps that I use). I have since changed my Google profile picture but even that does not show up, 'S' persists.

I am not sure if this is a bug or if my account has been compromised.

Any help to figure this out?

It happens when you save your own phone number with someone's else name by mistake. If it's the case, you just need to double tap on the wrong "letter" (which is "S" in your case) that is showing next to your text messages and you'll be able to change the name associated with the texts.


How to force mobile Chrome to open URLs instead of searching I use Chrome for Android.

When I type for example http://192.168.1.1:8000/ in the address bar, it opens Google with that address as a search query. I need to open the page and am unable to do so.

I tried different variations with and without manually typing http:// at the beginning and / at the end.

I sent a bug report, but since the fix is probably not coming very soon, I need a workaround. Is there any?

The workaround is to create a bookmark with the needed URL.
Selecting the bookmark will cause Chrome to properly open the page.


Can no longer attach pictures to messages from 'gallery' on Samsung Galaxy Ace 4 on my Samsung Galaxy Ace 4, I suddenly no longer have the option of 'gallery' to choose when attaching a picture/photo to a text/picture message. The other icons are there: image; take picture; video, etc. but not 'gallery'.

I can still go to the gallery and share a picture through 'messages', but it's really winding me up how the option to attach pics via the gallery vanished, and now I can't find it anywhere to restore the option.

Any ideas..?!

Thanks in advance!

AMENDMENT: I fixed this but not sure how. It may have been restoring the 'app preferences' through the 'settings' tab in the 'application manager'. It was one of a few things I tried, but whatever it was I can now attach a pic to a message using the 'image' option - it now gives me the options I had lost (ie gallery, drive, dropbox etc). Hope this helps someone at some point!

I had a similar problem where when I tried to attach an image, it went straight to my Google Drive, instead of giving me the option to choose Photos, Gallery, or Drive.

In my case Drive had somehow become set as the default.  I went into Settings --> Application Manger --? Drive and hit the button to remove it as a default applications, and that took care of it.


How to "report" a mis-behaving app? I purchased a very popular IM app from the Marketplace, as it was the only one that was able to connect to my company's Jabber server, and I've been using it successfully for months now.  On November 30th or December 1st it stopped working, I assumed due to an issue on my company's server, since they're always tinkering with it.  Late last week I started looking into it and I found out, much to my utter horror, that it wasn't my company's server that was at fault, it was the IM app's server -- I have been logging in to my company's server through their server for months now, meaning that their server had access to my password (which can be used for just about every system I use at work).  I verified this by rooting my phone, installing WireShark and looking at the network traffic.

I've asked for my money back, since I paid for the app, but I really want to get the app removed from the marketplace, as it's a huge danger to anyone using it.

Please note that I have no proof that this company was harvesting anyone's password, but they could be doing it.  Regardless, they're transmitting my login credentials in the clear (though they are encoding the password, which I'm sure will deter all but the most hardened hackers -- not!).

When you uninstall an app from the Market, it asks you for a reason.  If you choose "It's malicious", it will prompt you for a report.  And you can leave a comment on the app (before uninstalling) to warn other users.

Since you have no proof they did or intended to do anything wrong with your info, there's nothing else you can do.  You won't get the app removed from the Marketplace.


Now on Tap option gone I have a new samsung galaxy j5 2016. First it was like this when I bought it and the seller turned it on without a sim and i don't know how he configured it:

I could use now on tap even without google account (a couple of times I saw it showed up but then it didn't). So then I signed in and it worked fine too, and Now on Tap menu was still separate from search and now
(Now on tap worked without google now working because of region restrict).

Then I did a factory-reset from the settings and I skipped all the initial configuration to default options without a SIM CARD or WIFI
but it still looks like this:

I don't want to sign in because of the region and phone is not rooted or anything, and google play services doesn't update if I don't sign in, so it is default 1 month ago update from security update of galaxy apps.

solved!
download the different version of google app from not play store
 update google play store to non Samsung version
now on tap separate option from google now appears
you can enable and use it without signing in


How do I get the maximum video compatibility on my Android device? I use miniDLNA to stream videos from my Ubuntu computer to my Galaxy tablet running Android 4.4 and BubbleUPNP.

Some video files don't play at all. Some play the video, but no sound. It doesn't seem to be just a matter of file format. Sometimes, for example, some .MKV files will play fine, and others wont. Some .AVI files work, and others don't.

All the video files play on my computer without any problem, so I assume it's just a matter of some codecs not being available on my Android device. Or something to do with compatibility.

Is there a way I can make my Android device able to play a wider variety of formats, if not all video formats?

This is almost certainly a codec problem, there are two ends you could  come at this from, either the tablet or the computer.

What video playing apps are you using on your tablet just the built in one, or have you installed any additional apps?

If you haven't tried installing any other video playing apps on your tablet, then try one or two of these. You'll find that they should support a lot more video formats than your built-in player:

MX Player
Moboplayer
VLC

Do you need to use miniDLNA on your computer, or can you use something with transcoding support that can convert the videos into formats that your tablet can play "on the fly"?

Alternatively, there are DLNA compatible servers that you can install on your PC that will transcode your videos to compatible formats as they stream them, I've used Plex Media Server (which as well as being DLNA compliant, also has an Android client to make the experience even easier and more pleasant than using DLNA) and I know people who use PS3Media Server for this too (despite the name it's not tied to PS3's these days).


How can I make my rooted Android 7 phone as secure as possible for financial transactions? The latest security update patches for my phone was in 2017. My phone is rooted. What steps can I take to make it as secure as possible to be able to safely use financial apps where I'd be transacting money?
These apps need Google services to work, so custom roms are not an option (or are they?).

First of all install a stock rom of your mobile after that you can just do the banking transactions... Then go to google play store > setting > play protect certification > certified.
if the device is certified you can do any financial transactions!


sipdroid - Multiple call handling I just installed SIPDROID. I made three account in sip2sip.(free SIP provider).

Then after I have configured application using one of that account. Application works fine.

Question is: If I make multiple call to the same phone using SIP is there anyway to handle all calls at a same time?

Multiple call on the same phone seems not working. The first call getting picked up but what about the second call which is coming during first call is going on.

Even second call is not displaying on the screen.
Confused !!

Sipdroid that I what started with but after researching on it and from developers reviews I found that application has some missing functionality like multiple call and transferring calls etc...

I don't know but may who is expert in sip stack or have time to do can implement missing functionality but I am neither one of them so my desire to get an application that have all this functionality and by modifying it I can integrate into my application and csipsimple is the answer.

However its not easy job to build csipsimple into windows environment but there is hack how to do it. so carefully read its wiki about building project into window environment.

According to wiki you can build native library or you can go ahead without building the native library. I suggest for windows user to go with  without building the native library.

If you have read wiki then in "without building the native library" section last line is like

  "To get the .so files, download latest nightly build from nightly
  build website and unpack the apk file (apk files are just zip files).
  Then get lib/ARCH/.so files and copy it into CSipSimple
  libs/ARCH/.so"

I have to clarify one important thing about that:

First get .apk file of csipsimple. The version of .apk file must same to download version of your csipsimple source code..

Here, you can see the source code version. Download the same version .apk and do further as described in wiki.


Android phone fails to communicate using IPv6 I observe the following problem with my Android phone (Sony Xperia XZ, Andoid Oreo 8.0.0)

Though the phone seems to have a correct set of IPV6 addresses it fails to communicate when I use IPV6. the phone works OK using IPV4.

Details

I have about 5 Personal Computers in a LAN which can PING each other via their IPV6 adresses, and communicate via IPV4 and IPV6. I added my Android phone to the same LAN via WIFI/WLAN, at it can communicate via IPV4, but not IPV6.

I have checked the IP setings of the phone, it gets a complete and correct set of IPV4 and IPV6 adresses from the local DHCP server.

To start troubleshooting somewhere, I installed a PING tool on the phone, and found that it can PING any other computer via IPV4, but not via IPV6.

On one of my PCs, I installed Wireshark to see what is happening, and this is what I found, if I PING the IPV6 address of the phone from the PC:

On the pc, I initiate a PING test:

ping [ipv6 address of phone] -6 -n 1

and this is what Wireshark revealed on ethernet level (with my comments):

  mobile mac address discovery via multicast

[pc mac] to [33:33:ff:4d:50]: Neighbor Solicitation for [mobiile IPV6] from [pc mac]
[mobile mac] to [pc mac]: Neighbor Advertisement [mobile ipv6]: [mobile mac]

  mobile phone mac address resolution success - try to ping

[pc mac] to [mobile mac]: Echo (ping) request

  response from phone: try to get PC mac address!" Has heard the PING request!

[mobile mac] to [33:33:ff:f4:fd:12]: Neighbor Solicitation for [pc IPV6] from [mobile mac]

  pc responds correctly

[pc mac] to [mobile mac]: Neighbor Advertisement [pc ipv6]: [pc mac]

  phone tries same again - has not "heard" the response !?

[mobile mac] to [33:33:ff:f4:fd:12]: Neighbor Solicitation for [pc IPV6] from [mobile mac]

  pc again responds correctly

[pc mac] to [mobile mac]: Neighbor Advertisement [pc ipv6]: [pc mac]

  3rd retry!

[mobile mac] to [33:33:ff:f4:fd:12]: Neighbor Solicitation for [pc IPV6] from [mobile mac]

  pc patiently responds correctly once more

[pc mac] to [mobile mac]: Neighbor Advertisement [pc ipv6]: [pc mac]

This is where the PC gives up and shows a failed PIING error message.

From what I see on the Wireshark trace, the phone fails to pick up the mac address resolution responses, and thus never knows about the Ethernet address of the PC, cannot send a response and and this is why the PING request fails.

Trying the other direction, when I PING from the phone to the PC running Wireshark, not a single packet is captured, seems like the phone doesn't even try.

To me ist seems like the IPV6 stack on the phone is dead, despite that DHCP has worked.

Anyone who has deeper insight into the implementation details of IPv6 on Android who can give me any info how to resolve this?

Thnx, Armin

I reckon that there is a firewall on your phone preventing the phone from receiving the response message of mac resolution from pc, and probably the firewall levels are different between ipv4 protocol and ipv6 protocol, on ipv6, this level is relative high and block all the ICMP echo request.
The answer above is my assumption, if you totally find a solution. Hope you let me know how to fix it and I have been troubled by this for a period of time until now.


Exchange Calendar Sync can't edit turns reminders on I have synced my Galaxy S II with exchange 2010 server. It has imported all my calendar events as expected, however it has set a reminder on all of the events. For example, in Outlook I have public holidays in my calendar with no reminder, however on my phone these are imported with an Alarm "On Time". Since these are all day events, the alarm goes off at midnight.

Does anyone know a way way to fix this problem?

This problem was resolved by upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich


Can't move apps to SD card on Moto E I recently purchased Moto E with Android 4.4.2 and soon after filled up the internal 4gb with apps.

I installed a 32gb SD card and nothing moves to it. Not even new apps. How can I set the default install location to be the SD card?

You need root access for it, so if you are not rooted, you can manually move the apps to the SD card (if that has been allowed by the app developer) in the Settings->Apps->(App to be moved to SD)->Move to SD Card. Or you can use a specialized linking app, such as App 2 SD, Link2SD or similar (if you have root).


Is there any battery-less Android-based device I'be been working on some Chinese (bit crappy) device, with own system, that had one wonderful (at least for me) feature. When constantly powered-up (plugged to power adapter) it could work without the battery inside.

Is there any Android-based phone or device that does the same? Or the only option here is to keep battery inside, keep it powered up all the time (I have some reasons for that) and replace battery quite often, since it will be charging and discharging it the same time (will it), thus lowering its life-span.

Don't you worry. LiIo batteries are not that concerned about that. What really lowers their life span are "complete discharges", not frequent "trickle-charging". It's even recommended to charge them as soon/often as possible (and practicable, of course).

See e.g. Wikipedia: Lithium Ion batteries for details, and also take a look at our question Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone? and its answers.


How to change the display name in the Google Play Store app? In the Google Play Store app, the account name is shown inside the drawer menu.

How to change that name?

There should be a pre-installed Android app in your phone called Play Games. Click that. You will see your username and your display pic. Click your username and then the top right edit icon of a pen. That way you can change your Google PlayStore username.
Hope this helps :)


Background logcat with filter I have an app which seems to crash sometimes but of course not at that time when I have it connected to my PC and run logcat.

Is there a good method of grepping logcat in background (best would be filter by app but filter by text would already be helpful) and write the logfile to SD card for later inspection?

You could use a logcat app that writes the log to your sd card. Depending on the Android version on your device, that might require root permissions: latest with Android 4.2 "normal apps" only can see their own log. Checkout my list for Logcat & Co. for possible candidates. I know that e.g. aLogCat has the feature I've described. It also has filtering capabilities. Same applies to several other candidates of the linked list.


Choose a specific app to open a particular file I created some e-learning using Articulate Storyline 2 which I want to view on my Samsung Galaxy. The files are physically in my Documents folder. The module is not on the internet - I'm still testing it. The file to run the e-learning module is "story.html." It will - I'm told - run on Android with the use of a free app called Articulate Player - which I have installed. When I attempt to run the "story.html" file I get three options - "HTML Viewer," "File Editor" and "DB Text Editor," none of which work. Articulate Player app is not provided as an option. So how can I choose Articulate Player app to run the "html.story" file?

I've looked in applications manager but there are no options I can see that help.

I must add, please pardon my ignorance as I know next to nothing about mobile phones. I have avoided them like the plague for years and only got this one recently as a matter of necessity. I would be grateful for any help from anyone and thanks for your time.

You can only open files with apps that tell Android they support that kind of file. If the app tells Android it can open that kind of file, it'll show up in the list of possible apps.

If this app you mention can open this kind of file, the developer needs to change the app to tell Android it can do so, by adding an intent filter in its manifest. You should contact the developer and ask them to do so.


volume rocker as next/previous song This probably is a common question but so far I have not seen a thorough answer.

I want to know if it is possible to have the rocker functionalities that are on cyanogem mod on a factory rom (htc desire s).
that is:

long press up    =  next song.

long press down  =  previous song.

short press up   =  volume up

short press down =  volume down

i would like to keep using the htc rom, since i like the sense ui, and also id like to keep using the htc music player, i think is simple and is able to manage correctly the compilations albums.

does anyone know of an app that can do this, that is NOT another musicplayer.
Or as a 2nd option to explain if it is possible to create my own app for it and maybe to make some points towards the right direction to do this.

thanks in advance

Rocking Shortcuts (Lite) sounds like it does exactly what you're asking about, except that rather than using short-click/long-click it uses single-click/double-click on the volume rocker to control your music.

If you only want to go to the next song, and don't often go back then the more specialised Next Song should do exactly this with no need for any configuration or options.

It's not quite what you're asking about, but assuming that you're listening to your music through headphones then an app like Headset Button Controller (Trial) or Headset Droid (trial) has some very similar functionality but they use the button on a wired headset, rather than the volume controls.


can't use instagram's 'boomerang' I downloaded 'boomerang' and I pressed the button to take a video but then it said ' something went wrong please try again'. I have reinstalled this app, but still got this problem. I have also been having an issue with logging in to snapchat, here can't log in to Snapchat - Problem connecting to the server

would this be a problem? is there something wrong with my phone? should I consider factory resetting  my phone??

For login to snapchat use VPN maybe your problem is fixed.


Can I connect a keyboard via micro-usb to a smartphone which doesn't support OTG? My phone has no OTG support. A standard USB keyboard connected using an OTG cable doesn't work or even get recognized. Would a keyboard which instead connects via micro-usb work? Or would the phone require OTG support for that too?

The version of Android is 5.1.1. The phone is not rooted.

A keyboard with micro-USB connector is simply the combination of a keyboard with an OTG adapter, therefore this will not help you if your device has no USB OTG support.

If you want to connect a keyboard to your Android phone instead you may try to use a Bluetooth keyboard.


How to reset Google Keyboard language using ADB? So I have to add an automation step wherein the keyboard language needs to be reset in case someone changes it.

I have used adb for this and it works well on Samsung phones, but it doesn't work on Moto X and Nexus phones.

This is the adb command I use for Moto X and Nexus phones, but this doesn't have the desired effect.

adb shell pm clear com.google.android.inputmethod.latin

For Samsung phones, which is working, the command is

adb shell pm clear com.sec.android.inputmethod

Anyone can help? The only constraint is that I cannot root my phone.

Just found out that the command won't work for Google Keyboard because the selected languages are saved in the key ENABLED_INPUT_METHODS of the Settings.Secure table.

You can reset the selected languages of Google Keyboard with this command:

adb shell settings put secure enabled_input_methods com.google.android.inputmethod.latin/com.android.inputmethod.latin.LatinIME


For updating an  Android OS which one is better amongst the, official Update and Custom ROM update Possible Duplicate:
  How do I update the OS in my device?
  When will my device get the Android 4.0 update (Ice Cream Sandwich)?

I am using the Sony Xperia Arc phone.

I came to know that,The Official Mobile Update OHLA(open handset alliances) will be delaying the release of Android OS(ICS 4.0).

I have a little confusion about updating Android OS.I have seen some mobile OS update forums and they mentioned that we can update our Android phone easily to higher version i.e. Android OS(ICS 4.0) by rooting the device.But it seems the mobile warranty will be broken,the data will be lost and even we can find the bugs as well while updating through custom OS though we can update easily.

So I want clear solution for this confusion so could any one help me for this problem.

What would be my further steps for updating it to 4.0?

According to Sony's official statement, Ice Cream Sandwich (a.k.a. "ICS", a.k.a. Android 4.0) is coming to Xperia Arc at end of April or beginning of March of 2012.  If you are worried about the cons of rooting (i.e. voiding warranty, possibly breaking the handset, etc.) I would suggest that you wait for the official update from Sony and/or your carrier.


Andriod Emulator can't find ip link set I am currently using an unrooted Huaweii LYO-LO1 and I am trying to change my mac address using Andriod Terminal Emulator. I found a website that told me to find out things like my current MAC address and I did all that. The last part told me to type the command:

"ip link set AAAA address XX:XX:XX:YY:YY:YY"

I did that by typing "ip link set wlan0 address 84:9F:B5:0A:95:1F" but the output said

/system/bin/sh: ip link set wlan0 address 84:9F:B5:0A:95:1F: not found

I tried reinstalling the app, rebooting my computer, everything but it's the same result. Still the same MAC address. Anybody know the solution?

Don't type the double inverted commas ("") around the command. The command should be

ip link set wlan0 address 84:9F:B5:0A:95:1F


How can I edit a Presentation in Google Drive? Google Drive shows me presentations, spreadsheets and documents, but I only can edit spreadsheets and documents.

So I'd like to edit the presentation locally, but I can't find a way to download it in the first place.

For edit in a tablet, for example with Polaris Office or other free apps.

I'm not sure if the mobile app offers this feature but at least via the web interface you can export your documents to OpenDocument files which you can edit locally. Afterwards, you can upload the edited version.


Micromax Funbook tablet frozen at boot screen. No clockwork mod recovery - how to restore? I have a Micromax Funbook tablet (codename:P300) running Android 4.0.3.

While playing with a file explorer, I accidentally moved a file from /system folder. Yes, the device came as rooted and I had enabled root explorer and mounted the partition as writable. I  did so because I was mistakenly taken an assumption that I had installed Clockworkmod Recovery mod recovery.

Upon restart, the device does not go beyond bootloader image (it just says "Funbook" for ever).  I had attempted restart into recovery by pressing option button and then powering on.  To my nasty surprise, now only I realised that I had not installed Clockworkmod Recovery and landed on some recovery with following options:

Android system recovery <3e>

Reboot system now
Apply update from external storage
wipe data/factory reset
wipe cache partition
apply update from cache

Can anyone can help in restoring the tablet to original ROM? Even if I have ROM file, without Clockworkmod Recovery how can I recover?

This link helped me to flash a rom image. As an additional benefit, this ROM seems to be faster than Micromax's original ROM and also claims to support a list of 3G dongles.  The previous (i.e. original) ROM I had did not support Reliance and BSNL's 3G dongles.

As in a settings menu the following dongles are supported (I haven't got any 3G dongle to test):

WCDMA:
Huawei(E230, E176G, E160E, 182G, E1782, E1750 UMG1691), ZTE (MF633BP-1, MF633, MF637U)

CDMA2000/EVDO:
Huawei(E150, EC1261, EC122, EC156, EC1270), ZTE (AC580, AC2736, AC2746)

After re flashing, I installed clockworkmod recovery as per this link as well.


Port forwarding to USB Tether I have RaspberryPi which connected to Android Phone via USB and USB Tethering is up. Android Phone is connected to Home Router (Wi-Fi). With this setup, my Raspberry Pi can reach the internet with USB-Android Phone-Home Router-Internet path. And I can reach my Raspberry with VX ConnectBot app in Android Phone. What I want to do is, I want to make ssh connection to Raspberry Pi with my laptop (which is also connected to Home Router). IS it possible to redirect incoming wi-fi packets to usb on Android phone?

To be clear, here is the path that I want;

Laptop (ssh connection) -> Home Router -> Android Phone -> USB -> Raspberry Pi

That should be possible and requires a reverse port forward, which can be setup with adb:

Run this command on your Raspberry Pi: adb reverse tcp:<remote> tcp:<local> where <remote> is the TCP port on your android phone and <local> the TCP port on your Raspberry Pi.

Example:

adb reverse tcp:2222 tcp:22

Let's say your Android phone has the WiFi IP 192.168.1.5. Now you should be able to connect from your laptop (or any device on the WiFi) to 192.168.1.5:2222 and end up port-forwarded to your Raspberry Pi's ssh on port 22.

You might need to build adb for Raspbian yourself, which is explained here. But recent Raspbian versions should include a recend adb client.

2nd option:
you could forward (relay) the ports at the USB tethering subnet - usually 192.168.42.x, where 192.168.42.129 is your Android phone and the Raspberry Pi will have an interface usb0 with the IP address assigned by the Android's DHCP. Understand that once USB tethering is enabled, your phone will have two active network interfaces: wlan0 (which is your WiFi 192.168.1.x as usual) and usb0 (which is 192.168.42.x). You need to know the usb0 IP on your Raspberry Pi, once it's connected to USB tethering. Now to make it all work you would need to use a tool like tcpxd on your Android phone:

tcpxd 192.168.1.5:2222 192.168.42.55:22

Where 192.168.42.55 is your usb0 IP from your Raspberry Pi. Same as option 1: You should be able to connect from your laptop (or any device on the WiFi) to 192.168.1.5:2222 and end up port-forwarded (relayed) to your Raspberry Pi's ssh on port 22.

Both solutions should work without root.


Media Player with Chapters Support Is there a MediaPlayer with Chapter Marker support?  I want to listen to audio books and the Economist Audio podcast (> 7 hours/episode).

I've used MortPlayer and it supports chapters, multiple bookmarks and remembers your place.  As far as chapters go, it depends on how the audio book is setup, most mp3 audio books save each chapter as a different track and that works just fine.  Also, it's free.

While I haven't tried it, it's my understanding that Ambling Book Player Pro is the cats meow of audio book players, although it costs $9.

I don't really listen to audio books much anymore (too many podcasts to keep up with) and I use BeyondPod for my Economist Podcasts.  It remembers the last place you were listening but it doesn't let you set bookmarks.


Samsung Galaxy s4 won't boot I have a Samsung Galaxy s4 which is rooted and has cyanogenmod and cwm recovery installed on it, which I have been using for several months with absolutely no issues, until today. All of a sudden, my phone shut itself off, and now it will not boot. When I try to turn it on, all I get is the Samsung logo for about a second, then it goes black. I managed to get into download mode, but going into the recovery (which professor google told me I could do with power + home + volume up) did not work.

Taking my phone in to get it repaired/replaced is not an option, since my warranty is void (and I can't just trick them by unrooting it and flashing the stock rom because of that knox flag that is tripped as soon as you mess with the bootloader).

If all else fails, I will do whatever it takes, although I would prefer to recover some data from the phone first (contacts, pictures, etc)

I have a USB cable to connect it to my computer (windows), and I also have a microSD card I could use to load something onto it if that could possibly fix anything.

I solved my own issue, and am now posting the solution I found as an answer.

The battery had died without me realizing it. I originally tried to charge the phone for about half an hour (before posting the question)  but had no luck. I then tried again later on using a different charger which did work.


Gmail stopped syncing messages For some reason, Gmail on my Nexus S is not pulling new messages anymore. I added a second Gmail account; could it possibly be the reason?

The second account probably has nothing to do with the other.

You'll want to go to Menu | Settings | Accounts & sync and click on the account that's not working. Ensure that "Sync Gmail" is checked.

If that doesn't help, then you should try what I do for all truculent apps.

Force stop

if that doesn't help

Clear cache

if that doesn't help

Clear data

if that doesn't help

Restart the phone (turn off/turn on the phone, unless you have a "restart" option)

and if that still doesn't help, try the nuclear option:

uninstall and re-install


Minimal set of .apk files to enable Google Play I have some Android Froyo device not blessed by Google, so it doesn't have Google Play/Market or any of GAPPS by default and device maker won't make any firmware updates.

Is it even possible now to make  Google Play/Market work with Android Froyo?

What is the minimal set of  .apk, framework and lib files should I put in pertinent folders to enable Google Play on my Froyo device?

I don't want to put all of gapps from goo.im:

I want to conserve some space on device (small built-in SD CARD),
I think that some of them may be malicious (Virustotal detects EnhancedGoogleSearchProvider.apk as Android/GoManag.A)
I believe that there is some resonable minimum that works anyway

Check the "Barebones" page on the CyanogenMod wiki.

It lists which apks are required for what. So instead of listing minimum apk list, you can just select the required apps for Play. By the way Google Play, Market or Vending are the same things. At a minimum you will will need Vending.apk and MarketUpdater.apk, and possibly GoogleServicesFramework.apk


Troubleshooting why my Android phone is rebooting (Nexus S) It seems to happen when I'm using Pandora. But then again, I'm always using Pandora. It also reboots so quickly that sometimes, I do not notice.

Is there a way to see what caused the last reboot?

Engadget has just reported that the Nexus S is having issues with random reboots (http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/nexus-s-suffering-from-random-data-loss-reboots/) and apparently fixes are coming.

To see the log you can get the following app:

aLogCat


Resize screen to display only on working part of semi-functional touchscreen I have a oneplus android phone.  The touch screen recently started malfunctioning so that the bottom centimetre of the screen does not work, but the rest of the screen works perfectly well.  Unfortunately the bottom centimeter contains lots of important functions.  Is there a way to resize my display or resolution so that it excludes the bottom centimeter of my screen?

Notes:

My solution is tested on Stock Android 4.4.2 and Stock CyanogenOS 12 (5.0) of OnePlus One, and should work for Android 4.3 and above (based on this answer).
I've mentioned wherever root access is required.
This answer has been taken from my answer on a bit different question here.

I have used the following  comment as the ground to work on:

  The bottom 20% of my Nexus 4 doesn't work. I use: wm overscan 0,0,0,210 to have android WM not draw anything in that area so that I can operate all the drawn areas fully again.. –  Thrustmaster

Instructions:

Enable USB-debugging in your phone.
Install ADB tools in your PC, connect your device into it, and make sure that device is getting detected in adb devices.
We need to know the resolution and the display density of the device. In the terminal/cmd enter adb shell dumpsys display | grep mBaseDisplayInfo to show display related info. The output could look like:

mBaseDisplayInfo=DisplayInfo{"Built-in Screen", app 480 x 854, real 480 x 854, largest app 480 x 854, smallest app 480 x 854, 64.29 fps, rotation 0, density 240, 240.0 x 240.0 dpi, layerStack 0, type BUILT_IN, address null, FLAG_SECURE, FLAG_SUPPORTS_PROTECTED_BUFFERS}

The relevant info in my case is:

real 1080x1920
density 480

The most useful commands to be used are:

wm overscan [reset|LEFT,TOP,RIGHT,BOTTOM]
wm density [reset|DENSITY]

My default launcher screen without tweaks looked like:

To reduce the screen output at bottom issue the command:

adb shell wm overscan 0,0,0,100

Note the I used further reduction by upto 0,0,0,300 and the output was like this:

Tweak the value to your desired needs.
You may need to correct the density since the display could look odd. My device's default display density is 480 dpi, so I tweaked it this way:

adb shell wm density 440

and the resultant screen was like this. An app under tweaked resolution.
Note that you can use adb shell wm density reset and adb shell wm overscan reset to revert back to default density and resolution respectively.
Now that "dead touch zone" has been taken care of it's time to use virtual/soft keys (only if you need it).

Izzy has it already covered in this answer. Otherwise, you can use Gravitybox LP (for Lollipop users) or Gravitybox KK (for Kitkat users). It is an Xposed module, and require root access and Xposed Framework installed.

Install, activate and launch Gravitybox → Navigation bar tweaks → Enable Navigation bar → do a reboot, and soft-keys aka Navigation bar would be found enabled.
Custom ROM like Cyanogenmod and some stock ROMs has the option to enable soft-keys(buttons) under Settings. You can use that option since it doesn't require any root access.
After some further tweaks the final screen of my Android 5.0 looked like:

We're good to go!


Warning: Camera Failed I have a vanilla Samsung Galaxy S3, and just a month or two ago the back camera won't work. Whenever I use the default Jelly Bean camera app, it just pops up a message saying: "Camera Failed." then closes the app.

I downloaded a third party camera app to use the forward-facing camera, which works fine. This happened very recently after I got the phone (it was a replacement) and has been in a rugged case the entire time. I don't recall any trauma to the camera itself, either.

Any fixes or what I might be doing wrong?

I have had my gs3 with T-mobile for about 11 months. Two days ago I began receiving "camera failed" warning. I was beginning to think, after researching this issue, that my phone would need to be replaced if I wanted a functioning camera again. But moments ago, with the "camera failed" warning showing on my screen, I started squeezing the top of my phone between my fingers in different places, and suddenly my camera started working again. I'm a bit afraid that it is going to stop working again, but at least I know this is a mechanical error. I'm thankful I didn't reset my phone for no reason. I have never posted to any site before this, but if this can help anyone else having this problem, I thought I should mention it. I do hope it helps.


Can I play music from my UPnP NAS with VLC on Android? Can I play music from my UPnP NAS with VLC on Android? And if so, how do I find my UPnP device from within VLC?

I'm on the latest beta VLC for Android on a Nexus 4.

No I don't think you can do that directly with VLC.
But you could use another app like BubbleUPnP or UPnPlay, they are made for the purpose.


Recommended way to restore transparency about permissions after Google Play store changed rules It's been quite a time when Google decided to not any more let the customer decide whether or not to let apps access the internet.
(see http://www.xda-developers.com/android/play-store-permissions-change-opens-door-to-rogue-apps/)

I wonder if today people have found a convenient way to regain transparency about which apps might send all data they gather to home.

Do I have to review all permissions of all apps? Is there a way to do this automatically? How can I protect myself against this betrayal?

There are several utilities to help protect privacy on your phone, provided you have root access. Along with their blocking functions, some have logs or give you instant info about what an app is doing.

XPrivacy

XPrivacy runs on the XPosed framework. It is designed to let you allow, deny, or spoof tons of different android framework calls. For example, you can block a specific app from getting access to your contacts or from acquiring your GPS location.

With recent versions of XPrivacy, the app pops up a dialog box with a 15 second timer (just like a superuser request prompt) for any permission you haven't granted yet. The first time you open an app, it will prompt you for multiple things, but then the settings are remembered for that app later. By default, it only starts asking you about apps you install after it is installed (so that you aren't overwhelmed with dialog boxes the first time you reboot and all your apps start asking for things).

XPrivacy is a great tool for privacy (hence the name). Unlike Permissions Manager, XPrivacy does not cause an app to crash when a requested permission is spoofed/denied. However, XPrivacy is designed specifically for privacy, so it doesn't cover all possible permissions an app can request.

AFWall+

AFWall+ is a firewall, designed to allow or deny network access to individual apps based on what type of network you're connected to. For example, you can block a specific app from ever using cell data, while still giving it wifi access.

Permissions Manager

Permissions Manager lets you deny specific Android permissions that are requested by apps. While similar to XPrivacy, it differs in that Permissions Manager will outright block an app from getting a permission; If the app isn't properly designed to handle a lack of this permission, the app may crash. Also, it only blocks permissions that are requestable, whereas XPrivacy gives you deeper and more fine-grained controls.

Others

There are plenty of other apps designed to give the user control over the apps installed. The ones I listed here are ones I use extensively or have used extensively in the past.


How to Install marshmallow update on Swipe elite plus ? I have swipe elite plus mobile with android lollipop 5.0.2 and I want to install android marshmallow how should I do that?

My first reflex would be to check CyanogenMod. Since your device is no longer supported by the manufacturer, you need a custom Android to be able to update.

So your device is Swipe Elite Plus. It is no longer produced by Swipe. Swipe owns FreedomOS, and it can be installed on Elite devices. It looks like the Swipe devices are exclusive to India.

  We have our eyes on the future, and aim to put India among the top 10 nations in the world. It will be our strategic vision and innovative solutions that will bring leading new tablet technologies to the nation. And soon, to the world.

In order to have something custom developed by someone, that someone must be able to get that device. By being limited to India, it greatly reduces the chances of the device being supported by someone else when the manufacturer will drop it. In short, while it is a good device in itself, it's a bad idea to get one.

Official CyanogenMod is not available for the Swipe Elite Plus. Official TWRP is not available for the Swipe Elite Plus. However, there might be unofficial ports.

The best place for finding unofficial stuff is indubitably XDA-Developers. However, there are only one topic about the Elite Swipe Plus. You can look there, but I didn't find anything.

Your last resort now is to look at these posts :

How do I update Android on my device?

Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?


Backing up broken android device I have an android device running KitKat 4.4.2 (not rooted; developer stuff turned on) and I shattered the digitizer. I can still see what's on the screen but I can't interact with it1. I tried using adb to back it up, but I was unable to press the "confirm" button on the screen. Is there anything I can do now [i.e. without getting a USB OTG cable and a mouse]? I'm comfortable w/ ADB and the command line if necessary.

1I could get an OTG USB cable and connect a keyboard/mouse and use that to install a backup app, etc. but I'm hoping there's an easier way.

Install a vnc server on the phone through adb and then you can connect to it.


What's the point of pseudo-big.LITTLE CPU in Nokia 7 plus? As far as I understand:

CPUs can change their frequencies relatively quickly, which can be used for performance-power tradeoff based on load and priorities.
big.LITTLE goes further – you can switch between powerful and energy-efficient cores in order to save more energy than underclocking allows you. Those cores vary by architecture, otherwise it would not make much sense. Usually, there is a mix of powerful cores with out-of-order execution and energy-efficient cores with in-order execution.

However, according to GSMArena, Nokia 7 plus has the following CPU:

  4x2.2 GHz Kryo 260 & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 260

That is, you have eight cores of the same type, but four of them can go up to 2.2 GHz, while other four of them can go up just to 1.8 GHz.

I believe we cannot use the same justification as for big.LITTLE. Instead of switching the cores, we could just scale the core's frequency.

Also, if the upper frequency is fixed (that is, if there are four physical cores that never go beyond 1.8 GHz), it implies uneven distribution of load and heat generation.

I think you are mistaking the "Kryo" brand from Qualcomm from being different than just a customized version of ARM big.LITTLE.

As stated in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660/630 announcement article from Anandtech:

  Snapdragon 660’s Kryo 260 CPU uses four semi-custom Cortex-A73 cores in the “performance” cluster and four semi-custom Cortex-A53 cores in the “efficiency” cluster in a big.LITTLE arrangement. The Kryo 260, however, does not hit the same peak frequencies as Kryo 280, and Kryo 260 uses 1MB/1MB of shared L2 per cluster instead of 2MB/1MB of L2 for Kryo 280.

The confusion probably is from the fact that while there are 2x2 sets of CPU cores on the chipset, Qualcomm's branding the package of the 2 "performance" and 2 "efficiency" cores as the Kryo CPU. The obfuscation is probably due to Qualcomm emphasizing their customization trying to differentiate from ARM's reference big.LITTLE A73/A53 CPU core set.

Honestly while GSM Arena is a good starting point, if there is confusion/conflict further research should be done.


Where the system updates get installed in HTC explorer? I am seeing a message on my taskbar System updates are available. When I am tapping to that message it is showing some 29 MB updates. I am running sort of internal memory, so every-time I am postponing the updates to later(I think it will consume 29 MB internal memory). Is this  true that on installing the updates will consume internal memory? I am using HTC explorer having gingerbread(2.3) version of Android.

I think in many cases updates are to the system partition. The storage on your phone is split across different partitions, the system one is not where you download third party apps to and usually run out of space. So anything an update does on the system partition would not count against you, unless it repartitioned the storage to give system more room, which is rare and usually only heard of in bizarre cases where the device just couldn't support a newer version of Android any other way.

Please make sure you have gone through the list of apps in your settings and moved any that you can to your SD card, by the way, if you have one. If your phone is rooted, there are other options as well, such as removing system apps that have been updated and are using space in the usual user partition for their update data, etc..


Temporary root Nexus 5 in adb shell to access a /data folder I want to backup a data/data/com.package.name folder but the app manifest is set to backup=false.

To access the folder I want to temporary root the phone in the ADB shell and then access the folder to copy my files. There's no need for me to make root persistent.

The nexus runs on Android 5.0.1. Is there a way to get access to my data without installing a custom recovery, and others?

There is a way (or there was) to boot your device and access to it as root using ADB. First, you have to boot your device into the bootloader.

Turn it off. Press and hold Volume Down and press power.

You need to find and download boot insecure image (boot.img) and boot your phone using that image
fastboot boot boot.img

Now you should be able to access your device as root and copy your files
adb shell

will give you root access to it
To put a file into it do:

adb push file /phone/folder/

Be careful since an old boot insecure image in Android 5.0 or above can mess up with your phone. In my case an old image ruined my sensors and WiFi, and the only way I could fix it was by erasing the user data.


install MySQL or any other lite weight database? I have a android mobile with version 4.1 Installed. for my practices I am thinking that  it would be nice if I have a database in that.

If it is MySQL I would love that. could somebody tell me how can I install MySQL in android ?

Thank you.

Android comes with SQLite. That should be adequate for most applications.


YouTube Offline Videos deleted/removed I download few YouTube videos using YouTube Offline feature introduced recently in an Official YouTube App.

Those videos were accessible to me and I played them successfully, without any issue.

Because of some device issue, I happened to "uninstall updates" of YouTube App.
and now I had an old version of YouTube.

I then took the update of YouTube app as I wanted to enjoy the new Offline feature from Google Play store, which had the Offline feature.

But when I went to "Offline" tab in my YouTube App's Navigation Drawer (After Update), I could not see my previously downloaded videos.

Of course, I used same Google Account for my YouTube Sign-in.

So, let me just re-phrase the issue:

Whenever YouTube App's Updates are uninstalled, all offline Videos too are removed.

And when I update YouTube app later(which has Offline feature), App does not contain previously downloaded videos!

Any ideas, how can I get my lost videos??

The "offline feature" rather counts as cache (note that content downloaded for offline use will be available this way for 2 days only), so it's not considered "your data". You performed a factory-reset. From our factory-reset tag-wiki:

  What a factory reset does is basically to "wipe" (delete all content) from the /cache (holding the application cache) and /data (user data and user-installed apps, dalvik cache) partitions. Other media, like internal-sd and external-sd cards, are usually left untouched – though some devices/ROMs offer options to include them with the wipe.

So that includes your "files cached for offline use".

Also, as correctly pointed out by GiantTree, your comparison with several apps does not apply: Google Drive stores your data in the cloud (not on the device), same for most other "Google Apps". Nor do photos made with a camera app get wiped usually, because they are not affected by a factory reset (see above quote for SD cards).


Huawei G6 no longer enable USB debugging My Huawei G6 can no longer detected by my computer. My phone charges but doesn't show any USB debugging in the notification bar. I tried many USB cables but it just charges. Any options how to debug my phone? Help!!!

Clicking 7 times on the Build Number (found under About Phone) will give you Developer privileges.

This must be a feature to prevent kids or people who don't know what they are doing from enabling the Developer Mode.

I can confirm this works for the Huawei 560 as well.

Watch this link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7swUjZm7y6c


Firefox add-on is shown beside search box on desktop, but where is it on Android? I installed Search by Image Firefox add-on. But I can't see the extension button that we see next to search box on desktop version.
Where do I find it?

Firefox add-ons for Android by default do not appear next to the search box, unless the add-on has an option to show it there.

You need to tap the 3 dot (⋮) menu to reveal them. They could be separately listed as with this example or shown under the add-ons (blue circle with arrow)

.

(Click to enlarge)


Is it possible to share a VPN connection over WiFi Hotspot? I have an S8 And a Nintendo switch, The switch doesn't support VPNs. Is it possible to share the VPN Connection to my Nintendo switch over hotspot? My PC Can already do this but I want to play outside!

Yes its possible, I have covered one method to achieve this already on this post.

Alternatively, our fellow user, Mygod has shared one application to achieve this called VPN Hotspot and is available both on XDA Labs or F-Droid. As expected both these methods need root,  for non root solution you may have to look at something like PDANet+


Note 4 - won't stop announcing alarm title When an alarm goes off, my brand new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will speak the title of the alarm and then speak the current time.

How the heck do I disable this?

It does not speak any other things.

I made sure TalkBack is disabled. I then started disabling and uninstalling apps, but it still reads it! The clock app itself, where I created the alarm, has no options related to TTS.

I'm at a loss and about to take this phone back!

I found it!

The setting for the the Galaxy Note 4 is under Settings -> Personal -> Language and Input -> Read Notifications Aloud


Disable notifications of some emails I daily receive many emails. I need a better control of emails. I want to disable notifications of some emails. A notification means for me that my phone vibrates and my smart watch vibrates. To filter those messages out of my inbox is not a possibility because I want to review them later. I think smartly disabling notifications of some emails would be great. Sometimes, I receive 30 emails in a row from one sender, for instance, what I do not want i.e. 30 vibrations in your phone and/or smart watch. I would like to have a feature that:

disables notification for 3 hours if more than 2 emails received in one hour from one sender; and
disable notifications for 3 hours if two emails received in 5 seconds from one sender.

How can you disable notifications of some emails in Android 6.0?

I find the plugin Do Not Disturb and its Now mode more robust than eNotify because it is will disable all notifications of all applications by one button. However, it cannot do it for some applications only. I think eNotify could work for that but do not like its cost, its appearance, ... Its userbase is too small to get my trust.


Need custom recovery that supports Kit Kat for Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" I really want to flash CyanogenMod 11 on my tablet. I have the file in CM Updater, but I can't find a custom recovery that will support KitKat for my device.

You should be able to use the latest CWM or TWRP custom recovery with your device.

Source: Install Android 4.4 KitKat on Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Using CM11 Custom Build

UPDATE #1: XDA has a thread for custom recoveries for the P3110. It says that only CWM supports KitKat for that tablet.


Can android developers use the kindle fire to run their apps? I need a device to test my application against but don't own an android device. I found the Kindle fire for $40 which seamed like a great deal to get me started debugging my app but it says it uses their custom 'FireOS'. I was wondering if I could still use the kindle to debug my app because if not I will not purchase it.

Why it isn't a good idea
The Kindle Fire runs Amazon's customized version of Android, namely, FireOS.
FireOS has a very tight integration with Amazon's content distribution platform (Amazon's ecosystem, so to say) at the cost of the traditional Google integration we normally find in Android devices.
This is to say, Amazon devices, although they run Android, lack any Google Apps as default or installable from the Amazon AppStore. It is possible to root a Kindle Fire tablet and flash a GApps package, but that (IIRC) is a probable violation of Amazon's Terms of Service, so I will not include that information here. It can be found with a simple search, however.
TL;DR
How is this relevant to an app developer looking at a Kindle to test their apps?

If your app only relies on APIs provided by "core" Android, AOSP, there's no problem. Your app can successfully be used on Kindle Fire, and hence tested on it.

If your app relies on anything Google provides as OEM stock on most Android devices, such as Maps, Play Services or Play Games, your app won't run at all due to missing library dependencies, unless you have hacked the Kindle Fire and installed the core GApps onto it after rooting, flashing a custom recovery or ROM, etc.

If your app relies on Amazon Services, well, you should be using the Kindle Fire for testing. It is Amazon's product and will work best with it.

Finally, most Android developers do consider a Nexus as "the" device for Android app development and testing, but opinions differ, and you should decide your testing decice requirements on a case-by-case basis.


scheduled message feature removed? I've upgraded my Galaxy Note II to Android 4.3 and if I open the menu when writing an SMS there is no scheduled message option anymore. Where is it gone?

Samsung probably felt the "non-need" of this feature, hence removing it.

You could either use apps from the play store such as "Schemes" which allows you to schedule messaging, or contact Samsung support via email requesting the re-addition of the feature (I'd go with the former because, one mail mostly doesn't make a difference against a huge OEM).


Reduce the size of soft keyboard on edit text click Usually the soft keyboard fits to the screen size in both portrait and land scape mode. I am developing an app, in that i have an edit text. On edit text click "Is it possible to reduce the width of soft keyboard on land scape mode?". Please guide me through this.

Thanks in advance.

That depends of the keyboard app. Swiftkey, for example, allows the size adjustement of the keyboard in landscape mode.


Require password to exit app How do I make my Android tablet ask for a password when I try to exit a specific application? There should be no way to exit the application without giving the password.

If your tablet is running Android 5.0+, you can activate "Screen Pinning" for a specific app and enable "Ask for PIN before unpinning" when activating it so that you have to unlock your phone before leaving the app.

Screen Pinning can be found in the Security Settings of Android.


Android AdBlocker - how does it work? I have just tried this adblocker app for Android, and it does seem to be working quite effectively, I tried it with some popular apps like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope.

Does anyone know how it works? I tought Android processes can't mess with one another?

The F-Droid description of AdAway, (which is a popular adblocker) is described as:

  An ad blocker that uses the hosts file. The hosts file contains a list
  of mappings between hostnames and IP addresses. When an app requests
  an ad, that request is directed to 127.0.0.1 which does nothing.

So, an adblocker redirects an app's ad requests to an IP address which produces a blank result, which prevents the ad from being visible.


How to host Wordpress site on Android device I am trying to host a Wordpress site on my old Android phone, but so far I have been unsuccessfull...

I tried with KSWEB and Ulti Server, extracted the Wordpress.zip in the sdcard, and when I try to connect to the server I am getting error with the database...

Error establishing a database connection

Does it also has to run some other SQL server on the phone for everything to work?

I really don't know what am I doing, and there aren't any good explanations on the internet, so please help me

Wordpress requires a database to run.

After installing KSWeb, you will need to create a database for Wordpress.  To do this:

Open KSWeb.
Go to Tools → select phpMyAdmin (it will install).
Open Chrome browser.
Go to localhost:8000 (to connect to phpMyAdmin).
Select the Databases tab.
In the box below the label Create Database enter wordpress, select create. Your wordpress database should now be created.

Now wordpress needs to be setup.

Move your wordpress folder (unzipped) to /mnt/sdcard/htdocs/.
Open a browser and go to localhost:8080/wordpress. It will ask you to setup your database connection.
Enter root for the username and clear out the password field (you can leave everything on the default settings).
Select Submit.

It should now connect WP to your database.

Thought about using a Raspberry Pi?  I've setup several Wordpress Sites on the Pi (with MySQL) and you can set it up with your network for local website hosting.

References:
Wordpress - Do I need a database


Use Quick Responses with Hangouts' Implementation of Google Voice Back in the days of the original Google Voice app it was not possible to send quick replies when you're receiving a call through Google Voice.

But now that Google Voice is integrated with Hangouts is it possible? When I tried to set it up, it sent through the Hangouts app as expected but used my carrier number.

I don't know about "Quick Responses" in general but for all SMS and MMS messages sent via the Hangouts app, you can pick in the settings which number you would like to send it via. For example in my case I can choose to send from my Verizon number or my Google voice number.