Cable from charging port on Samsung S4 to full HDMI in car I bought new Honda Civic 2015 and could not afford the model with GPS so dealer told me no problem, just hook up the android phone to the HDMI cable and use the phone GPS. I need to know

If the normal charging cable (see attached) is a micro cable
If so, is the micro cable to full HDMI cable called MHL

eBay micro to full HDMI
If the cable available on eBay work (see the website) and
Will my Sygic app work on my video screen in the car.

Yes that is Micro USB
Yes the Micro Cable to HDMI that you need is MHL
Strong Maybe that cable gets good reviews, so seems promising
Yes the Sygic app will work fine.


where is /data/preload folder on my [rooted] android phone? I need to copy a file into this folder.
I cannot find this folder using the root explorer. Where is it?
I know it exists (or should exist) since system gives me an error message saying that file is missing in that folder.

You must have Root rights. It's in Root\Preload.


Problems since 4.4.2 OTA - Verizon Wireless Note 2 Background:

I was previously rooted and even after disabling root I could not do the OTA (it kept giving me a status error 7). After researching I decided to use ODIN to try and restore to a stock ROM for the upgrade.

I initially tried to use CI605_I605VRLJB_I605VRALJB_CL414933_HWID04_HW_Rev0406_low_ship_user as the firmware, but it caused my device to go into a firmware upgrade error.

I then used I605VRUEMJ9_I605VZWEMJ9_I605VRUEMJ9_HOME which got me back to stock 4.2, I OTA'd to 4.3, and using a previously downloaded OTA copy of 4.4.2 I booted into recovery mode and manually installed the OTA.

The Problem:

Since going to 4.4.2 (and I noticed it in 4.3) the Google Play store seems to load EXTREMELY slowly. I have Frontier FiOS and speed testing the connection shows a minimum of 25/11.36 Mbps for my connection. 4G does not appear to work so well either.

Could I have messed something up? I do not know why my stuff is working so slowly...

EDIT

I tested speeds using SpeedOf.Me (website version) and got results of .5-1Mbps DOWN and .5Mbps or less UP. This is regardless of using wifi or 4G. I tested Wifi on my PC and  got more than 10Mbps.

Take it to the samsung care and fresh install the kitkat rom all your problems will be solved.
If you don wana go to samsung care go to sammobile.com find the suitable firmware and flash your device using odin.


How can I remove all deleted messages from mail trash folder on default email app This question has already been asked here but no satisfactory answers were given. Some say to go to trash folder and select mails one by one then delete; I will NOT select 250 mails one by one!! Others say to go to the mail providers web site... if I wanted to do that then I would not ask this question. Anyway, even if I do that (I'm not talking about g-mail, but other providers I have accounts with) the mails will remain physically on the android phone in the trash folder...

The problem is that in the default Android mail app, there is no Select All option for messages, and there is no Delete from trash option. There must be some way to do this?

Thanks

Neither of the system-e-mails apps (e-mail and gmail) on my Nexus4 is able to accomplish that task - very annoying indeed.

So the basic answer is propably: You can not.

But there are mail-apps capable of doing so. One of it is K9-mail.


"Weather is running" notification Running 8.1.0 on a Moto x4: I keep getting this notification:

  Weather is running

  Tap for more information or to stop the app.

If I tap and Force Stop the Weather app, it comes back before long.

How can I really keep the Weather app from running in the background?
Or, if I want it to run in the background, how can I prevent this notification from constantly appearing?

[How] can I prevent this notification from constantly appearing?

If you long-press that notification you would be given the option to turn off the notifications for that app. Since it is Android Oreo, you may even get the option just to turn off that particular category of notification from Weather app. In Android 9, 10 and 11, you can also change a notification's priority status to "Other" and enable "Minimize" so that they at least become less infuriating and smaller in size, if cannot be hid completely.

If that doesn't work out for you, than I suggest you try MacroDroid. You can detect that notification and clear it automatically and immediately.
Setup MacroDroid and setup permission for "Notification access" and "Modify system settings" in it. Setup a macro with the following details:
Trigger: Device Events → Notification → Notification Received → Select your application:

Text Content: select Contains
Text to enter for match: enter the text from your notification. In your case, it can either be "Weather is running" or "Tap for more information or to stop the app".
uncheck Ignore ongoing notifications
uncheck Prevent multiple triggers

Action: Notification → Clear Notifications → Select your application → fill the details mentioned above verbatim for the notification received.
Constraint: none
The next time the notification would show up, the trigger would automatically fire up the action which would immediately clear the notification.

How can I really keep the Weather app from running in the background?

You can delete the app for your user account (the default user). Know that the only way to reinstall that app again as a system app is to factory reset. Note that removing a system app can cause boot issues, so proceed with caution and backups taken beforehand. However, I suggest you try disabling it first.
Disable the app from your Settings app. This should be enough to prevent the app from executing anything. If you can't disable it or it is not having the desired effect, setup adb and execute:

adb shell pm disable-user PACKAGE_NAME  # disables the app for the current user
adb shell pm enable PACKAGE_NAME        # enables the app for the user, if you must need it again, regardless of how the app was disabled.

This is akin to what you'd have done using Settings app. However, if you're still adamant on uninstalling that app, run:
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 PACKAGE_NAME

Replace PACAKAGE_NAME with the package name of the troublesome app. To  get help in finding it, see my answer here.


Can I use Google Play gift cards in my country? I recently found out that there are now Google Play gift cards. Something I've been looking forward to. The downer? It's not available for sale at my country (Philippines). So I want to know, if I get a friend from the US buy a card for me and send me the card code, will I be able to use it on my account that is based in the Philippines? I'm asking this because when I tried going to the redeem page, it said it's unavailable for my country and thus, didn't provide me with any way to enter a redeem code.

What I have in mind is I would TeamView my friend's PC on the US and log-in my account there then I will top-up my Google Play account that way. The question is, will it work? I mean, won't it detect that I was logging in from the Philippines just awhile ago? I wouldn't want to waste money with buying a gift card if it won't be usable anyway. My friend is an iOS user so I can't just sell it to him either.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/3422734?hl=en

Can only be used to purchase or rent content sold in local currency.
If you purchase a Google Play gift card or redeem a promotional code in Australia and then travel to Germany, you won’t be able to redeem your Google Play balance since paid content is sold in Euros.


Accidentally triggering the sound player or the torch I often accidentally trigger the sound player or the torch while I pick up or put down my phone from/to my pocket.

The phone is asleep when this happens, and likely I'm somewhat touching either the screen or some of the buttons, but I've no clue what I did exactly (and trying random stuff has been fruitless).

It's a OnePlus One running CM 12.1-20150418-NIGHTLY-bacon.

What could ever be?

This is happening because of the Gesture Recognition Feature

For CM11

Disable it by going to Settings > Interface > Gesture shortcuts > uncheck Flashlight

For CM12

By going through many forums it is clear that this is happening because of gestures and many people are facing this.

If you are unable to disable the gestures try following solutions.

Install Tasker and create a profile. Set it to enable on lock screen. Add task of closing music and flashlight if they are started while sceen is off.
Since problem is caused by Gestures go for flip cover.It will cover screen while your phone is in pocket. Probably because of flip cover gesture function will not work. (I know it sounds little bit weird solution :p)


How to access the RecycleBin or trash folders and recover deleted files? Deleted a file, with the option to delete permanently unchecked. Tried to retrieve it then, only to find out that Android has no visible recycle bin...

Android has no "Trash Folder". Maybe your file manager provides one but with no info provided, we cannot determine how it is. Usually unchecking such an option like "Delete Permanently" just disables file shredding, which is far different from moving to a "Trash Folder".


Enabling USB debugging from open file system access using custom recovery Of course this should be possible, but finding the correct files to modify is the real question.

Assuming we can boot into a custom recovery and have full access to the file system, has anyone investigated the steps for enabling USB debugging?

The motivation for this request is that I have a device that will not fully boot, so a log dump would be very helpful in this case.

The correct file to modify is the build prop. Which can be risky to modify. This will enable everything needed. Through the file system modify the build.prop or with a computer. If the custom recovery is TWRP or possibly CWM. Then adb comes pre-enabled. Then you also need root and a computer with adb.

boot into your custom recovery.
Plug your device into your computer and open an elevated command prompt.
Throw these commands.

  adb shell

  su

  mount -o remount,rw /system

  cd /

  echo "persist.service.adb.enable=1" >> default.prop

  echo "persist.service.debuggable=1" >> default.prop

  echo "persist.sys.usb.config=mtp,adb" >> default.prop

  echo "persist.service.adb.enable=1" >> /system/build.prop

  echo "persist.service.debuggable=1" >> /system/build.prop

  echo "persist.sys.usb.config=mtp,adb" >> /system/build.prop

I have done it this way with a nexus 4 and since this is the build prop. Here are some others that have too.


How does Android contact linking work? I'd like to understand how contact linking in Android works - or to be specific I'd like to understand it pretty deeply, almost from an algorithmic point of view.

What I've observed on my phone is that some contacts were linked automatically, some were not (even though when you go to manual linking screen Android will suggest pretty good matches) and I'm confused about this.

So my specific questions are:

What is the trigger for automatic contact linking? When does it occur?
Say that the answer to 1) is "when new contact is added, either manually or via account sync". So when this new contact is added what will happen? Will Android go through all existing contacts and try to find out if the new contact is just a linked contact?
When will Android recognize the new contact as a linked contact? When names match? Phone numbers? Emails? Some combination of those?

Any insight would help clearing this up for me, thanks.

See the section on Automatic Aggregation of Contact Data in the Using the Contacts API from the technical resources on the Android Developers site.

As the article explains:

  When a raw contact is added or modified, the system looks for matching (overlapping) raw contacts with which to aggregate it.  It may not find any matching raw contacts, in which case it will create an aggregate contact that contains just the original raw contact.  If it finds a single match, it creates a new contact that contains the two raw contacts.  And it may even find multiple similar raw contacts, in which case it chooses the closest match.

  Two raw contacts are considered to be a match if at least one of these conditions is met:

  They have matching names.
  Their names consist of the same words but in different order (for example, "Bob Parr" and "Parr, Bob")
  One of them has a common short name for the other (for example, "Bob Parr" and "Robert Parr")
  One of them has just a first or last name and it matches the other raw contact. This rule is less reliable, so it only applies if the two raw contacts are also sharing some other data like a phone number, an email address or a nickname (for example, Helen ["elastigirl"] = Helen Parr ["elastigirl"])
  At least one of the two raw contacts is missing the name altogether and they are sharing a phone number, an email address or a nickname (for example, Bob Parr [incredible@android.com] = incredible@android.com).

  When comparing names, the system ignores upper/lower case differences (Bob=BOB=bob) and diacritical marks (Hélène=Helene). When comparing two phone numbers the system ignores special characters such as "*", "#", "(", ")", and whitespace. Also if the only difference between two numbers is that one has a country code and the other does not, then the system considers those to be a match (except for numbers in the Japan country code)

  Automatic aggregation is not permanent; any change of a constituent raw contact may create a new aggregate or break up an existing one.

The article then goes on to explain the various modes that an application can assign to the raw contacts that it creates.  Depending on the mode, the system will either:

Automatically aggregate the contact as similarities are found with other contacts.  Where similarities no longer exist, these aggregations will be removed.
Never aggregate the contact with any other.
Perform no further aggregation on a contact, even if that contact changes such that it would be taken out of an aggregate group.

Aside from this automatic aggregation, applications are also allowed to manually set up aggregate contacts.  In these cases, the algorithm depends on the application.

Finally, you may manually join contacts in the People app by editing one of a pair of contacts, and selecting Join from the overflow menu.


What is meant by "nightly" in the context of mods? I'm using CyanogenMod and all of the updates are always "nightly". What does this mean? I'd prefer a more stable update then the newest with latest features. Is there anyway to get this (I have noticed some stability issues)?

See here for what I'm talking about: https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?type=nightly

By the way, I always update from my phones update feature for CM.

From FAQ on Cyanogenmod Forums :

Nightly
These builds are highly experimental. They are the bleeding edge and it is possible for things to break. These are automated builds that are used to test whether the code added to the code base compiles properly. If it does compile, that’s a result. If it doesn’t compile, that is also a result.
The CyanogenMod team releases these builds to the public to allow them to see the progress made. Usually these builds work great and many people use them as “daily drivers”. However, due to the raw nature and the fast-paced development environment of CyanogenMod, things can go wrong. The dev team does not accept official bug reports for these because of the ongoing development.

More Info:

Nightlies are not released as an end product.
What does this mean? It means they are built, automatically and periodically, with no human intervention and no audience in mind whatsoever. They are not verified before being published, and their principal purpose is to compile code and see if it builds on a per device basis. Build failed? That’s a positive result. Build completed? That’s a positive result.

What's a stable build?

Once a build has gone through all the development and testing phases, the CM team will release the stable builds. After a stable is released, the team goes back to developing nightlies. It is an ongoing process and will always allow you to see the progress that is being made.

Where do I find Stable and Nightly builds for my device?
If your device is officially supported then visit here and choose the build based on your needs from the left pane:

Otherwise,  see this link for unofficial ports.


Can I get this latest update off my phone (Galaxy S4, Lollipop)? Can I get this latest update off my Galaxy S4 phone? I can't handle the color changes and need it off my phone.

If you updated your phone to android 5.0 through Samsung OTA updates. Then I'm sorry. You can't go back because you updated your Knox boot loader. One thing you can do is install Cyanogenmod 12.


How to use Microsoft Streets & Trips on Android? Is there any way to use Microsoft Streets & Trips on an android device such as Galaxy Tab 2 or Google Nexus?

There are several RDP/VNC application on Android, which can be used to "run" any Windows application.

What you basically need to do is fairly straightforward:

Setup a server or virtual machine running a Windows machine
Install a RDP/VNC viewer on your Android
Configure the viewer to connect to the server

Citrix and Azure virtualization platform can be accessed by regular off-the-shelf RDP viewer. As an alternative, many open source or off-the-shelf virtualization software like VirtualBox or VMWare also supports RDP or VNC protocol for remote displays of their virtual machines.

How to set up the server is outside the scope of [android.se], try [superuser] or [serverfault]. Once the server is setup, it's fairly straightforward to setup the Android part, come back with a more specific question if you had trouble when you get there.


How do I get the location consent prompt back I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and I do not mind when the location consent screen pops up when I turn on GPS, in fact I prefer it As I always choose disagree

The one that says "allow google's location service to collect anonymous data... etc "

Yesterday I hit agree and now the prompt does not come on when I turn on GPS.
In the past, if I went to location services and turned off high accuracy mode (GPS Only) it would bring back the prompt so I could disagree again.

Does anyone know how to get this prompt back (Get the dialog box back). I have tried resetting app preferences to default, disabling google app services, google play services, clearing the cache, opening location services and selecting GPS ONLY then re-enabling the google app and google apps, but nothing has worked..

I do NOT want to share anonymous information with google so I need this prompt back.
Also - Is there a way to get Location Services to default to GPS only instead of High Accuracy?

This is the opposite of THIS problem
Location consent annoyance

I tried the solution found here :
Location Consent & undo Remeber This Setting
It did not work the first time.
The second time I left GPS only enabled with GPS on when I rebooted.
That did the trick.
When the phone rebooted GPS was still in GPS only mode and when I turn GPS off then back on I got the "Improve location accuracy prompt again"


Google Voice Input special characters and symbols no longer working? I use Google's default voice input all the time, for texting and navigation and searching and such. Previously, if a scenario arose when I needed to include a symbol (such as an exclamation point!) or a special case, like a smiley face ":-)", I simply said these into the voice input:

text mom i love you exclamation point smiley face

used to yield

Text to: Mom
Message: I love you! :-)

now yields:

Text to: Mom
Message: i love you exclamation point smiley face

I noticed the change after upgrading to ICS (AOKP, latest builds) but realized the issue now happens across OS usage, which I would attribute to Google's interpretation methods changing. Does anyone else have this problem or know how to fix it? I loved this feature!

This was fixed somehow after switching back to Cyanogenmod 7.1. Sorry I don't know exactly what caused it, but for anyone with the problem, I'd suggest flashing a more stable ROM (if you're rooted).


Why doesn't uninstalling an app free all the space it had used? I've noticed a problem in my Galaxy Pop today, that after uninstalling an app the actual free space on the device doesn't change. I have downloaded a virtual guitar of size 2.6 MB, but when I went to uninstall this app, then I was shocked to seeing that only 230 KB were freed.
My question is, where are th remaining 2.3 MB? I've searched the phone and SD card but couldn't find out it where it went. It also looks like I've been lost some internal space on the phone.

It could be a cache issue. You could try downloading  Astro File Manager and open it. Then go to File Manager > Pref > Cache from there click on Other Internal Caches. beyond that you will probably need to do a factory restore to retrieve all your memory.

Resources:

Uninstall app doesn't change space used

Support Samsung Galaxy S2 Internal Memory
Problems


Is a rooted phone still required to pass '-k' in ADB's package remove command? I successfully ran pm uninstall --user 0 packagename without the -k argument on my phone which isn't rooted, despite the XDA article saying it's needed.

-k is option to keep cache + appdata:
/data/user*/0/<pkgname>
without that option only the .apk file remains on the device:
/system/app/<pkgname>/base.apk
pm install-existing <pkgname> will re-enable app with/without appdata depending on -k
(explained in section How to Re-Install)


Samsung galaxy S7 edge from HK soft/firmware I am a massive novice when it comes to this, please can you help? I bought a S7 edge SM-G9350 from hongkong but it did not GooglePlay etc. I live in the UK and wondered how to get my phone software to be the same as UK phones? I saw this link but it is a bit advanced for my understanding. Thank you.

Obtain Gapps from here, and then in fact you have two alternatives:

Install custom recovery via Odin and then flash Gapps with it.

Try to install Gapps via adb sideload. Not all devices/vendors allow this, but you can try.
Firstly you need enable ADB, then drop the Gapps zip-archive into folder with ADB and run
adb sideload gapps.zip

There is also manual way of install (described for example here), but it's rather cumbersome.


What is `Snapshot` and `Use host GPU` emulation option(s) for? When creating an emulator device, the option Emulation Options makes me confused. What do Snapshot and Use host GPU mean?

The Snapshot option speeds up the boot of the emulator by saving a snapshot of its RAM once it has booted, and restoring from that snapshot on future uses. That way, it doesn't have to run the boot process (which is slow, because it's emulated) every time you start the emulator.

The Use Host GPU option uses the host computer's OpenGL implementation (which is probably hardware-accelerated, on your real GPU) to evaluate OpenGL commands inside the emulated system. Put another way, when a program inside the emulator uses OpenGL for graphics operations, the work goes out to your real GPU, and the result goes back into the emulator, instead of emulating a GPU (which is very slow). The result is a significant speed-up, especially when you consider that most view and canvas drawing uses OpenGL in Android ≥ 4, even in non-graphics apps.

You can't have both options turned on at once.


Why does Play Store on Android Wear claim ten updates when there are only two? My Ticwatch S2 notifies me when there are app updates available, which when tapped gives the option to update all or open (I have auto-update apps turned off). I picked open.

However, instead of the expected 10 pending updates, I'm only shown 2:

Note it shows 2 updates available (just barely visible at the top) and scrolling down just shows recently updated. When I checked each installed app individually, no other apps showed having an update (I'm not 100% the watch version of the Play Store does that, though).

This has been going on for a while. I've already tried:

Using "update all" instead of individually reviewing updates by hitting "open".
Clearing data for the Play Store, that cleared the list of recent updates and reset the settings for the Play Store back to defaults, but didn't solve the issue.

One thing I have noticed is that on the Play Store's main screen, it lists 8 apps on my phone that I don't have on my watch. Odd coincidence?

Not a coincidence. The Wear OS 2.x device's Play Store shows the pending updates both on the Wear device and the phone. This is because Wear OS 2.x allows standalone wear apps, and they can be installed/updated independently from the phone apps.
Thus, if the notification says "X new updates, Y updates total are pending", it means there are X independent Wear apps to update, but a total of Y apps both on Wear device and phone to update. Updating all from the Wear device will only affect the independent Wear apps, so the user still needs to use the phone's Play Store to update the apps on the phone.
From Android Developers - Package and distribute Wear apps

Distribution to Wear 2.0 watches
On devices running Wear 2.0, when a user installs a phone app that has an associated watch app (either an embedded APK or an APK uploaded via the Play Console), the user gets a watch notification about the available watch app. Tapping the notification opens the watch Play Store, giving the user the option to install the watch app.
Additionally:

[...]
When you upload a watch APK via the Play Console, you can update your Wear APK independently from the phone APK, and users receive updates via the watch Play Store.
[...]

(Emphasis mine)

Previously on Wear OS 1.x (and before, i.e. Android Wear), wear apps are embedded in the phone apps. To update the wear apps, the user has to update the phone apps first, then the Play Store will install the embedded wear apps from the phone to the Wear device.
Also from the same article,

Distribution to Wear 1.x and 2.0 watches
The standard distribution model for Wear 1.x was embedding a watch app inside a phone app. [...]. When a user installs your phone app, if you have a compatible Wear app in the Play Store, it will automatically be installed on Wear 1.0 watches.

Additional note: Ticwatch S2 runs on Wear OS 2.2.


How can I check which applications have been granted root access? I have an SGS i9000 with Android 2.1 and I installed a lot of applications before I fully understood what "root" was.  Now I naturally want to review which applications I gave root access.  How can I do this?

If you root your device using one of the more modern methods, then you should have a SuperUser.apk installed that will prompt you before any apps are given root access. The SuperUser application also keeps track of the applications that have been given root access.

If you don't know about rooting, there is no way you have an apps that uses root except if your phone is a second hand, and the previous owner did not wipe and reinstall a stock firmware.


Android Packet data shortcut I have a Samsung Galaxy Mini running Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread. In the previous version Froyo (2.2.1) when I held down power button I got in that menu a shortcut to enable packet data. In Gingerbread I couldn't make this shortcut appear.

Is there anything I can make to add this shortcut there? Because it's quite annoying to keep accessing Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks -> Enable packet data.

It's impossible to add any custom shortcuts to Power button menu. Looks like you have installed some custom ROM. If that is the case, you could also try to find the ROM which has this feature embedded. Here's the list of custom ROMs for you phone:

XDA-Developers: all samsung galaxy mini custom roms!

The ROMs that are based on CyanogenMod (CM) have nice feature called Notification Power Widget, it can be customized and Mobile Data switch could be added:

If you don't want to change the ROM, you still have some options:

As mentioned in another comment to your question, you could use Power Widget, also Android Market contains lots of widgets specially for Data switching.
Also you can simply automate the actions you want to do with earlier mentioned Tasker or Llama, which is free alternative to the Tasker. With this apps you could set Mobile Data to be turned on or off depending on events like your location, or, screen on/off, etc.


Toggle application with NFC I am using NFC tag to run Car application, and to set volume up in car on my HTC M8. But after I go out of the car I must to manually close application and set volume down.
Please, is there a way how to create task to toggle application and volume setting(if app is not running start it, when app is running close it)?
Thanks a lot

Try an automation app like Automate (free) or Tasker (paid).


Really strange battery issue? So, I don't have a picture, but my Android phones batter is on the fritz. At first it just started draining quickly so i checked if I had any apps that where draining it quickly but I didn't have anything out of the normal, the highest thing that was draining it was the Android systems which was 6%. I didn't think much off it since it is an older model and was thinking maybe the battery was just getting old and draining quicker. I just put it on the charger and brought it up to 100%. I took it off the charger and started watching YouTube which I knew drained it quickly but then something weird started happening. It went from 100% and instantly dropped to 1%. Thinking it was just a glitch I turned off the screen then turned it back on and it was at 90%. I went back to watching YouTube. Next thing I knew I looked back at the battery and it said 24%. I was confused and so i started to watch the battery, it drained normally for about a minute then started changing like this 58%,20%, 80%, 1%, 100%, and just all over, its been doing this for about three days now and I'm honestly not sure what's going on. I'm wondering if there something wrong with my battery or if this is just some strange phone glitch?

Go to Settings>Developer Options>Running Services and check to see if something you don't recognize is using a bunch of processing power.

If yes, you've probably got a virus.

Otherwise, a factory reset could fix the issue.


Is it possible to receive files on memory card during wifi direct transfer ? Is it possible to change wifi direct send/receive settings ? Is it possible to receive files on memory card during wifi direct transfer ? Is it possible to change wifi direct send/receive settings ?

Case is like I need a file from another android phone to my android phone but device storage memory is low against size of file but have sufficient of space in memory card, but when the transfer starts a file is copied only to the device.

EDIT : Device is not rooted

ES File Explorer used to be by choice for Android phones rooted or not, until the development was lagging and not current.

FX FileExplorer is to me, the best file manager out there. Has everything ES has and more but is also maintained often, updated and secure.  I don't 100% remember why I stopped using the former, but I do recall WebDav, FTP, was not great amongst other things. Read "A Short Story of A Fallen King" and the comments. You will read similar sentiments among other users.

Forgot to mention: FX protects your privacy:

No advertisements
No tracking of user activity: FX does not ever "phone home"
Built by NextApp, Inc., a US corporation founded in 2002; all proprietary code was developed in-house.


WhatsApp Messenger zero-day exploit: How to upgrade? It turns out that WhatsApp Messenger is affected by an exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability, which can be used to take over the phone with "zero clicks", by placing a call using specially crafted packets:
The Register:
It's 2019 and a WhatsApp call can hack a phone: Zero-day exploit infects mobes with spyware
also
The Verge:
Update WhatsApp now to avoid spyware installation from a single missed call: NSO Pegasus spyware can turn on a phone’s camera and mic and collect emails, messages, and location data
and, originally the Financial Times (sadly, paywalled):
WhatsApp voice calls used to inject Israeli spyware on phones
Reading the article from The Register:

A security flaw in WhatsApp can be, and has been, exploited to inject
spyware into victims' smartphones: all a snoop needs to do is make a
booby-trapped voice call to a target's number, and they're in. The
victim doesn't need to do a thing other than leave their phone on.
Engineers at Facebook scrambled over the weekend to patch the hole,
designated CVE-2019-3568, and freshly secured versions of WhatsApp
were pushed out to users on Monday. If your phone offers to update
WhatsApp for you, do it, or check for new versions manually. The
vulnerability is present in the Google Android, Apple iOS, and
Microsoft Windows Phone builds of the app, which is used by 1.5
billion people globally.

Ok, cool. I'm not in the target population of poor sods protesting their nasty governments or nasty sods protesting their governments by different means, but I want to upgrade anyway.
Facebook gives out this mini-advisory:
CVE-2019-3568

Description: A buffer overflow vulnerability in WhatsApp VOIP stack
allowed remote code execution via specially crafted series of SRTCP
packets sent to a target phone number.
Affected Versions: The issue affects WhatsApp for Android prior to
v2.19.134, WhatsApp Business for Android prior to v2.19.44, WhatsApp
for iOS prior to v2.19.51, WhatsApp Business for iOS prior to
v2.19.51, WhatsApp for Windows Phone prior to v2.18.348, and WhatsApp
for Tizen prior to v2.18.15.
Last Updated: 2019-05-13

Note that CVE-2019-3568 is not (yet) in the NIST database: CVE ID Not Found.
Now, I'm a bit confused. I have checked the WhatsApp application version on my Samsung:

Start WhatsApp
Go to the menu with the triple dot (︙)
Select "Settings" in the menu that appears
Select "Help" in the menu that appears
Select "App Info" in the menu that appears
You will see something like "WhatsApp Messenger" Version 2.19.134

(Why is this so complicated? Google should demand that applications deposit their version string in an easily perusable database, as sanity would command. Anyway...)
So I have Version 2.19.134. According to the Facebook advisory, that should be good.
But when I check in the Play Store, I see "Last updated 10 May 2019", i.e. before the weekend. No version information is given here, somebody in the design office needs to be given the lash. And is there a change log somewhere?
Finally, when I go to https://www.whatsapp.com/android/ I am told that I can "Download now" Version 2.19.137, which is three minor ticks up from the version I have.
So:

Should I just not worry because I'm at the safe version (about which I have now contradictory information).
Should I just wait until WhatsApp Messenger updates itself (which presumably will happen soon, or maybe can be explicitly triggered).
Should I install the version at https://www.whatsapp.com/android/ instead of using the Play Store (I'm not even sure that would work).

Update
For added lulz, the "Update Notification" screen: It shows that Whatsapp Messenger has been updated "2 days ago" (i.e. somewhen around Monday), but doesn't give the new version number and coyly doesn't really say anything about any security problem.

In cases of proprietary software vulnerability coupled with a lack of proof-of-concept and detailed technical information about the exploitation you have to rely on the word of softwares' developers, follow their instructions, and be content that you are safe.
If your WhatsApp shows that you are on v2.19.134, than it must be that. I understand that there are discrepancies in the versions shown to users on Play Store and WhatsApp's website. On Play Store, it shows 2.19.134 as the last version to me as well, and that too updated on May 10, 2019. On APKMirror, there is no stable 2.19.139 as of now, and Appbrain agrees with you here with 2.19.134 as the last update on May 10 it tracked.

Should I just not worry because I'm at the safe version (about which I have now contradictory information).

You do not have contradictory information. Your Play Store shows 2.19.134 and so as the app itself. It would have been contradictory if these two mismatched.

Should I just wait until WhatsApp Messenger updates itself (which presumably will happen soon, or maybe can be explicitly triggered).
Should I install the version at https://www.whatsapp.com/android/ instead of using the Play Store (I'm not even sure that would work).

The Facebook advisory clearly mentions that versions prior to 2.19.134 are affected. As long as you have 2.19.134 or above you are safe (according to Facebook). There is no need worrying about why the official website has some higher version available. You can always try installing that one. If the signature mismatches with the sideloaded version the app won't install, and you should put this matter to rest. If it matches you would have the latest app and that should definitely work.


how to configure number of app-icons panels? I just got a new Moto Z2 Play with Android 7.1.1

There's only two app-icons panels ( the panels that appear when you swipe the home screen left or right to view additional icons ).

On my Moto Z Play ( also Android 7.1.1 ) I have seven panels.

I've spent some time searching through settings and googling and can't determine how to configure the # of panels.

Unless Motorola have significantly changed the way the homescreen works from stock Android, it only creates as many panels as it needs to show the icons. To add a new panel, press-hold-and-drag an icon to where a new panel would be, then drop it on that new panel. Now you should have one more panel than you did before.


Android Apps can't access my SD Card storage BUT file managers can Apps like Youtube, NetFlix, prime video do not have a "Store to SD Card" option. I have tried 3 different sd cards with my phone, formatted them but still, apps are unable to detect the sd card and do not have an option to download to external storage.
However, file managers and apps like vlc, album, and basically any media app can access and browse files stored in the sd card. How do I fix this?

I want youtube to store downloaded videos to sd card
same for NetFlix and prime video.
I also tried uninstalling the apps and reinstalling them on my phone. I haven't found a fix yet.

My phone is running Android 8

Doing a Factory Data Reset on my phone fixed the issue. Apps are able to write to SD Card. I would like to thank @IrfanLatif for helping me identify why this was happening. Ultimately i decided to factory reset my phone and it did fix the problem.


How to run an .APK without installing it on the device with adb? Is it possible to run a .apk on an Android device without installing the app?

I can do something like this:
adb install com.your.app
and then:
adb shell am start -n com.your.app/com.your.app.MainActivity

This works but it installs the apk on the device and I don't want that. I want to run the apk on the device without installing the apk on the device. Is this possible?

Running an APK without installing it?

No matter if you won't accept the answer, running an APK is not possible.

It's not an executable, it's an archive containing the application and instructions on where all it's resources should be placed so that the app can run.

Android APK File Format

Asking this question is the same as asking how you run an iso image, or how you run a zip, or rar file.

If you really don't want to install it, there's no way to 'run' it.

The only alternative is to install it in a sandbox environment or something like that.

You could try to extract the binary from the APK to the device, and using a shell to run it, but I'm NOT to be held responsible if the results are unwanted.

If you told us why you want to run, but not install it, then I might get you a better answer.


How to stop Viber telling me to update in the notification bar I am running Viber on Jelly Bean 4.2.2 and when there is an update, Google Play will notify me once.  But once a day until I update the app Viber itself puts an icon in my notification top bar.  How do I stop this?

I dont want to stop knowing about updates from play, nor do I want to buy or install other apps to take care of this issue.  There should be a solution within either jelly bean or viber itself.

From DigitalTrends, when an offending notification pops up, simply long press on it and App Info will pop up. Tap on that and you’ll be taken straight to the app management screen where you can uncheck the Show notifications box and stop notifications appearing. You can also get to the app management screen by going to Settings -> Apps and selecting the app from there.

Unchecking the show notifications box does mean that all notifications from that app will be turned off though. As the warning states:

  If you turn off notifications for this app, you may miss important
  alerts and updates.


Removing the default guest user account on Android Lollipop How to remove the default Guest User on Android Lollipop in Nexus 5?

In the user settings, I am presented with option to add the guest user. However I am unable to remove the default guest user already present. I am able to remove the added guest users but not the default guest user. The phone is not rooted yet.

Yeah, you can remove it. Just switch to the guest user, pull down the notification with two fingers and tap on the user icon in the top right corner. It will then offer you the possibility to remove the guest user.


forcing all calls to be dialed by hangouts How do we configure the phone so that tapping on a contact number triggers the hangouts app to place to call? ( instead of the local carrier kicking in such as at&t. )

If I'm not mistaking, there was such an option, which I think I opted out, or I'm totally dreaming cause I can't find that darn setting.   :)

Currently, my phone is configured so that only the international calls are routed thru hangouts.

thanks

note 3.

I have had the same problem before. I During setup, the Google Voice app (this is what you mean, right) asks whether you want all calls router, just international calls, or no calls routed through it. If you didn't select All calls during setup, it cannot be found in settings. But the solution is to use the Google Voice toggle widget (looks just like the Google voice all, 1x1). Place it on your home screen, then tap on it until you see the toast that says Route All Calls through Google Voice (or something like that).

Otherwise, if you want everything to be routed through Google Hangouts, you have two options. But note that this routes calls through your data plan, not your phone plan. Both solutions require use of the Google Hangouts Dialer app. Download it from the play store. The first method is simple. Replace your dialer with Google Hangouts Dialer. When you open the app, it takes you to a tab in Hangouts that contains a dialpad, or your call log. If you do not see the dial pad, click the dialpad button at the bottom. Then dial, like you normally would. The second is a little more complicated, but it allows you to use your existing dialer. Clear your app defaults for both Hangouts Dialer, and your native Dialer app. Then when you dial a phone number, your phone should prompt whether to call using your phone app, or Hangouts Dialer. Select Hangouts Dialer.

If this helped you, please select the green Check mark(✔✅) on the left of the answer, so the community knows this is the best answer. Thanks


According to Link2SD I only have 2% system space left I have plenty of space everywhere else. How can I fix this?

System space is internal andoid space (not your SD card/storage space). To make more empty space available in your system, you can do the following:

Clean system cache (there are various apps to do that);
Uninstall unused apps;
Move apps to sd card (with App2SD or similar application);

System space depends on the device and is limited amount of space which contains your ROM, system and applications. It is not good if it has only 2% space left as your device might become slow or cause some apps to crash.


Image App which does not hide the directory structure I sync images to the external SD cards of my android5 tablet.

I use this schema:

YYYY/MM/DD-event1
YYYY/MM/DD-event2

Example:

2015/09/01-morning-sunrise
2015/09/01-afternoon-shopping
...

All images viewers seem I tried seem to hide the underlying directory structure.

For me it feels like global evil forces trying to keep me stupid.

I can navigate trough the directory structure with the "My Files" app.

Opening a single image works with the gallery or photo app. But swiping to get to the next picture of the directory does not work :-(

How can I navigate the directory and view the images on my external SD card?

I suggest you use the X-Plore file manager. It has the exact features of what you have expressed. The other file operations on it are also a lot easier and faster once you get the hang of it. You can read a review before installing from http://reviewlagoon.com/x-plore-file-manager-android/


Entering recovery mode when plugging powered off tablet to charger I installed Philz Touch 6.59.0 (ClockworkMod 6.0.5.1) in my Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7" Wifi (SM-T230) and modified the /system/bin/lpm (also called playlpm in other devices) to reboot the device as soon as it is plugged.

The modification of the lpm file works great when I don't have Philz Touch 6.59.0 installed on the device. Every time the device is off and I plugged it to the charger, it starts Android just fine.

The problem comes when I install Philz Touch 6.59.0 which works great by it self but when I modify the lpm file, every time I power off the device and then plug it to the charger, it start in recovery mode which is incredibly anoying.

Next is my lpm file:

#!/system/bin/sh
/system/bin/reboot

Does anyone knows what can I do to solve this issue or change this behaviour?

EDIT

I also tried the TWRP and the same thing happens. When powered off and plugged in, the device starts in recovery mode.

It was simply a problem of line endings. Somewhere along the road I modified the lpm file and the line endings of the file were changed to Windows and they were supposed to be to Unix line endings.

When you edit a file in a text editor make sure to the correct line endings. Next is a picture of how to do it in Sublime Text:


Will removing /system apps give any usable space on lollipop? In earlier versions I've pushed updated apk's to /system manually from time to time as it annoyed me to have an extra older version of Google+, Play store, Youtube, Keep, actually ALL the preinstalled google apps as well as a lot of Sony Apps (Album, Music etc.)
This would give me 300-500Mb for a cleanup as some of these apk's are quite large.

This is a tedious approach and would break stuff from time to time, but I am unsure if the simpler approach: Merely deleting the old system apk would give me any useable space?
In older versions the clear answer would be "no" as each partition was allocated a set amount of space, but after (I think) Kitkat, Internal storage was mounted as an emulated partition or something like that.

I have been searching for more information regarding this, but have not found anything yet. Hope there is a knowledgeable one hidden among you (preferably with sources) ;)

Nope. Deleting things in the system partition has no effect on the amount of usable internal storage - the system partition is reserved for the ROM and mounted read only by default. Only deleting things in /data and /sdcard will affect the amount of space available to you.


Advantages of updating through Samsung Kies compared to OTA? I have Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and I am still waiting for the KitKat OTA update. If Kies would allow me to end the waiting, I would definitely give it a try.

Does Kies provide any kind of advantage towards getting a pending update?

Usually, Kies will inform you of updates faster than OTA will. However, OTA is more convenient because you don't have to plug in your phone to the PC. So, it's really just a matter of getting the updates quicker versus convenience.


Making the browser remember its current location when minimized When I minimize the Android browser, it seems to forget what page it had open. What setting will make it remember?

Here are the steps I take. First, I load a website in the Android browser to completion, and then minimize the browser. At this point, if I press the menu button to see the apps that are running in the background, the preview still shows me the site open in the browser. When I select the browser, though, it comes up with the site about:blank (my home page) up.

This is under 4.1/Jelly Bean. When I had 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich, this didn't occur. While searching, I came across a question asking for roughly the opposite behavior that suggested that memory might be the issue; in my case, there's plenty of RAM free, so that's not it.

I would prefer for the page to simply remain open, as it does when you minimize a browser on a desktop, but if the browser just remembered the URL and reloaded when it was brought back, that'd be okay, too. How can I set this up?

By "minimize," I may be referring to pressing the "home" button and opening another app, or pressing the "other running apps" button and selecting one of them. The device is a Galaxy Nexus.

I had this same behaviour and figured it out. Go to Settings, Developer Options, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the Don't keep activities option. My Xoom didn'thave this sselected but my galaxy nexus did. Not sure if its a default or if I checked it accidentally at some point . Anyway, that solved it for me.


Why do I have duplicate contact birthdays on Android calendar? I deleted all of my contacts from Google and from my HTC incredible so that I could reload them all in just Google. As a result, the calendar on my phone has 2 entries on the "contacts birthdays and events" calendar on my phone. The calendar in my Google account only has 1 entry. The android calendar even has a birthday for a contact I deleted.

Has anyone else seen this and have a fix?

"
TomSawyer_2112

Hey Guys,

I had to clear the Calendar Data for the Bday to show on my calendar. This is what I did,
Go to Settings-Applications-Manage applications, then select Calendar Storage then "delete data". After doing this the screen (HTC EVO) will reboot (white screen with the HTC Logo).

After clearing the data, go to the calendar setting and add the Bbay.

Hope this work for you.
"

Source:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=58d284f1a1f36866&hl=en


Mail app never syncs automatically Despite setting a sync schedule for my my account in the mail app, it has never performed a sync automatically.  New mail is only ever fetched when I open the app, and pull down to refresh.  When I open the app, the "Last synced" note also shows the time I last synced it myself, which might be a whole day ago.

Using the stock mail app on a Galaxy A5 2017, though this also happened on my Galaxy S6.

The account is using IMAP.  I've tried deleting and re-adding the account and it doesn't help.

What version of your Android.?
Marshmallow? Then my suspect is doze mode are intercept everything when screen off in favour to save some juice (battery) to last little longer.


Red exclamation mark at top left when booting phone was experimenting( more specifically, trying to flash ROMs) with my Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace(rooted). It was all going well till I tried flashing the TWRP recovery mode. I followed all the steps mentioned on various xda forums but a red exclamation mark appears at the top left of the screen when I try to turn it on, along with the Samsung logo and it the phone just hangs. When I go to the download mode, it shows MDM Download : 0. I tried flashing, using ODIN, other versions of the TWRP for my phone model but the same error persists.

Is my phone soft-bricked?

How do I fix it?

I am trying to restore the original stock Samsung firmware now.

Many thanks.

Alright everyone, I have managed to solve the issue.  If you find yourself in this same error, visit this site to know properly how to fix your SAMSUNG device.

In short, you need a PC running a Windows OS, a software called Odin(v3.07)[used by SAMSUNG internally, so its legit] and the original stock firmware. Download the proper combo( country-region and phone model).

Hold the Power, Home AND volume down buttons simultaneously for around 5 seconds(until the Download mode comes up).

Then connect it to your PC using a usb cable and run Odin. Now click on the PDA and navigate to the extracted stock Samsung firmware file (MD5 type). Select it and wait for a while, the Odin will take some time (around a minute) to check and process the MD5 file.

Then click 'Start', let the flashing finish(takes around 10-15 minutes) and voila!


Download free-software apps from official Android Market without logging in The Android Market has some apps which are free software, which entails that anyone can redistribute them; and that are also zero cost. (An example is Theremin, but I'm not interested only in that one specific app.)

So for those apps, there's no good reason for me to register with the Market in order to get those apps and install them. I have no interest in registering with the Market.

It would be good if such free-software and zero-cost apps were available at more places, like the FDroid Repository, which doesn't require anyone's credentials in order to get the apps.

(Please note: this question is not a request for other app stores, that's not the issue.)

But the Android Market doesn't have an obvious way to download apps without logging in. How can I do so?

You cannot download apps from the Market without an account associated with your device.

The only way to get apps without the Market (or an alternative market) is to get it directly from the developer and "side-load" it.


Can anyone recognize this app (toggles WiFi, GPS, Sync, BT, etc.) in the notification bar? I found this screenshot in one of the market apps (Galaxy Nexus Flashlight), in the red rectangle there is an app do you know this app? it seem very interesting.

Thanks a lot everyone, I found it, it's a custom ROM called AOKP http://www.forum.aokp.co


Block access to Google Play Store app from Wi-Fi router I was wondering how can I block the Play Store Android app from the router itself?
My router has a function to block a web address or an IP address.
So does anyone know what website/IP address should I block to make the Play Store app not able to connect?

play.google.com should block all access to the play store. Be aware that won't prevent the phone from installing apps from other sources.


Is it possible to pre-download a YouTube video to view it later? Is it possible to pre-download a YouTube video to view it later offline? I know this is a duplicate, but the functionality has been removed for a year, and no (automatic) alternatives to the problem.

So here is the problem I take the train 2 hours everyday, and I dont have Wifi and 3G would just have its download limit busted in a day.

Si I would like to have my 'Watch Later' playlist (or could be another playlist) automatically downloaded to my phone when I have WiFi so I can watch it later, when I have no network.

The current solutions would be to manually download every video, then transfer them to my phone. Any app that does it automatically?

You should try to download Youtube Go from playstore, it has the ability to download the video you want and watch it wherever you are. This works offline too and when you prompt the download you can set the quality of the video you want to download

Take a look at here

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.mango&hl=en_US


Is it possible to know the wear level information of a phone, like SSD have with SMART? Is there a way to find out the media wearout level on an android device? I have a tablet that is acting weird and slow, so I wonder if the internal storage is still ok: it is the Nvidia Sheild (renamed Tegra K1 later on) and probably has eMMC since it's quite old.

I know that a SSD is not the same as a phone storage chip. I read about eMMC and UFS and I am interested about wearout on both generations of storage!

https://www.dignited.com/23879/emmc-or-ufs-mobile-phone-storage/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-ufs-3-0-storage/

Here's a link to Unix/Linux SE for more info about media wearout:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/106678/how-to-check-the-life-left-in-ssd-or-the-mediums-wear-level

I know that one way to estimate the storage wear is to run a storage benchmark app, but I am interested about storage wearout.

Thanks!

SMART was originally designed for ATA devices and extended to SCSI and PCIe/NVMe later to cover almost the whole range of HDDs/SSDs. Trying to send SMART commands to eMMC, e.g. using smartctl would throw error: Unable to detect device type. Please specify device type with the -d option.

Unlike SATA or SAS, eMMC communicates over parallel links and has a different command set. One of these commands (CMD8) dumps the Extended CSD (Card Specific Data) register which holds card's internal information and device capabilities including Life Time Estimation and Pre EOL (End of Life) Estimation. EXT_CSD register can be read (requires root) using mmc tool from mmc-utils:

~# mmc extcsd read /dev/block/mmcblk0 | grep -E 'LIFE|EOL'
eMMC Life Time Estimation A [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A]: 0x03
eMMC Life Time Estimation B [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B]: 0x03
eMMC Pre EOL information [EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO]: 0x01

* 0x03 indicates health status is estimated between 20% and 30% of the device lifespan.
* 0x01 indicates Normal pre-EOL status.

Depending on your MMC driver, the above information is also available through sysfs interfaces:

~# cat /sys/devices/soc/7824900.sdhci/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:0001/{life_time,pre_eol_info}
0x03 0x03
01

* Path may differ depending on eMMC vendor.

Another option is to read ECSD register from debugfs:

~# cat /sys/kernel/debug/mmc0/mmc0:0001/ext_csd

But parsing ECSD raw output is an extra job.

For UFS part I'm not sure at the moment if the health/wear estimation is available through HCI Capabilities Registers or not. Also unlike eMMC, UFS operates over a serial communication link and supports a subset of SCSI commands. So it might be providing SMART (or SMART-like) monitoring system. Someone else may update the answer if some authentic source of information is available.

REFERENCES:

Wear Estimation for Devices with eMMC Flash Memory
eMMC ELECTRICAL STANDARD (5.1) (JESD84-B51A)
UFS in Linux kernel
UFS Overview


How to store reminders from google now offline? I find it very convenient to set reminders using voice "ok google" with Google Now. However, I cannot seem to get it to work when I do not have an internet connection. Is there a way I can set reminders with voice that will also work when offline?

You can do it on the calendar.Press the plus button,the reminders option will come up.
It has slightly less options to it but is still a useful reminder.Good luck x


Samsung Galaxy S2 hangs/freezes sometime I am using Samsung Galaxy S2 for last 4 days. After two days of usage, I am experiencing phone hanging frequently. It just freezes while operating. The screen light won't go off and screen stays freezed. Only way out is press & hold power off button and restart S2.

I was using a launcher called, Go Launcher EX. Thinking this launcher is making the problem, I uninstalled everything related to this. But it didn't fix the problem.

I am running the following applications other than the defaul samsung installed ones.

Advanced task killer
Amazon Kindle
Angry birds
Dropbox
Facebook
Firefox
Gmail
Picture Dial
Springpad

I am not sure which application causes the problem. I am thinking of doing a factory reset. Before I do that, just wanted to see if someone else faced the problem.

If the crash/freeze happens next time, is there a place that I can look for diagnostic information? Like logs, dumps etc.

Edit

I got it freezing again. I was charging the phone and got a call. That froze the phone.

Any help would be appreciated

If you suspect an app or service is causing the freeze, and if your phone is rooted, install Bloat Freezer and then freeze  background apps and services in groups to try and isolate the problem.
A good list of apps that can be safely frozen can be found here. Some of them are:

All share
Analog clock
Android live wallpapers
Ap Mobile
Bookstore

There are over a hundred listed in the post I've referenced.


Cleaning up Samsung S2 memory When I use the application manager, I see that 1.8GB are occupied out of 2GB available. This of course causes issues when installing apps and brings up a warning notifications that some system services may malfunction. However, if I sum the memory taken by my apps, I come up at 1GB, and many of these apps have been moved to the SD card.

I've tried to use Clean Master to free space, but without much success.

So I want to cleanup files manually. What partitions on the phone's system are the ones in the 2GB space? Is it the root partition?

/storage/sdcard/android is probably where all the data is.  You can manually delete files out of there, but I would recommend using the application SD Card Maid.  I say that just because it has a lot of functions to clean up data from apps that are no longer installed.


Why does photos 'edit in' change image app export behavior? When you open a picture in Pixlr / Snapseed / etc., you are given option of resizing / export the resulting photo.

However if I 'share' or use gallery 'edit in', I cannot export in Snapseed, and Pixlr is missing image resize on save dialog.

Why does android differentiate these activities and more importantly can I turn it off?

Really dislike workflow of opening Snapseed first then hunting for a photo I already had open elsewhere. I thought it was a Pixlr issue until Snapseed did similar.

Missing image resize ui from Pixlr:

Reproduced with Android 7,8, and 9. Google Pixel

I use Photo Editor and it seems to be able to crop and resize images that other app sends / "shares" to it.

While I don't know exactly why and I don't do any Android development, I think that it could be those two apps provide functionality for "editing only", where the resulting (edited) photo is returned to the handler, in your case, your gallery app, instead of handling by themselves. This could be a possible reason why those apps can't export photos when the photos aren't opened from within the apps.


How root huawei y7 trt lx1/ switch slot? I am trying to root my phone,

I unlocked bootloader
I have uploaded Magisk-v16.6 to internal storage
I flashed by many twrp versions (fastboot flash recovery TWRP_3.2.3_TRT-LX1_by_kiruha_21.img/ twrp-3.2.3-4-land /
boot-without-enciphering-data / twrp-3.3.1-0-CRO_U00 /
TRT-TWRP-3.1.1-0818 /TWRP_3.2.2_TREBLE_TRT-LX1_by_kiruha_21 /
twrp-3.3.1-0-whyred but every time when I start phone i twrp mode -
touchscreen not working
I read https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=77597383&postcount=86

And I try to switch slot but when I run fastboot --set-active=a
I get error: Device does not support slots.
and when I run fastboot getvar current-slot I get

current-slot:
finished. total time: 0.002s

my fastboot version fastboot version 1:8.1.0+r23-5~18.04

The bootloader must load the DTBO image that is compatible with the recovery image. in your case Touch is not working because the TWRP version does not support it. There is not much you can do, the TWRP kernel must be compiled with touch support (or maybe binary hex-patched).

Look for dtbo.img or (edit: dtb is appended to kernel for y7)
use the adb shell commands TWRP comes with:
https://twrp.me/faq/openrecoveryscript.html

You can also try to boot TWRP from fastboot instead of flashing it, sometimes this will affect to touch screen work.

fastboot boot C:\adb\TWRP_3.2.2_TRT-LX1_by_kiruha_21.img

regarding switch slots, you can not switch if you don't have A/B device. don't mix up different recoveries.

please note the differences between /etc/recovery.fstab

only in TWRP_3.2.2_TRT-LX1_by_kiruha_21

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata fs: f2fs
/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/
vendor, product, version, log

only in TWRP_3.2.2_TREBLE_TRT-LX1_by_kiruha_21

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata fs: ext4
/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/
fsc, lksecapp, sbl1, dip, dpo, limits, mcfg, mdtp, mota, oem, syscfg

Please check if your phone has f2fs or ext4 file system, and check if vendor partition is present or not. Select the proper TWRP variant according to your partition layout.

you can check your partitions from adb shell or terminal emulator (one of these commands will work)

ls -d /dev/block/*/*/*/by-name/*
ls -d /dev/block/*/*/by-name/*
ls -d /dev/block/*/by-name/*

for file system type (one of these commands will work)

df -t ext4 /data
df -t f2fs /data
df -T /data
mount | grep "/data "


Long press home button and power button both showing power menu? Yesterday i installed the official rom for my note 2 (N7100DDUEML4), and after that i rooted the phone. But After that power button and the long press home button both shows the power menu.

  I am unable to see the recent apps popup

How can i fix this or is there any way i can change the behaviour of long press home button as my phone is rooted.

As your device is rooted, Button Remapper might provide a solution. It allows you to re-assing actions triggered by buttons, so you should be able to re-map the home key accordingly.


minimal hardware requirements for Android Possible Duplicate:
  What are the minimum specifications for Android?

I would like to know the minimum hardware (memory, CPU) to run Android, good documentation is also a good answer.

Versions : gingerbread or ice cream sandwich

According to an interview with Andy Rubin in 2008 this is the minimum requirements for android:

32 MB RAM
32 MB Flash Memory
200 MHz processor

[Source]
[Source 2]

For gingerbread, I could not find anything official, but I found a few sites that say the following:

1GHz processor
512MB Ram
3.5 inches or more screen size

[Source]

I also found an "official looking" site that has requirements, but this looks to be a couple years old and doesn't say what version of android this is spec'd for.

ARM-based chipset
128 MB RAM
256 MB Flash External
QVGA TFT LCD or larger, 16-bit color or better

[Source]


system files application How to open/access app file folder such as; device;sdcard;emulater0; sdcard emulater; and what do they mean?  when i try to open them it says "doesn't have app to view" What is a good app to get to view them? do i need to do it on a computer? Also  Facefile says no media with a bunch of letters  What is this?; How to view Thumbnailsin the file folder?  thank you in advance for any help with this. i have a samsung Galaxy s3

I would try ES File Explorer. It's a really useful manager and could probably open it.

If not, you can use Root Explorer. Yes, you will need root, and yes, it costs, money. But if you change your system files a lot it's a really great tool. Plus, you have a 2 hour trial period after you purchase, so if it doesn't work you can get a refund.


How to disable captive portal detection? How to remove exclamation mark on Wi-Fi or signal icon in Lollipop? When connected to the Internet, the system checks if it's in a walled garden, which is simply trying to connect to Google. If it fails, in Android 5, there'll be an exclamation mark on the WiFi icon or signal icon.

In some situations, this is annoying. Say, in China, Google is blocked, the exclamation mark will always be there, which is meaningless.

How can I disable this check, and make the system assume, connected WiFi/mobile data is connected Internet?

It's simple. In the terminal (requires root), or in adb shell (does not require root), issue the command

settings put global captive_portal_detection_enabled 0

and reboot. It should be disabled.  The existing state can also be verified via the command

settings get global captive_portal_detection_enabled

A response of "null" indicates the global key value has not been set and Android will fall back to default of being on and performing the detection. If the detection is disabled the response of "0" will be received.

More info: Android : How to remove “captive portal” detection on android 4.2.2 and 4.3

It also works in 5.


Flashing same rom over the already installed one? I have a Note 3 (N9005) with 3.co.uk ROM Kitkat-updated automatically by note 3. it has the following software spec:

PDA/ AP (firmware build version) :N9005XXUGNH1
MODEM/CP(baseband or modem version) : N9005XXUGNH1
CSC(Consumer Software Customization): N9005H3GGNI1

The phone does not allow rooting by any method, CF or Towelroot so I tried to go back to Jellybean through stock Jellybean using ODIN 3.09. Odin showed RESET but post rebooting original ROM was shown as above with no change. But when I tried Towelroot it worked and root checker showed it as rooted.

Following things were observed:

KNOX is still shown as 0x0 in flashing mode, but Knox does not start at all.
Samsung Kies3 has stopped recognising the phone.
A security notice pops up in notifications area saying unauthorized actions detected.
No other malfunction in the phone.
Even after removing Towelroot through SuperSU the security warning keeps popping up.

My question is :

Can I flash the same ROM with the above AP/CP/CSC, downloaded from Sammobile to get the phone back to original condition to remove the security alert and restore Knox?
Alternatively Can I flash Vodaphone UK Kitkat ROM for N9005 on this 3.co.uk Kitkat ROM?
Will the new update to Lollipop by the phone thorugh aotomatic updates remove the problem?
Can I flash vodaphone Lollipop UK ROM for n9005 on this phone having 3.co.uk ROM?

Any help is greatly appreciated and would add to my knowledge too, thanks everyone.

It's not a guarantee that the phone will be back to normal (probably you have tripped Knox) but yes it should not be any problems flashing an original ROM over the one you have.
If the system says "Official" when reflashed it should be able to receive updates from Samsung when they are available.

Just remember to empty the cache and in worst case (if the flash does not work as intended) try and reflash with "Re-partition" (though you will probably need the partition file for that then).

Good luck
/Jonas


How can I tell if I have ClockworkMod recovery installed? How can I know if my Galaxy S2 has ClockworkMod recovery installed? I want to install CyangenMod and installing ClockworkMod is the first step. I'm running Android 2.3.3 and I use a Mac laptop, if that's relevant.

The easiest way would be to install Rom Manager. The first item in this app says "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery" and under that it will say something like "Current Recovery: ClockworkMod 5.0.2.2" (see below). If it does not say this, or has nothing here, chances are you don't have it. If you don't have it and would like it (and are already rooted, of course) you can directly install it from this app.

Rom Manager Screenshot (click image for larger variant)


Physical-keyboard driven app launcher? On most operating systems, there's a keyboard shortcut to trigger a keyboard-driven app-launcher.

For example:

On Windows: Super and start typing.
On OSX: Super+Space and start typing.
Linux: it varies, but same as OSX on Elementary OS.

Is there an equivalent launcher available for Android where I can push a key combo and start typing to find the app I'd like to launch?

On the stock Google launcher, if you simply start typing, it'll search for the thing you typed for, both online and in local apps. You can cycle through the matches with the arrow keys, and launch one with Enter.


Lollipop: override security policies (specifically lock screen/Exchange/Office 365) When I used Android 4.4 (KitKat) on my Nexus 5 I could ignore certain security policies such as a requirement to have a PIN code to unlock the lock screen. After upgrading to Lollipop and the move of Exchange e-mail from the separate E-Mail application to GMail this is no longer possible. Are there any workarounds? E.g., when I used Android 2, there was a hacked version of the E-mail app apk floating around that told the server it enforced the security policies but in fact ignored them.

I have seen a lot of similar questions, e.g.,

How can I override the Device Administrator security policy so that I can disable the lock screen?

ActiveSync/Exchange security policy

etc but they are all for older versions of Android.

(For everyone that is gonna whine about security policies in my employment agreement, I demanded, and it got approved, a clause that guaranteed me to have root privilegies or equivalent on all my personal IT equipment. My manager accepts this but the IT department is in a different universe. Taking this issue/the IT department to court for breach of contractual agreement is, for obvious reasons, not an option.)

Try the Mail Wise app. It bypasses Exchange security, but you won't be able to use the Gmail app.

For details, read this Mail Wise FAQ.


How to Edit Track in Google "My Tracks"? I frequently for get to turn off Google My Tracks recording. When forget this after biking or hiking, it leaves a big trail on my track from where I got into my car and drove home. Is there an easy way to trim this portion of the track? Or to enter an edit mode in My Tracks or Google Maps to remove the extra section?

Thanks!

(PS can some one add a tag for google-my-tracks.

Upload the map to Google from your device
On maps.google.com, click "My maps" (top left, below the Google Maps logo)
Select the map you want to edit
Click the 'edit' button (top right in the left sidebar)
The line is now editable. Right-click points on the line you want to delete and select 'Delete this point'.


Stream music on Android to Desktop speakers The canonical location for my music collection is the Android phone (synced from Mac at work), and I have a Windows PC at home connected to the speaker system. Is it possible to play the music on Android, but stream (via bluetooth, wifi or USB) the audio to these speakers (via the PC)?

Yes you can. No additional soft or hardware required. Android 4.4.2 and WinXP. Like this: enable BT on both devices, make sure under Windows' BT Configuration->Local Services you have 'Headset' service set to 'Automatic startup'. Connect the devices (using pass-phrase if required), check on Android that 'Media audio' is enabled for the connected PC. Play some music, enjoy!


long press dictionary. I have a kindle app I really love. My favorite thing about it is that I can long press any word and a dictionary pops up for me. I am wondering if there's an app that does that for my phone. So if I'm reading a research paper or something I can use the same feature across all mediums of news and reading. I've looked around and found lots of apps for dictionaries but I want an interactive one. Does anyone know if that exists?

There is an app-Flying Dictionary on the Play Store which does the same things that are your needs. It works similar to the Kindle feature. Go try it out!


How can I move apps en masse to my SD card? Apps keep getting installed on my internal storage when I would much rather they be on my much larger SD card that is formatted as internal memory. Is there a way to tell my phone to move a bunch of Apps at once?

Sorry its not possible with rooting the device either. As PlayStore firstly download the application to your internal memory without seeing your settings whether you want your application on your internal or external. From that state it can be moved from internal storage to external storage if application permits itself.

You can think it as an restriction posed by Google.


Can i flash indian rom in korean galaxy note? I got the Samsung Galaxy Note shv-e160l (Korean version) as a gift, running the stock ICS 4.0. I want to flash official indian JB ROM (of the GT-N7000) on it. Is it possible if I root my device?

No, do not try to do this, or you will brick your device. SHV-E160L and GT-N7000 have completely different processors (Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 for SHV-E160L, and Samsung S5PC210 for GT-N7000); e.g., see this comparison.

There are some custom ROMs for SHV-E160L in the xda-developers section for AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717 (this device is closer to SHV-E160L, but also not 100% compatible, so look carefully and use only ROMs which are made for SHV-E160L).


How to import an OBF map file into OsmAnd? The map file provided by OsmAnd for a particular region has inaccuracies, so I would like to use this fixed OBF file instead.

How to do that?

Below is the procedure described on the website providing the fixed map, unfortunately it did not seem to work (when viewing the whole country the regions downloaded within OsmAnd (official OBF files) are highlighted in green, but the non-official region does not show in green).

  First, uninstall any standard OsmAnd maps of the region, because they
  will conflict with your custom map.

  Copy the map file to the Android device. If you have downloaded the
  map file from this site, be sure to unzip it first.

  For example, use a network-capable file manager, such as ES File
  Explorer.

  Put the map into the osmand data folder (you can check which it is
  under Settings → General → Misc → Data folder )

  It seems that the map needs to be renamed once within OsmAnd's Map
  manager (Map management → Local → Select your file → Rename) before it
  is actually recognized by OsmAnd.

  Afterwards, don't forget that you have to change the description
  language (Configure map → Description language) to English to see the
  transliterated place names.

  Also, as the base world map has not been created using
  JapanMapTranslate, you will need to zoom in a bit so that your local
  map is actually used.

Note: Unlike my other question How to import a .obf POI file in OsmAnd this question is about maps, not POIs. Answers at that question do not solve the problem here.

To view OBFs that I didn't download through OsmAnd, I first had to change the directory where its data is stored to one where I can push stuff (non-rooted phone).

For that, I first went to Settings > General settings > [Miscellaneous] Data storage folder and switched it to "Manually specified...". I decided it would be /storage/emulated/0/osmand as this is a place I can see when connecting the phone to my laptop. OsmAnd asked whether it should move all its config files there, I said sure, go ahead.

I put the OBFs directly at the root of /storage/emulated/0/osmand. It lost all the maps I had downloaded through the app after the folder change, so I had to download the world map again, for example, and it ended up at the root of the folder too, that's how I figured it out.

It may take an OsmAnd kill and restart for it to detect new maps, and the trick above of renaming the file through the map manager indeed made it be inspected by OsmAnd and marked in green as a region for which a detailed map was available. Even before the renaming, its content would still be used though, so as soon as you see something corresponding to your OBF in the map manager, everything should be OK.


Does Android OS clutter similar to Desktop OS What I mean by this. Is it expected that overtime, the performance of a device will be reduced, and the software will work slower? This is assuming no changes in core OS (e.g upgrade from 4 to 5 etc). For example, does installing and removing apps leave  traces behind, that over time build up and slow the OS?

Is there any indication that a user can look for, in order to determine if its time to flash the device, and re-install the OS?

p.s Lets ignore the scenario where a bunch user installed process-hog- background apps are killing the device.

Simple answer: Yes, but it's usually not noticeable and won't impact a device's ability to function as expected during it's lifetime.

Full Explanation: Apps CAN leave traces of information behind when uninstalled. These are usually empty folder and misc. log files, but can also include files created by the application but are assumed that the user would want to keep (screenshot folders come to mind). Although these hardly affect performance, they can eventually take up space and introduce unwanted clutter in your mounted storage volume. Purge with aplomb.

Another area of possible concern is the concept of "bit-rot", or "bit-decay". This is the decay of data stored in a solid-state format, unaltered, for long periods of time due to the dispersion of the electric charge used to maintain the data. An OS of a phone could be subject to this phenomenon over the course of many years (usually more than a decade) because the data of an OS rarely changes in the scenario you present (not updating and never re-installing). Though reinstall the OS will refresh the memory locations it's stored on, the process of bit-rot takes a long time on properly manufactured devices, and isn't likely to cause any sort of problems in the 2-3 year timeframe most individuals keep their phones and tablets nowadays.


Nexus 5 not detected by ADB When trying to connect to my Nexus 5 (5.1.1) in Android Studio (1.0.1) my device is not found. I am running Windows 8.1 Pro.

In the [SDK]/platform-tools directory I ran the command:

adb devices

which returned:

List of devices attached

(Empty list)

I have tried several ways:

Uninstalling/reinstalling Nexus driver (android_winusb.inf)
Editing driver file with different hardware id's + Uninstalling/reinstalling
Update driver and choose the same driver file as earlier.
4 Different usb ports
Tried switching between MTP and PTP
Restarting after all the previous steps

I have no problems with accessing files on my Nexus through my computer. The nexus also is shown as "Nexus 5" in Device manager and not some other driver.

But I am still not able to connect to the phone with Android Studio and ADB command won't list the device.

How can I get it listed?

Related links:

Android studio doesn't list my phone under “Choose Device”
How do I get my Nexus 7 to show up in the adb devices list?

One thing I noticed not mentioned in what you have tried that will make your device invisible. Have you enabled USB debugging  on your Nexus 5. USB debugging helps operating systems communicate with each other and without it things get lost in translation. To enable USB debugging

Go into Android settings menu and scroll down to the about phone menu next go towards the bottom and hit the build number 7 times.
settings/about phone/build number
This will reveal a new menu within the main Android settings called developers options and scrolled to USB debugging and enable it.

That should get you up and running but if not then scrap the the driver you modified. Go to SDK redownload Google drivers and install them. That issue  was reported in 2013 and the drivers in SDK have been updated since.


Samsung Galaxy Note 2 keeps rebooting I got a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 now for more than 2 years. Since a week my phone reboots without an error. And when it reboots then it will keep rebooting, my phone can´t startup anymore. I need to remove the battery and charge it a little (even though my battery is 50% full) before it can startup normally.

I already tried to factory reset my phone but this didn't help.

Is there a way to determine why my phone keeps doing this or do I need to accept that my phone is broken?

You don't have to get angry with mobile. I also had this same problem because of two reasons

OS is not compatible with the device(i installed DN5 ROM on electron-team.com)
Mobile batter's life time expired.

Why 01??

When your OS is not suit to your Mobile it will hangs. So when its hangs it will automatically restart your device. This will happen when  using FB long time or some high end apps.

Why 02??

When your battery life is end, your battery not keep actual percentage of capacity. When you plug it shows Battery Full. but in 2-3 Minutes it will get down. As well as battery lost dealing with mobile OS. and it will be get reboot as usual.

after fixing those now my device is not reboots  or any other problem.

Find your firmware version on Sammobile Website by searching on search field.


Can 2 SIM cards be activated on one phone? If I get a new T-Moble SIM and activate it on my Google Nexus 4, then put the old one back in, will the old one still work?

This is not an Android question, but more like a generic mobile question.

But to answer your question: YES, the old one will still work. SIM cards are not tied to cellphones. So, you can always transfer SIM cards to other phones that have SIM card slots, assuming that the phone allows the network your SIM card is for. i.e. If the phone is locked to a specific network, then only SIM cards for that network is allowed. Of course, you can remove this limitation by unlocking the phone.


WhatsApp issue on Android We have a whatsapp number dedicated for providing training to students all over the world. We have 13191 contacts saved in phone and there are 19103 chats in whatsapp. We also have 50 broadcast list. We are facing the following issues in whatsapp,

1) When we set status in whatsapp, it gets hanged. We need to force stop the app and then restart to use it again. It keeps happening when setting whatsapp status.

2) When we reply to any chat message, it takes around 5mins to get reached.

3) When sending any message in broadcast list, it takes around 10 mins to reach the contacts.

We are using android samsung tablet with a storage of 64GB and 4GB of Ram.

What to do to resolve the above issues?

Have you tried using web.whatsapp.com ? I find that using this method helps sometimes. Maybe also consider deleting the app's cache, and reinstalling the app from the google play store. Sometimes the app's cache gets fragmented.


How do I tether my android phone mic to my windows computer I do not want to buy a standalone mic to be used on my Windows computer. Can I use the mic in my android phone as the mic for my Windows computer?

The easiest thing would probably be WO Mic.


Can I safely downgrade an encrypted Asus Transformer TF101 from 8.6.5.21 to 8.6.5.19? I want to root my encrypted Asus Transformer TF101 (Firmware 8.6.5.21; Serial B80...) and install a custom ROM. I read that the only way to do this is by downgrading to stock 8.6.5.19 and then using Razorclaw.

I know that using tablet encryption with Custom ROMs is a big no-no, so I will have to wipe my data (factory reset). However I do wish to keep some application Data (such as save games) to which I only have access via root.

So my question is, can I:

Safely(!) downgrade to 8.6.5.19 on my encrypted tablet
root
backup
unencrypt the tablet (factory reset)
install custom ROM

or do I have to:

factory reset (losing all my precious data)
downgrade to 8.6.5.19
root
install custom ROM

Update:
I found out that Asus already includes an app which allows to save application data without root (aptly named "App Backup"). So I will go with the second option. I'll leave the question open though as I still don't know if I could have downgraded without doing a factory reset.

I ended up doing a factory reset on my tablet (after doing a backup of my data with "App Backup"). As far as I know the downgrade would probably have worked, but I decided not to risk it.


ADB_SERVICES error on catlog errno = 5 I/O error I'm using catlog to find error for an issue. Although that issue did not reappear , I see a constant Error  ADB_SERVICES ERROR: fd = 13, n = -1, errno = 5 (I/O error).
Sorry quite new to all this , not sure what should be done or Is it something I need to ignore?
few logs just before that error.
InputReader AP_PROF: AppLaunch_dispatchPtr : Down
AP_PROF unable to open /proc/mtrpof/ status entry

An I/O error may be indicative of filesystem corruption. If your device has a removable SD card, try removing it, putting it in a PC, and running a filesystem checker on it (such as fsck on Linux).


How to check if an available update will take up more storage or less than the one currently installed version? How can I check if an available update of a given app that I already have installed will take up more or less storage space than the one currently installed from the information in the play.google.com page? Is there a URL I can use to check the size of my current version and the one of the available update? Can I mount the device and list the size of the installed apps and compare it to the advertised size in play.google.com?

For example, I updated Gmail in the last few months, and originally took up 2.07MB Application size, and the last two updates went from 3.08MB Application size to 3.26MB version 2.3.6 (20110305). How can I know this in advance?

Current App's Usage:

If you mean storage, there's a handy program on market called Disk Usage. It will display the current size of all installed applications, as well as how much space each's data takes up.
I have a feeling you may mean RAM usage, which is a different animal indeed. To get the amount of RAM a program is currently using, see the Apps section of the Settings.  The Running tab shows the relevant details.

New Update's or Non-Installed App Usage:

Most of these details cannot really be determined before installing an app or an update, unless the developer is kind enough to include these details in the applications's description or the What's New section.  The closest you can get is the actual size of the application, which does show up in the application description.  I guess you could use a combination of what you can learn from Disk Usage on the current version's size and correlate that to what shows up in Google Play for the current version.

Details like RAM usage are difficult to determine as they depend on a lot of factors:

Which resources are loaded on your particular device configuration (e.g. high or low res images and icons).
How you use the app (e.g. if you have a browser and load 100 tabs, the program will use more RAM).
The quality of the app.  The program may inadvertently waste memory due to a bug only you experience.  It would be difficult to predict things like this.

As for app storage, this really depends on whether the app developer chooses to change the way it stores data.

Hopefully this answers your question.


6.0.1 fails to send MMS over PIA Always-On VPN when using 4G LTE Yesterday, I set up a PIA VPN. I've configured it to use IPv4 over T-Mobile 4G LTE.

I'm unable to send or receive MMS while connected to the VPN -- they can be sent/received as normal when the VPN is disconnected. Any insight as to the origin or solution for this problem would be appreciated.

SMS works. Voice works. WiFi calling works.

Using L2TP/IPSec PSK.
VPN server is configured on the Android device using IP, rather than domain name.
DNS server is also configured by IP
I have no L2TP secret.
No IPSec ID
Using IPSec pre-shared key
Not using any DNS search domains
No forwarding routes configured

I suspect there is some sort of configuration issue with my APN settings; the current configuration works when disconnected from the VPN.

** Update - I haven't yet found a resolution to this specific issue. After getting frustrated using the manual configuration in the settings menu I decided I would try their official Android app. It will set up the connection for you. Unfortunately, the currently version of the app doesn't expose what specific configuration it is using.

I've just found an issue in AOSP that tracks this and has a suggested fix for it:

  I tried Textra as a texting replacement app (for other reasons). In
  the settings it has an option to use either System or Legacy protocols
  for MMS. It even tells the user to try System if they have a VPN
  enabled. I switched to System from the default Legacy, and now my MMS
  works flawlessly with a VPN running.


How to use android phone as SD card reader? I want to format my external SD card (For installing Raspbian) and I don't have a SD card reader on my PC or an external one. Is there a way to use my Android phone as a SD card reader?

PC OS: Windows 7

Phone: Rooted Note 3 (N9005)

I believe there is. I use Nexus Media Importer (though I think it works on most phones with OTG) and it works as a basic file explorer.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.homeysoft.nexususb.importer

There is a free version, but I can't remember what the limitations are. (I have a feeling it might just be pictures.)


If I delete my WhatsApp account, will my other devices continue to receive messages? If I delete my WhatsApp account, will my other devices with my account on keep receiving messages that were sent to me?

I would assume NO, since it has already been deleted. You will most likely get an error in your other devices.


What if I accidentally checked CDMA/LTE instead of GSM/HPA+ in the Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit? I tried to use WugFresh's Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit to root my device, but I accidentally selected CDMLA/LTE while I have a GSM model.

I tried flashing CWM recovery afterwards, but it didn't work. Now I'm stuck at the white Google loading screen.

I tried doing a factory rest and flashing the stock rom, but it's still stuck.

In root toolkit use the bricked option, selecting soft-bricked, should flash stock, however make sure you select the right version of your phone in options (in NRT) before you start.


Mounting problem for second partition I am unable to mount the second partition of my SDCard using the Link2SD app. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Ace. I enabled superuser root access also for Link2SD, but still it does not work. My phone is rooted and I tried everything.

What could I do?

Could be more than one problem.
You could try:

su
mkdir /data/sdext2
mount -o rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodiratime /dev/block/vold/179:2 /data/sdext2

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1568686
http://androidforums.com/optimus-v-all-things-root/695963-link2sd-tutorial-new-updated-version.html
in terminal, if you have access to:

Folders:

 /data/
 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2/
 /dev/block/vold/

Files:

 /system/etc/init.d/11link2sd
 /system/etc/init.d/


Automatically Install apps after factory reset I'd like to know how I can set up my android 4.1.2 (Galaxy S2 I 9100) that it will install all my apps in the Play Store (the one you can see when you click "my apps").
I think it was CM 10.1 where it worked sometimes and in stock rom I did not noticed it.
Is there a way to configure my Galaxy S2 so I don't have to install the apps manually?
I hope I asked clearly enough ;)
Thanks so far !

Edit: I reseted my phone, logged into samsung account to google account.
I always allowed to back up and restore my data. But the apps haven't been installed automatically.
And that was the only thing I tried. I did not try any ADB recoveries. And I did not use any backup third party apps or the stock rom backup.
I hope this information is enough. I fnot please tell me what information you additionally need!
Thank you again!

Make sure you have checked Automatic Restore and Backup my Data in Settings>Backup & Restore.

And also sync your google account right after a reset. You'll notice that all of your apps are reinstalling in the background.

Hope it helps.


How come my adb can't simulate a touchscreen tap? I've read I can simulate a tap on my touchscreen by using adb but it doesn't work:

C:\>adb shell input touchscreen tap 1 1
Error: Unknown command: touchscreen
usage: input [text|keyevent]
       input text <string>
       input keyevent <event_code>

How come I can't send a tap to my device? I have the latest version of the SDK tools and the SDK platform tools. Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32. Thanks

Your version of SDK tools has nothing to do with the parameters input can understand or execute. Input is a binary in Android OS which can be run independently without requiring any set of external tools such as ADB.

The reason you receive the error "Error: Unknown command: touchscreen" is because you're running an Android version earlier than Android 4.1.1. You would already notice that in the input usage you posted, the binary entertains only two parameters i.e. text and  keyevent.

In Android 4.0.x, the input command's usage remains the same as the one you posted. In fact, even Android 2.3.7 has the same input command's usage. (See com.android.commands.input.Input on GrepCode for comparison of command's usage between Android versions.)

It was Android 4.1.1 which introduced tap and swipe parameter with usage,

usage: input ...
       input text <string>
       input keyevent <key code number or name>
       input tap <x> <y>
       input swipe <x1> <y1> <x2> <y2>

See the source code for more.