Stop Android from displaying "Install blocked" prompt I am continually getting prompts for installing apps, such as Clean Master and or 9 apps on my Android phone. I turned off the option  "Install apps from unknown sources" in  security settings but then a message would popup saying "Install blocked" every time, as shown in the screenshot below.

So, how to stop these annoying prompts?

(Click image to enlarge)

You're better off with Izzy's advise and find and weed out the app trying to install that Clean Master app. Anyhow, there you go with an another solution.
When you attempt to sideload an apk using UI or any app that attempts to install an apk and isn't granted the permission android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES, Package Installer app comes into action and its activity PackageInstallerActivity is launched. The setting for unknown sources (install_non_market_apps) under Settings Storage's database is checked and based on that, you're either shown that prompt (dialog) or the permissions and the install button.
Even if you manage to find a hack that disables that prompt from being shown, Package Installer would still be launched and the UI would look awkward since only app's label and white space would be visible to you, which would do naught but create confusion.
For rooted Android
The solution I ended up with is to get rid of the activity PackageInstallerActivity. You can use Elixir 2 to disable that activity.
Launch it → Application → tap  → System applications → Package Installer → find and disable the said activity
You can also use adb in this case
adb shell su -c pm disable com.android.packageinstaller/.PackageInstallerActivity # Disables the activity
adb shell su -c pm enable com.android.packageinstaller/.PackageInstallerActivity # Use it to enable the activity

Now whenever you or an app attempt to sideload an apk which requires launching the Package Installer app, you may either get a toast like in the following image or an app registered to open/explore an apk would be launched or be suggested by system.
(Click image to enlarge)

If the toast becomes noisy, hide it using EnhancedToast1 or UnToaster2. Since they are Xposed modules, you would need Xposed Framework appropriate3 for your Android version.
Note that disabling that activity wouldn't affect the ability of Play Store to install an app, neither would it affect adb install because the underlying package manager is intact.
You can use automation here too. Example, whenever your preferred file manager is active on screen, enable that activity so that you can continue to sideload an apk, should you decide to, and keep it disabled for any other on-screen active app.
For non-rooted Android
You (KitKat or Lollipop users) can hide/block the whole Package Installer app. You definitely need adb for that.
adb shell pm block com.android.packageinstaller # for KitKat
adb shell pm hide com.android.packageinstaller  # for Lollipop

The biggest inconvenience here is that you won't be able to uninstall an app using Settings app because it uses Package Installer's activity named UninstallerActivity and UninstallAppProgress. Attempt to removal of an app using Settings app would cause the latter to crash.
Every time you intend to remove an app using Settings app or sideload an apk using UI, you must unhide/unblock Package Installer app.
To unblock/unhide, do
adb shell pm unblock com.android.packageinstaller # for KitKat
adb shell pm unhide com.android.packageinstaller  # for Lollipop

Note that hiding/blocking that app wouldn't affect the ability of Play Store to install an app, neither would it affect adb install because the underlying package manager is intact.

1: XDA: EnhancedToast
2: XDA: UnToaster
3. Xposed Framework: Android 4.x, Android 5.x and 6.x


Set left-right audio balance My earphones took an unexpected trip through the wash today and now the right earbud is a little quiet. I used to own an iPhone and under the accessibility settings, one could change the Left-Right volume balance. I can't seem to find a setting like that. Is there an app I can use?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S II X (t989) with Cyanogenmod 10.1.

What I did -- and my problem is an ear that doesn't work properly rather than an earbud that's been washed too often -- was to shell out for Poweramp which has built in balance controls along with its rather elaborate tone controls and equaliser. Well worth the money for solving this problem.


Why is there Messenger icon in App drawer? I have Google Plus app installed on my HTC One X. In the App drawer it shows icons for Google+ and Messenger. Both these belong to same Google+ app. The Messenger icon opens up Google+ app with message displayed Update to Hangouts. Go to the app and I have Hangouts installed.

The Messenger app icon looks like this:

I tried to uninstall Messenger and it uninstalled the updates of entire Google Plus app. It seems the Messenger icon is created by Google Plus and it only asks user to go to Hangout.

Why is this extra icon present? Is there any way to get rid of it?

No need to worry. As of Google+ v4.1, this is going away.

  5. Messenger is going away, Hangouts is sticking around
  Now that Hangouts provides messaging and video calls across Android, iOS and the web, we’re removing Messenger from the Google+ mobile apps (first on Android, then on iOS). Later today you'll be able to download all of your Messenger conversations (including text and photos) from Google Takeout.

The new app is rolling out now and you should have it in the next few days.


Allow "unknown sources" from Terminal without going to Settings App? I have a corrupted Settings app in CyanogenMod and have a possible idea to restore a backup of it (App and Data) in Titanium Backup. But it's currently set to not allow "unknown sources" so Titanium cannot actually restore the old Settings over the current (corrupted) one.

I have a Terminal app installed on the phone. Is there a command in Terminal to essentially 'tick' that "unknown sources" setting, since I can't open the Settings app itself? (It gives this.)

As mentioned in the comments by OP, SQLite Editor is fit for the job. Following solutions tested on Stock Android 4.2.1 and 4.4.2.

Instructions for  root users:

Install and launch SQLite Editor from Play Store.
Under APPS, tap Settings Storage → settings.db → global.
Tap install_non_market_apps  → click pencil icon (at the top) to edit it and change the Value to 1.
The changes took effect immediately in my device. Otherwise, restart and Unknown Sources would be found enabled.

(Source)

Instructions for non-root users:

Install ADB in your PC, connect your device, and enter:

adb shell settings put global install_non_market_apps 1

Unknown Sources would now be enabled. (Source)
Change the last command's value to 0 to disable the Unknown Sources.


How can I access the folders where Firefox mobile stores its application data I know the information is supposed to be at data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/ but I cannot seem to view/access them.

My device is rooted, and I've checked device storage as well as external storage, using multiple file browsers.

Specifically I'm trying to find where it stores the information that it saves for the top sites tab.

Apps on Android store their data in /data/data/[package_name],
so Firefox should be keeping its data in /data/data/org.mozilla.firefox.

NOTE: To access this directory you need root access.

Use file:///data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/ from inside Firefox to access the folder (without root). This work because Firefox owns the folder (see the comments)


How to find and remove spy software on phone My girlfriend has an admirer which started out as a good friend. He confessed his love for her some time ago and started to become more and more aggressive while being rejected. He recently started to show some stalker like behavior and started to appear near her flat at late nighttime.

He also hinted, that he always knew when she was chatting with me through WhatsApp. I'm therefore afraid that he might have installed some Spyware on her Android-Phone (HTC One X+)

Is there a way to identify Whatsapp Spyware and to remove it?

Format the sd card and flash the stock rom again. This would guarantee clearing out any spyware. Here is a tutorial describing how to take it back to stock.

"…I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure."


Gboard: Set Custom Unicode Characters on Longpress or Add Custom Keyboard Keys or Layout On Gboard, when I long-press the "a" character, for example, I can see some other "a" characters pop up which have different marks or diacritics on them. By using long-press, I am able to easily type the ā and Ā characters, but we don't have such an option for "h" character for instance, as I would like to similarly type the ḥ and Ḥ characters. And similarly, I would like to be able to type some other Unicode characters like ʿ by long-pressing the ' key. These characters are accepted in standard academic Arabic romanizations and copy-pasting these Unicode characters from other applications is very inconvenient.

Is it possible to be able to add my own characters to the long-press of the current characters on Gboard?
Or is it possible to create my own keyboard layout and add that to Gboard (like we add new languages and each language has its own key-set)?
If not, is there a way to hack-edit the language source file (when we download a language in Gboard) and assign my custom keys to them, so that when that language is set in the Gboard, it has my custom keys set in it?
Or if it is not possible on Gboard, then is there any other keyboard app that allows us to customize its keys like this?
If it is not possible on Gboard, how to suggest a custom-long-press-key-setting feature to the Gboard team?

Thanks.

For the time being, I found an alternative solution. It's not the solution that I wanted, but it does the job reasonably well. I'm posting it here so it may benefit someone else as well.

Gboard allows you to store a Personal Dictionary for each language that one installs (Gboard > Dictionary > Personal dictionary > English (US)). So in the keyboard in which you want to add some extra Unicode characters, add them in the Personal Dictionary of that language. With each item you add to the dictionary, you can also define a shortcut to it. So one can add ḥ — or whatever Unicode characters one needs easy access to — to one's personal dictionary and assign it a shortcut, for instance, I've assigned h key to ḥ. So whenever I press the h key on Gboard, ḥ appears in the suggestions above.

It's not as consistent and elegant as adding ḥ to h's long-press, nevertheless, ḥ has now become much more easily accessible. The downside to this approach is that only one shortcut character can be assigned in this way to the h key, unlike the long-press option. But if you have a limited number of characters you wish to add easy access to in your Gboard, then this is an option. Though you could add other characters to a different combination of keys, like h1, h2, hdb, and so on.


Why does it take so long for a program like Mapdroid to use the GPS to track you on a map I was in London last week (which is outside my country, so I did not use roaming to connect to the internet to be able to use the maps application from Google). In stead , I used Mapdroid to find my way around the center there.

Mapdroid, for those who don't know this program, lets you download maps and than use them without data connection. The only thing you need to do is turn on the GPS.

This works great apart for the fact that it can take between 5 and 10 minutes for the program to mark you location. If it does, it can track you fine , and it keeps tracking you on the map.

But I am just wondering why it takes so long before Mapdroid knows where you are.

Is it a hardware thing (I have a Samsung Galaxy S phone running Froyo).

This shows the difference between AGPS and GPS. AGPS (Assisted GPS) uses a small amount of mobile data to establish a rough location fix (about 1km-100m accuracy) based on the cell towers near you. This gives a faster initial location fix than just GPS. Since you had roaming disabled, AGPS wasn't available and getting a location fix on just GPS can take a while, especially on some firmware versions of the Galaxy S.


Android Froyo (2.2). Why I cannot put letters on bluetooth PIN? Please, I have a device wich I connect via bluetooth from my Samsung Galaxy S. The bluetooth device have a alphanumeric PIN. When I try connect it ask for PIN but my galaxy only let me to put numbers!. Android 2.1 let me put numbers and letters. Any suggestions? PD: Impossible to change the device's alphanumerical PIN.

Thank you.

02/02/2011. Question solved. It was as I thought. Update 2.2.1 allow to put numbers and letters in bluetooth PIN(like in 2.1 version).

Looks like its device related issue than Android OS issue.
If its a firmware related issue, vendor may be able to offer you a patch.

Meanwhile if you see an option to switch between Number mode and ABC mode on your keypad, you can try that..

Refer page 29 of device manual.


how to uninstall apps installed on non existing sdcard I've moved some apps on my lollipop to sdcard after I formated the sdcard I cannot uninstall those apps from the device they appears like this :

Go to Settings > Applications/Apps

Find the App you want to Uninstall, then Clear Data, and Clear Defaults, if any.

Try and Uninstall it.


How to view a website containing Indic fonts in Android browser? Recently, I tried viewing a website on my Android device. Some of the content of the website contains text in a specific Indic font. I noticed that the website is not displayed in the Android browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etcetera) as it is displayed on my PC. The intended font (Indic font) is replaced by another font, when viewed in any browser on my Android device.
As I have root access on my Android mobile, I moved the indicfont.ttf file (which I downloaded from the Internet) to the /system/fonts folder and restarted my phone. Now, I can view the website perfectly (but only on Firefox browser for Android).
I have the following questions to ask:

Can someone please explain all the steps involved in the process of displaying the Indic font by Firefox browser (in the particular scenario explained above)? The indicfont.ttf was placed in the /system/fonts directory.
Why does the previous solution only work on Firefox browser and not on other mobile browsers?

Most importantly, could you suggest a possible solution for non-rooted Android phones? It is okay even if it is a difficult solution to implement.

My device: (Android 4.4.4, Firefox 32.0.1)

EDIT:
There are many fonts for Sanskrit (Devanāgarī script) among which the following two are the ones in the scenario: Sanskrit2003 and Mangal.

These are some important facts that are derived from a good
source about Indic fonts available on this site.

  From Android 4.0 on wards, Tamil and other few languages are supported through browser as said in Android 4.x API overview as
  seen below.

  Support for Indic fonts (Devanagari, Bengali, and Tamil, including the complex character support needed for combining glyphs) in WebView and the built-in Browser.

My issue is that the default support given by the browsers display the Sanskrit text in Mangal font and not in Sanskrit2003 font (a superior font compared to Mangal ).

  Source of the image
The whole issue is to let the android mobile browser display Sanskrit (which is intended to be displayed in Sanskrit2003 font) to be displayed in the intended font and not in Mangal (which is very less superior in comparison with Sanskrit2003 ).

Thanks.

To answer the second part of your question first:

'Why does the previous solution only work on Firefox browser and not on other mobile browsers?'

You are using TTF file. This type of font file is supported by firefox , Safari and Chrome. The other browsers may not support it. For eg: IE supports EOT ; Opera supports SVG etc. But mostly all android browsers support TTF so that is strange.

In short check which type of font the browser supports.

'explain all the steps involved in the process of displaying the Indic font by Firefox browser'

In some scenarios, along with the web data, the web font is also embedded and sent to the browser which the browsers uses to display the data. In other scenarios, only web data is sent.The font used is not a web font (like in this case) In such cases the browsers searches for the font file within the system. If it finds it, it displays the data otherwise tries to display the data using some default font.


Network problems with Samsung Galaxy Young (S6312) I'm having a network problem with my Samsung Galaxy Young (S6312) device. Sometimes while trying to make a call, even though the signal indicator shows 2 or 3 bars, the device displays a message like "Not registered on network" and the call doesn't get through.

Also, sometimes while my mobile data is turned on it doesn't connect to the internet. I have set the mobile network to the GSM/WCDMA(AUTO) mode.

Is there any solution for this?

I have had a similar problem to this. In my case, it was caused by the SIM card coming loose. Try the following steps:-

Turn the phone off completely
Remove the SIM card
Reinsert the SIM card
Turn the phone on again

and then see if you can make a call and use mobile Internet. If it happens repeatedly, you might need to wedge a small piece of paper in with your SIM card to keep it in place.


Create pdf document shortcuts on home screen I had downloaded a PDF file. How can I create a shortcut to the PDF document on my home screen. I use Anycut, but it doesn't do what I want.

Astro File Manager (free, ad supported) will do what you want.

Once installed, add a shortcut to Astro to your homescreen and it should let you browse to your PDF (or any other file, for that matter).  The shortcut on the homescreen will then take you directly to the file you chose in the file browser.


How to determine the amount of app space available? I have recently experienced the "Can't install app in default location" error (code -20), despite 700 MB still free on my phone (no SD card present). Having googled and read, I now know that not all memory can be used to install apps. So while I have some space available, the app-partition (?) space may be up.

But I've never encountered any partitions on my phone. So the question is: how can I determine how much space I have on my phone for the apps?

I use Samsung Note 2, Android 4.4.2.
df output (using Terminal Emulator; please note that by now I have already uninstalled several apps, so the available space might have increased. I still don't know how to see it in this listing):

/mnt/secure/asec: Permission denied
/mnt/shell/container: Permission denied
/mnt/shell/emulated: Permission denied
Filesystem                   Size     Used     Free   Blksize
/dev                       892.5M   140.0K   892.3M      4.0K
/mnt/secure                892.5M     0.0K   892.5M      4.0K
/mnt/asec                  892.5M     0.0K   892.5M      4.0K
/mnt/obb                   892.5M     0.0K   892.5M      4.0K
/system                      2.0G     1.7G   253.6M      4.0K
/efs                        19.7M     9.5M    10.2M      4.0K
/cache                       1.3G    21.9M     1.3G      4.0K
/preload                   551.2M   141.9M   409.3M      4.0K
/data                       10.5G     9.8G   702.1M      4.0K
/storage/emulated          892.5M     0.0K   892.5M      4.0K
/storage/emulated/0         10.4G     9.8G   682.1M      4.0K
/storage/emulated/legacy    10.4G     9.8G   682.1M      4.0K

It's your /data partition running low on free space (as always when this error occurs – see our insufficient-memory tag-wiki for details, first-aid and further information). According to the output you've provided, only 700 MB out of 10 GB are available. The "storage low" error is triggered when free space here reaches 10%.

This limitation was introduced to keep a "safety margin" for the system. So the user gets a warning when it was exceeded. In this state, of course Google Play Store refuses to install any new app, as it considers the system alreading running "low on space" and doesn't want to "worsen the situation".

When the 10% rule was introduced, devices came with much less internal storage, so it was quite reasonable (think of those devices with less than 512 MB). Nowadays, it does no longer seem a good idea – especially with MTP being introduced to have the "internal storage" and "internal SD card" on one partition, spanning multiple Gigabytes. Looks like this is an issue not yet addressed or "simply forgotten".


How to avoid showing many processes on DDMS? Background

As an Android developer, I use DDMS (link here about what it is), which shows all of the processes that I can debug (along with other stuff).

Today I've finally flashed a custom ROM that is based on AOSP.

The problem

Ever since I flashed the new ROM, I've noticed that instead of showing just a few processes (including mostly just the apps I'm making), it shows a lot more processes, including both system apps and user apps.

The question

Is there any way to avoid this from happening?

BTW, I tried putting a tag called "DDMS" and a tag called "AOSP" , and sadly I still can't do it even though my score is quite high on StackOverflow.

DDMS shows the running apps which have the "debuggable" flag set. If the built-in apps are also debuggable, it suggests you're using a debug build of the ROM. Switch to a release build. If the custom ROM you're using doesn't have a release build, switch to a ROM made by people who know what they're doing.


How do I go about installing 7.1.1 in my nexus 5x? My question pretty much says everything. I have a nexus 5x with 7.0 rooted and (nougat) installed. I have also flashed kali net hunter image on it. I have google assistant installed. Now, I would like to update my phone to 7.1.1. I want my phone rooted along with google assistant. Nethuneter is not necessary because it consumes a lot of my memory and storage. For my recovery, I have TWRP installed. Kindly suggest me the best way to deal with this.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/orig-development/wip-aosp-nougat-nexus-5-t3446875

This is what you're looking for..


Android streaming music from desktop, controlled by another android! I just got a Samsung Galaxy S3, and I can't think of a better use for my old Galaxy S than tucking it away on a shelf with an audio cable hooked up to my a/v receiver, streaming music from my desktop upstairs.  All this works fine, but I have to jump up and down to control what gets played. Now I want the ability to control the music from my new phone, so it's always a pocket away.

I currently use, ugh, I think it's iMediaShare Lite on the old phone, and it streams great using DLNA with either tversity or windows media player on my desktop. Now I just need a way to control it from the other phone. Is there a combination of apps that lets me do this?

I've looked into XBMC and stuff, but it doesn't seem to run well yet on android, and all the XBMC remotes seem to operate like regular TV remotes; they assume you're looking at a screen, so they don't offer song picking abilities directly on the remote app screen.

What you need is a software which acts as an UPnP Control Point on your new phone, and a Media Renderer with Push on the old phone. A control point is capable of exactly what you need: browse Media Server (your desktop) in the same way as you do with your old phone currently, but it doesn't play itself, instead it tells the Renderer "hey, start streaming that URL". Then it just observes the Renderer and can control the playback (if Renderer supports being controlled). That "being controlled" part is called "Media Push": instead of browsing the Server from Renderer directly, the Controller tells the Renderer what to do.

Finding a Control Point for Android should be easy (i won't present any suggestions, just google "Android UPnP Control Point"). There is a solid chance that iMediaShare is a Control Point already. But i am afraid that Renderer with Push for Android is hard to find. It essentialy means that the phone must sit on the network with opened server socket, doing nothing, waiting for commands. And that's perhaps problematic with Android. I already answered one question here on a similar matter and the asker didn't report any conclusion. You are welcome to pioneer the search for such Android app :-)


Android corrupting photos 1 minute after capture Sorry this is a question but I'm exhausted all other avenues.

I am running Android 4.3 on a Samsung S4 GT-I9505 happily for the past 17 months. I have not changed anything for a long time, it's been rooted since I got it. Nothing new installed or removed lately either.

Starting last Saturday, after I capture an image it's there and visible in the Gallery and any other app that wants to use it, for instance email or uploading to facebook. After a minute passes the file slowly gets corrupted and then is unusable by any app and shows as a "broken image" icon in the gallery.

This is infuriating that it's taking time to corrupt and not instant.

Anyone any idea where to even begin looking at the cause? I'm a software engineer of many platforms including Android so don't cradle the answer.

Thanks!

The SD card was dying. It stopped writing completely shortly afterwards a new card was the only solution.


AC-USB Charging Device Makes Sounds when Device Fully Charged This might not be the right place to ask this question, as it falls under the purview of electronics, however that SE is not about consumer electronics. And this phenomena has only happened with Android devices, at least with the Droid 1 and Droid 3. So Android is where I stuck it. Sorry if that's wrong :(

This has happened with both the MicroUSB-to-USB (with AC adapter attachment) OEM wall charger and MicroUSB-to-AC-only wall charger.

Basically, when my phone is charging, the AC plug is completely quiet, but once my phone hits 100%, sporadically the plug portion of the charging apparatus will begin to make squealing noises. It stops once I unplug the phone and will begin again if I were to re-plug it in immediately.

Here's the thing, two other people I've asked cannot hear it. I promise you I am not going crazy and imagining things -- but I have been known to have very sensitive hearing -- hearing buzzing from old TVs and monitors and so forth.

My question, mostly out of curiosity, why is this happening and how can I get it to stop, as it is rather irritating.

This issue seems unique to my old Droid 1 and Droid 3. My laptop or similar high-power chargable device does not suffer from this issue.

See this very good answer on Electronics SE for details. Basically it's a side effect of the charger circuitry operation - it's by design, you can't change it. If that disturbs you - either find another charger, or bring this one further from you, don't try to silence it with an enclosure - that may lead to overheating.


Remove preinstalled malicious software from smartphone I bought a THL T9 Plus recently and get some preintalled apps on it, like YouTube. I thought, that this apps are original, because Google Play client recognised these too. My phone behaved strange in some cases, so I tested it with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.
It found: Android/Trojan.Spy.Agent.YQ in system/priv-app/thl_YouTube folder.

To remove or freeze pre-order installed apps you need to root your device - without rooting you cannot uninstall system apps (those that came bundled with the OS )

Use this guide to root
Install Titanium Backup to uninstall. There are other root apps that can do this as well but this app is highly recommended for this as also many other things it can do, which you can read in Titanium Backup

To freeze system apps
Convert you tube app into user app ( see Can I convert a system app to a user app, uninstall it, or move it to my SD card? ) followed by uninstalling it and installing from play store

Yet another alternative is to flash a custom ROM
, after due diligence


Acer A500 internal storage is not auto-mounted by Ubuntu I just got my Acer A500 and have problems accessing the it's storage from my ubuntu machines.

If I try it with Win7 in VirtualBox it is automatically mounted without requiring any actions on the tablet itself.

Ubuntu accepts the USB device (it can be passed to vbox) but nothing further. The only dmesg entry is:

[119174.117100] usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22

I'm able to mount and use other usb storage devices.

On Ubuntu, your device needs to be manually identified to the udev system:

As root:
Create or edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules and add this line:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0502″, MODE="0666"

Then:

# chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
# restart udev
udev start/running, process 3793

This works for my Sidekick on my Ubuntu 10.04 system.


Data Usage For Free eBooks From Google Play Store How much data does it take to download a free eBook via the Google Play Store? It doesn't tell you as you are installing the book. Does it take heaps in general??

You can use Data Monitor app from google play store to find per-application basis traffic monitoring. Install this app and check how much data Google Play Book app consumes after downloading the book.

Features:

  Automatic data usage measurement - simply start the app once, and it
  will automatically measure your data usage from that point on.
  Whenever you are concerned about your data usage, just open the app to
  check.

  High-precision data usage measurement - the app gives an accurate
  measurement of your data usage, without any inconsistencies at any
  moment. Wi-Fi data usage measurements are organized by each SSID.

  Easy-to-read statistics screen - measured data usage is separated by
  Wi-Fi usage and mobile usage and displayed in easy-to-read graphs.
  Data usage per app can also be displayed, so you can know which apps
  use the most data.

  Transfer speed monitor - a transfer speed monitor can be displayed
  permanently in the upper-right corner of the screen. Instantly check
  when and how much data is being transferred.


Internet connection checking blocked by AFWall+? I have recently installed Android 6 on my Nexus.

I also have AFWall+ for [un]blocking selected application from accessing internet.

However, every time I connect to a wifi an exclamation mark will appear and Android will soon disconnect from it. Also a popup message asks me to disconnect because it cannot connect to internet.

However I can access internet indeed via wifi.

What process should I add to whitelist in order for Android not to disconnectme after a few minutes?

I had the same problem.  To find which app you need to allow you can turn on firewall logs in AFWall+.  The log gives a log when traffic is blocked and shows which app was blocked.

Enable AFWall+ (if you had it disabled temporarily)
Settings->Preferences->Log->Enable logs
Menu->Firewall logs->Menu->Clear log
Disable and then enable WiFi to trigger the log
Menu->Firewall logs

The apps involved might vary from one device to another so you should check your own log rather than assuming it's the same as mine.  I saw log entries for "root" and "com.quicince.cne.CNEService" (Qualcomm specific, and counts as part of "Android system" in AFWall+).

I have solved the problem by allowing traffic over WiFi for both the above entries.  In fact I think I probably mostly don't need root, but without root the solution was not quite as reliable to remove the error.


Make Gmail auto-delete old emails from phone My mom's phone has stopped receiving mail because apparently, there isn't enough free space.

Is it possible to configure the Gmail app to auto-delete mail older that a month from the phone but not from the server?

This can be done by setting the "Days of mail to sync" in the gmail app's setting. This setting is configurable per account.

Source: Choose how many days of mail to sync


Tasker to run scripts in terminal shell I have searched for this but till now I have not found any tasker that would be able to do this, so I decided to ask here.

Till now I have been using Trigger Pro as my favorite tasker but it lacks in advance usage, like run certain scripts over shell when triggered. I have been just able to run one script over Terminal app, by running a command when it launches that app, but through this I am just able to launch one script =/.

So any of you knows way to do this?

This can be easily achieved by using Tasker.

Instructions:

Create a named task.
A1: Code >> Run Shell [Command: (insert any code you wish to run)  Store Output: (insert any variable which will retain the value of ouput - stdout) Store errors in : (insert a variable which stores errors - stderr)]
Tap back to exit
Link your task to your profile.

Note: for shell commands that require root you have to the tick the 'use root' option


Accept e-mail calendar requests? Is there a way (app, configuration, etc) that will allow me to accept e-mail calendar requests sent to a POP3 account?  The request could be iCal or could originate from Exchange or Outlook.  Once accepted, I would like them to be added to my calendar.

Yes, support for this is native in Android.

I have an Exchange account added to my phone (Settings > Accounts & Sync > Add account). Once I snyc'd email and calendar I was able to receive meeting requests through the Mail application, accept them, and then see them show up in my calendar with a different color. The way Google handles Exchange is really sweet.

Update:

So I played around a bit and here is what I found. From the gmail app on the phone you cannot accept appts. But, not sure how it works with iCal and such, I just sent myself a meeting notice from my Exchange Outlook calendar to my gmail account. I signed into Gmail from my computer, got the invite, I clicked yes I am attending, and it now shows on my calendar.

So from the gamil app it appears we cannot accept invites but from a computer we can. :(


Persistent download icon in Prestigio (4040 DUO multiphone) pull down menu - even with download over days ago. How to remove it? In the pull down menu of my Prestigio 4040 DUO multiphone, there is this persistent DOWNLOAD icon, it's just stuck there even though download was completed days ago. It came when I was doing some app DOWNLOADS and has refused to go away even after downloads were long over.

On the top icon row of the phone, the animated download icon also shows, has been showing for days, even with no downloads.

Rebooting does not get rid of the icons. And if you press on it nothing happens. Does anyone know how to get rid of this?

Thank you for your help.

If you have android version 4.1 (jelly bean) or later, you can long-press on the notification and view the app settings page of the app that is showing the notification.

From there, you can force quit the app, or you can permanently disable notifications from that app.

At the very least, you'll know which app is causing the problem, and you may be able to change something within the app itself.


How to send mp3 through whatsapp? I see that you can send a media file on BlackBerry. Can I do the same thing on Android?

Yes you can send a mp3 file through WhatsApp in Android.

Go to a private chat/group chat where you want to send the mp3 file.
Find the clip icon in the top right corner of the chat.

Tap it and a menu looking like this will pop up.

Choose "Audio" and then choose "Choose Music Track" (Play Music app) or from a third party music app.
Choose the track you wish to send and then confirm.
The mp3 file will be received (by default) in Internal Storage > WhatsApp > Media > WhatsApp Audio

Alternative Solution #1,

Locate the mp3 file you wish to send in a file explorer.
Depending on the file explorer, either long-clicking or choosing options will give you a menu with all operations such as cut, copy, rename, details, share (or send).
Choose share (or send) and then choose WhatsApp from the pop-up menu.
Now choose the contact you wish to send to and confirm.

Alternative solution #2,

Use a third-party application to send the file over a chat.
Good examples are WaSend and WhatsApp File Sender.


Is it possible to limit the list of contacts in WhatsApp? Today, I installed WhatsApp, and I know that it wants to upload my complete contact list to its servers to see who else has WhatsApp, so it can create a contact list. I don't like this, and I prefer to give it just what it needs, maybe only five contacts for now.

I have LBE Privacy installed, and it blocks the contact list for WhatsApp. The result is that WhatsApp doesn't work. Now I can of course remove the entire contact list except for those five contacts, then unblock it, let WhatsApp connect, then block WA again, and hope it works.

If I open the contact list, and go to the setting which contacts to display, I see several options: all contacts, whatsApp, gmail-account, and phone. Choosing one of these, only these contacts are listed in the contact list. But I guess whatsApp won't bother and use all contacts anyway. In the contact list I have hundreds of contacts with email-addresses and no phone number. Will it upload those as well? And if I take a closer look at those lists, they are not properly organized, so limiting

If I add a contact later, will whatsApp know?

Is there a way to handle this properly, let whatsApp have the addresses it needs, without giving it all?

I looked into this some time ago and at least then it was not possible super easily.

The best tip I found (which I haven't tried out myself as it applies to rooted devices only and I haven't yet taken that plunge) was from a Reddit thread that discussed the question.

The thread points to an Exposed Framework module called DonkeyGuard. The developer explains it in the xda-developers forum quite well.

Would be nice to hear if this works! .. And I'm also all ears if there would be a class-action case against WhatsApp(=Facebook) for the blatant intrusion of people's privacy that WhatsApp practices by uploading all of every single users' contacts to its server and exposing that information to other WhatsApp users (even if semi-covertly, sort of).


Samsung Galaxy-s blocks the app to install after download Why I can not install the app after download on galaxy s, if the app is not from the play store it blocks the app to install.  I know there is an option on new models of galaxy, if it blocks your app to download there is option to go to settings and then you click on allow app from unknown source.  But on galaxy s I can not find that option. Please help me to download and install this Hailo Taxi App, out of play store.

You can find it in Settings..

Settings -> Security -> Device administration -> Unknown sources


Update Android device, but not to latest version I have an Android device (Asus Nexus 7) running Android 4.4.4.  The latest version is 5.0.2.  But in order to investigate a bug report on my app, I want to update to 5.0.1.  When I select "System Updates" under Settings > About Device, I see an option to update to 5.0.2.  Is it possible for me to update to 5.0.1?  If so, how?

All you have to do is install a factory image of 5.0.1 to the Nexus before you update fully.  Head Here(all instructions are here, just posted below in case link breaks) to find the image that corresponds with your particular device.

Download the appropriate system image for your device below, then unzip it to a safe directory.
Connect your device to your computer over USB.
Start the device in fastboot mode with one of the following methods:

Using the adb tool: With the device powered on, execute:
  "adb reboot bootloader"
  ADB Tool Download(Once installed you'll navigate to "Platform>Tools to find the adb tool
Using a key combo: Turn the device off, then turn it on and immediately hold down the relevant key combination for your device. For example, to put a Nexus 5 ("hammerhead") into fastboot mode, press and hold Volume Up + Volume Down + Power as the device begins booting up.

If necessary, unlock the device's bootloader by running:

fastboot oem unlock

The target device will show you a confirmation screen. (This erases all data on the target device.)
Open a terminal and navigate to the unzipped system image directory.
Execute the flash-all script. This script installs the necessary bootloader, baseband firmware(s), and operating system.
Once the script finishes, your device reboots. You should now lock the bootloader for security:

Start the device in fastboot mode again, as described above.
Execute:
fastboot oem lock

*Locking the bootloader does not wipe any data, but when you want to flash it again, you must run fastboot oem unlock again, which will wipe the data.


LAN cable not working when I connect it does not work the internet connection by LAN cable. Even though there´s a slot for it. How can I make it work? or this LAN slot is not for connecting with cable the internet through the modem rooter.

Tablet Model: wwe10 Android version: 2.2V1.5:#3566 Kernel version: 2.6.32.9 infotm-sqa@infotm-sqa-desktop #72 Build number: FRF85B

Based on the assumption that your router is working and you can use WiFi, there could be two or more explanations to your problem:

Either your tablet and your router are not compatible with each other, the port might be there but might need a higher network adapter compared to the one in your WWE10 tablet.
There's a high possibility that your tablet network adapter is not working and that would mean you having it replaced.
WWE10 tablets are known to have an ethernet (LAN) adapter problem. What you could possibly do to remove this problem is have it flashed by an expert, or try doing it yourself using this how to guide.


How scratch resistant is the screen of the Samsung Galaxy S 2? I wonder if over time the screen of Samsung Galaxy S2 may get scratched? Is it necessary to use a screen protector?

The S2 has Samsung's toughened Gorilla Glass screen, see the videos in this answer to a previous question for attempts to scratch the Gorilla Glass on an original Galaxy S: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2756/looking-for-a-robust-android-smartphone/2777#2777

I can say that I've had an original Galaxy S for over a year now, and regularly keep it in a trouser pocket with my house keys, have dropped it a few times, and other slight accidents, and while the back and sides of the cover have scratches and chips on them the screen is still absolutely unmarked.

However what you might want to consider is the fact that the camera lens on the back apparently isn't gorilla glass, see this question Is Samsung Galaxy S II rear camera Gorilla Glass too?


How can I go back to ICS after JB OTA updates? My phone is HTC One S VelliC2 and received the JB OTA updates.

However, I could not get used to it. So how can I return to ICS? Can I use the HTC Android 4.03 RUU file? Now the Hboot version has updates to 3.1 and it was 2.09 before the OTA updates. Does the Hboot version matters?

Thanks in advance.

If you can find an original stock ROM for your device (I assume your device is not rooted etc.), or any fitting custom ROM (in case it is rooted etc.), you could factory-reset your device and then flash that ROM. See Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device? for available ROM sources.


KitKat - How to identify the REAL size of apps (app + datas + ...) to be able to install other ones I had an iPhone for 4 years and I now have a Samsung Galaxy S5 running KitKat 4.4.2.
I've started the migration from the one to the other downloading my prefered apps.
I've just downloaded 40 little standard apps, half of the work, and my S5 already tells me that it cannot donwload any more apps from the Playstore, not enough space on the phone. What ??? But... I still have gigs of space... and I already moved out all possible apps from internal memory.

I've seen that I could bypass this by rooting the phone, but I can't deal with that. That's not a solution.

So I've started to search which are tha apps that take the more space.

On the iPhone, when I wanted to know the exact size that an app, I could see this onto the settings or into iTunes, giving the size of the app + its datas.

On KitKat, I don't see this information anywhere. As an example, I have "Maps with Me" installed, from which I have donwloaded around 1 gig of maps. It should be the one and largest app I have. But the best I can see about its space see is into the Application settings panel the following informations :

Total : 60,41 Mo
Application : 5,11 Mo
Stock on phone app : 55,09 Mo
Datas : 116 Ko
Stock on phone datas : 96,00 Ko
Cache : 64,00 Ko

Where are my gig of maps ? How can I sort my apps by their real space usage ?
And more, how can I install more than 40 littles apps on such a phone ? That seems incredible... There must be a standard way of doing that ?

EDIT 1

Clean Master tells me that "Maps With Me" is 656 Mb large. Well, OK, but isn't the default marvelous system able to do that ? Because I don't want such apps on my phone, just to do what the basic OS should do and bore me with other functionalities I don't want.

Clean Master also tells me that I have 64 apps occupying 2,5 Gb.
And that My free system space is 120,32 Mb.
After a clean with this app...
I only have my phone since 1 week, and I've nearly done nothing yet with it.

FYI, I've made a factory reset at the first use, and deleted any possible unwanted apps.

I think you are finding trouble to sort apps according to their size,name,date etc with the stock App manager. So I recommend you to install third-party app like Clean Master which does all the things you need. It is a small application so hopefully it won't give any no space error.


How to "undo" Android cats easter egg and remove cat power controls on MIUI 12 I have enabled Android 11 easter egg by dialing 3 times and unlocking "11" now I have cat controls enabled when I slide down settings shortcut menu on my Poco F2 Pro (MIUI 12 - 12.2.4), and I do not know how to disable this. I honestly don't mind having these controls there, but my UI became very laggy since I've done this (there were no POCO launcher updates or any updates for that matter hence, "cats" are the main suspect). Anyone knows how to disable them?

I finally found it. You need to go to settings, then Notifications & Control centre, then under Smart home choose None instead of Android R Easter Egg.


Nexus 5 multitask button not working after upgrade to Lollipop I just upgraded to Android Lollipop on my Nexus 5 using the OTA update. For some reason, I don't seem to be able to use the multitask button. It works very rarely, but I'm having to revert to pressing Home then opening my apps from there. This never happened on KitKat.

Is this a known issue, and is there anything I can do about it? Restarting the phone doesn't seem to help.

The OS recognizes that I'm pressing the button, since it highlights and vibrates it.

On a related note, I've been having to tap the Home button twice for it to actually go the home screen.

I believe the issue has to do with the Tasker and/or Twilight apps.

I don't know why, but this is what solved my problem:

I rebooted into Safe Mode (press and hold the Power button until the "Power Off" text shows up), then hold that("Power Off" message displayed on the screen) down until it turns into "Reboot to Safe Mode".

After running in Safe Mode, I noticed that the Home and MultiTask buttons work correctly: ie. its very likely that an app is causing the issue.  I restarted the phone back to normal mode, and the buttons continued working.

I disabled Tasker and stopped Twilight, and the buttons began working as expected.  I've since re-enabled them both, and they both started working again perfectly, and the Home and Multi Task buttons work as well.

So either something was wrong with one of the apps, or just the act of turning on Safe Mode fixed something.


Google Play Error Retrieving Information RPC:S-2:AEC-2 Whenever I try to update an app, I get the error in the question title. I am also unable to view my installed apps. I've already tried wiping the store's data and cache, and removing and readding my account. Nothing helps.

I'm using a Droid Turbo running 4.4.4. Anyone know what the problem is?

I am having the same problem. I have a nexus 9, running Lollipop. It only happens with the Google+ app. Research I've done says it might be a problem on Google's side. There were a couple of people who signed in using another Google account and downloaded apps that way. Haven't tried it yet.

Update: tried using another account and it didn't work.

Update: it's Google's problem. Read comments in Google Play.


Edit Word documents in Google Drive on Android Whenever I search for a Word document in Google Drive on the Android app I can view it in Google Docs. I can also open it with Word, but then it tells me that this is a read-only version and I cannot edit it.
Is there a way around this? It works on OneDrive, but I really can't find a way to edit my Word documents in Google Drive. Using other apps is Ok for me, but I am not rooted.

Edit files using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM)
To open and edit Office files, you can use Office Compatibility Mode (OCM). With OCM, you can open and edit Office files in Drive, the Docs, Sheets, and Slides homescreens & apps, and Gmail.
On your mobile device, OCM is automatically included with the Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps.
When you open an Office file in one of the apps, you'll be able to edit it.

Source: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6055139
A bit of extra info:
Opening a Word document on Android just so you can read it is incredibly simple. Since Android natively supports opening .doc and .docx files, all you have to do is click on the file to open your Word document.

Find the file you want to open.

Tap to open the file – if prompted, open it in Google Drive or Google Docs if you have them installed already.

You’re now able to read the document.

To edit it, tap the small pencil icon in the bottom right – now you’ll be editing the file.

If you’d rather not use Google Drive or Google Docs, download Microsoft Office Word for Android and use that instead.


Why are Dialer, Cell standby, and Phone idle killing my battery? HTC G2 with Cyanogenmod 7.2.0, T-Mobile.  It used to last all day, I'd always plug the phone in before bed and it would rarely run out of energy before then.  Lately it runs out mid-day.

Today I disabled Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, Mobile Data, etc, and it still emptied the battery in 5 hours, with Dialer, Cell standby, and Phone idle as the highest battery users.
It may be due to upgrading from CM 7.1 to CM 7.2?  I upgraded sometime after 2012-11-13 and noticed this around 2012-12-31.  Worked fine for more than a year before that.
Reception is 4 out of 4 bars, so it's not due to hunting for cell towers.
Phone is noticeably warm when it happens, so it's due to something using energy, and the problem appeared suddenly, so it's not due to a failing battery.

Update:

Today it was bad for an hour or two and then became normal (normal is a few percent an hour).  You can see the abrupt change in the image below.  I don't know why.  The battery usage list looks identical to yesterday, so if it's due to an app, it's not a visible app.  I realized I could click the graph and see a more detailed one, and it shows "Awake" during the part where the battery is being eaten while the display is off:

Is this a "wakelock"?

I did change the GSM preferences to "Auto mode" instead of "WCDMA preferred", but that was last night and it was still eating the battery quickly this morning for a while.

Batteries degrade over time. My last phone (Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant) would only charge to 93%. It would never charge higher than that. Near the end of my use of the phone the battery would only last about 5 - 7 hours. This is with disabling GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth.
Also, Something has to be the "highest" user of the battery. Since you disabled the stuff that is usually the big users of battery, something else is taking that spot.
I would say try replacing the battery, you can get a new battery for the G2 for about $22.
See WikiPedia info on Lithium-Ion Batteries:

Charging forms deposits inside the electrolyte that inhibit ion transport. Over time, the cell's capacity diminishes. The increase in internal resistance reduces the cell's ability to deliver current. This problem is more pronounced in high-current applications. The decrease means that older batteries do not charge as much as new ones (charging time required decreases proportionally).
High charge levels and elevated temperatures (whether from charging or ambient air) hasten capacity loss. Charging heat is caused by the carbon anode (typically replaced with lithium titanate which drastically reduces damage from charging, including expansion and other factors).
A Standard (Cobalt) Li-ion cell that is full most of the time at 25 °C (77 °F) irreversibly loses approximately 20% capacity per year. Poor ventilation may increase temperatures, further shortening battery life. Loss rates vary by temperature: 6% loss at 0 °C (32 °F), 20% at 25 °C (77 °F), and 35% at 40 °C (104 °F). When stored at 40%–60% charge level, the capacity loss is reduced to 2%, 4%, and 15%, respectively.[citation needed] In contrast, the calendar life of LiFePO4 cells is not affected by being kept at a high state of charge

Emphasis mine. But note that it does "not charge as much". Android will still report that the battery is at 100% because it is. It is charged to the full capacity that the battery can handle. This is why it doesn't seem to hold a charge for as long as it used to.
Your battery is over 2 years old. Read this post from XDA about Li-Ion batteries that it quotes this site as the source.

Your lithium-ion battery starts dying the moment it leaves the factory
The fact is, your lithium-ion battery starts dying the moment it leaves the factory! Of course, the actual life-span of an unused lithium-ion battery can vary by a fair amount based on its internal charge as well as the external temperature. But suffice to say that you can expect to irreversibly lose 20% of a lithium-ion battery’s charge every year from its original date of manufacture.

Other things can even make these numbers worse. Like frequent discharges, keeping the battery in non-optimal temperatures and leaving the battery "sitting" idle for periods of time.


Need to "gift" an app purchased in google play by issuing a refund later. How many days can I wait to refund? I know Google play still doesn't support gifting of apps but I need to provide one of my clients a free copy.

They already purchased it. I am going to refund them later, after they are done using the app. How many days from purchase are valid for issuing a refund? I can't find this answer online. I see some other purchases made >30 days ago that are refundable, but I don't know if I can wait 60 days? 90 days? 120?

Can someone login to their Google Wallet and see how far back the refund button is available?

The refund button on the Play store is only available for 2 hours (although Google's support pages say 15 minutes).

From your question it sounds like you may be the developer of the app, in which case you can manually refund the purchase regardless of when the app was purchased via your Google Wallet merchant account. I don't think this actually reverses the purchase (they can still install and use the app) but the cost of the purchase is refunded to the user.


How to unroot automatically rooted mobile? My question is ambiguous because I am new for Android and I have no idea about how to root Android. But my phone suddenly say rooted device.
Actually I was not try to my phone make root. Or never try to run any super user command as per my knowledge.
My question is:

It is possible that smartphone can be automatically root itself by just installing app.
How to check root. how to unroot?

Why my phone say it's rooted device?

here is link of wifive https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wifiveapp.hotspot.wifi
Here is screenshot of device:

Screenshots: root checker status, my device (click images to enlarge)

1- Yes, some malicious Apps (even on google play) may use exploits to root your device and gain super privileges.

2-If you want to check root, you may use apps like root checker as you did or you can search for su binaries in system paths.

3-If you want to fully unroot your device my advice is to use supersu app and let it unroot your device or you may want to flash your device with stock ROM.

But flashing even with stock ROM may result in voiding warranty if you are not familiar with the process.

To be in the safe side, If you're sure that your device is rooted, you can simply unroot it with SuperSU application and check to see if the device is completely unrooted.


Boot animations support in LG-G2 CM12.1 I am running Cyanogenmod 12.1 in LG G2. I would like to change the boot animation.
Does the system support this feature?

If you change Theme (Settings > Theme), you can select boot animation as one of the attributes from that theme to update.

I use the boot animation from one theme and other attributes (icons, fonts, colors) from others.

In Play Store, you can usually see a small preview of the boot animation in the screenshot section. Search for "12.1 theme".


How to find the pathname of the swap partition on SD card? As this warns, you should not enable swap on the wrong partition or you can destroy your phone:

  OK before we go any further! previous phones had a partition layout where mmcblck0 was the SDcard (external) our phone uses mmcblck1 for the external sd. This is important because if you use an app it may be preset to use mmcblck0 as swap partition.using this setting will cause you to use your sbl2 or sbl3 as swap partition.this will brick your phone and unbrick guide will be useles.

So the swap partition might be /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 if I have 3 partitions (fat32, sdext, swap) on my SD card, or /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 if I have 2 partitions (fat43 and swap) or /dev/block/mmcblk1p? if you have a different phone, etc. and the wrong choice can brick your phone.

How do you find out which partition is which?  It should be the only partition on any drive of the phone with the swap filesystem.

fdisk -l does this on Ubuntu, but outputs nothing in Android
blkid does not show the swap partition
cat /proc/partitions lists a lot of partitions, but doesn't indicate which is the swap
cat /proc/swaps only lists swaps that are already being used
cat /proc/mtd only says dev: size erasesize name and nothing else
ls /dev/block/vold lists some partitions as 179:64 179:65 179:66, but doesn't indicate what they are?
4ext recovery will show it in the table of partitions (swap swap 129 MiB), but doesn't say the dev name
...

Even if there's no command line tool to print it directly, surely there's a way to deduce it from some other information??

I installed the Disk Info app and in the options, I enabled Expert mode and Unmounted partitions.  It doesn't say "swap", but it shows clearly that it's the only other partition on the SD card and it's the right size, so /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 must be the one:

Swapper 2 is configured to use /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 by default, so I'm glad I didn't go with the default.


Setting appropriate permissions on SU binary I recently found a way to maintain root access on my android device using a dropbear SSH server that I modified to run at boot as root using init.d, a lil scripting magic & some config scripts I made. If you want you can check it out here. Anyways for an experiment I removed the su binary and Superuser.apk from the system. I've managed to get them copied back to the system but I don't know the appropriate permissions for the su binary. If I look in Super User app on another rooted phone and go to update it shows -rwsr -sr-x as the permissions on the binary. How can I set these same permission manually & what do they mean?

For setting file permissions, you can use the chmod command. The permissions shown are basically split in 3 parts, each consisting of 3 chars: a triple for the owner, the group, and for "others". Usually, each triple holds definitions for reading, writing, and executing a file; so rwx means "can read, write, and execute", while r-- would say "can only read".

The resulting 9 chars are usually preceded by another one, giving information of the type of the "file": (d)irectory and (l)ink are the most common examples. Again, if no "special condition" matches, a leading - indicates a "normal file".

Based on that, let's take your input: -rwsr-sr-x obviously describes a "normal file" (starting with -), readable (r) by owner, group, and others, writable by owner only, and executable by "others" – while owner and group have a s instead the x for execute. This stands for "suid", elevate the caller to the level of the file owner/group.

Taking advantage of the fact permissions can be set "bit-wise" (x=1,w=2,r=4, suid user=4, group=2), after my long "rant" finally the command which should do the trick:

chmod 6774 su

Should set the permissions your question shows. If I "mis-calculated", you've got all information to re-calculate for yourself now :)

Additional hints from the comments:

Instead of calculating the "bitmask", one can also use symbolic names – as Dan Hulme pointed out, and as explained e.g. on the chmod manpage:

defining whom to grant to: (u)ser / (g)roup / (o)thers / (a)ll
defining what to grant: (r)ead / (w)rite / e(x)ecute / (s)uid
defining whether to (+)grant or (-)revoke

So the following two commands should be similar, provided there haven't been other things granted before:

chmod 6774 su
chmod u+rws g+rs o+rx su

The difference becomes clear in case e.g. before "others" had also write permission: while the first command (using a bitmask) sets the permission explicitly to match the "grants" defined (and thus would remove that write permission), the symbolic one "makes a diff" (in the example, it just adds the permissions specified to whatever was there before, so that write permission would not be removed).


Add contact to ActiveSync on Samsung phone I have two Samsung phones connect to my Exchange email using ActiveSync.

When I manually add a contact they are stored on the phone and not ActiveSync, how can I set the default storage mechanism to be ActiveSync?

Thank you

Please make sure contact syncing is enabled for the particular activesync account. You can check by going to Settings > Accounts. Select your activesync account and ensure Contacts are selected. You can also check accounts settings from the contact app by opening the menu. Then try creating a new contact, it should prompt you to choose a destination (phone, email etc).


Twitter app does use my address book? I would like to start using twitter on my smartphone but I do not want to share info with my contacts.

Does Twitter app for android suggest to my contacts to link to my accounts?

In 2012 it was reported Twitter did upload the address book to their servers. Something changed after that.
In case you're wondering if it has in the past you can visit https://twitter.com/settings/contacts_dashboard

If you are using Android 6.0 or higher you can disable the contact permissions as a extra precaution.

The Twitter app doesn't use your contacts unless you explicitly enable this in the settings of the app. Only way to identifies you with others that have is through your email (and mobile number)


Phone not showing as USB Connected Moto X4 running Android 8.1.0. Attempts to connect the phone to any of my Windows 10 PC fail. The phone begins to charge but under Settings, USB says Not Connected. The phone does not appear in Device Manager on the PC. A Moto E4 running Android 7.x works without issue, allowing me to see files on each internal and SD.

There are reports that the update to 8.1 has disabled USB storage functionality but there is a fix on the way (time table unknown). The only work around right now is to disable your lock screen, reboot, then you can connect it. This worked for me but it will stop working again as soon as you re-enable your lock screen (which obviously everyone should).

Sorry, but long story short, the update broke it and you'll have to wait for a fix.

A Motorola agent confirmed the issue on the official Lenovo forum


Does Android USB host mode depend on an OTG cable? In order to take advantage of USB host Mode on the Nexus 7 (Android 4.1.1) is it necessary to have an OTG cable? Can I do it using the standard micro to male cable, then use a female to female adapter?

Yes, you need a specific OTG cable, or you need to modify your cable. An OTG cable has pins 4 and 5 shorted, which is how Android knows it needs to switch over to host mode. You can manually short (cross) the wires on a standard cable, then use a f-f adapter.

For my Nook Simple Touch, a kernel patch is needed to be able to use OTG. I also need to manually activate Host mode while using a OTG cable, so I know the grounding of pins 4 and 5 do more than simply tell Android to go into host mode.


Unable to load some websites USB tethering I am sharing internet from my Samsung galaxy S10+ to my HP Pavilion 15-n208tx laptop via USB tethering. On my phone, I am getting browsing speeds of upto 10 mbps but while tethering, I am unable to load many websites. I am using the USB type C cable provided with the phone for tethering.

Example of strange behavior:

Sites loading:

www.google.com

www.instagram.com

Sites not loading:

www.codeforces.com

www.amazon.in

I found that my wired ethernet connection is still active and hence some sites are failing. I disconnected the wired ethernet and my usb tether is working properly for all sites.


How to delete the history and cache in Opera Mobile (10.1) via shell? I run Opera Mobile 10.1 on Android. My device is rooted. How can I clear the history and cache of the browser via shell?
As su, removing

/data/data/com.opera.browser/opera/profiles/smartphone/cookies4.dat
/data/data/com.opera.browser/opera/profiles/smartphone/cache
/data/data/com.opera.browser/opera/profiles/smartphone/cacheO

and a

/system/xbin/busybox killall -9
com.opera.browser

afterwards doesn't seem to do the job. Afterwards, bookmarks etc. are still there.
In Opera Mini I found it easy to just delete

/data/data/com.opera.mini.android/cache/webviewCache
/data/data/com.opera.mini.android/databases

but unfortunately, Opera Mini in it's current version has a bug and doesn't work on most devices.
Edit:
Another approach I tried is to kill the Opera process, then set an entry in the opera.ini, referring to http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/#private:
[Clear Private Data Dialog]
CheckFlags=1023

but it doesn't cause Opera to clear the history and cache after a restart.

With Opera Mobile open,

Click on the Wrench Icon
Click on Settings
Scroll down and click on Privacy
From there you should see Options to Clear History, Password, Cookies, Cache, and Shared Locations.


How can I use my PC's keyboard on the Android emulator? I want to run/test Android apps on the Android emulator and I want to type using my PC keyboard, as it lets me type and test faster. When I use the emulator though, it only accepts input from the native Android (on-screen) keyboard. How can I enable my PC keyboard for use within the Android emulator?

I had the same issue after upgrading the developer tools (v20.0.0v2012...). All of a sudden none of my android virtual devices would accept any input from my physical PC/Mac keyboard.

This is how I fixed it:

Eclipse > Window menu > AVD Manager
Select  your virtual device and click Edit
Under Hardware, Click New
Select Keyboard Support then click OK
Edit its value to yes
Now you have to click off onto another item in the list, like "Abtract LCD Density" or something. This seems to make the UI keep the "yes" change.

My other AVDs that don't have this "keyboard support" hardware property added do NOT accept my physical keyboard input.


Help Me Fix An Embarassing Mistake (Without Losing Data) :o Sorry if the pic is too big.
I also asked this question here but haven't gotten much help and copied and pasted my question from there, so if you go there, you can skip the first post.
I have a rooted LG Tribute LGLS675516100eb running Android 5.1.1. A few days ago I was looking through some settings in Andromizer and turned the DPI setting all the way up just to see what it would do(confusing DPI for resolution:o), but it said I had to reboot for the change to take effect. I didn't want to reboot at the moment so I cancelled**. But when I rebooted to wipe the Dalvik cache a few minutes later(what I installed Andromizer for), the DPI setting took effect and now I can't get past the lock screen because the button you push after you put in the password is off the side of the screen.:laugh::o
I don't understand what these have to do with the DPI  setting but:  Also, nothing happens when you push the emargency call button so I can't use that glitch to bypass the lock screen:(.  And when I call the phone, the Call app crashes.:confused:
I want to fix it without losing data.
I tried ADB but it says "LGLS675516100eb unauthorized" with the devices command.  I thought I had USB Debugging on, but apparently I don't?
I tried Dr. Fone but It gets stuck at 99% for 10 minutes then it says "Install Model Failed", while on the phone, the firmware update(that's not actually a firmware update for this operation I assume) is stuck at 0%.
I think Tenorshare 4uKey and iMyFone would work but I won't go past the screen that says all data on the phone is about to be erased.
I'm not gonna have to send my phone to that company in Isreal that can unlock iPhones am I?:p:laugh:
**If I remember correctly,  I selected OK when I changed the setting and then the reboot notification happened when I left the page. So apparently cancelling the reboot only did so for the moment but not completely.:mad:
[End Of Pasted Portion]
Also, I tried side loading TWRP in recovery mode (in order to change the DPI setting via command line) but I got: E:footer is wrong E:Signature verification failed.

I finally fixed it by flashing the ROM. I tried this before but forgot about all the extra hoops I had to go through to get it to work with my particular phone. Also I probably assumed it wouldn't work because the phone was locked.
The OTG mouse didn't work because my phone doesn't support OTG. I tried it even though it wasn't listed in my phone's specs. None of the other suggestions worked because my phone was locked.


Application installation fails in play store When I was trying to install apps from google play store, it downloads and then pops the error,

  "Application installation failed".

I tried numerous ways described in websites and now the error doesn't pop but when downloading is finished, again it starts downloading. And it causes data loss only.

If there's a solution please let me know.

The android version in your phone is incompatible with the play store version. When we update play store, without updating android version, this error occurs.

Solution:

  go to settings --> Apps --> Downloaded --> Google Play Store --> Uninstall Updates --> Click 'Ok'

When you uninstall updates it will be replaced with the factory version which is compatible with any android version.


Should I turn off or standby my encrypted phone to maximize lifespan Should I turn my phone off at night or just lock it, to minimize battery usage and battery wear, and also wear to the flash memory?
This question is similar to Should I keep my Android tablets' power off or leave them on standby mode?, but my phone's encrypted, so everytime it boots up it has to decrypt, which I'm guessing uses up quite a bit of battery to do and IO operations to the device storage.

Personally I enable airplane mode at night to minimize battery usage. So the device doesn't require a boot when I'm ready to start the day. Just disable the airplane mode.

Airplane mode just disables radio signal (cellular services, bluetooth, etc), since it draws most battery juices.


Nexus 7: Assert failed: device == grouper when trying to install some roms So I have Nexus 7 (not the 2013 one), Wi-Fi version, with TWRP recovery, version 2.6.3.1 installed.

When trying to install some roms, for example, SmoothRom, or PAC, installation fails with following message:

assert failed: getprop("ro.product.device") == "grouper" || getprop ("ro.build.product") == "grouper"

the problem is, I'm 100% sure nexus 7 wi-fi is grouper.
Some other roms, like cyanogenmod install OK, but I'd like to try something else.

So, what's the problem, and how can it be fixed?

Interestingly I had this exact same problem.

It seems to be an issue with the latest version of TWRP. I solved it by downgrading TWRP to 2.6.3.0 - I'm assuming there must be a bug with the 2.6.3.1 version.

That should work (as my scenario was the same: Nexus 7 (1), TWRP and the MIUI ROM).


How Do I see hidden folders on Android? This always happens to me. Someone tells me to access some folder on Android (in this case /sdcard/Android/data/com.android.lmt/) and I can't find it. I'm using the "File Manager" app and asking it to show hidden files and folders but I still can't find the folder. This happens a lot.

Screenshot (click image for larger variant)

First, you should be aware of the difference between "hidden folders" and "inaccessible folders":

hidden folders: names start with a dot, e.g. /sdcard/.android_secure. These files you can see enabling the "hidden files" option in file explorers.
inaccessible folders: folders you won't see due to lacking permissions, e.g. those in /data. To protect your apps' data, those folders belong to the corresponding application, and are only accessible by the app (in the context of file-permissions; please see the tag's wiki for closer information on those). To make those visible, you need root access on your device, and a file explorer supporting that (e.g. ES File Explorer)

So while you were asking for the former ("hidden folders"), you were really referring to the latter: data/com.android.lmt/ belongs to the LMT launcher.


Whatsapp verification problem So basically I haven't been able to verify my whatsapp number.
I reinstalled the app, I vwrified my number, I tried everything. I contacted support and all, they didnt help me at all and now they arent replying to me
Nothing is working! And viber wont activate either so I believe it's a problem on my side.
Please help me.
Thanks!
Galaxy S5

Try 'call me' option instead. Else check your phone signal or change the SIM to next slot. Let's hope it will work.


Problem importing server certificate to CyanogenMod 9.1 I am having trouble importing a self signed server certificate to my Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S running CyanogenMod 9.1. I have tried everything that came to mind.

First, the usual method:

downloaded certificate in PEM format as cert.crt using FireFox on the SD card root
opening Settings on the phone, then Security, install from SD card.
phone asks for name, I give it and then the phone shows message that the certificate was successfully installed
if I go to Trusted Credentials -> User, certificate is not there and the site I downloaded it for still shows as untrusted
I also tried importing by uploading the certificate on the site and downloading it in the Android browser - same result - success message and now certificate imported.

Second, I tried to get it into the system certificates

first, the conversion with these commands (first command shows the hash used in the other two):

openssl x509 -inform PEM -subject_hash_old -in root.crt | head -1
cat root.crt > 5ed36f99.0
openssl x509 -inform PEM -text -in root.crt -out /dev/null >> 5ed36f99.0

then I moved certificates on the phone, remounted /system with write permissions, moved certificate to /system/etc/security/cacerts/ and changed its permissions to 655. Reboot.
After reboot, certificate shows itself correctly in trusted credentials system tab, but the website still appears untrusted.

The question is, is there another option to install the certificate, or to disable certificate check for site system-wide (I need an application to access this site also). Or does someone have a similar problem?

I should add that I also own an Xperia Arc (without S) running CyanogenMod 9.0, where the certificates are actually working via the first two methods.

I'am having trouble importing a self signed certificate to my Sony Ericsson xperia Arc S running Cyanogenmod 9.1...

AOSP/Android does not support self signed server certificates for the system's Trust Store, and they make it (nearly?) impossible to import them. I know you can't import them for use in, for example, com.android.browser. Also see this related stack exchange question: Self-signed certificate install claims success, but android acts as if cert isn't there.

If you want to certify one of your servers, you have to become your own CA. You will be able to import your own CA's certificate. Also see Work with certificates on Google's Android help. Notice they work with CA and client certificates; but not self signed server certificates.

The browser's unwillingness to use self signed server certificates will be a pain point for the Internet of Things (IoT), where you try and connect to your refrigerator or thermostat to program it. The W3C's working group has not even begun to tackle the problem. See Proposal: Marking HTTP As Non-Secure on the W3C mailing list.

If you want to become your own CA, then see questions like How do you sign Certificate Signing Requests with your Certification Authority? and How to create a self-signed certificate with openssl?.

  I tried to get it into the system certificates ....

The system Trust Store is burned into the ROM, so you really can't do anything with it. When you modify the Trust Store, you are actually tweaking /data/misc/keychain and one of two files: cacerts-added and cacerts-removed. See Nikolay Elenkov's ICS Trust Store Implementation.


Mobile network not available I have serious problem with my Galaxy S2.

Some guy stole my phone. With help from Samsung Dive, I gained his phone number because he put his Sim card in my phone. Then, with help from police, I got my phone back. Just today, I went to shop for a new Sim card because my old one was lost (thanks to that guy!). First, I did factory reset without any Sim card inserted. Then I put in my new Sim card in it. Here comes the problem - it doesn't recognize my Sim card! First I thought that I did put it in somehow wrong, but after few tries - I think that it isn't the case. I remembered that it asked me something about missing Sim card when i booted up phone after factory reset so I did factory reset again with Sim card in it. Still, problem remains. When I try to call someone it says Mobile network not available. When I try to select my network operator under settings, it says Unable to connect. Try later.

What could be the problem? Is it possible that my phone is blocked? If so, where can I unblock it?

Thanks for any advice!

P.S. Are there any steps to find why I cannot connect to mobile network?

Edit:

When turning the phone on, it shows yellow warning icon.

When phone is on, near clock in top bar there is like phone icon.

If that anyhow helps, guys!

Provider did block the IMEI of the phone. Now it's unblocked and all works fine!

Thanks to Matthew Read for clue... :)


Flipboard RSS account How can I add my RSS account to Flipboard? I have my twitter,  Facebook and YouTube accounts on Flipboard,  but my RSS feeds, from my old Google RSS, are now on Feedly,  and I would like the feeds to be in Flipboard as well.

Any ideas?

I use this technique from this page http://labnol.blogspot.in/2007/10/merge-multiple-rss-feeds-feedburner-mix.html to aggregate my feeds in feedburner and feed them to Flipboard.

  Step 1: Go to the Yahoo! Pipes website and Create a new Yahoo! Pipe.

  Step 2: Drag-n-drop the "Fetch Feed" tab from the Sources tab to the
  main drawing panel.

  Step 3: Add all the different Feed URLs in the same Fetch Feed Module
  (click the plus icon).

  Step 4: Once you are done adding all your RSS feeds, drag the lower
  circle from Feed Fetch module to the Pipe Output at the bottom.

  Step 5: Give some name and save this Yahoo! Pipe. Now run the pipe and
  you will see a new RSS feed - syndicate that feed via FeedBurner so
  you can even track the feed subscribers. It's all very simple.


Is it possible to make a Picasa album to not appear in native Gallery application? By default, it synchronizes every Picasa album you have in your Google account, even the marked as private ones.

I'd like to make some of them to not be imported on my phone.

Not possible at this time. This answer in the Google support forums indicates that it can't be done, but that it will be forwarded on as a feature request.


How to decide whether a system update should be installed? An Android device shows a notification that a system update is available. I guess it is shown because the user has to decide - otherwise it would just be installed silently.

How should the user decide whether he wants to install the update?

Phone updates are an odd thing. Manufacturers decide if the phone is capable of handling the update (based on the device's hardware) and carriers decide when to push the updates to the handsets. There are exceptions, such as Wifi only devices, where it is solely up to the manufacturer.

However, system updates are generally a good thing. These updates bring bug fixes, security patches, and general improvements to the Android experience.

There have been some bad updates, that have broke existing features; but these have been fixed within a few days and are few and far between on recent devices.

But how to decide? If you are hesitant at all to install the update, do some searching for the device and update. Technology sites such as Gizmodo and Engadget post updates to many devices, especially if the update introduces problems. There are also many Android specific blogs that post information of patches and updates.

If no one is reporting problems then the update should be fine to install.


Is it possible to make screen videos on a unrooted device? The device is Sony Xperia m2 aqua Recently I want to record some screen videos like to show when bugs happen and e.t.c.Is it possible on a unrooted Sony xperia m2 aqua?If yes how?

I see that your device originally came with Android KitKat. You can try a command line method here. screenrecord binary does the screen recording. Its maximum recording duration is 180 seconds. In Kitkat, its usages goes by:

Usage: screenrecord [options]

Records the device's display to a .mp4 file.

Options:
--size WIDTHxHEIGHT
    Set the video size, e.g. "1280x720".  Default is the device's main
    display resolution (if supported), 1280x720 if not.  For best results,
    use a size supported by the AVC encoder.
--bit-rate RATE
    Set the video bit rate, in megabits per second.  Default 4Mbps.
--time-limit TIME
    Set the maximum recording time, in seconds.  Default / maximum is 180.
--rotate
    Rotate the output 90 degrees.
--verbose
    Display interesting information on stdout.
--help
    Show this message.

In Lollipop, a parameter bugreport is also added:

--bugreport
    Add additional information, such as a timestamp overlay, that is helpful
    in videos captured to illustrate bugs.

An example to record screen using in-built screen recorder (you would need adb setup in PC and USB debugging enabled in the device),

adb shell screenrecord --bit-rate 8000000  /sdcard/test.mp4

That command will save the screen recording in a file test.mp4 located under /sdcard. Change the bitrate as per your needs, or try an app for GUI.


Bought a new battery, do I need to calibrate it? My original battery is bloated and is dying quickly after a full charge so I now bought a replacement. Do I need to calibrate this new battery using a calibration app?

No

Calibration of batteries (Li Ion or Li Po, used in almost all mobile devices) is a myth

You can start using it straight away and charge as you normally did with earlier batteries

This post will help you understand more:

Looking for a consistent answer about battery calibration

Using calibration apps doesn't really help as the battery files in system (to which these apps write) are renewed and previous data erased when you charge / reboot

As explained in this article

  It [Batterystats.bin file which stores calibration information] has no impact on the current battery level shown to you.
  It has no impact on your battery life.......it is reset every time you unplug from power with a relatively full charge (thus why the battery usage UI data resets at that point)...

Explanation in Italics mine from the same article

Related Myth : Charging a new battery for X hours

Charging a new battery for x hours before use is a "legacy hangover" from the days when Nickel Cadmium batteries were used. Those batteries had a "memory effect". As a result, over a period of time, they "remembered" lesser battery capacity than rated capacity. To prevent this, it was advised to always fully charge these batteries

This is not the case with Lithium Ion or Lithium polymer batteries. There is no logic to charge fully or x hours before use. Just use the battery normally, as suggested by others in comments
Table 1 corroborates with additional information


my samsung galaxy s2 gt-i9100 totally formatted or wiped. how to fix it. How to install new ROM internal sd card also formatted.
external sd card also formatted.
rooted successfully, installed CWM recovery successfully but there is a problem while installing new ROM. how to fix it.

Go to this website and follow the Odin method to install a new ROM. You should be able to put your phone in download mode/Odin mode to do the same.
Try this out to replace to a stock ROM - http://android.sc/update-samsung-galaxy-s2-i9100-to-official-ota-android-4-1-2-vjms3-jelly-bean-firmware/

You can visit this website to find some nice ROMs for the phone with reviews as well - www.galaxys2root.com


Why my phone is always out of space recently, but I didn't install any new software Possible Duplicate:
  How can I free some disk space without deleting my apps?

I've installed such software as Shazam, Baidu Map, QQ, HiMarket, MeiTuan, UC Mobile, etc. At first everything is fine, but nowadays the phone always says "Low on space". What should I do?

It should be the applications occupying /data/ space as they are in use, mainly due to runtime files, cache, database, etc.

In order to verify this, you can execute the following:

adb shell
su -c "du /data" | sort -n

It should have a result like:

...

3792    /data/data/com.UCMobile
28399   /data/app
35647   /data/data
49374   /data/dalvik-cache
114865  /data/

And then you can check the directories from large to small, to see what's taking so much space.


Download .mp3 instead of playing them in firefox for android? Firefox on android auto-plays .mp3 links as you click them. How do I download them instead of immediately playing?

In the Firefox address bar, enter about:config.
Search for media.play-stand-alone.
You can see true below the item's name.
Tap the item's name (not on the search bar).
A Toggle option has appeared at the bottom right. Tap it once. Notice the true has changed to false
Now, when you'll tap on a .mp3 link, Firefox will prompt you with a Complete action using dialogue. To download the file, choose Download.


Wi-fi keeps turning off Within the last few days, my Wi-fi setting keeps switching to "off".

It does this even when the screen is on and I'm actively using the device.

I've checked the couple apps I still have that help with conserving battery and none of them seem to affect wi-fi. In any event I haven't installed any recently nor updated any settings in them.

What should I be checking? How can I fix this?

Motorola Droid, Android 2.2.1, unrooted

I had this happen to me once.  I think it had something to do with WiFi being turned on while flight mode was on, but I don't know why.  I fixed it by:

Turning off WiFi
Turning on flight mode
Rebooting
Turning off flight mode
Rebooting
Turning on WiFi


How to update the picture of my contact from Facebook in HTC wildfire? How to update the picture of my contact from Facebook in HTC wildfire? I am able to update all other contacts but not able to update my contact from facebook. I am using android version 2.2

On your phone go to people.(or phonebook) choose your contact card. Press menu button/edit. Press on your photo/Facebook. And it will be updated.


What apps does "Clear memory" actually clears? What apps does actually get closed when one goes for the option of "Clear Memory" in the Task Manager?

It obviously doesn't closes all the apps, as this screenshot shows:

As the screenshot clearly shows, the app to take screenshots  and the app to indicate the battery level never got closed.

As the screenshot clearly shows, the app to take screenshots and the app to indicate the battery level never got closed.

Yes your are absolutely correct, even it display no of application are closed it actually free resources used by application.As per my understanding it closes some running services which are nothing but UI less applications.Some applications which are installed in device uses this service for many reasons such as alarm clock, or to check periodic update of an applications etc.

There are some service though that even you close them manually they just get restarted.


CM12.1 on Galaxy S5 in endless boot after encryption enabled, then pattern changed As written in the title, I have a Galaxy S5 (SM-G900F) with CyanogenMod 12.1 installed ("klte").

Everything worked semifine (apart from occasional reboots), and after a while I decided to encrypt the device.
Encryption seemed to have worked fine - on every boot, I had to enter my pattern.

A few days and reboots later, I changed my unlock pattern. So far, everything worked fine - the display could only be unlocked with the new pattern.
Then, I rebooted the device and it never finished the boot process; I have waited >15 minutes.

One strange thing is: Before I changed the pattern, TWRP always offered me a 3x3 pattern on startup (my pattern is 6x6). Now, it doesn't, and it can access both internal and external memory.

I have reinstalled CM12.1 via TWRP, but that did not help; nor did factory reset: The first boot after FR showed the message "Apps are being optimized", then "Android is starting / Apps are starting".
Then, with this message showing, nothing happened. I pulled out the battery, and now everything is like before: endless boot.

Is there a way to repair the device?

Formatting data did help.
I'll stay away from Disk Encryption for now as it seems to me the Cyanogen ecosystem is not really there yet.


Which directories does the Media Scanner scan? Which directories does the Media Scanner scan at startup?

Is it only the sdcard?

Media Scanner scans both SD card as well as USB storage, but not ROM and system storage. Means, it scans from /sdcard/ and /sdcard/external_sd/ mount points. It goes deep inside all non-hidden sub-directories, unless .nomedia file is detected.

Media Scanner skips ROM and system storage because both require root permission to write anything there. And, its very unlikely for an end-user to store music, photo there.


How to use my phone to transfer Wi-Fi to other devices? I'm using Nexus S, recently I got a Kindle, however, the Kindle couldn't connect to my company's Wi-Fi (seems it doesn't support the encryption method), so I'm wondering this method:

My Nexus S connect to company's Wi-Fi
Nexus S performs like a adhoc  , create a new wifi
Kindle connect to the new Wi-Fi.

The problem is how to perform step 2. I found a software Wifi tether, but it can only tether 3G network to other devices, not Wi-Fi.

Any suggestions? my phone is rooted.

It's not possible to share a Wi-Fi via Wi-Fi, this would require two Wi-Fi chips. Only mobile data tethering is supported via Wi-Fi.


Don't ask before terminating mobile data connection My Samsung mobile phone (Android 4.x, released this year) keeps asking me every time if I really want to terminate my mobile data connection. No checkbox to remember the setting. That's annoying: More often than not I forget to confirm, and I'm on a data plan that charges per ping.

EDIT: The switch I'm using opens up when I swipe down from the very top of the display. I've seen this layout on my phone and on two other Samsung tablets, so I assume it's pretty standard.

Is there any setting to stop these messages once and forever? My question is kind of the opposite of https://android.stackexchange.com/q/67517/13266 .

I don't know if there's any setting for that (Samsung has certainly more than one device, and I don't know them all with all their specifics). But there are other means/approaches to this:

you might try some of the toggle switches and widgets available on Google Play
you could check for some automation tool like tasker, which have the feature of toggling mobile data. At least Tasker permits to create widgets on the homescreen bound to specific tasks, so you could create a toggle-widget yourself

Both approaches should work independent of the device you're going to use them on.


Phone says that it is "up-to-date" after a canceled update I have canceled a Marshmallow update download by accident, and now when I got to check for updates, the phone says that the device software is up-to-date.  How can I fix this?

Phone: Moto G 3rd Generation
OS: Android 5.1.1

EDIT:  Unfortunately I cannot check solutions because recently the phone asked me to update to Marshmallow again, and this time I accepted.

You can try clearing data for the updater app under Settings -> Apps

Try checking for update after this.

I'm not sure whats the exact name of app in AOSP/Moto G rom.
For CM the name of app is cmupdater.

Hope this helps.