How to root my ASUS Eee Pad Transformer? I need to root my Eee Pad Transformer. But how?

Step 1: Download & install the Android SDK, connect your device, and start ADB:

$ cd /var/tmp; wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r15-linux.tgz
$ tar xvfz android-sdk_r15-linux.tgz
$ cd /var/tmp/android-sdk-linux
$ ls
add-ons  platforms       samples         system-images  tools
docs     platform-tools  SDK Readme.txt  temp
$ cd platform-tools
$ ls
aapt  aidl     dx   llvm-rs-cc  renderscript
adb   dexdump  lib  NOTICE.txt  source.properties

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:0821 Logitech, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 012: ID 0b05:4e1f ASUSTek Computer, Inc.

$ ./adb usb
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
restarting in USB mode

As of this stage, it shows one icon in your system tray.

Step 2: Enable USB debug mode

Click the system tray, wireless icon, Settings and go to Applications -> Development -> USB Debugging.

Step 3: Play?

Tablet
     Power off
       [Press volume up + power button for 5 seconds]
       [Screen should stay off, its normal]
        So i did trace behind whats was happening such as USB is alive or dead?
       $ lsusb
       Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
       Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c05d Logitech, Inc.
       $ lsusb
       Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
       Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c05d Logitech, Inc.
       Bus 001 Device 011: ID 0955:7820 NVidia Corp.  << Screen is off but USB is up
       [now launch the BASH script]

[Screen 1]

##########################################
# lynx http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1198303
# Copy the universal-V3.tar file to somewhere safe place for reuse
###################################################################
$ cd /home/sun/Downloads/me;
$ wget http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=677456&d=1312486060
$ tar xvf universal-V3.tar; cd universal;
$ sudo ./universal.sh

Asus Transformer TF101 Universal Root
===================================================
Disconnect your tablet from usb (if connected) and turn it off (if it's not).
Press and hold the UP Volume and the power button for ~5sec.
For now the tablet screen should stay off, it's perfectly normal
Now connect to usb
Press any key when you're ready.
Nvflash started
rcm version 0X20001
System Information:
   chip name: t20
   chip id: 0x20 major: 1 minor: 3
   chip sku: 0x8
   chip uid: 0x033c20c143608197
   macrovision: disabled
   hdcp: enabled
   sbk burned: true
   dk burned: true
   boot device: emmc
   operating mode: 4
   device config strap: 2
   device config fuse: 0
   sdram config strap: 0

sending file: transformer.bct
- 4080/4080 bytes sent
transformer.bct sent successfully
odm data: 0x300d8011
downloading bootloader -- load address: 0x108000 entry point: 0x108000
sending file: bootloader.bin
| 943193/943193 bytes sent
bootloader.bin sent successfully
waiting for bootloader to initialize
bootloader downloaded successfully

Making a backup of your boot and recovery partitions in tf101-backup-20111112143317...

Nvflash started
[resume mode]
receiving file: ../tf101-backup-20111112143317/boot.img, expected size: 8388608 bytes
/ 8388608/8388608 bytes received
file received successfully
Nvflash started
[resume mode]
receiving file: ../tf101-backup-20111112143317/recovery.img, expected size: 5242880 bytes
/ 5242880/5242880 bytes received
file received successfully
Unpacking boot.img...

Writing kernel to boot.img-kernel.gz
Writing ramdisk to boot.img-ramdisk.cpio.gz
Writing boot.img config to boot.img-config
4351 blocks
Modifying default.prop...

Repacking as my_boot.img...

Cleaning up...

All Done!
Your new boot image is my_boot.img

Write back the modified boot partition...

Nvflash started
[resume mode]
sending file: my_boot.img
- 4214784/4214784 bytes sent
my_boot.img sent successfully

ClockWorkMod (CWM)
=====================================
ClockWorkMod recovery is a recovery image that let's you do some funny things like make a nandroid backup, installing custom rom and much more
This is not necessary for root

NOTE: if you install CWM you won't be able to update your tablet with the OTA firmware from ASUS, until you revert back to the stock recovery

Do you wish to install clockworkmod recovery? [y/N]n

[Screen 2]

Now press and hold the power button for ~10sec.

Your tablet should reboot. When android is fully loaded, go to Settings -> Applications -> Development and make sure USB Debugging is enabled.
Press any key when you're ready.
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
remount succeeded
612 KB/s (26324 bytes in 0.041s)
1262 KB/s (196521 bytes in 0.152s)

[Screen 3]

Done.
Your tablet is now rooted.

Enjoy!.

$ ./adb shell
# su
#

That works! You're now rooted.


Block phone calls which are not saved on mobile I have a Samsung Galaxy S6. I  want to block all calls which are not saved in my contact list: the phone should not ring, but the blocked call should be recorded in the call history so I can call back if I wish.

I have found many apps but they reject calls after ringing once. So strangers think he/has not recieved call and cut.

Is there any help or setting in Android?

Actually there is. Download 360 antivirus. In the its security menu you can block all unknown numbers, fortunately there's a history of the caller and the number of times the number has called. If you are having issues finding it, you can reach out to me.


Different notification sounds for sms and email? Is there a way to use different sounds for a sms text alert and an email alert? I can't find the setting. I'm on HTC Hero, Android 2.1

You can customize the Notification settings for both Gmail and Messaging in each of the apps separately.

In Gmail press menu and go to More->Settings and look at the Notification settings section.

In Messaging press menu then Settings and look at the Notification settings section.


How to adjust S Pen pressure sensitivity on a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1? A little background on me: I'm a professional cartoonist and have been working digital for about 20 years. I've had numerous Wacom devices & currently enjoy a Cintiq 21UX (older model). I also have the ASUS EP121 Slate. I think I understand Wacoms pretty well and generally don't panic about computer stuff.

The Samsung Note 10.1 S Pen is using Wacom's penabled tech. Same kind of hardware in the ASUS EP 121.

With every Wacom device I've used to date, either Mac or Windows, there is a control panel dialogue box that allows you to tweak the pressure settings of the pen so that the artist/user has the best control for them. The S Pen does not have this and I want it! :)

I have called Wacom. They said they provided the hardware but do not provide support for it. I called Samsung who said it was an Android operating system issue. Before I begin another round of waiting on hold hoping for Android support I thought I'd try here.

Any assistance or at least firm Android tech suppport numbers I could call would be much appreciated. I realize the Note 10.1 is brand new tech and a proper driver solution may be a few updates away but I am willing to be a squeaky wheel and/or early adopter to help this happen :)

Only chinese tablet Eben T6 or T7 provide a better solution of Wacom S pen, Samsung has no development of Wacom pen pressure tuning at all and make it no much different from a capasitive pen


Is there any application that can Pause and Record the video? I own Xperia mini Pro with Android 2.1-update1. I noticed that my mobile Camera is not allowing me to pause and record the video. I had to record the video continuously without any pause. I know this is little annoying me. And I started searching for video applications which can do this job.

This seems to be a limitation of either the Xperia mini Pro Camera software or the hardware itself. The camera that came with the Stock Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant (SGH-T959) I could pause and resume recording of video. I am now running CyanogenMOD on the device, and I can also pause and resume recording.

So either the developers did not want to include that functionality in the camera software, or the hardware has something that prevents them from allowing it.


How to SSH into Android from a different network? I'm running SSHDroid on my unrooted android device. When my SSH client on ubuntu or windows are on same wifi network as the Android, I'm able to connect to it via SSH.

But what I want to do is, connect to the device via SSH from a client like putty etc. from a computer which is not in the same network.

eg. If i'm on the same wifi network, I can connect via SSH using command

  $ ssh root@192.168.1.3 -p 2222

but when I connect via ssh using external IP, it says connection refused.

  $ ssh root@112.79.41.234 -p 2222

I also tried using PortForward to forward external port to the internal one. But it doesn't seem to work.
Can anyone tell me how to do it without rooting the device.?

Quick answer:

You don't need to 'root' your Android phone - both it and SSH are working correctly.

How to solve problem:

You need to better understand 'port forwarding' and 'public IP addresses'.

The 'port-forwarding' needs to occur where the public network ('Internet') meets the private network (WiFi network with Android device).  This is usually a 'router', but could be a larger 'firewall'.

You need to find out and add this detail, if you want any further help ..


No face unlock for the Nexus S? I seems to me, that the Nexus S did not get the face unlock feature with ICS?

Why would this not be supported for the Nexus S? Is it the hardware?

I wonder because the code is open source and I assume any other competitor would not restrict this feature just because it's not perfect yet. I mean: There are still quite a few other things that also do not work perfectly.

That's correct: starting Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0.1 and until the curent (at the time of writing) 4.0.3 the Face Unlock feature is not available to any version of Nexus S (NS).

This thread on xda-dev provides various speculations as to why Face Unlock is not available on NS:

lower quality front camera hardware on the NS
the vulnerabilities of this feature
(check out the note on the setting that says that Face Unlock is low-security and experimental)
having this feature exclusively available for Galaxy Nexus

Bottom line: Face Unlock is present in various ported ICS ROMs, but it's reported to be pretty flimsy at the moment.


Anything else works besides safestrap to install ROMs on n900a (at&t) Note 3? Question is pretty self explanatory.
Is there any other method available to bypass bootloader and install ROMs like other models?
Is at&t bootloader still under lock and key?

At the moment... no man, but be sure, there would be a way!


What is *Cell standby* and how can I keep it from eating my battery? Looking up my battery statistics, I almost always find Cell standby amongst the top consumers:

I never thought that "idle" would use so much energy. I saw that other people encounter similar problems:

Cell standby and Phone idle
Galaxy S3 cell standby is eating my battery

Answers on those questions just give some raw ideas. I would like to know what exactly stands behind this, an whether there are ways to keep this "standby" from eating my battery?

Cell Signal
Some backgrounds as explained by ce4 on the question Does 'poor' reception deplete the battery quicker?:

The transceiver circuit is engineered with power saving in mind and will reduce sending power as much as possible if the reception is good. This also reduces the SAR value which is a measurement for exposure of the human body to radiation.
If the reception is bad sending signal strength has to be adjusted accordingly.

So that's what's really behind it: On poor reception, the device spends a lot of power to find a better/stronger signal (or any signal at all if lost). The following screenshot1 clearly shows those times, when you take a look at the bar titled Phone signal.

"The greener the cleaner": A bright green means "good reception" (the screenshot shows this at the begin and end, that is here: morning and evening -- so at home I have good reception). Getting yellowish: "Moderate reception". This uses more energy: compare it with the graph on top of it (not in the screenshot -- but the same as in the first screenshot), and you see the bar is almost flat where the cell signal  is good -- but falls faster where it's not. See the little red spots: "no reception". And phone will power-up like crazy to find a new cell tower...
How to find out where the dead spots are?
I already showed in my answer on Does 'poor' reception deplete the battery quicker? how one can find out about those "Dead Zones" and where they are:
Apps like No Signal Alert2 and OpenSignalMaps3 monitor the cell signal in background, and record those areas, so they can show you a map of where the dead zones were. OpenSignalMaps has the plus of showing you all cell towers in reach, pointing out which you are connected to. It also offers you a "compass" giving the direction to the strongest signal.

However, my answer on how to automatically deal with those dead zones was not that detailed. So I played around a bit with different solutions -- and here's what I've found out:
How to automatically deal with those dead zones to save energy?
Apps to automatize Airplane Mode
I've reached fairly good results with two apps: Autopilot4 and NoBars Battery Saver5. Both monitor the cell signal and, when it drops to far, switch to Airplane Mode for a predefined time. The user can define how long that would be. After that timeout, Airplane Mode gets disabled, and cell monitoring takes over.

In the second graph of my question, this shows up as "gaps" in the Phone Signal bar: As the cell radio was disabled during Airplane Mode, no colors are shown; the system didn't know anything about signal strength in this time frame. And with the cell radio turned off, it also didn't use additional power (more precisely, it didn't use any power for this radio then) -- which was exactly what was intended.
With Autopilot, the only annoying side-effect was: For each signal check, it flashed on the display for about a second. Aside from that, it gives more options to be configured by the user. However, as the results of both apps where absolutely comparable, those extra options seem not really necessary, while being nice to have. Another plus of Autopilot is the log provided to the user: This way you can see the exact times of mode switches.
Apps to handle data network
I've also tested ShutUpBatterySaver6, which aims to handle the data traffic. Dropping below a certain signal strength the user can define, it disables AutoSync, and below a second definable level switches off mobile internet altogether.

It does, however, never activate (or deactivate) Airplane Mode, so the power used to get a (better) signal will still be the same. Though, with a bad signal data transfer uses more power than with a good signal, as e.g. package loss might be bigger. In the status bar I saw several times that it had AutoSync disabled7, so it seems to work. Not being a heavy data user (as the LBE stats in the same screenshot show), I could however not really tell how much help that brought: Compared to the two Airplane-Mode handling apps above, results in terms of gained battery duration were minimal (if any).
Combined solution
It would probably gain best results to join the two approaches. As I was not in the mood to check all possible combinations, I rather decided for the allmighty 6-letter-solution: T-A-S-K-E-R.
As most of you probably know, Tasker is the automation solution on Android. Guess it could even prepare coffee, if our devices had sensors to detect coffee and water. So I created some profiles for this great app -- and results were magnific!

So basically it's 3 Profiles, communicating via a common variable:

%SIGSTATE < 1: check if the signal falls below ~25%. If so, disable mobile data, set %SIGSTATE to 1.
%SIGSTATE < 2: check if the signal falls below ~15%. If so, switch to airplane mode, set %SIGSTATE to 2.
%SIGSTATE > 0: wait for 5 min, then disable airplane mode, activate mobile data, wait another 15 sec (for the signal to be restored), set %SIGSTATE to 0.

In my global Init profile (which gets executed when Tasker starts monitoring), %SIGSTATE is set to 0 (if it is unset). All 3 above profiles additionally set notifications, as the screenshot above shows9. Each state maintains one notification (which gets replaced when the same state re-occurs), the most up-to-date state is always on the bottom.
Results seemed even better than with the two airplane-mode handling apps above, but that might also be due to slightly different signal conditions. So it should at least be comparable. Using one of these 3 solutions, I came home after about 11 hours with about 20% more charge left then without applying any of them.
Having said this, I will end this answer showing the Tasker profiles I created, so you might use them with your Tasker installation:
Task "InitVars":

Variable -> Variable Set: %SIGSTATE = 0

Task "SigLow":

Net -> Mobile Data: Off
Variable -> Variable Set: %SIGSTATE = 1
Alert -> Notify Vibrate: Title "IzzySignal"; Text: "Signal Low; Mobile data disabled (Signal: %CELLSIG)"

Task "SigLost":

Variable -> Variable Set: %WLANSTATE = 0
Variable -> Variable Set: %WLANSTATE = 1 IF %Wifi ~ on
Net -> Airplane Mode: On
Net -> Wifi: On IF %WLANSTATE ~ 1
Variable -> Variable Set: %SIGSTATE = 2
Alert -> Notify Vibrate: Title "IzzySignal", Text: "Signal Lost; Entering Airplane Mode"

Task "SigReturn":

Task -> Wait: 5 Minutes
Net -> Airplane Mode: Off
Task -> Wait: 15 Seconds
(give the device some time to find a new signal!)
Net -> Mobile Data: On IF %ROAM ~ Off
(prevent bad surprise when returning from vacation abroad!)
Variable -> Variable Set: %SIGSTATE = 0
Alert -> Notify Vibrate: Title "IzzySignal", Text "Signal On; Airplane Mode disabled (Signal: %CELLSIG)"

Now for the profiles:
Profil SigLowCheck:

State -> Variable -> Variable Value: Name "%SIGSTATE", Op "Math: Less Than", Value "1"
State -> Phone -> Signal Strength: From 0 To 2
State -> Tasker -> Profile Active: "SigLost", [x] Invert
(make sure to avoid a conflict: %SIGSTATE~0 && SignalStrength~1 would match both profiles condition)
Task: SigLow

Profil SigLostCheck:

State -> Variable -> Variable Value: Name "%SIGSTATE", Op "Math: Less Than", Value "2"
State -> Phone -> Signal Strength: From 0 To 1
Task: SigLost

Profile SigReturnCheck:

State -> Variable -> Variable Value: Name "%SIGSTATE", Op "Math: Greater Than", Value "0"
Task: SigReturn

Profile Init:

Event -> Tasker -> Monitor Start
Task: InitVars

Now that's just the basic concept, and can be extended with e.g. playing sounds, vibrating, flashing the display, and more. But the energy saving stuff is already in -- and does its job as described. Hope this can help you as well!
Another remark: At least with GSM (I cannot tell for CDMA), returning from Airplane Mode by default forces you to enter the SIM PIN. This can of course be switched off -- but in that case this additional protection is also gone when switching on the phone. No idea why this is not possible selectively, as it was with my pre-Android phones.
However, for some phones there's an alternative to some items in above tasks, which remove this limitation:

In SigLost, instead of Net -> Airplane Mode: On use Phone -> Radio: Off if your phone supports this (my Droid2/Milestone2 does not, unfortunately). If you can do this, the WiFi check becomes obsolete (and your Task cleaner).
The counter-reaction in SigReturn then also needs to be changed: Instead of Net -> Airplane Mode: Off, use Phone -> Radio: On.

Please let me know in the comments if this removes the limitation of the SIM PIN, as I cannot test it (my device does not support it, as described above).
Edit by t0mm13b
The interesting thing I noticed was that there was multiple tasker icons appearing on the Status bar, which made things confusing as to regards the state that the tasker profiles was running as; I discovered that by setting the Title for the 'Notify Vibrate' in each of the above tasks to be the same, the net result is, one singular notification titled 'IzzyTasker' shows up, with the appropriate message used instead.


100% CPU load, battery drain with no app minimized/running in the background I have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 S625 global variant (4/64GB).

Like a day or so ago, I noticed a quick battery drain (from 100 to 24% after a whole night idle and 2 - 3 hours of heavy use the next day) and from there it was dropping a percent every 2nd-3rd minute. It never happened before as its a 4000mAh battery and usually lasts around 2 days on normal use. I'm new to the smartphone world and I was reading online about the usual causes of battery drain including background apps consuming it and overcharging issue damaging the battery. I got worried as last night it was indeed left plugged in for like 2 - 3 hours maybe after a full charge. So either the battery is damaged due to overcharging, or its some software issue. Now what I noticed is the CPU usage is maxed with no app running in the background. I don't know if CPU-Z's usage info is accurate, but it's 100% when battery is like 15 or lower and 40-50% when battery is 20 or above. Maybe there's some background process or maybe its normal, I don't know. I'm pretty clueless at this point.

Here's a screenshot of CPU-Z: http://i.imgur.com/ZL2ipZm.png

Really appreciate if anyone helped me on this one. Thanks.

The reason of battery drain is mostly app. Either because of poor developing skills of developer or because app is doing something it shouldn't. Well if you overcharged it for 2 hours after full charge you don't have to worry no battery is that bad to die like that I mostly left phone on charger over night and I don't have any problems, yet :).
This picture from CPU-Z is it taken just when it loaded or few seconds later, because in every phone when it just loads it show high cpu usage..?
However you should see if there is any shady app like fancy keyboards or fancy galleries try deleting them and see what is happening or apps installed out of play store.
You can use app called wakelock detector to see what is causing problem. Download ; here you can find some help about it


Chrome shows black screen when playing video, but performs well when full screen I have a tablet and an Android TV stick. Both are on Android 4.1 JB.

I have an MP4 video file. On my tablet, the MP4 plays well inside the Chrome browser. But on my Android TV stick, it shows a blank black screen! I could only view the video when it's in fullscreen mode.

I suspect that it's the size of the video or the display. Perhaps it was too small to see in normal mode.

Does anybody have a clue how to deal with it?

If every video behaves this way, it could be a bug in the display driver for your TV stick. When a video plays full-screen, the video decoder writes the decoded video directly into the framebuffer, a special part of memory that holds the image being displayed. When a video is played inside another window, it instead uses an overlay, which is a way of combining the video output and the rest of the screen.

If playing videos works fullscreen but not inside another window, this could be a symptom of a error in the part of the display driver that handles overlays. You could check with the manufacturer to see if an updated ROM fixes the error.


Strange .txt file that has the names of different presidents inside the android system folder Browsing the systems files of my LG P350 I discovered a strange file inside what seems to be the XT9 files: there's a txt file called heads_of_state.txt, which contents are the following:

Hamid
Karzai
Bamir
Topi
Sali
Berisha
Abdelaziz
Bouteflika
Ahmed
Ouyahia
Andorra
Joan
Enric
Vives
Sicília
Nemesi
Marquès
Oste
Nicolas
Sarkozy
Christian
Frémont
Albert
Pintat
Jaume
Bartumeu
José
Eduardo
dos
Santos
Paulo
...

The list continues and I can spot a few presidents names. It's located in system/usr/xt9/databases/mdb/

What does this means?? Why the file is there? What it is porpuose?

For the curious, here's the full list: http://pastebin.com/V8hHYZmz

(I'm using the V10F firwmare, rooted with Gingerbread)

I found a related github repo but don't know if its official or from some ROM developer. From the source the file heads_of_state.txt is listed under IME but has been removed in the latest commit (the only other commit). The commit message is "Deleted uneeded LG's Calibration apk". I can't conclude anything from this but maybe this will be helpful.


my android phone is tethered to my tablet. i wanted to put games on my tablet but the games downloaded on my phone. how do i get them on my tablet My android phone is tethered to my tablet.
I wanted to download games onto my tablet.
The games downloaded on my phone.
How do I get them to
download to my tablet?
I used my tablet to find a game at Google play store.
When i found the game i liked
I hit install. It said installed. Also said it would be added to my device soon. Shortly after, i got notification on my
Phone that the game was succsessfully downloaded. And was not on my tablet.

Download and install Shareit app from play store on both devices. Say your phone and tablet.

Now, say for example you have the game on phone and you want to sent it to your tablet.

Open Shareit on both devices and click send from your phone and click receive on your tablet. The Shareit will create a temporary hotspot to transfer files. Once it's created, search for the game from the next screen from your phone and select it and click send. If your tablet hotpot is created successfully. You will see, the name of your tablet in your phone. Tap that name and that's all. Your game will send to your tablet. After successful transfer click install.

And it's done.


How do I prevent my phone from syncing contacts with Google with xPrivacy? I have installed xPrivacy on my phone. Which rights for which app do I have to set?

Why that complicated? There's no Xprivacy or other tool required to prevent your device from syncing contacts with Google. It's rather a question of your settings:

If on account creation you decided to "Backup your data with Google", you might want to re-consider this, as this might include more personal data than just your contacts
in Settings→Accounts & Sync you can define what should be synced with your online accounts (not restricted to Google). Switch off what you don't want to be synchronized.
in your contacts app, you can chose the "default storage". Using something other than "Google" here would also keep new entries from being sync'ed with Google. Note, however, that you cannot move existing entries between the several possible storages directly; you might need to export them, remove them, and (after switching your default storage) re-import them.

Btw: Same applies to your calendar. Except there I don't know of any export/import feature in the calendar app, so for this part you probably need a 3rd party app.


2 GB RAM or 3 GB RAM, does it really matter? I am thinking to buy the new Xiaomi Redmi 3S phones that got recently launched in India. This is going to be my first Android phone. Now the phone comes with two variants, Redmi 3S with 2 GB RAM and Redmi 3 S prime with 3 GB RAM, both with Qualcomm® Snapdragon 430
64-bit, octa-core processor and other specifications are identical except the prime version comes with a finger print sensor.

I am a light user, that is, I am not going to play games or watching movies or will use lots of apps. I want the phone for general day-to-day use.

Does it really matter to have 3 GB RAM over 2 GB RAM, giving my using conditions? Will it be OK with 2 GB provided I am a light user? Does it really matter to have more RAM? Is it going to give problems with newer versions of Android?

Key aspect here light user who

Doesn't play games
Doesn't watch movies
Doesn't use many apps
Uses only for day to day to use

If the usage pattern continues to be same for next few years. answer is no, it doesn't make a difference

While the other answer has pointed out valid instances of certain apps occupying more RAM as as time rolls, IMO it is not very pertinent given that you are not multi tasking , But if you are using RAM hoggers like Facebook which nearly takes up 0.5 GB of RAM, it may result in sluggish performance if another hungry app is opened up

How much RAM does a phone need? gives an interesting take on current trend of high RAM phones and also mentions that Google’s official minimum spec for a 64-bit phone (that’s pretty much every phone these days) is 832 MB RAM, so, you are left with one GB of RAM for apps, even if Android  OS is updated to 64 bit) and you retain your 2 GB RAM device - pretty much future proof !

Edit: Your chosen device OS is 32 bit and occupies 512 MB of RAM and if it is 64 bit  it would require 832 MB of RAM , ( as per table it is dependent on screen size and pixel density- large in your case and pixel density  is less than 300 dpi ). This size is only for the OS , radio (modem) is extra, which is not much anyway. Source : Page 56 of android Compatibility Definition

Bottom line, for your use, it shouldn't matter, since EMUI 7.0 occupies  0.5 GB and you are still left with 1.5 GB, which is plenty. Even if EMUI is upgraded, I doubt it would make a substantial difference


Owner's photo in the pull down menu In 4.2.2, how can I put a picture in the pull down menu like this?

Open the People application (it's the name of the contacts app in Jelly Bean) and edit the entry for "Me". Set your picture there.


zenfone 5 lollipop update fails I'm using Zenfone 5 with firmware ww_user_2.22.40.53. When I try to upgarde with 3.23.40.52, it fails,saying only android 4.2.2 and 5.0 can update with this package. What should I do?

I found the answer myself. Downgrade the firmware to 2.22.40.53 then upgrade back to 54. Now your root is long gone. Then 54 will detect the lollipop firmware. Upgrade it and wipe cache from recovery mode. =)


How to share files between regular account and work account? I've researched and I cant find anything. What I am missing?

It might not always be possible to transfer data between multiple users/profiles. It depends on the Device/Work Policy Controller app, installed by you or your IT admin.
Android device can be managed in two ways: fully managed (which is setup at the time of first use or after factory reset on a company owned device) and work profiles (which can be added or removed anytime without affecting primary profile on a personal device / BYOD). Both requires a  profile owner app (MDM/DPC/EMM) installed and registered as an administrator. Fully-managed devices may further have work profiles and it provides more isolation and control on device-wide policies than the latter. See a comparison of both modes under Building DPC (1, 2, 3, 4) and Employing Managed Profiles (5) in Android documentation.
Multiple users can also be added if enabled in ROM by OEM/ROM developer. Being more isolated than profiles, interacting with users requires INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS which is a permission with signature|system protection level. So third party apps cannot use it at all.
Irrespective of if the secondary user is a human user or personal profile owner or work profile owner, the primary intention is data isolation. As defined here:

"A work profile securely isolates work apps and data from personal apps and data."

And as explained here, file sharing between device owner and work profile must only be through intents (fired with content URIs), not file paths. But a profile owner may completely disallow data sharing (and IPC/intents) between users/profiles. For instance see DISALLOW_SHARE_INTO_MANAGED_PROFILE, DISALLOW_USB_FILE_TRANSFER, DISALLOW_MOUNT_PHYSICAL_MEDIA, addCrossProfileIntentFilter.
Since Android 9 adb is also disallowed to access file belonging to secondary user/profile. For details see How to access multi-user storage in adb shell on Android 9+?

However if the sharing is not disallowed, you'll see options to switch to other profiles (tabs in Share Sheet on Android 11+) when sharing files:

Shelter - a Free and Open-Source app (I've no affiliation) that leverages the "Work Profile" feature to provide an isolated space for cloning apps - acts as a content (media) provider and provides "File Shuttle" option which lets you access Work Profile files from Personal Profile through "Storage Access Framework":

You can also run a small http/ftp server for file sharing on either side, or sync to cloud storage, if not restricted by policy.

So it entirely depends on the profile creator's policy if file sharing is allowed or not, usually not desirable in a corporate environment. However following method may work in all situations:

The most widely used trick for file sharing among multiple users is Android/obb directory which is shared among users to save storage space. Sharing was managed using bind-mounts in early days but then handling was added to FUSE/sdcardfs internally. However sharing is deprecated in Android 10 introducing mount option unshared_obb in sdcardfs.
So up to Android 9 you can use obb directory for file sharing among users/profiles:
~# mkdir -p /storage/emulated/*/Android/obb; touch /sdcard/Android/obb/test_file
~# ls /storage/emulated/*/Android/obb/* /storage/emulated/obb/*
/storage/emulated/0/Android/obb/test_file  /storage/emulated/10/Android/obb/test_file /storage/emulated/obb/test_file


What is the meaning of "flashing a custom ROM"? Possible Duplicate:
  What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc.?

What is a custom ROM, and what does "flashing a custom ROM" mean?

Note: the CyanogenMod and Fresh 3.5 links below are links to EVO Roms as an example - you need to find the correct ROM for your device

"Flashing a custom ROM" basically means to load a different version of the Android OS.  This site actually explains it very well.  A custom ROM is the full Android OS customized by the ROM builder usually to make it faster, provide better battery-life or add new features.

AOSP ROMs like CyanogenMod offer stock Android which will remove things like HTC's Sense or Sprint's Apps.  CyanogenMod's ROM is one of the more popular ROM.

Other Roms like Fresh 3.5 offer a ROM very similar to the default experience (with added speed and battery-life) by leaving Sense (or whatever skin your device has) and incorporating over the air updates into an updated version of the ROM.

In order to flash a custom ROM you must first root your device. For information about rooting see Matt's comment on the OP or my original answer below:

When I had the same question this is where I found it:
http://www.talkandroid.com/7686-what-is-rooting-and-why-should-i-do-it-the-pros-cons-of-android-rooting/

Depending on what device you have the rooting method will be different though.  Personally I suggest reading up on your device at XDA.


Installing Android on an Ipaq Possible Duplicate:
  Can I install Android on my non-Android device?

Is it possible to install Android on an Ipaq rx1950?
And in general, what is the process of installing android
on different gadgets?

In general, installing an OS to a new platform involves writing a compiler for the processor architecture, writing the drivers, finding a way to write to a bootable storage and booting the new OS.

Nowadays, the first step (writing a compiler) is usually unnecessary since the free GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) supports nearly every processor architecture that you care about.

In many cases, the second step (writing drivers) can be leveraged since Linux kernel have drivers for many hardware configurations and Google and some manufacturers releases their driver to the open source. On some really esoteric hardware though, you might need to write your own drivers (this is often difficult since such esoteric hardware usually comes with little or no publicly available documentation). It usually helps if a device is popular, since that will increase the number of potential developers that are willing to spend their time writing drivers.

On regular computer architecture, you usually have privilege to write anything anywhere on the primary storage and full privilege on configuring the bootloader; but on mobile devices, the third step and fourth step (writing the OS to a bootable storage and booting it) may involve finding a security hole in the currently running OS since such devices often locks down the bootloader.


how to find out secret service codes for android I have a Spice Dream Uno (Android One) and none of the secret service codes I found on the internet (like ##197328640## and ##7378423##) work on it. Do I have to root my phone in order for these to work?

Is it possible to pull it from the source code (google has released the kernel source code)? Where should I be looking for?

I use Secret Codes.

From the site:

  Secret Codes is an application that allows you to scan the secret codes available on your device through the dialer app.
  The application will scan through all available secret codes on your device. Then you will be able to executes these secret codes and discover hidden functionalities.
  In Android a secret code is defined by this pattern: ##code##.


ColorNote on Android - how to print out all notes and calendar events? I have the colornote app installed on Android. How do I go about printing the notes and the calendar events? I am able to "view" all the data from the last backup. I am able to send an email to myself of a .doc file that was generated before I signed up for online sync.  How do I print out the doc file? Microsoft Word is unable to read this .doc file.

HighLight what you want on the Color Note, COPY then open WORD NotePad and PASTE then Print WORD NotePad page.


What is a good guide that shows new Android users how to properly backup and Flash a new ROM? I've had my Samsung Captivate for almost a year now, It's my first smartphone, and I've just recently decided to root it. Being new to root and not having the greatest understanding of the Android system or the Linux/Unix system I still want to install CyanogenMod.

Does anyone know a good guide for someone like me? It doesn't have to be CyanogenMod specific.

CyanogenMod has a good overview with many devices and a full update guide per device (Captivate as example here). Here is an explanation of commonly used terminology (fastboot, adb…).

There are some differences between manufacturers/brands:

Google: very easy, with standard tools (adb, fastboot)
Sony: rather easy, all standard tools + special tool (flashtool by androxyde), locked bootloader that needs an unlock code from website (not possible for all branded phones)
Motorola: rather hard to mod, locked bootloaders
Samsung: rather easy, unlocked bootloaders (except for some branded phones)


How can I get to recovery without Volume Up hardware button? Or, 'My tablet's hardware "Volume Up" button is broken, now what?'

I'm trying to root an Asus TF300TG Transformer tablet (a 2012 model, unlocked), following this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2617298

I have installed the USB drivers on my computer
Rebooted tablet to fastboot
Flashed the TWRP recovery without problems
(Rebooted normally, verified that tablet still works as usual)
Rebooted to fastboot again
Got to the point where I should boot to the new recovery

That step requires me to press the Volume Up button to select the recovery option (at this screen: http://i.imgur.com/Fbogr.jpg ). In my tablet, however, the button is broken (and has been for some years now). Is there a way to get into recovery without actually pushing it?

What I've tried:

pushing harder
pushing the other two HW buttons: Volume Down moves the selection, Power does nothing
connecting the keyboard dock: there is a Volume Up button, but it doesn't do anything in fastboot mode; none of the dock buttons do anything
connecting a USB keyboard via the dock: no keypresses seem to do anything in fastboot
rebooting to recovery using fastboot reboot recovery: invalid command
booting an image using fastboot boot twrp.blob (and various other recovery images from my computer): loaded to tablet, then failed (downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [  0.398s]
booting... FAILED (remote: ) - note the empty error message)

Is there a different way to get to recovery?

Yes, there is a way.

boot the tablet normally
enable USB debugging
connect to computer by cable
from the computer, run adb reboot recovery
tablet reboots directly to recovery
Done!

I was trying to issue this command in Fastboot (where it's not supported) instead of ADB (where it works).


Changing PATH, HOME env variables of dropbear ssh session I made a dropbear multi binary that has android patch.
But everytime , when i login via ssh using dropbear as ssh server.
 On checking environment variables, I get ::
HOME=/sdcard
PATH=/sbin:/system/sbin:/system/bin:/system/xbin

I found no flag for changing these in dropbear help.

-A Android Mode, specify a user explicitly
-N Android Mode, user name
-C Android Mode, password
-R Android Mode, public key file (authorized_keys)
-U Android Mode, UID
-G Android Mode, GID
-b bannerfile   Display the contents of bannerfile before user login
            (default: none)
-d dsskeyfile   Use dsskeyfile for the dss host key
            (default: /data/data/br.com.bott.droidsshd/files/etc/dropbear_dss_host_key)
-r rsakeyfile   Use rsakeyfile for the rsa host key
            (default: /data/data/br.com.bott.droidsshd/files/etc/dropbear_rsa_host_key)
-F              Don't fork into background
-E              Log to stderr rather than syslog
-w              Disallow root logins
-s              Disable password logins
-g              Disable password logins for root
-p [address:]port
            Listen on specified tcp port (and optionally address),
            up to 10 can be specified
            (default port is 2222 if none specified)
-P PidFile      Create pid file PidFile
            (default /data/data/br.com.bott.droidsshd/files/run/dropbear.pid)
-W <receive_window_buffer> (default 24576, larger may be faster, max 1MB)
-K <keepalive>  (0 is never, default 0)
-I <idle_timeout>  (0 is never, default 0)

How can I change  default PATH & HOME variables in dropbear ?

It is not possible to change the default HOME and PATH variables in Dropbear but you could create a symlink to the directories you want.

You don't mention why you need to change the default variables?


Multiple Gmail Accounts Am I able to add a second email address to my phone. On the iPad I know you can have an inbox for multiple email addresses. Can I do this so I have my personal emails and a secondary one in the gmail app? They are both gmail accounts.

Thanks

Yes you can, to get this working just click on the button on left upper side of window and click on you email, now you'll get option to add another account.

*P.S on the image it shows "Personal" you just click on "Google" since it's Google account


Where is the top new free games on play store? Does someone knows what going on with the Google Play store? Can't seem to find the top new free game in there anymore so I can't play newest game anymore and only able to see the same old trending games

Where can I see latest added games now?

Edit

Here's what it was supposed to look like

Google deleted this section from mobile client about 2 month ago. However, you still can access it via web, for example https://play.google.com/store/apps/category/GAME_RACING/collection/topselling_new_free
Yes, for devs it's sucks. Now it's harder to reach users than before.


How to change email associated with Google Play Games profile? I've got games linked to my Google Play Games Gamer ID, which is associated with a Gmail email. Is it possible to change the email the Gamer ID is linked to?

You can still change login email in Google Account settings page.
Changing linked account is not currently possible.


Export to SD card disabled On my Samsung Galaxy Tab, I have contacts stored on the Device Contacts and Google Account Contacts. Since only the latter get synced, I want to change the former in Google Contacts format.

I read to achieve this I have to export device contacts to the SD card. Delete all device contacts. Import back contacts on the SD card, specifying to import them to the Google Account.

The problem is the option Export to SD card is greyed-out.

I am on Honeycomb.

vCardIO works on any android device and can import-export any vCard 2.1 format, even those with multiple contacts


I have an old HTC Sense and i am having problems getting market to open or even updating to google play store. I have an old HTC Sense Android, running 2.3.4, I'm not new to this scene, i currently have a galaxy S6 Active and a S8+, but im still learning, ANYWAY this phone doesnt have service, just wifi, i was bored and It has market, but won't connect. Did they make updates to install google play store, ?? Does the Android market even still exist..?? I appreciate any help.       - D.W.O
I have just seen that in settings it says 2.3.4 but somewhere else i saw 2.3.6...also this device is stock, i have no clue about rooting...would like to learn

"Android Market" has been renamed to "Google Play Store" long ago. Afraid Google also changed the API since and deprecated the old one, so you won't be able to use this "ancient" version anymore.

For an alternative, you could try F-Droid, an open source Android "market" which should still work with "ancient versions". There you'd also find apps like Yalp Store, which would allow you accessing Play Store.


Decrypt Samsung S3 Phone I have recently encrypted my S3 to allow me to get work emails, but I have now decided against this as it has caused the phone to run like a dog. When I attempt to decrypt the device it says I need to set a password of 6 characters with at least one number, however when I go to the lock screen settings menu password is not an option. I have deleted the email account and I am not sure what to try next. Can someone point me in the right direction please?

As far as I know, reverting the android encryption is impossible, you will have to backup your information and perform a factory reset.


Auto-Enhance Multiple Photos In Gallery? Is there a way to auto-enhance multiple selected photos without picking one by one which supposedly takes more time since it returns me to start of photos list and I have to navigate and find last photo I shot and once again navigate to "Auto-Enchance" option.

If there's only app that can accomplish that, it is fine, I would like to know which one is it.

Andorid 2.3.5
HTC Desire S

There is a fairly new app called Perfectly Clear which allows you to select multiple images and apply corrections to all of them at once in batch. You could also set a preset and apply the enhancements the same way for all images. Fair warning, for the more advanced features they have in-app purchases.


How can I disable the Complete account setup prompt in Google Play Store? Every now and then when I want to install an app from the Play Store, Google has to remind me that I haven't finished setting up my account, at which point I can only press 'Continue', to be met with a payment option selection box:

Image taken from googleapis.com

I don't want to needlessly tie another account to my Google profile.
I know I can 'Skip' from that point onward, but it's uselessly annoying. Is there any way to disable this prompt (that is: to let Google know that whenever I want to buy something I'll find my way myself)?

Is the sign always popping up or does it not appear again when u skip once?

Other, just make a paypal acc and link it without actually purchasing anything. If I recall correctly u dont even need a credit card


How can I edit all columns of my Google Drive spreadsheets? When I open Google Drive on my web browser (Firefox) I can edit every column in every row of all my gDrive spreadsheets. When I try to edit one of the spreadsheets on my Nexus 7, I can only edit the first two columns. It's a large spreadsheet because it's something like a scientific laboratory book. Another spreadsheet can be edited without limits. So what is wrong with the spreadsheet I cannot edit? Is there any setting I have to change? How can I edit the rest of the spreadsheet?

The Google Drive app by default opens spreadsheets in List view - a sort of data-entry only mode in which you can edit data but not equations.

You can select spreadsheet view - this used to be in a link at the bottom of the spreadsheet which involved zooming right out, now it seems to be at the top toward the left (this may vary by app/android version). You may need to force it to continue to the desktop view - it will warn you that you may not have access to all features.

Once in spreadsheet mode (which is a little ropey) you should be able to edit any columns.


I am unable to write files to my OTG usb storage I bought a Sandisk 32GB Ultra OTG pen-drive yesterday and it was working fine, as in would allow me to both read/write through my Moto G(2nd Gen).

Last night, I plugged it into my Samsung Galaxy note Gt N7000, just to check if it can read files too and it could read/write without batting an eye. Today when I tried to move a video file to the OTG storage using my Moto, it would give me an error saying "the following items have not been pasted". Basically, I am unable to write anything to my OTG using the Moto G. It works fine with the GTn7000 though. I cannot understand what might be causing the problem.

I tried formatting the OTG to FAT32 with default allocation size and that too was unable to solve the problem.

Click to enlarge

On lollipop, the 3rd party apps need to support the Storage Access Framework to write to external sdcards or OTG drives.

The apps need to be updated to support Storage Access Framework, the app developers need to be informed.

And considering the question old, many apps should have got updated by now. And the screenshot posted by you explains that the file manager is com.rhmsoft.fm which I'm sure is updated to support this feature as of now.

And through modifying the platform.xml, used to work in kitkat, but is not guarenteed on lollipop. There are reports that it doesn't work on lollipop.


How to get Lollipop update for Nexus 5? I bought Nexus 5, it had android 4.4.2. I updated it to 4.4.3 and 4.4.4, but I am unable to update it to 5.0. It says that system is up to date and it has been this way for a few hours.
I know that Nexus 5 has 5.0.2 (I think) already. Why is my phone not finding any new updates?

As it turns out OTA updates can take up to several weeks. There is a solution: you can manually install OTA updates by yourself. There are tons of guides out there.


How to undo silent mode on Nexus 4 On the Nexus 4, I can silence the ringer by pushing the volume down button, however, when I push the volume up button, the ringer remains on silence until I go to settings and change the volume bar in ringtones. Shouldnt the volume up button work? Any suggestions?

That's odd - mine behaves the way you want:  pressing volume down decreases the volume, and then goes into vibrate and finally silent mode; then pressing volume up reverses all of this.

My Nexus 4 has the current version of Android: 4.3 (JWR66Y) on it.


CyanogenMod 12.1 on Samsung i9500 intl caller echo I've installed CM 12.1 nightly (currently nightly 20151013) and people who call me complains that they have an echo, and they hear them selves.

I already tried the following:

Update Nightly (started at 20151008)
Doing a fresh install clearing all cache.
Flashing the modem with different versions (currently i9500XXUBMG9)
Stop "Ok Google"
Changing the voice recognition to "Basic Google recognition"
Try different ROM (PAC Man)
Edit the build.prop and modify the persist.audio.fluence.voicecall=false

I'm 90% sure that the problem is with the noise cancellation, because when I mute my mic the echo on the other side stop.

This problem did not occur on the stock (4.2.2) I had before moving to CM.

On the stock ROM I had an option to enable/disable the noise cancellation, this feature seems to be missing on CM12.1 ROM.

Do you have any suggestions?
Do you know how to enable/disable the noise cancellation?

Update:
I've installed the stock rom with Android 5.0.1 and everything works well.

Thanks,

Liron

I have the same problem with the same rom just lower the call volume two notches down from the max and it works fine


Can the software of a (non rooted) phone affect its charging when turned off? I bought a brand new Motorola phone. It was at around 70% of battery charge when I got it, but I've never been able to charge it.

I plug the charger to the wall, the USB-C (factory provided) to the phone, and it just does nothing.

Customer service chat wouldn't consider hardware issues before making me follow several default troubleshooting steps that clearly didn't apply to my case ("try force-rebooting", as if the phone was unresponsive – it isn't –, or "try factory reset: please charge the phone before doing it" – are you kidding!?)

I would do the factory reset (I still have about 28% charge left, which should be enough), even if I find it pointless, but can the software be an issue at all? The phone won't charge even if it's powered off!

Theoretically possible

I am not a developer but interested in charging and this is what I know software or OS does:

Monitor battery level and display it on screen and internally trigger warning actions
Detect that a power source is connected
Depending on the type of power source and battery level initiate normal charging or fast charging
Again regulate charging power depending on battery level, reducing it as battery gets closer to full charge
Interact with battery files that are coded in Kernel

There could be a lot more that I am not aware of,  but that said , if any of these functionalities are broken, it would affect or disrupt charging, immaterial whether the phone is on or off ( see second bullet - it won't charge whether it is off or on, if it can't detect power connected)

So yes, it's possible but is it probable ? I don't know , with the details shared

May as well factory reset and hope it fixes your problem and being new you can always return it if the problem isn't fixed


How to restore stock ROM I am on a Samsung Galaxy S4. I bought it used, and it came with Team Win Recovery Project installed.

My simple question is - how can I remove TWRP, and restore the stock ROM?

I am not experienced with rooting or messing around with the back end of Android, so please keep that in mind when responding.

I can not assure you the method would work or not but after browsing all over I found this satisfying post, hope it will help you too!

http://www.androidsage.com/2016/02/03/restore-samsung-galaxy-s4-to-stock-lollipop-firmware/

Try it on your own risk :)


Samsung S7 speaker phone not working (at all) My Samsung s7 (SM-G930F) works for making calls on 'normal' (non speaker phone) mode in all apps. but whenever i switch to speaker phone (regardless of the app i am using) the other side (the person I'm calling) can't hear me anymore. As soon as I switch to non-speaker-phone mode the other side can hear me again. It also doesn't work in video calls (the other side can't hear me when video calling).

Note: voice recorder also works just fine..
Note2: with headphones installed (via headphone jack) it also works (other side can hear me just fine)

I've tried the following:

reset to factory settings
clean microphone/speaker port+holes
checked microphone connector (if it was properly installed, it is)
cleared cache partition in android recovery menu (no change)
tried it in safe mode (problem persists)
and countless other 'fixes' which unfortunately did not work for me...

I have a custom ROM installed (I tried to find something as close to the stock ROM as possible). I previously had Lineage OS 16.0 Herolte installed but on that ROM Roaming did not work so that's why I decided to install a different ROM. Currently installed ROM I am not 100% sure of, will check tonight. I believe I followed this video tutorial so I should have the android 8.0 ROM installed from sammobile.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvPL6hskf6w. On the current ROM Roaming does work.

I believe the current ROM causes the issue since speaker phone was working on lineage OS previously.

Are there any other fixes/tests I could try to determine/fix the issue?

Any recommendations on where to find/download stock Android 8.0 ROM for the SM-G930F?

Thank you!

Dunno about the fixes, but since you also asked for a ROM, here it is


Sim card not detected after installing CM13 (unofficial) on xperia l i'm new to android. I recently bought a xperia l phone from my friend in which he had Cm11 installed i decided to upgrade to cm13 and it really messed up the phone.. the sim card was not detected and play store didn't work!!! so i came back to cm11 which then entered boot loop. So i decided to go with cm12.1. Now the pay services work like charm... BUTTTT sim not detected problem still persists!!! so can some one here gimme the link of the radio or modem files of xperia l c2104 or help me with any other solution for this problem... thanks in advance

Your baseband was messed up. Try to flash the stock ROM and don't flash CM13.

This happened on my Samsung Galaxy A3, when its baseband was messed up when I try to install it.


How to access a video file that an app is hiding There is this app that uploads some videos. You can watch the purchased ones only through the app! (free videos can be downloaded in pc with IDM)

So I purchased a video and downloaded it so I can watch it offline, and my phone's free space decreased by 1G. I want to copy and save that video on my laptop, but it's not accessible in the phone nor the laptop. Is there any way to find that file?

My phone is a Galaxy Note 3. I checked some programs ("Wondershare MobileGo for Android" and "YouWave Android") but they didn't work...

The app is V – Live Broadcasting App. For the other videos I need at least 7G free space!! I was thinking about moving the videos to my laptop so I can download the other 6 episodes :(

Most likely you can see it only from within that app: the file will be stored in the app's "private" directory where only itself has access to (unless you use "root powers"). See my answer here for details.

Even assumed you'd manage to extract the file (e.g. using root powers) and transfer it to your laptop, you most likely won't be able to watch it: those applications normally use DRM (see these questions for details), and their media files are encrypted.

Without knowing the identity of "this app", it's hard (or rather impossible) to say anything more specific.


WhatsApp Messenger not showing "last seen" for a contact I have a person in my contact list who is using WhatsApp. He is the only person who's "last time seen" status doesn't show.

I thought he had blocked me but when we texted each other I have realized he didn't.

Also when he's online I can see that he is as well as his profile picture but his "last seen" status remains hidden. What could it be?

There's a relatively new privacy feature on WhatsApp that can disable a person's last seen. When disabled you can see when the person is online but can't see when they were online last. For the person enabling this setting, it blocks others' last seen automatically as well.

You can read here for more information on privacy settings:
https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/android/23225461


How do I deactivate my Google account on my father's phone I logged into my Google account with my father's mobile. Now all my contacts have synced with his contact list. How do I deactivate my account on his phone?

You can also revoke all your account access remotely. For that log in to your google account and go to account settings. This is the link for online review your activity on devices.


Apps not appearing in Device Administrators I'm running Nougat 7.1 on device and I've came across a strange issue.
Newly installed applications are not listed in the device administrators page in security. The list just doesn't show newly installed apps, they used to appear on Marshmallow, but the Nougat update broke it. This means that I can't enable any newly installed apps as device administrators.
Some apps show the popup to enable them as 'device administrators', but clicking on Activate does nothing
'Greenify' should be in the second list, but it isn't:

Things I've attempted (That failed to fix the problem):

Clearing Dalvik cache and reinstalling apps
Booting into safe-mode
Performing a factory reset

Question:
The device administrators are stored in a list at /data/system/device_policies.xml. Is there any other configuration files relating to the entries of the Device administrators that could prevent new entries from being listed?

After thoroughly debugging this issue, I've found the cause. It seems to be a bug with how Adoptable Storage is implemented on my ROM. Any apps that are stored on external storage are not shown in the Device Administrators screen.

When using Titanium Backup, I came across the same issue as newly installed applications were not visible.

As Android automatically manages storage, it installed all new apps on the External Storage which led to this issue. Applications marked as device administrators are forced onto the internal storage, meaning any updates they receive won't move them onto the internal storage

How to fix:

Open up Apps in Settings and navigate to the problematic application
Click on Storage and select Change
Select Internal Shared Storage and then confirm by pressing Move


Sharing paid apps between two devices I've checked the posts saying how a paid Google app can be shared between two devices, but no-one says how to do it. There's all this stuff about using the same Google account, but what does that mean - it takes me no further.

Can anyone help please with easy-to-follow explanation?

You need to link your two devices together with a Google account. Done, hope this helped!

Okay, I'm not going to be that guy...

Here's how to really do it:

Open your Settings app.
Scroll down to find an option called something like Accounts and tap on it.
Now find an option that says Add account.
Now click the type of account, in this case, a Google account.
Now sign in with the same info used to initially buy the app or game.
When you're done, go into Google Play and swipe right to enter the options for the app, or click on the three-line-symbol in the top left.
Click on your current account to switch it out, now click on the account you just added.
Find the application you previously bought, and it will say Purchased.
Download and complete!


how to install custom rom in xperia z ultra? I have recently rooted my Xperia z ultra. and now i want to install custom ROM in it. I have searched internet. but i am not able to find any safe way to install custom rom. how can i do that?

Follow these steps for installing custom rom :

1.Unlock bootloader from sony official website instructions.

2.Install custom recovery like TWRP or CWM recovery to ease your further process.

3.Download custom rom like LineageOS or Resurrection remix whichever you feel good.

4.Boot to your recovery , wipe System data and install custom rom with Gapps.

5.Reboot and enjoy.


Error with screen brightness on Samsung Galaxy J7 prime I have a Samsung galaxy J7 prime SM-G610M Duos with Android 7.0 operating system. I have noticed something curious with the phone, is that sometimes the full screen of the phone does a slight flicker.

It happens a few times when I close an application, when one calls the other (for example share a MEGA file in whatsapp).

Another fact, and this one always happens, is with youtube, when you open it, the brightness decreases, and when I write in the search bar and I already have some text I write when I press the spacebar, it blinks.

Once, also the brightness gauge was hung, and the brightness of the screen was set to maximum, no matter if it decreased it, it remained at maximum. Although then it settled with just lock the screen and turn on again.

Does anyone know why this happens?
Is it a software problem?

I read some articles online and they say that the screen should be changed.

I have little time with the phone, and it is in perfect condition, without any accidents. So I am inclined to make it a software bug, and that is how I would solve it.

Thank you very much in advance.

Try factory reset your phone
If it didn't work flash you're phone to another android version


Launcher preference not persistent between reboots I recently purchased the BLU Vivo One Plus 2019, which runs Android Oreo (8.1). After installing kiss launcher and setting as my default launcher, I rebooted my device and the launcher reset back to the pre-installed Launcher3. Note that my other default applications remain, for example I also changed the default messaging app to Signal.

Are there any workarounds for this? How can I retain my preference for the default launcher?

Based on this answer,

adb shell cmd package set-home-activity "fr.neamar.kiss/.MainActivity"

However, this only works from an external device.


Can't explore files on my Sony Xperia U using my Ubuntu 12.10 laptop I previously used Ubuntu 12.04. When I connected my phone (Sony Xperia U) in MTP mode, I would be able to see it in Nautilus as a "SEMC HSUSB device" and browse files, copy files, and so on.

Now, I have a new laptop and I've installed Ubuntu 12.10 on it. My device is not recognised any more by Nautilus - I can see that the OS recognises it by seeing the entries that appear in /var/log/syslog - but the phone does not get mounted and I can't think of any way to access the files on the phone and put new files there except the terribly slow Bluetooth.

Has anyone else faced such an issue? Can you help?

I have found the simplest method, with both my Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7.0 tablet and Galaxy S3 Mini smartphone, is to use SSHDroid (on the Android device) to provide SSH server.

Google play > SSHDroid by Berserker

Then I simply connect from Nautilus using SSH, over WiFi. This is plenty fast and I can bookmark the links for re-use (provided the IP address stays static). After first use, I simply set a static IP on my router for those MAC addresses.

I have also used a terminal, for an SSH command line session to the devices. This also just uses the SSHDroid service.


How can I add routes to VPN client
dev tap
proto udp
remote ADDRESS PORT
auth-user-pass
ca cert-chain.pem
remote-cert-tls server

route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0

resolv-retry infinite

nobind

persist-key
persist-tun

verb 3

route-delay 3
redirect-gateway def1

I have the above OpenVPN configuration file and I want to connect from my SGS2.

Can you help me?

I use this to access on ssh server from my Sony ericson (Arc S) (OS: android ice cream) via OVPN

client
dev tun
proto udp
remote 41.204.120.234 1194
#Route option. I add this to access other IP not confugred on VPN server
route 10.162.100.0 255.255.255.0
route 10.8.4.0 255.255.255.0
...
#End of Route option
resolv-retry infinite
nobind
persist-key
persist-tun
ca /etc/openvpn/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/user.crt
key /etc/openvpn/user.key
comp-lzo
verb 3

If you use OVPN.


Install motog stock framework I installed cynogen mod 12 to my motoG, now I want to install stock rom, I got it from XDA, But how can I install? can anyone please give me steps to install it?

The XDA post you referenced tells you how to do what you are asking (taken from the XDA post):

How to flash:

Download ROM to Internal SD.
Boot into Custom Recovery.
Factory Reset (System, Data, Cache, Dalvik)*
Flash ROM with TWRP and reboot.

*NB: It is often also necessary to Wipe > Format /data > Yes (Warning: This will erase internal storage) - Do this before reporting any bugs.


Is there a way to set the screen to auto-lock after more than 30 minutes? On my GS3 the options for auto-locking range from "immediately" to "30 minutes". Suppose I wanted the auto-lock to happen only after 1 hour - is there any way to do this?

Short answer
Yes.
More detailed
There are probably multiple solutions. The one coming to my mind again involves an app named Tasker, which is the most flexible automation app on Android. An idea would be to have it start a timer whenever the screen is switched off, which is "blanked" whenever the screen is turned on. Have the key guard turned off initially (i.e. no lock takes place), and turn it on when the timer's up (lock).


Are there codes to insert Android emoji? Just like how in HTML you would use &#36; to display a dollar character ($), do Android emoji have some sort of code that I could type in a text field (and if the app supports emoji it will display it), rather than browsing through the list of all emoji?

Yes
There are Unicode character codes for standard emojis. There's a complete list available here, but some common ones include U+1F601, which is . The actual representation of the emoji might differ across platforms though, as seen below.

Additionally, simply entering the Unicode codes into the app might not necessarily display the character since it assumes you want to enter the literal code and not the emoji representation.
Several services including Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, GitHub, etc do allow for this fortunately, through a different list of character codes, such as :smile: for . Again there's a complete list available here.


What's the difference between these two volume bars in Android Marshmallow? What's the difference between the top volume bar (squiggle) and bottom volume bar (bell)?

I think they both have something to do with notification volume, and most of the time changing one also changes the other. I am running Cyanogenmod 13 (but I don't think it is a Cyanogenmod-specific feature).

It appears from the screenshot that a theme is in place with its own set of icons. Stock Android Marshmallow doesn't show four but only three bars. The extra one CM shows is for notification volume. Anyhow, a theme alters the icon but not the order of bars. You can always revert to stock theme or icons and get this result:

(Click an image to enlarge it)

First bar      : Ringer volume
Second bar : Media volume
Third bar     : Alarm volume
Fourth bar   : Notification volume

If you don't intend to revert the theme icons, then head over to Settings app → Sounds and behold the meaning of icons yourself:


Thumbnail image different to actual image A similar question has been asked previously, however the answer is not relevant to my problem.

I have a number of photos where the thumbnail in the gallery does not match the photo displayed by the viewer (HTC Sensation, stock gallery and photo viewer).

for instance, take a picture of a child on a swing.

The thumbnail appears to be an image taken a fraction of a second earlier than the photo the viewer presents. The child is framed to the right of the photo in the thumbnail but to the left in the full view.

Is anyone able to explain why this is the case?

Also, am I able to rescue the image presented as the thumbnail (which is a better framed image)?

I had the same problem with my OP5T running android 8.1. While you don't seem to be able to obtain the original images, the thumbnails can be found as low-res jpgs at:

  storage/interrnal storage/DCIM/.thumbnails

Depending on what you need them for, you might still be able to use the images.
I hope my answer was helpful.


Full disk encryption affects remote wipe ability? Android's FDE affects remote wipe effectiveness, say, with Android Device Manager?

What I mean is this:

If one does not have system encryption enabled, to safely wipe all your data would require overwriting all your data. One would think that having full disk encryption enabled would allow wiping by just erasing the encryption keys. Is this so?

I think you still would be able to remotely wipe it as encryption only as the name says "encrypts" the data. That means that after provided a password the file will unlock itself for read, but this doesn't affect deletion :)


Retrieve stored logger data (Android Oreo or Pie, maybe even higher) I found an option to store logs: Settings -> System -> Advanced -> Developer options -> Store logger data persistently on device.

I wonder where these logs are saved and how we retrieve them. I searched online but found no result.

logd is the logging daemon on Android which mainly covers the functionality of its desktop counterpart syslogd, but also includes klogd and partially auditd to get logs from SELinux subsystem of kernel. However logd just reads from different memory buffers (in RAM) and doesn't save to persistent memory (files) by default. We can use commandline tools logcat and log to read/write from/to logd respectively. Read here more about memory buffers - main, system, radio, events, and crash.

If one needs persistent logs as files, a separate sub-service (available on userdebug and eng builds only since Oreo (1)) named logcatd (logcat daemon  which itself reads from logd) can save them to filesystem in /data/misc/logd/ (not accessible without root). Behavior of the service on boot is controlled by properties logd.logpersistd.enable and persist.logd.logpersistd (2). Or to manually start/stop the service shell scripts /system/bin/logpersist.[start|stop] can be used.

The option “Store logger data persistently on device” in “Developer Options” also controls the same service using property persist.logd.logpersistd.buffer. From official documentation:

  Store logger data persistently on device: Select the type of log messages you want to store persistently on the device. Options are off, all, all but radio, or kernel only.


Recover Lost Voice Recording on EVO 4G I was recording an hour-long meeting with the native voice recorder app on my EVO 4G. When I started the recording, I left it running in the background, hit the home screen, then shut the screen off. The meeting went slightly over an hour. I got a few email/sms notifications during the meeting, but none of them seemed to interrupt my recording.

Finally, when the meeting was wrapped up, I went to stop the recording, and noticed that it was indeed still recording (displaying the recording icon in the notification bar) when I went to stop it, but instead of accessing the Voice Recorder app via the notification bar, I flipped to the home screen that contained the app launch icon, and opened it that way. The next thing I knew, the voice recorder was set to record (it was no longer recording), and the last recording in the records was from two days ago.

I shut the phone off immediately, just in case. As I'm hoping that the recording still exists on the memory card or phone memory. Is there any hope for me of recovering this recording? Anyone ever had this happen to them, and did you have any success recovering the recording?

I'm at a loss for words to express how disappointed I am with my phone that this could have happened. You would think it would be constantly writing the recorded data to the device and have better error prevention, even if it may have lost a little of the recording at the end due to whatever error or bug caused this calamity, but I digress.

So what are my recovery options here?

So I only tried to replicate the issue for a few minutes but even when I got the recorder to stop recording (opening the camera app forced the recorder to stop) it saved the recording.  I'm not sure if you already looked on the SD card but if you haven't try using ES File Explorer (or other file explorer) and go to "sdcard/My Documents/My Recordings" ... thats where I found my recordings. Maybe its still there.


Factory reset Mikona 7" tablet My 5 year old had Mikona 7" tablet (MHTMID-B718DC8-B) and 3 days after that, it's starting to give messages such as

  Unfortunately Launcher has stopped
  Unfortunately System UI has stopped

He somehow managed to get into settings to hard reboot, but I took it off from him and powered down. Now I can't use anything on there. it loads, but gives above messages.

The tablet had no reset button and no volume buttons. How do I do factory reset with just home and power button?

It sounds like he started a reset and you turned it off when doing so.
Turn it on and if it boots up go into settings back up resart/reset go to the last 1 on the list it will reboot into boso. Useing the home button to go down the list to clean and reset use the power to enter it will then resart ur tablet if u can not do this a phone shop shoud be able to help reboot it for u hope this help


Galaxy S5 Active home button - weird long press behavior I've got an S5 Active on AT&T. After the latest update, my home button started registering almost any press as a "long press." Does anyone have an idea of how to fix or mitigate this problem? Also, if anyone else has experienced the same thing, please let me know as I'd like to think I'm not crazy!

The good news: you're not losing your mind.  The even-better news: there seems to be a solution.

Head on over to ifixit and take a look at their thread.


how to use a remote camera (webcam or Windows-usb) as my Android built-in camera(s) Please read carefully, there are MANY answers to the 'opposite' question from the one I ask here, but I cannot find an answer to the following question:

I have an android device with no built-in camera.  I want to be able to use a REMOTE camera as the "built-in" camera on this android device.  The remote camera could be a (streaming)webcam, or it could be a USB cam attached to a PC.

My requirement is that the android device i use "think" that it has a camera built-in (or even better, two cameras, a front- and rear-facing one), so that I can use Skype, and zoom, and all other camera apps.

I am happy to also need to install software on the remote device where the camera is physically attached.  That remote device is really a windows PC, but if necessary, i could perhaps have it be a Linux box.

Please note that I do NOT need to 'turn' my android camera into a webcam. That is "easy" -- except that I don't have an android camera. That is why i need to do the opposite.  I would be fine to use a very generic solution, for example a "net-usb" client server solution, which would give me a usb-camera on my android. But the solutions i have seen like that are VERY expensive.

Thank you for any help/pointers you can give me.

--scott
PS ("the truth") -- the truth is that I would like to run Skype and Zoom on an android-86 running within a Windows HyperVisor. Unfortuantely, Windows HyperV seems not to support USB, and so i don't know how to add a 'built-in' camera to the android-x86 which I have already running there. Therefore, i can not use SKype or Zoom, since I don't have a camera 'built-in' to this machine.

I'm not sure about using a 'remote' camera, but as for a USB camera I've found a simple solution for myself as I was having a similar issue. Enable USB 2.0 and go into the Devices tab and Webcams and click on your webcam (assuming it's detected) prior to installing your operating system. This worked great for me with android x86 7.1 RC2


Measure the exact amount of battery usage within a period of time I'm checking the effectiveness of using different cpu governors for my android phone under different conditions; The problem is that I can't be sure of the amount of battery usage for each configurations with a period of time, say for 1 hour;(so that I compare them)

Is there any way or any app that can tell how much battery was used during the for example last hour?

I'd use Tasker for something like this! You can make a task to do the following:

Context: run between ?? a.m. and ?? p.m.

Check the Repeat box and set to every 1 hour

Add Task
Pick File -> Write File
Give it a title, click the "tag" button and choose Battery Level
I checked "Append" and "Add Newline" as well, but the last would be optional I guess.

This will make your phone write the current battery level to a file that you create once each hour. If you're creative with the "Text" field, you could even have it record the time and date as well (See Examples in screenshots).

 ->
 ->


Galaxy S3 Mini screen seems to get touched when there's no actual touch I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini which I've bought about 6 month ago. For about 3-4 months now, I've noticed when looking at its screen (but not touching it myself) that there's things happening on it as if some invisible finger would touch the screen:

lock screen with pattern would report some random touching on one of the screen lock pattern's circles. It looked like someone did a short finger-drag of about 1 cm, and then would shake the finger very rapidly on it:

other times, when I was doing stuff on the phone, it would either open an application or the Google tool-screen (the one that normally opens when you hold the home button for a longer time on Android 4)
also, while it was doing this, if I tried to override the ghost touches with my own finger the screen wold be very unresponsive (it would only "get" parts of my inputs)

I've googled for a solution and I've found basicaly 2:

1: remove the screen protector and clean the screen well to make sure it has no moisture or hand-desinfectant gel etc. Did that, removed the screen protector, wiped it good with soft paper, still have the problem
2: some people said that if I'm charging it with something else than its own charger, it may lead to the problem I have. It's true, I'm using multiple chargers to charge this phone only one of which is the original charger it came with. I've tested this, and it does appear that the problem arises when I charge it with an LG charger, or when I connect it to my laptop: before connection, no ghost finger, after connection, when the lock screen display automatically, there's the ghost touch like in the screen shot. However I'm not 100% sure that it's ONLY when I charge it like that that the problem crops up. However this does seem to be one way to trigger the problem.

My question is then:

has anyone had such a problem also? If yes, did they found a solution that fixes it completely (i'm willing to factory reset it if necessary, buy some fancy cleaning kit, etc)
if the solution is to only use its original charger, how come it seems to happen when I connect it to laptop also? How am I supposed to make it so that it doesn't go all ghost touchy when I want to transfer my pictures to my laptop?

My opinion is the screen might be grounded with some metallic or conductive object inside the phone. Probably a loosened part due to use. You can try to wave a strong magnet (like neodymium) at the back of the phone. Data shouldn't be affected anyway because flash chips are resistant to magnetism. But its still much better if you can get it repaired thru warranty.


Prompt for filename for screenshot I have an S7 with Android 8 and Samsung Experience 9

Is there a way to be prompted for a filename when you take a screenshot?

Thanks

The Android built in screenshot function does not support to specify the filename.

One alternative way for triggering a screenshot would be to use adb shell via USB or Wifi from a connected PC. On the shell you can execute screencap /sdcard/screenshot1.png and therefore specify the filename.


How do I plug in an emoticon into my keyboard I have the original Swype keyboard on Android 4.4.2 (KitKat). When I type some words, sometimes some emoticons appear, and I can click on them to insert them into the text flow.

This is handy at times, but I would like to address two issues:

If I am missing an emoticon which I frequently use, can I download one and "plug it into a word", in a special settings area, so that then, when I type or swipe that word, it shows up.
How do I associate a set of emoticons with ASCII smiley, so that when I type that one smiley, different choices for that ASCII smiley appear, from which I can select one (while also being able to opt for the classical funny looking ASCII smiley at the same time)?

Perhapsthis would be a better post for the User Experience or Software Recommendations site.

Please let me know.

Thanks.

P.S., the stock SMS app on my device does some ASCII smiley to emoticon conversion automatically. I think this is a feature that must be dealt with. I am aware of some of the limitations with this though, as I know SMS are sent over the network as ASCII without embedded emoticons, and MMS is expensive.

The feature that emoticons can appear when you type in a word was introduced in some previous Swype versions earlier, maybe with version 2.0. It is hardcoded and not subject to change in any way, like so many things concerning Swype. The only thing is that you can switch off the icon prediction, if you run a newer Swype version. If your keyboard came preinstalled, you need to deacitvate it and buy the actual Swype keyboard on Google Play.

Hardcoded also is the languages dictionary and in some languages the dictionary is very poor (e.g. german) but since long they got never updated/repaired. The only thing the user can fill is the user dictionary, which is very limited to some few hundreds entries, then it is full and older entries are deleted. Also this is not changeable.

The Swype keyboard (run by Nuance) is as it is and the support (e.g. in the forum) is nearly not existing, so don't hope about any change.

Sorry, nothing you can do. Use it as it is.


How to have isolated FIDO access in Android 7.x? I know the generic thread  How do I use my Google account when I have a FIDO U2F Key attached?
I would like to limit the access to two modes, such that creating an isolated access if you do not have the FIDO key connected to your phone

without YubiKey 4c connected, only basic phone capabilities like in Nokia phones
with YubiKe 4c Connected, all features allowed

I know that there are some custom applications which try to accomplish similar goals etc here.
However, I think the case requires an OS development approach to succeed.
I think the security team and OS development team should target the security tweak in current Android systems where they do not offer by default Android with keys.

Phone: any Android 7.x phone
Android: 7

Not supported by default. No maintainer for the feature in Android 7.


Android remote screen display & control I am looking for a solution/technology which allows remote screencast display and control from desktop. My goal is to provided remote mobile device display through a browser. I found some existing solutions:

AndroidScreenCast: Based on ADB interface. this is just screenshots using a simple primitive provided by ADB. low display.
VNC client & server. works for both rooted android and jailbroken iphone. low display.
iDemo + ScreenSplitR: Better, jailbroken iphone only.
HDMI/TV output: No remote control.

I've heard about "direct-to-device" technology which is used by DeviceAnyWhere. Are there any other solutions?

Webkey is my personal favorite remote control program. It turns your phone into a web server, complete with https and username/passwords with permissions you can set. So you could have an admin user with full access, and a standard user who can just see the screen.

On top of built-in VNC, Webkey also gives you the ability to track your phone by GPS, connect to a terminal, browse and download files from your device, and a bunch more administrative things. Though this sounds like it is outside of your needs (but you don't have to use those features).

And to top it all off, Webkey is open source and free, encompassing every Android users' favorite two buzzwords.


Can I use my Samsung SM-J700P on the ATT network? It was locked to the Boost Mobile network (Sprint) before I supposedly unlocked it with Odin, but using the ATT SIM card says it's not supported for the device.  I've spoken to both companies and neither seems to be able to help.
Thanks for any advice

There's a difference between unlocking a phone and rooting a phone. What ODIN can do is root a phone (giving you unrestricted access to the features and settings), what you need to do is unlock the phone (allowing you to change the cellular settings).

Once that's done, you need to set the cellular settings for the AT&T network (they would currently be set to the BOOST network). AT&T technical support is who should be able to help you with that, but the phone needs to be unlocked first.


Why does heat problems cause purple tint / pink spots on my camera (HTC One)? A while ago, I got a new HTC One m7, It is the best phone I've had, but it has one BIG issue, its camera sucks on low light.

I've investigated the issue, and I was told it could be alleviated with a software update, and it's been almost a year, and nothing.

The problem is in fact a hardware issue, where heat causes something on the camera, so it adds this annoying purple stripes/haze: Stripes Image, Tint image. And this hardware issue comes, apparently because there is a lot of strain on a chip (Zoe?).

Photos taken with flash look extremely good though. So my question is...
Why does this happen?

I'm not looking to know what causes the phone to heat up. I'm asking why would purple tint/stripes appear there.
What is happening to the lens? or... is affecting the image processor chip? if so, in what way?
Or... is it caused by something else?
And... How come it does not affect my flash-taken-photos?

The HTC One's camera has bigger pixels than the regular phone cameras ("Ultrapixels"). When you use your camera in low light, it tries to draw more light from the sensor, so the image looks brighter.

The "purple" issue is caused by bad heat insulation of the camera sensor from the rest of the phone, so when you try to take a photo the heat can cause distortion of the data the image processor chip collects from the sensor and converts to digital image (when you open the camera app it puts the screen brightness to max, so even this can cause the phone to heat up). When you use the camera in low light the image chip relies more on the sensor to collect more light, so this might cause only low light pictures to be affected (especially the color black, where the sensor tries to deliver as much light possible and there just isn't one, as it is dark). When you take a photo in normal light (or with flash) there is enough light and the sensor doesn't try to replace the color black with purple.

The damage to the camera sensor caused by heat seems to be permanent and if it's in an early stage it can be fixed by a software update which just calibrates the image chip to ignore the "purple" image data. But, as you stated, this is a hardware issue and if the software update doesn't fix it, the phone should be sent to a repair center for the sensor and the insulator around it to be replaced. As of November - December 2013 the new sensors are made by a different manufacturer and lack the issue.

Source: the forum thread at xda: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2317507
and personal experience with my HTC One M7.


Updating app that has newer version than the store it was bought in I bought an app in the Samsung Play store, only to find out later that there is a newer version available in the Google play store.

In case the developer doesn't update the Samsung offered version, is there some way to update it using Google Play?   When I got to the app in Google Play it recognizes that I have the app installed and even offers to let me uninstall (but not upgrade) it.  If I try to uninstall it warns me that Google play didn't install it and asks if I really want to uninstall so I'm not sure what dangers might lie there.  If I go through with it, might I perhaps be able to re-install from the Google Play store and get the latest version, or might something get totally messed up?

No, you can't update it from Google Play. It would be like buying your phone from Carphone Warehouse and then expecting Phones4u to help you out with a problem just because they sell the same phone. Or buying a music download in Google Play and expecting to be able to download it from iTunes. You've paid Samsung for the app, not Google.

If you uninstall it via the button in Google Play, the app will just uninstall in the usual way. You'll be able to reinstall it from the Samsung App Store if you change your mind, but you still won't be able to download it from Google Play unless you buy it there.

Just wait a week or two to see if there's an update. Apps uploaded to Samsung's App Store have to be "certified", just like Apple's, so there is often a delay before a new version will appear there.


Configuring a google account for a child My kids each recently got tablets, but I am struggling with setting up their accounts. I have 'temporarily' set the one up to have my google account as the account holder, because I was not able to 'legitimately' create an account for my child (younger than 13, so Google refused to create the account).

Now, I use my Google account as my primary OpenID authentication for many things, including here at Stack Exchange, and, as a moderator on one site, I have discovered that the tablet inherits the authentication from there, and my kid's tablet now has moderator 'permissions'. This is obviously untenable.

My questions are:

do people just 'lie' on the google forms for account creation in order to create new accounts for their under-age kids?
do you create a new google account with 'my' details and let the kid's tablet borrow them? (and, if I have a separate account do I need a separate Credit Card?)
is there a system I missed when setting things up, such that you can avoid the trickery?
if I want to install non-free apps on the device (to remove advertising, etc.) how does one go about 'adding' a credit card to an account like that? Can you use your credit-card on multiple accounts?
if I buy apps now with my google account, and then later change accounts for the kids, will I have to re-buy the apps?

Yes, you have to lie.
A separate google-account is the only way to protect your under-age kid.

All other options have these restrictions:

no privacy settings.
apps using of private data can not be restricted.
child can not install child safe games.
child is not allowed to communicate with parent using text messages.
child always uses parent account.
only one age, so only one child possible.
all data of child is lost when the child is allowed its own account.
apps of all children are also your apps.
child can not have contact information.
you are not allowed to create a google+ page for your child.
children receive all notifications. E.g. your private e-mail.
etc.

I just found out again by not lying. All drawings, letters to grandma, games and in-game-progress, pictures etc are gone.


Installing Gmail Material Design APK I have the APK File to the pre-release of Gmail Material Design. I went to Google Play Store and uninstalled my current, up-to-date Gmail package. When I install the material design APK, it tells me that an app with the same signature already exists. What app? I just uninstalled it,  it should just install, no? After all, I even went to ES File Explorer >> App >> Gmail >> Uninstall. I am not rooted and I use Blu Studio 6.0 HD.

NOTE: The Gmail 5.0 apk is currently causing a lot of issues and force closes on numerous devices, and without root I doubt this will work. Proceed at your own risk.  As a non-root user I would wait until Google roll out the update.

The signature already existing means that you already have something with the same package installed: Gmail! Gmail may well be a system app on your device and is not being unistalled properly. The actual /system/gmail.apk may remain despite it seemingly uninstalling, especially on a non-rooted device. The conflict is happening as you are trying to install an app you already have.

The easiest way around this is to uninstall Gmail. root users can simply uninstall the application, and install Gmail 5.0. You could disable your existing Gmail application Settings > Applications > Gmail > Disable and try to install the apk, but as I said at the start there is a very high chance you will get endless force closes.

One of the workarounds on XDA  for ROOT ONLY:

I am showing this less as a guide, and more as an illustration of the issues at the moment.

Rename old gmail.apk Pushed/renamed new Gmail.apk Change permissions
Then clicked on the app in Root Explorer and installed it --- this
time it installs successfully.
Then I deleted all app cache and app data.
Changed the r.build.type=userdebug
Saved.


How can I recover deleted calendar events? I had duplicate events from syncing so I deleted what I thought were the correct set but it turns out I deleted the ones from my Outlook calendar which in turn deleted them from my Outlook calendar during the sync.  How can I recover them?

I don't think it is possible to recover these.. Only if you should have backups of your Outlook calendar, but I don't think a lot of people take backups of their calendar


How can I move incoming  messages immediately to the SIM card? I need to move the incoming messages in my Android phone directly to the sim card. I know I can click the message and move manually to SIM, but I need to do it automatically. I couldnt find that option anywhere in the settings. I am also fine with an app doing this.

I don't think this will ever be supported. Storage space on SIM cards is very limited: The first generation, as far as I remember, could not store much more than 10 SMS, more recent generations might store maybe 100. Still, most people would very likely run out of storage here, and thus block new messages from being received. As it is uncertain how long providers would retry sending an SMS to the device before discarding it, communication would get lost -- surely not a goal of a communication oriented device.

Access to SMS stored on SIMs is only provided for compatibility reasons, I would say -- and I doubt this will change (not for "better support" of SIM for sure -- instead, it might be dropped completely). It's an out-aged technology.