Encryption on SD card. Not recovering data after crashing My SD card on Nokia 5 suddenly stooped being recognized one day and all my apps and data was lost. I switched off the phone and reinserted the card, but no use. Then I took the card for recovery with a data recovery company - Stellar Data Recovery in Gurgaon. They inspected and told me that all they can see on my SD card is garbage and it could be encrypted or its logical drive could have completely been wiped. I had encrypted my phone but I haven't encrypted my card. Any pointers on what should I do next? The data is very precious to me and I need to recover it.

This is a SanDisk SD card 64 Gb, class 10 used with a Nokia 5 with Android 9 version

Update:
Thanks for all the answers people. The data recovery company I gave my disk to were unable to proceed with these steps because I suppose they were not as technical to try these steps. So, they returned my card stating that my card is encrypted and also has physical damage so they can't do anything. That left me heartbroken because this data is important to me.

I am planning to do all these steps myself.

Meanwhile, can I insert another card in my still-unrooted phone, which still has the old corrupted card as an adoptable storage in its settings?

2.Can this new card be made adoptable? Will doing so make the old card's vold keys disappear from the phone?

Can I make this new card partly adoptable and partly removable through disk partition on Android 9? Will this also affect my old card's vold key?

I just need to know that I will not permanently lose all my old cards vold keys if I insert a new card and make it adoptable as well.

Thanks.

the proper way is give your sdcard + device + screenlock pin to the expert

the Nokia 5 is listed as exploitable. someone with skills can do:

on the device itself

make a full ROM dump of all partitions including encrypted userdata partition and encryption key using the read command in EDL mode
downgrade the bootloader to make bootchain vulnerable
flash avb/ dm-verity disabled vbmeta from EDL mode
flash (unsigned) magisk patched boot/recovery or twrp custom recovery from EDL mode
get root access to (decrypted) userdata partition
extract the encryption key of adoptable-storage from /data/misc/vold

on linux machine

dump the corrupt sdcard with ddrescue
decrypt the sdcard dump with extracted key
recover files with testdisk photorec extundelete binwalk etc


Network unavailable error when screen is off or after exiting the browser whilst downloading files I am using  UC browser mini , Iam using jio internet . When my phone's screen turns off or I exit the browser UC browser mini, the downloading file says that network unavailable what is the reason? How can I fix that?

My phone is Samsung galaxy grand prime 4g

In the advanced WiFi settings, the keep WiFi on during sleep option may be the cause.


Main functions failure (USB Storage, WIFI, SIM, Camera) after boot in Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 running Android 2.3.6 PROBLEM

So far, I noticed that after I turn it on and it completely loads up, it can't:

show notification-bar
use camera
detect or recognize "internal USB storage"
detect or recognize "SD card"
use WIFI (when clicked, just says "Error")
sometimes use cellular network (have good signal strength but can't reach the network)
sometimes detect "SIM card" (PIN asked on booting but on settings page can't detect!)

WHAT HAPPENED

My device is pretty heavy on apps (about 200 apps installed), sometimes while I`m working, it hangs and everything just freezes but after about half hour cellular network automatically forced to turned off and everything will be just normal and after reset, net will be back too but the last time that this happened, it took about two hours and when I reset the device, my problems began.

WHY

I think  all of this is happening because of two reasons:

the Operating System kernel drivers maybe damaged
hardware failure (maybe some IC controller fried!)
because device can't detect internal/external storage so many apps (such as operating system's own apps) can't work properly

DEVICE INFO

Model number - Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 (GT-S6500D)
Android version - 2.3.6
Baseband version - S6500DJPLI1
Kernel version - 2.6.38.6-1206137
Build number - Gingerbread.JPLJ1
Status - Rooted

P.S.

I know that I simply can use Android's Recovery mode or Odin for flashing a new Operating System but I don`t want to wipe all of my data (very important to me!)

200 apps on Gingerbread :O, time to upgrade now. Even on my OnePlus One with 3gigs RAM and 64gigs Internal Storage, I merely have 20-30 downloaded apps with 2-3 in start-up.

But anyhow, follow this:

Format and install some custom ROM like Cyanogenmod
Keep only required apps.
Remove apps from start-up. Use AIO Toolbox from Play Store.
Use AIO Toolbox on regular basis to clean up.

For all your apps backup: I believe in that list of 200 apps, you must have some system tools. Check if it has backup option for apps or not. Even you can create backup from recovery mode too, if your recovery supports. TWRP/Cyanogenmod/ClockWorkMod do have this option.


LED on Xperia Z only in operation while charging Using the LED to know when a notification is available is of great use to me, but my new Sony Xperia Z appears to only turn on the LED notification light while it is on charge.

It turns orange to say it's charging, and turns blue (slow flashing) if I got a missed call or text message, but it will only do so while it's pluggin in. And to confirm I can get a missed call, wait for the LED to turn on, it wont, I put it on charge without disturbing it's 'locked state', and immediately I get slow flashing blue instead of 'charging orange', that is too say I can see before I put it on charge it should be on, but only turns on once i plug it in.

I like how it works while it's charging, but I'd like similar functionality while it isn't charging. I am using STAMINA mode, is this a battry save issue? How can I get the LED working as I'd like?

This is a known bug in Xperia Z (sources 1 and 2).

Currently the only way to restore the LED functionality is to:

de-select Settings -> Backup & reset -> Backup my data and Automatic restore
perform a factory reset from Settings -> Backup & reset -> Factory data reset
Complete the reset manually (that is, without restoring apps/data from the Google account)

Hopefully this will be corrected in the next update.


iSMS folder in the SD Card I recently installed the app 'Empty Folder Cleaner' from playstore. On running the app, I noticed that the majority of empty folders removed were from the parent folder called iSMS, in my external SD Card. Inside the parent folder, the empty folders were images, videos, etc. Does anyone have any idea regarding that? Is it some sort of a mischievous thing?

P.S - I'm running on Android 4.2.2(rooted), Sony Xperia C2305.

Use an application backup app to backup all your apps,(App Backup and Restore) is one app that i know of.
uninstall all the apps from your phone, (Please be careful and remove only the apps that you installed yourself, removing system apps could prove problematic)
delete the Folder that you dont want on the sd card, like the iSMS folder you said
restart your phone.
start all apps that you have on your phone, (you have removed all apps, the only ones remain are system apps)
check if the folder was created in your storage media.
if it was, then there is a system app creating the folder.
if not, then one of the 3rd party apps downloaded from the play store are creating this folder
all apps having the "modify and delete contents of your sd card" can create folders in your sd card, during reinstallation, check the app permissions carefully.
installing each one by one and.opening and checking the sd card for the folder, you will eventually find the culprit app.


Accessibility turned back off - how to keep it on? I'm using the app 'Automate', in order for it to work I have to turn it on in Settings/Accessibility:

But after a short time I doesn't work anymore and it's back on 'off' again.
I think it may have something to do with my battery saving mode because I've seen it in a different question but no idea how to fix it because my gui doesn't have the same properties as suggested in an answer I've seen somewhere else.
I'm using an Honor 9 phone from Huawei, my software versions:

So my question is: How can I prevent my phone from changing the app's accessibility setting without giving up on the battery saving feature (if that is the reason for it)?

This probably is the battery saving mode (Android 7) as you suggest.

On my Samsung you can mark Automate (or any other app) as an app not to be checked for battery drain.

From Settings, select Device maintenance.
Select Battery at    the bottom left of the screen.
At the bottom    of the next screen is    a list of apps that are
currently considered    by Android as using    power.  Automate is
probably on that list.
Below the list is a button "Unmonitored Apps", select this.
Select Add apps and add Automate to those apps that are no longer
checked and put to sleep by the OS.

The exact method may be slightly different on your phone but the principle should be the same.


Android execute script at logout I would like to execute a script at logout with my GS7 android 9 (Resurrection Remix). I see that it is advised to use tasker. I guess it is possible to do that without installing a graphical application.
I connect to the smartphone through adb and have a shell. Where can I write a file in the file system with bash or python commands that will be executed at logout ? Also, how should I manage the bash or python environment in order to have it working ?
Thanks for your time.

On a rooted device you can make use of init's on shutdown trigger:
# /etc/init/custom.rc

on shutdown
    exec - -- /path/to/executable

For more details on how to run an executable from init's .rc file, and what factors need to be taken care of, see my answer to How to run an executable on boot and keep it running?


TWRP Backup restoring Line/Whatsapp problem so I have the following Problem.

I had flashed the custom os anchidroid onto my s3.
It was working perfectly until recently my phone would boot and keep trying to optimise all my apps and restart and try to optimise all apps again and so on. So i googled for an answer, and i found a thread saying that its best to reinstall, so I took a twrp nandroid backup of my broken rom and reinstalled.

Now I have the problem that I dont know how to restore my apps from my twrp Backup. I tried titanium backup and Nandroid Manager. Titanium Backup essential doesnt recover my apps. It does list all my apps but when trying to recover data or data plus app it just says batch action complete, but doesnt do anything. Nandroid Manager on the other site keeps crashing when im trying to open the Backup.

I also tried extracting the twrp backup on my desktop and move the files over to my phone, but thats where my essential problem is: Is it normal that the /data/com.whatsapp f.x. is only 228kb? My whole data twrp backup is around 3gb big, with 400mb being dalvik cache and 2gb base apks and the rest being in /data/data

I would be fine with just reinstalling the apps from the google play store and not recovering chat logs, but since whatsapp and line are based on verification with a phone number this is not an option for me. I dont have my phone number to log in.

Last time I had an issue with my phone I was able to use Titanium Backup to backup Whatsapp and Line and restore then on the factory reset rom again and bypass the phone verification, but since I wasnt able to access my phone at all I wasnt able to reproduce this step.

Did I do something wrong when I tried to restore the apps or is there any other Way I could restore them from my twrp backup? Any Help is appreciated.

Im using the Android Version 5.1.1 with ARchidroid 3.1.5

Titanium Backup essential doesnt recover my apps. It does list all my apps but when trying to recover data or data plus app it just says batch action complete, but doesnt do anything

This is wrong in general, because Titanium's duty is to restore snapshots of applications accessing folders that are normally hidden to the regular user.
For example I have just successfully restored Authenticator, which is designed to be buried in the phone.
While this works for (many) apps, others may not work with Titanium because of esoteric ways to store their data. Applications heavily depending on cryptography should be implemented in a way that Titanium fails to restore the app state. Not aimed to defeat Titanium, but in such a way that Titanium fails.
The following is an answer from a developer.
I don't have the source code of Whatsapp and Line, but from what I have learned from security-oriented coding and Android docs, you should avoid to store a private key "plaintext" in the store, relying on Android's kernel and hardware features to protect your keys.
One is to use hardware keystore attestation. Since keys are bound to hardware features, a root user copying the secure storage of such applications will fail.
Another is simply to hash the keys with hardware information such as IMEI or Device ID, something that cannot be (easily) cloned by a super user, and that Titanium won't necessarily restore.
I said necessarily because I recall an option, working on the same hardware model, to restore the device ID from the build properties, in order for Google to make it appear as the old device.
Conclusion
I think that Whatsapp and Line's implementation of secure storage relies on hardware information to implement the highest standards in information security, with the direct consequence that a restored dump of the user data directory will necessarily fail.


How do I share apps between users in Android 5 Lollipop? I got a Nexus 9 tablet that I'm sharing with my wife.

I set myself as owner and set my wife as another user.

How do I give the other user access to some of the apps I have installed, without re-installing the apps in the other user space?

You reinstall the app, but they use the same install with different data, so the apk isn't downloaded twice (when you click install on a app that is already installed for the other user you will notice it is quite quick). So they already use the same app.

However if you want to share data, you could use one local account, or log in  both yours and your wife's local account into the same account for whichever service you wish to share.


I keep losing my Swype keyboard I'm running CM6 on a Motorola Droid.

Every now and then (at least once a day), my keyboard will revert from Swype back to the Stock Android Keyboard and I have switch back to the Swype keyboard to be able to use it again.

And sometimes (at least once every other day), the Swype keyboard will be completely disabled and I have to go back into Settings --> Keyboards and re-enable Swype.

This is starting to get really annoying.  Any suggestions?

I believe this problem was caused by having Swype installed to the SD card.  Moving Swype back to the phone's internal storage seems to have fixed the problem.

Settings-->Applications-->Manage Applications-->Swype-->Select "move to phone"


Droid Bionic screen won't auto shut off when plugged in My phones screen will remain backlit and on while plugged in after getting a text or something that would pop up.

Even if nothing popped up, if I just unlock it while plugged in, it will never re-lock on its own.

This wasn't always the case but I didn't notice it for a while and am not sure what might be causing it. Maybe a background app?

Works normally when not plugged in.

Check to see if "System Settings / Developer options / Stay awake" is checked.  It's intended to give exactly that behavior ("Screen will never sleep while charging").


Some Music Missing on Huawei Tag-L21 Alright, so I connected my phone to my laptop through a chord and moved a bunch of albums into the Downloads folder on my SD card, and all the music transferred over without a problem. However, when I was checking to see if all the songs were there, 9 songs were missing. I was still able to navigate to all the songs in the fie manager and play them all the way through, but they weren't showing up in the music player. They are all mp3 files. I am using the default music player. It seems to be a problem with the music player, because when I downloaded doubletwist, all the songs were there. I don't wanna switch to using doubletwist though, I wanna keep using the default music player because I prefer it's interface. I think it might be because of the file size, as all the missing songs were under 2000 kb. Please help, this is infuriating me to no end. Thanks.

May be default settings  of music player.try changing settings of that music player.may be the songs which are missing are false recognised as ringtone.


Show WhatsApp popup when clicking the message in notification panel We can enable popup notifications in WhatsApp settings for "Only when screen is on" and "Always show popup".

What I want is, it shouldn't show any popup when message arrives like popups are disabled, but when I click on the message in notification panel, it should show the popup and I can quickly reply.

Similar to what iOS "Quick Reply for WhatsApp" tweak does. Is it possible?

WhatsApp has implemented this feature on Mar 29, 2016 (v2.12.560). As a fallback for quick reply feature on Android N, WhatsApp added a (kind of) quick reply from notification for all Android version.

When a notification comes, you can expand it (i.e. by sliding down) to show the Reply button. Tapping the Reply button will bring the message as a popup, which you can also reply directly from there.

Image courtesy of AndroidPolice


How to fix a phone that always boots into TWRP when OS exists A friend of mine has this small Samsung device. He forgot the PIN he set on it and decided to hard reset the phone using power button+ volume up
+home. That booted into TWRP. He then used the Wipe option. See image below

Then he used swipe to factory reset. That completed successfully. Problem is when he reboots the phone, it goes straight to TWRP. Android OS isn’t booting. Does that mean the OS was wiped when he did the factory reset?
This is the screen he gets when he restarts the phone

The Reboot button shows an option to reboot to OS. After rebooting, Android OS starts


Recover whatsapp chat backups after reset without access to old number I made a factory reset of my phone, which had Whatsapp linked to a deprecated phone number.
Before the reset, I backed up the chats both on Google drive(*) and on the simcard (a crypt12 file).

I hoped I'd be able to recover the chats after signing in with my new phone number, but this isn't happening on its own.

Furthermore, I can no longer log in with the old phone number (as it is deprecated), and cannot do the number transfer.

Is there any way to force a recovery of previous whatsapp chats on a
phone with a new number?
If not, is there at least a way to access the text content of the
backup files (either on Gdrive, or on the sd card) from e.g. a
computer, or are all the chats definitely gone?

(*)a similar question was posted here, but is unanswered and only refers to restoring from gdrive, whereas my question also mentions a local backup, and the ability to access the chats even from a different platform as whatsapp.

The WhatsApp backups are encrypted with a key which is connected to your account. This ensures that the backup only gets restored if the user connects the same phone number. If not, this backup holds zero value for WhatsApp.

This also means that the database backup (on your SD) card cannot be read. So, you shall not be able to decrypt and bring it to a readable version. I'll really look for possibilities of getting the old number re-issued or something.

Without access to that old number, there's no chance (as per my knowledge) to decrypt the database and restore it or make it readable.


regularly refresh Chrome tab I have a Transformer Prime TF201 which I sit next to my main pc to display a webpage that shows stats about the systems I work on.

However this page is a bit rubbish for updating and will time out and log off and generally just not work all that well (its a home made iframe that just shows data from other sites).

On a windows system elsewhere I used a line of VBS to, effectively, hit F5 every 30 seconds and this basically resolved all the issues.

Can anyone think of a way to do this on Android?

Adding extensions will solve this type of requirements.
But Chrome for android does not support any extensions yet.
Look at the Chrome for Android FAQ

Or else you can use Dolphin Browser to achieve this.   It supports extensions.
If you are willing to use Dolphin Browser instead of Chrome, use this Auto Reload Extension.
You can set time intervals in it.


Can apps in Huawei AppGallery be downloaded in China? I have published a mobile game in Google Play Store. Apparently it cannot be played in China as China has banned Google. Huawei provides an alternative app store -- Huawei AppGallery. Does it mean that if I upload my game there, players from China will be able to download my game?

After going through their publication process, I can answer the question now.

The answer is yes. They give you the option to publish apps in China, on the condition you submit additional documents required by the government of China. You need also to display a Health Advice in your app prominently.


First smart phone, activating droid incredible question I just bought a used Droid Incredible off Amazon and would like to play around with it. Its asking me to call a number and activate it. I am hesitant to activate it before I go to the Verizon store to upgrade from my flip phone to this smart phone, using the same phone number. If I activate it will that mess anything up? I know very little about cell phone service.

Wait till till go to the Verizon store. They can set up your number on your new phone while they desk with your phone transfer.


Read Whatsapp message from Google Drive backup I have WhatsApp backup file in my Google Drive account. How can I read WhatsApp messages on my laptop? I have tried it but can't be open on my Google account.

Sorry to say but there is no way to Access the WhatsApp or any other app backup in google drive only app can access their backup files we cannot access any file that is saved by any other application

But you can use WhatsApp web if there is any option for you


Is there any free (not trial) software by which we can run android on windows xp PC? Is there any free (not trial) software by which we can run android on windows xp PC?

I have search and found this http://youwave.com

However, it is trial for 7 days

You can try LiveAndroid. It's around 180MB and comes as an ISO file. Create a virtual machine in your Windows Machine and load the ISO to boot the VM into Android.


Bluetooth disconnects when starting to play music I have a Jabra Move headset that has been working wonderfully for months. However, today it started having connection problems to my Motorola Moto Z: it connects and remains connected indefinitely, as long as I don't start playing any sound.

If I have sound from Google Music or Facebook, the head set plays 3 seconds, disconnects, and reconnects. I have no idea how to solve this.

Here's what I tried:

 1. Restarting mobile phone
 2. Restarting headset
 3. Reset headset
 4. Unpairing and pairing back

I am running Android 7.1.1
I have no idea how to fix this :( please help

Please do share which version of Android is installed.

Assumption made, there was a recent update to Moto Z  to Android 7.1. There is a high possibility that the bluetooth headset + Moto Z + Wifi versions are now at conflict. From experience with most bluetooth devices, Moto Z will have to rollout a fix or you can get another headset.

Or you can try this

Disable the wifi + hotspot.
Unpair the devices.
Restart both Moto Z handset and the headphone.
Pair both devices.

Looks like a long list, but takes less than 2 minutes to do. Hope it helps.


Disable Cyanogen Privacy Guard from Shell I setup privacy guard for some of the ROM-Apps and now the GUI crashes when i even try to get the pin entry field on the lockscreen.
My phone is rooted and i can try via adb or recovery.
How can i disable the privacy guard or reset it from a root shell?

Removing /data/system/appops.xml from TWRP (recovery) helped.


How to use multiple google accounts, but allow only one to locate my phone in device manager I am using multiple google accounts, both private and company accounts.

I want to see all calendars in my Calendar app. Events in all calendars. Same with Gmail. I want to be logged in and be able to switch between all gmail accounts.

But I don't want my company account (To which I am not the only person to have access I think) to be able to store and backup my contacts, my chrome settings, and privately visited websites, and all private activity.

Right now logging to any of those accounts and going to android device manager, I can locate or wipe my phone. I want to allow it only on my main account.

How can I control that?

Android 5.0.2 MIUI 7.0

By going to the sync settings for each account (as shown in the image below), you can control what each account 'sees'. For the 'public' account, turn off all syncing besides Gmail and Calendar.

Unfortunately, this will not address Android Device Manager access. To do this, you must open the Google Settings app and navigate to Google > Security. Below Android Device Manager heading, you will be able to turn off it's features.
Source: Set up Android Device Manager

(Click image to enlarge)


How to cancel sent invitation on LinkedIn via Android app? Is it possible to cancel a sent invitation on LinkedIn via the Android app? It can be done through the website.

To do so, consider the following steps:

  Go to your LinkedIn Inbox and click “Sent” to see the invitations you have sent.
  Find any invitation that has not yet been accepted and click on the subject line of the message.
  Click “Withdraw”

Source


Will my deleted text message still be sent? I wrote a very long text message and pressed send, while mobile data was off. My phone displayed an error that the message will be sent when I activate mobile data. Before activating mobile data and while the text's status was pending, I deleted it.

If I now activate mobile data, will the message still be sent?

By text message, do you mean by WhatsApp? Or just SMS?

If you sent SMS and deleted it, unless you're phone is in airplane mode, there's high chance that your message is sent. And SMS has nothing to do with Mobile Data.

Incase you typed a very long message and it got converted to MMS, unless you had switched ON Mobile Data (as in most phones, if your phone doesn't automatically turn on Mobile Data to send MMS), and if you had deleted it before switching Mobile Data ON, the MMS will not be sent.

If you're talking about WhatsApp or any other online messaging app, then if you had sent message while Mobile Data/WiFi was switched OFF, and if you deleted it before you switched ON Mobile Data/WiFi, then the message deleted will not be sent.


How do I stop ads interrupting my music player I have a Galaxy Note 9 where I usually have music playing in Amazon Music Player in the background while I play games. In the old version of the OS (Samsung's version Android 8.1) when I am playing a game and an advert starts, it would pause the music, but I could just slide down the notification area and unpause it. Since the recent upgrade to Android 9 (again Samsung's version which it automatically upgraded to), I have to wait until the advert has finished before I can unpause the music. This is ultra annoying!

I don't mind the advert, or even the advert playing its sounds while the music is in the background, but completely taking over the sound like this just wrong!

So is there a setting or app-permission or anything I can change to disable ads from stealing exclusive access to the audio?

Open the Google Settings app on your device (called Google Settings or Settings, depending on your device).
Scroll down and tap Google.
Tap Ads.
Turn on Opt out of interest-based ads or Opt out of Ads Personalization.
Reset the ad id, or user id.

This is the only thing I've been able to find on the subject.  Like you, I run a background app while doing other things and, knock on plastic and glass, it seems to have worked
I have an S10+, but it should be the same on your note


How disk space is partitioned in an Android phone? How does storage space in our phone is partitioned? How can we access our storage space?

Most Android phones have eMMC (flash memory), partitioned in GUID partition table (GPT) just like a PC's hard disk. There are usually less or more 50 partitions on a latest Android phone. OS uses /system while user uses /data mainly. Internal SD card is /data/media. Other partitions are smaller.

For more details, visit this link.

If you have a rooted phone, you can use Linux tools (parted, gdisk etc.) to manipulate Android 's partition table. But that's really risky.

To fully access storage space, you need root permissions.

RELATED: How disk space is used on Android device?


VS98523c updated successfully but 4G Data doesn't work The 4G connection is there but I can't use it.

I went into the Mobile Networks to check the signal strength and there is a 4G signal, but the phone doesn't want to use that connection for data.

I am not roaming
Mobile Data is turned on

I turned it off and then on again twice with no results.

I switched the "System Select" to all the options and no results

default was global - didn't work.

Airplane mode is turned off
I am able to make phone calls

What other troubleshooting steps are there?

Is this a known issue and is there a solution?

after the 3rd or 4th reboot the 4G data now functions again.  sounds like other phones and other versions were having this issue as well.

Cellular data not working since 5.1 Lollipop flash

How do I get my mobile data to work again, after the new Android 5.1 update?

Nexus 5 upgraded to 5.1 and mobile data wont work anymore

Moto G 1st Gen - Mobile Data not working after upgrade to 5.0.2


How to perform a hot reboot using the terminal emulator? How do I perform a hot reboot on my device using the Terminal Emulator? I do not have busybox installed, but my phone is rooted.

EDIT: I am looking for a solution to perform a hot reboot(see Quick Question - Hot Reboot - Android) using the terminal emulator/shell.

While the other answer correctly states a way to force a (very) soft reboot, I'd like to add some in-depth details (which may not make sense to everyone :).

WHAT IS HOT / WARM REBOOT?

In order to answer your question we need to define what a hot (or warm) reboot is on an Android device. Terms cold (or hard) boot and warm (or soft) boot are more associated with PCs, particularly Windows. For mobile phones or embedded devices it's difficult to draw a clear line between cold and warm boot. In case of cold reboot, usually power is cut to CPUs, and also possibly to RAM and even to whole motherboard. Soft reboot only kills and starts the processes, while retaining power to hardware components. Power management is part of open-source ACPI/UEFI/BIOS standard on PCs while on phones PMIC firmware is usually used with SoCs.

HOW REBOOT WORKS ON ANDROID?

On (re)boot SoC firmware loads bootloaders in memory which then load executable binaries and start processes (actual OS). From my answer to What is the fastest way to shutdown un-rooted Android phone?: Android is based on Linux kernel - the very first executable of operating system which is run during boot process. Kernel initializes necessary hardware and prepares a basic environment before executing init - the very first userspace process we can see. It's init which then starts and takes care of all services and processes.

A civilized way to do reboot or shutdown is to let all processes terminate themselves saving any pending work, un-mount filesystems and then ask the kernel to reverse the boot process. init can handle this on modern OSes or you can do manually through /proc/sysrq-trigger interface. Or we can ask kernel to perform a quick reboot killing everything. However this may cause data loss, particularly due to filesystem corruption.

A brutal way is the long press of power button (handled by PMIC) which is a cold reboot (or shutdown) in true sense because the power to CPUs (and RAM) is suddenly cut without waiting for userspace processes and kernel to terminate gracefully.

DOES ANDROID PERFORM COLD REBOOT?

On Android phones (and on other systems as well) a normal reboot is not completely cold as power is not cut at least to RAM because it holds an area where kernel panic logs are stored which can be accessed on next boot (refer to ramoops used for last_kmsg or pstore). See some more hints in bootloader boot reason specification. Similarly some other memory regions allocated to SoC components and signed firmware which are isolated from application processor (AP on which main OS runs) may also not be erased. They include Baseband Processor (modem), Digital Signal Processor (DSP), WiFi / BT module etc.

However a normal reboot isn't a warm reboot either. During reboot kernel kills itself and hands over the control to bootloader(s) which may boot device in different possible modes (fastboot/bootloader, recovery or normal boot). The low level details are vendor and hardware specific; if a device performs a complete power-on reset (PoR) or if the hardware is not reset at all. Which components are powered down during different types of reboots depends on the interaction between kernel, bootloader, SoC, PMIC, watchdog hardware etc.

HOW TO DO A HOT REBOOT?

Linux kernel also supports another form of warm reboot: kexec. Kernel can terminate userspace processes and itself, executing a new kernel which then may start new userspace environment without doing hardware reset, POST and re-initialization by BIOS. See kexec-reboot for instance. However the new kernel has to consider that the hardware devices aren't reset, so they won't be in sane state. This approach is theoretically possible on Android too i.e. kernel re-executes itself with proper commandline and then starts init. But it requires some device-specific changes to kernel and ROM. See an example use case of kexecboot.

Stock Android doesn't provide soft reboot functionality but some custom ROMs implement this feature by triggering restart method of activity service. This kills zygote and its associated processes including wificond, netd, mediaserver, cameraserver, audioserver and some vendor daemons. However init itself and other core daemons like ueventd, vold, installd, surfaceflinger, logd, servicemanager, healthd and a long list of vendor daemons aren't restarted.

ActivityManagerService.restart requires android.permission.SET_ACTIVITY_WATCHER and calls ActivityManagerService.shutdown which requires android.permission.SHUTDOWN. Both permissions have Protection Level signature, so third party apps can't have them. adb shell also doesn't have the SHUTDOWN permission, so root is required.

On Android 9 code for restart method is 179, so to initiate a soft reboot:

~# service call activity 179

Or you can ask init to restart zygote and dependent services (SELinux won't let the property be set, so root is required):

~# setprop ctl.restart zygote

It's also possible to restart more init services from comamndline, or change init code to kill and start all userspace processes instead of calling kernel on reboot. It depends on your actual purpose of hot reboot.


Any way to hard reset a HDC A9100? I need to hard reset my HDC  A9100 any way I can. Please, does anyone know how?

To clarify:
I need to overcome a forgotten screen lock, and the documentation provides no helpful information (it's here: http://www.swedishphones.com/uploads/7/4/6/3/7463877/hdc_a9100__manual.pdf)

A few attempts at the 'hold the volume buttons' etc while it powers on have been unsuccessful.

I do know the right username/pass combination for the "forgotten your..." screen, but it doesn't appear to work.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Have you tried the standard Android hard reset? I heard this works for all Android phones.

turn it off (if you cannot shoot it down, remove the battery).
hold both volume-buttons and the home-button and then hold the  power button. about 5 seconds

use this at your own risk! You will lose all your installed data and get a clear reset to shipping settings, if it works.

there are some videos about it on youtube.


adb backup hangs and never finishes (Linux) Whenever I run adb backup for a full backup, it never finishes. In Terminal, the command hangs indefinitely, and on the device, the backup cycles through a few apps before hanging on one (more about that at the end of this question).
After executing adb backup, the backup file on the PC slowly increases in size, but after a while it stops growing. I've let it sit at this point for an hour without any change in the size of the file.
I've tried running adb backup 3 different ways ($ab is just the name of the backup file):
adb backup -f "${ab}" -apk -obb -noshared -all -system
adb backup -f "${ab}" -apk -obb -shared -all -system
adb backup -f "${ab}" -noapk -noobb -noshared -all

Not even the last one works. I also tried setting up a desktop backup password under here:
Settings > Developer Options > Desktop backup password

This didn't help either.
This problem occurs with two different devices, both rooted. Both devices run on Android 5.1.1, so maybe it's a bug with this version of Android? It didn't work on 5.1 either. One of the devices is a Nexus 6 using the official Android 5.1.1 image, so it's not a bug with a custom ROM.
The last few times I tried running adb backup on the Nexus 6, I noticed that it started hanging on the same app each time: Titanium Backup. I don't know if this has always been the case; I just noticed it recently.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Also, do any other Linux users have this problem too? If so, it's likely a bug within the adb package.
EDIT
After running adb backup again, it worked! I'm guessing it's because I upgraded my Nexus device's firmware to a slightly newer version: from LMY47Z to LMY48I (both are Android 5.1.1). Maybe it was a bug with the earlier 5.1.1 build, the one before the "Stagefright" fix was added.

Settings → Apps → Titanium Backup → Force Stop may allow the ADB backup to continue and finish.


Android phone discharges when it has 20% Possible Duplicate:
  Why does my Nexus One power off with 15% power remaining?

I've noticed that when my Google Nexus One phone is showing ~20% of the battery, after using it for a minute or two it completely discharges to 0%. Everything started before two weeks or so. Before that phone was fine, but now if it's showing ~20% of battery, after a few minutes it turns off and when you turn it on, it shows that there are 0% left in a battery and turns off... Where's the problem?

There are rumours on bad battery stats being able to cause this, and recommend "battery calibration". If your device is rooted, you could try that (it certainly cannot hurt or cause damage) -- though other sources doubt that theory, there are several apps on the market to help you with the calibration process (e.g. Battery Calibration).

Background: The system learns about the battery state, to understand it better with the time. So if it learned wrong, it might think "hm, battery should still be good, 20%" -- while it's already empty. Then the battery suddenly does not provide enough juice -- and the phone turns off.

It also works the other way around, according to reports, where the device kept running for 2 hours on 1% charge...

Edit: You might also want to check battery - Why does my Nexus One power off with 15% power remaining? - Android Enthusiasts


Why is there so many identical Android folders? I was using the ES File Explorer app, when I noticed there's many different folders with all the same content. Like, there's a "legacy" folder, a "0" folder, and an "sdcard" folder, and it all goes to the same place where my DCIM is and such. I'm wondering if whatever I have takes up three times the space, or its all shortcuts to the same place. I'm confused with all this folder nonsense.

Because of how Android has evolved over the years many newer devices have the same files mounted (usually with a bind mount) in multiple places. Others are symbolic links. It's really too bad that the file manager app isn't showing you these details :-/


How can I disable root on a modded device? Is it possible to disable root access to applications on an Android device again after installing modded firmware?

I would like to try Cyanogen or one of the other custom ROMs, but I'm wondering whether that poses a security risk. Do all installed applications get root access automatically, or can that be disabled?

I want to keep the Android security model the way it is or at least for applications to ask for my permission before they can access sensitive data.

If you install SuperUser you can control which apps are allowed root access.  By default it blocks all requests and asks you what you want to do.  You can give an app access indefinitely and revoke it at any time, or allow only specific requests with a timeout.  Most rooted ROMs come with it pre-installed, including CyanogenMOD, and many rooting methods will install it for you as well.

As an alternative, you could remove the su binary and Busybox from your device to effectively un-root it.


Facebook Photo Upload Problems I have a Motorola Droid, rooted, running Cyanogen Mod 6.1.2.  Been having some issues with uploading photos to Facebook.  The upload takes forever and, if I let it go all the way through, it will normally get to 100% but will never say that the photo was uploaded successfully.  Sometimes the photo will actually make it, but I can't clear the upload status notification.  Ideas?

There's nothing wrong with your phone, the photo upload feature for Facebook just doesn't work well.  I also have a Moto DROID v1 running the stock 2.2.2 version of Android.  Over the air uploads are terribly unreliable.  The app often crashes, hangs at 0%, hangs at 100%, and very rarely, completes the upload.  On a WiFi connection the uploads are slightly more reliable, but still prone to error.

I suspect that the app is expecting to be able to do a complete upload at once over a single connection.  When working over the air, your phone might drop out long enough to drop the network session.  The app isn't handling that well.


LG Nexus 4's Internal Storage Dilemma & its Apparent Lack of Support for USB OTG Connectivity? As my contract on my current android phone is soon ending, I am considering purchasing the LG Nexus 4 (if it ever becomes available again on the Google Play Store) as my next phone, as it supposedly is in the top league but "without the price tag" so i'm informed.

I am aware that many people are disappointed that a microSD card slot is unavailable on these devices (I believe the same to be true of the Nexus 7 & 10, if I am not mistaken), and this may detract them from buying such a device.

From what I understand Google's reason for not including microSD support (unlike other manufacturers) is that they want people to know exactly what is on the internal memory of the phone, as many people "get confused" between what is on the internal memory and the microSD card, and therefore people can choose the required storage space ie 8 or 16GB (and therefore they know exactly what they have beforehand and accommodate their apps etc accordingly). Another reason is that Google want people to move away from internal storage & use Cloud storage more and more (and integrate with its other "services" eg Google Music) - a clever ploy on Google's part

This put me off from buying the device until a few weeks ago when I heard about USB OTG (On The Go) Cables, which are essentially USB Cables having a micro usb connector at one end which fits into the Nexus 4 and a USB connector at othe other (which opens up a whole world of opportunities - more so for tablets rather than smartphones I think).

This being the case I thought joy, storage is no longer a "problem". However I have heard reports that USB OTG connectivity despite apparently being supported cannot be enabled on the device.

Is this the case, have people therefore found a solution like rooting the device and flashing with a Custom ROM ie CyanogenMOD Jellybean 4.1  to achieve USB OTG Connectivity ?

Have people been unable to get hold of the phone in the first instance to comment or have Nexus 7 or 10 owners experienced USB OTG connectivity issues ?

If this is unachieveable i'm sure it is premature as Google are bound to provide an update at a future date (that is of course if they can supply the phone, or was the LG Nexus 4 simply a one time purchase wonder, when it hit the Play Store a few weeks ago)

Excuse the long(ish) post, but I believe the relevance of it

USB OTG compatibility is more dependent on the kernel than the actual operating system.

If the stock kernel doesn't support it, then it will (most likely) only be a matter of time until a custom kernel is released that has this functionality.

If you were to purchase it, remember that the tablet can only give 5V of power to the device - this stops you from using things such as portable hard drives with the device, which require a large power input.

You would be best asking on a dedicated ROM'ing forum such as XDA-Developers to find out if the stock kernel supports USB OTG, and if not, a custom kernel can be made to support it.

Please be aware, that you will need an app that allows you to use the USB OTG support.


Can you restart the launcher apart from restarting the phone? On my Galaxy S Android 2.2 , I just got the 'Activiate Starter took too long to respond . Force close ?', which I did.

Now the home screen is black.  :)

So I killed the starter program, so it seems. I should have looked at the message closer.

Apart from turning off and restarting the phone, is it possible to restart the main program on a phone ?

You could probably start the application with the abd shell

in the shell type

am start [DETAILS]

the usage is

usage: am [start|broadcast|instrument]
       am start -D INTENT
       am broadcast INTENT
       am instrument [-r] [-e <ARG_NAME> <ARG_VALUE>] [-p <PROF_FILE>]
                [-w] <COMPONENT>

       INTENT is described with:
                [-a <ACTION>] [-d <DATA_URI>] [-t <MIME_TYPE>]
                [-c <CATEGORY> [-c <CATEGORY>] ...]
                [-e|--es <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_STRING_VALUE> ...]
                [--ez <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_BOOLEAN_VALUE> ...]
                [-e|--ei <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_INT_VALUE> ...]
                [-n <COMPONENT>] [-f <FLAGS>] [<URI>]

Some examples can be seen on this page.

It would require you to know a few details about the launcher in question though. It may be worth reading this thread about am usage from the android-framework google group.


Find out a list of all previously installed packages I'd like to know if it's possible to find out what packages were installed on an Android device using ADB, for when the simple "My Apps" library in Google Play doesn't list everything I'm looking for.
If possible, a generic answer would be appreciated for future reference. In this specific case I'm looking to figure out which asset flip mobile game (out of thousands of similar clones) was accidentally deleted on an Android 8.1 phone.

Use pm. pm command is a package manager which allows you to list, install, uninstal and disable your device packages.
adb shell pm list packages

should do the job.


How to turn on/off voice typing I have a HTC One X+ and I was using voice typing very well, however I accidentally turned this off or disabled it and I am unable to turn it back on. I am new to the Android system and this was done in error.

How can I re-enable voice typing?

Assuming you're using ICS (android 4.0), do the following to change your input method.

Goto Settings -> Language and input -> Keyboard and input methods  Then check the box in front of the menu item Google voice typing

Now you can select the voice typing as your input method.


How to fix 'Your SIM cannot be registered' problem with Moto G2 on Marsh Mallow I have moto g 2nd generation mobile with android marshmallow 6.0.

The problem is suddenly one day, one of my SIM doesn't get signal at all and I tried these steps:

settings>More>Cellular Networks>Connect automatically then a prompt saying your SIM cannot be registered or Cannot connect to this network right now. Please try again later.

Then I tried to select manually the network that my SIM belongs to. This time the prompt is No Service Selected network unavailable

I did removing SIM and inserting in other slot, rebooted, turned on air plane mode and off etc.. nothing worked

If I insert this SIM in other Mobile it works.. and other SIMs work fine in my mobile.

I also tried dialing *#*#4636#*#* and did Turn off radio and also selected GSM only GSM auto(PRL) wcdma only etc but nothing helped.

Finally I tried factory reset, even this doesn't work.

Device detials:

Moto g2 XT1068

OS: Android Marshmallow 6.0

SIM that has problem: BSNL.

This issue is not there in the beginning and I remember I didnot install anything new or change a setting.

I couldn't get a solution even on the community or on google. Please do help me.

I did some searching and it appears this is not restricted to yourself.  I mean if it works in another device (with full BSNL functionality) then you have limited the problem to this specific device.  I found the following page from a Moto G User which may still apply for you if you would like to give it a shot:

http://www.techulator.com/resources/12632-Moto-G-not-recognizing-the-SIM-How-to-solve-SIM-problems.aspx

I am also wondering did you try to remove the SIM from the slot it is not working in plug it in to the slot it is not normally in and REBOOT the phone and see if you have it fully working.  If this is the case then it is probably an issue with Marshmallow recognizing the second slot which from looks of google search seems to be an issue they encountered when Lollipop upgrades first hit too.


Notifications are not vibrating I got my Samsung Galaxy S2 (android 4.0.4) for a few days now and i realized there's something wrong with the vibration.
When I get whatsapp message or Viber, facebook, or email notification the phone won't vibrate!

When I receive a call or standard text the phone does vibrate. I did a hard reset but the problem still remains. What do I do?

In settings, it is ticked sounds and vibrate.

Please help

I had the same exact problem, and it was driving me crazy!
Sadly, I couldn't find any solution other than to install an app, "Sound Manager": selecting "whenever possible" in the vibration settings the vibration will work just fine!


Picture Gallery Slow & Won't Refresh on HTC G2 w Android 2.3 Gingerbread I'm having a problem with Picture Gallery not refreshing and loading too slowly on Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread (HTC G2). After I take a picture and then go to add it on foursquare or facebook from picture gallery, the last couple pictures taken aren't there.  Sometimes the last 20 pictures taken aren't there or an entire directory of pictures isn't showing up. A lot of times it takes a long time to load the picture thumbnails and directories.

Is there a way to refresh or fix the Picture Gallery or is there a better 3rd party picture gallery that you can recommend?

Should I reformat or replace my micro SD card to make it work faster?

Thanks in advance! :)

Sounds like the contents of your SD Card have not been scanned since taking the photos.  Try the SDrescan app from Market.  This should help in such situations.

Alternatively, you can manually un-mount the SD Card (via Menu -> Settings -> Storage -> Unmount SD Card) and re-mount it again.  This should trigger the media scanner to refresh the card's contents.


On S3 Mini, Heimdall ERROR: Partition "RECOVERY" does not exist in the specified PIT Following this guide for Samsung S3 Mini to install recovery: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_i9300

Started up in download mode
connected USB
in Terminal (Linux user), typed in
heimdall flash --RECOVERY <file-name>.img --no-reboot

The Terminal returned the error:

ERROR: Partition "RECOVERY" does not exist in the specified PIT.

What do?

I managed to solve as follows (on Linux):

Cause of problem:
In the PIT, there is no partition, called "RECOVERY" (duh). Keep in mind, the command is case sensitive.

Have a look at the PIT:

sudo heimdall print-pit --verbose

On my phone the recovery-related partition was called "Kernel2"

What worked is:

sudo heimdall flash --Kernel2 recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.6-i9300.img --no-reboot


Send fake sensor value to an Android real device Is possible to simulate an event on a Android real device?

More precisely, I want to test an application which does something if a particular temperature value is detected. Is there an adb command, or somethings else, to send a fake sensor value to the device in order to check the application behaviour?

Thanks.

Specifically what sensor ?
If you are simulating a screen press, then yes.

If you are simulating a temperature for your CPU, probably not.

It depends on the level of safety In my opinion, if your just mocking GPS locations, not a big problem... However if your trying to mock temperature readings or something that might cause hardware failure's... it may not be possible.


Youtube in flyperlink I recently came across a beautiful web browser named Flyperlink.  It's really good but only problem with this browser is whenever i open a youtube link in it, it opens youtube app instead. Is there any way to open youtube on flyperlink.

Go to Settings -> Apps -> YouTube -> Clear Defaults.

Next time you open a you tube link, you will be asked to Chose which app should be used to open the link. You can chose Flyperlink from there.


How to root Samsung Galaxy S4 value edition i9515? My father brought me this smart phoe and when I search on Internet chat with my friends i9500 and 505 are common but mine i.e.19515 is differnt and I dont have idea  to root it.
I have tried srsroot and motochopper. But no work

Help me out

I was able to root Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9515L running Android 4.4.2 by following the steps in CF-Auto-Root and using the datafiles in CF-Auto-Root-jflte-jfltexx-gti9505.zip

These are the steps in the link:

  Download and unzip the CF-Auto-Root-....zip file (see posts below this one)
  If you end up with a recovery.img and cache.img file, you've extracted twice. You need to end up with a .tar.md5 file - don't
  extract that one
  (USB) Disconnect your phone from your computer
  Start Odin3-vX.X.exe
  Click the PDA button, and select CF-Auto-Root-....tar.md5 (Note: PDA was renamed to AP in the current version of Odin3)
  Put your phone in download mode (turn off phone, then hold VolDown+Home+Power to boot - if it asks you to press a button to
  continue, press the listed button, or run adb reboot download command)
  (USB) Connect the phone to your computer
  Make sure Repartition is NOT checked
  Click the Start button
  Wait for Android to boot
  Done (if it took you more than 30 seconds, you need practise!)


How to control additional tethering settings on android phones? I want to use my phone and data plan as a temporary solution for providing Internet for my whole home network.

I have plugged it into my OpenWRT router via USB and it's network device usb0 is so far member of the bridge br0 so that all my network can use it. All is working fine except for one thing:

The phone now acts as DHCP Server and the subnet (192.168.42.0) is not controllable and different to the previous subnet in my home network (192.168.2.0). I have a few fixed IPs that I don't want to change.

It would be great if I can change the phone's tethering subnet to be 192.168.2.*.
Is this possible?

Instead of changing the IP of the phone's network, you might simply change your router's config so usb0 is not in the brige any more but is configured more like a "WAN" port, complete with the usual NAT.  In this configuration, the phone's DHCP server will only serve an address to your router (to use for the usb0 interface), and all the router's clients will get their IP from your router instead.

The advantage also is that if/when you want to get your internet access from elsewhere (e.g. DSL/cable/younameit), you'll only need to change this part, but all the local network config will stay the same.


Where is the "download mode" code stored? At least Samsung Galaxy series devices support download mode(also known as Odin mode or flash mode) which usually can be accessed by pressing down specific buttons while powering on the phone. Is this download mode on a small separate partition on internal-storage like recovery mode? Or is it device-dependent?

Depends on how corporate paranoia is going at the time or their design tactics.  A lot of Samsung's download mode is coded within the secondary bootloader. I'm not seeing a non .pdf that I'm happy with but Many references are easily found around the worldwide web. Keywords: secondary bootloader. (edit added detail below)

First attempt to add more details was too long. incase you want more details about the process involved some links at the. Bottom to give a base for research.

Per Samsung knox website refer to PG. 7 under Boot Loader/ Primary Boot Loader/ Secondary Boot Loader: glossary of terms

  The SBL adds functions for erase and programming of flash memory and EEPROM; it also handles the actual download of new or updated software. This allows a minimum ROM utilization by the PBL.

Now compare it to what Odin mode does and You will notice similarities. That fact that the bootloader itself can be used as a gateway to obtain sensitive corporate documents. Including the fact that both Qualcomm and Samsung Knox have multiple defense contracts. Makes it tough to find officially supported documentation such as spec sheets or R&D documentation but not impossible.

IBM Linux boot

Android bit fastboot protocols

The new android book process..

stack exchange boot and aboot

Google fastboot protocol


What data flows through AirDroid's servers? When using AirDroid do your text messages and/or data get transmitted through AirDroid's servers or is that data kept locally between your Android device and your computer?

My understanding is that your computer and Android device need to be on the same wireless network, yet AirDroid requires a login to their servers which makes me wonder what data is being sent through their servers.

When using AirDroid do your text messages and/or data get transmitted through AirDroid's servers or is that data kept locally between your Android device and your computer?

AirDroid for Is AirDroid Secure? has noted:

  [In] Remote Connection Mode, your account credential, SMS, contacts, call logs and many other sensitive private information are all securely transmitted via HTTPS and we never store them (except your AirDroid account information, the latest location of your Android device if the Find Phone feature is activated) without your explicit consent.

(Emphasis mine)

For Lite mode and LAN Connection mode,

  [All] data is transferred on the same local area network and not exposed to the Internet[.]

(If needed, see What's LAN Connection Mode and Remote Connection Mode?)

In Lite and LAN Connection mode, you're not sending anything to AirDroid's server(s).

  My understanding is that your computer and Android device need to be on the same wireless network, yet AirDroid requires a login to their servers.

As per AirDroid's help center, you can use AirDroid without logging in or having an account. See How to Use AirDroid Web Without an Account?

use Lite mode: find the IP address of the Android device having AirDroid running on it and use that in a web browser.
scan the QR code : go to web.airdroid.com and scan the QR code there using your AirDroid app.
use tethering

The first and last method can work without the need of Internet access, thereby, comes under local transfer.

See What is local transfer and remote transfer?

Local transfer: When both PC and Android device are under same network.
Remote transfer: When the device and PC are on different networks.

Relevant readings:

Why Remote Connection Mode When the Device and PC Are Connected to the Same Network?

There is a catch however. If you're certain that the latest AirDroid app requires log in for its usage, then either the help center has not been updated accordingly or the log in itself isn't mandatory yet you've somehow ended up believing that it is needed.


Google two-step authentication and Android lock screen After many failed screen unlock attempts, the user is required to enter the Google account password. That's a good idea.

But what if I enabled Google's two-factor authentication, and then entered the wrong pin/pattern/password two many times? How do I unlock my phone now? How do I login to Google on another machine, when my phone is locked and I can't receive SMSs?

Is there anything very obvious I'm missing? Am I supposed to carry a printed version of Android's application-specific password in my wallet?

You would have to use your emergency backup codes you should have printed out: Backup Code Page.

These are one-time use codes that Google recommends you print for emergencies to access your Google account to unlock your phone.

Additional Information for methods of gaining account access.


How can I get the mobile Version of stackoverflow.com on Evo3D? I just got a new phone (HTC Evo 3D / Android 2.3.4) and opened stackoverflow.com in the browser.

I noticed I got the desktop version of the website. On my old HTC Desire (Android 2.2.2) I get a mobile version, which is friendlier on the device and probably more lightweight.

What can I do to have the mobile version on the Evo 3D as well?

The Stack Exchange sites provide a "Mobile" link in the footer that will give you the mobile layout. It should work regardless of your browser's settings or which browser you happen to be using, so in that sense it's actually a very portable solution.


AT&T Nexus S: is this sold SIM locked / boot-loader locked? I know this is a bit localized, but I can't find ANY information on this at all on the internet, because all of the information for the Nexus S assumes the T-Mobile band version.

I would only purchase this phone to immediately unlock the bootloader for custom ROM development.

Is the only difference between the two phones the bands the 3G radio uses?

If the bootloader comes locked, it can be easily unlocked.  Google doesn't let the flagship devices be sold any other way, since they are designed for development.

Endgadget says it's SIM locked. This review says it's unlocked, but I bet they didn't buy it with a contract.

The specs for Best Buy's "T-Mobile version" state that it works for EDGE (2.5G) on the 850 and 1900 MHz frequency bands, in addition to others, which are what AT&T uses.  So EDGE should be usable on any GSM network in the world (I can't find the specs to see if the AT&T version is likewise compatible).  3G/HSPA won't work on AT&T and some others, though, since it's limited to the 900/1700/2100 bands used by T-Mobile.  Google confirms this info.


Android device beginning to go out of control when I reboot it Sometime back I had connected my Android mobile HTC Explorer to a compromised system. It has been about one year since then.

Sometimes my phone tends to react in strange ways. Sometimes(once or twice), calls were made. I tried scanning with my antivirus but no avail. I even factory reset the phone many times, but now a strange thing is happening to my phone.

As soon as I reboot my phone, when it is connected to the power supply, it begins to go out of control. It seems like some buttons are pressed inside and new apps and windows open. New browser windows etc open and sometimes calls are made,and games installed. I have to manually cancel the calls. But it is only on bootup.

I did not notice it some other time. What do you think is wrong in my phone? If malware is present, why does antivirus fail to detect it? I am really worried because I use the phone for transactions. Or is it some hardware problem? What should I do?

Its a very common thing i have seen with HTC (might be valid for others but i have only used HTC)
You should change your "Charger" and the "Data Cable" used along that charger ... the Data cable does this auto opening of apps and touching of buttons .. try borrowing someones charger and putting it in you will notice it gets fine..


How does AOSP on a dual sim smartphone handle data? How does AOSP on a dual sim smartphone handle data? Does it provide the option to choose the SIM when I do tethering or use the native hotspot?

According to digitalcitizenlife, you have two screens you can change this under the Default Mobile Data option,

There is also a Huawei FAQ about this, "Dual SIM settings
"


How to make `adb reboot` work like `/system/bin/reboot`? I have a problem with my device. When I do adb reboot then it stuck on boot in a loop.

But, when I do adb shell and then reboot, it works fine.

I searched over the internet and understand that both have different behavior:

adb reboot works like you plug the phone battery out. Means, it will not close any application, not show any pretty Restarting splash screen.
adb shell reboot uses /system/bin/reboot executable and it does a soft reboot with closing opened application, showing the splash screen, etc..

To verify that adb shell reboot execute /system/bin/reboot, I have moved the /system/bin/reboot to another place and as expected the reboot command not working anymore so I put it back after confirmation.

I want adb reboot to use /system/bin/reboot executable.

I want to do it from within the Android device that makes it a general solution for all users of the device. I know I can execute adb shell reboot but other users will not do this.

Is there any way of doing this?

Write a script in your PC, look for 'reboot' argument, and execute your own command instead.

I do not know how a Window's compatible script would look like, but this is how a simple bash script would look like.

#!/bin/bash
ADB="PATH_TO_RENAMED_ADB_BINARY"

if [[ "$1" == "reboot" ]] && [[ -z ${2} ]]; then         # $1 is the first argument received by adb
    "$ADB" shell '/system/bin/reboot'
else
    "$ADB" "$@"                            # $@ contains all the arguments received by adb
fi

Save the script as adb, give executable permission to it, rename adb binary with the name adb_orig, and then save this script as adb where adb is originally located.


Asus MemoPad ME302KL reboots when playing youtube videos I've bought recently a Asus MemoPad ME302KL. It is very nice and work well on skype videocalls and everything else excepto to see videos. When i'm going to see a youtube video or a facebook video, it reboots itself and after the reboot it plays the video very well.
Most of times that I'm going to see a video, I'm in a skype videocall but after the reboot it works, soo it's probably a software problem.

I've gone to the store where i've bought the pad and they change for other so that the one with the problems can go to the de Asus Support for changing the graphics chipset.


The process has stopped unexpectedly - recovery When I start my tablet Archos 7 Home tablet it shows this message box:

Sorry!
The process android.process.acore has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.
Force close

The only possibility I have is to press the button Force close and then the message
appears again.

I tried to reset the tablet with pushing the needle into the reset hole on the back of the tablet,

but after starting the tablet the message appears again.

Now, I'm trying to solve it inspired by this question as follows but I have stuck

$ adb shell
$ recovery --wipe_data

I can only mount the tablet and browse through the directories in it. Can I destroy the files of the application that cause this error message?
How would you solve it?

What is a force-close?
If an application encounters an unexpected state or some other programming error, it will issue an force close. In most cases you will be presented with a form that allows you to send log files and the cause of the force close to the developer. Doing so will help the developer to fix the bug.
First aid

if it happens rarely, you might be able to "ignore" it. Contact the app's developer if it repeats from time to time. An extract of the logcat might be helpful to locate the issue.
if it persists: a reboot might solve it
if it still persists in a loop, preventing you accessing the device otherwise, and the app in question is one you installed yourself, you can boot into safe-mode and remove that app
if instead it's a system app, a factory-reset might be needed
if your device is rooted, you might boot to recovery-mode and "Wipe Cache" before going to factory-reset. If this works out, you won't lose any data.

Helpful questions/answers dealing with force-closes

How to fix a force close loop on Android with phone access?


Keyboard shortcut to switch languages with a Logitech K480 or MK270? Backstory:
For years I've been using android devices to type in multiple languages. At first I had to use an app like AnySoftKeyboard or fiddle with android settings every time I wanted to switch languages, which was quite annoying.  At some point, possibly soon after I acquired a Logitech Android Keyboard, I accidentally pressed Ctrl+Space and was immediately presented with a popup Toast message:  Hebrew.

So I discovered that I could switch languages with Ctrl+Space.  At first I thought it had been a CyanogenMod update, but later that conclusion appeared to have been a mistake...

Now that keyboard is in its last life, so I got two new ones, both from Logitech:  The K480 and the MK270.

Problem:

The K480 is a Bluetooth Multi-Device keyboard.  That feature works well, but Ctrl+Space does nothing.  The keyboard does have a built-in language switching button, but it only works on iOS and MAC.  Other options such as Shift+Alt and several other permutations do not work either.

The MK270 is a wireless Keyboard/Mouse combo officially for Windows PCs.  It comes with a tiny USB wireless receiver, which I plugged into my phone with a micro to normal OTG USB cable, and the keyboard and mouse work just as expected...   But again, Ctrl+Space and other combinations do nothing.

More Details:

I should mention that I'm using an LG G2 running a custom build of CyanogenMod based on Android 6.0.1.  I'm using the SwiftKey app for the keyboard in lieu of any of these, but I don't think that should make a difference.

If I connect all three keyboards to the G2, the android keyboard can switch the language for itself, but the K480 and MK270 still type in English even when the Android Keyboard is typing in Hebrew.

I also paired the keyboard with a friend's Galaxy S5, and it immediately prompted him to choose a keyboard layout for it.  He can choose Hebrew and then it works on his phone in Hebrew, but again none of the keyboard shortcuts will change that.

Question:

How can I switch betweeen keyboard languages on the G2 from either keyboard?

on K480 try holding "right shift" and use "right ctrl" to toggle languages


Asus Memopad sd card unexpected removed At the moment the Asus Memopad HD7 came out, i bought it.

I bought also a micro sd card and inserted it. But frequently the sd card will be unexpected removed.

Is there anyone who recognizes this? Is it a general problem with the Memopad?

My wife is having the same issue.  It seems to be related to how you hold or handle the tablet.  If she hands it to me and I am handling it by the top right corner, it will almost always sense the card is not there.  As soon as I change where I am holding it by the card is mounted again.  It seems like the card is loosing contact with the port by a minor flexing (just by the weight of the tablet itself) when you handle the top right corner only.  It is annoying.


How is CyanogenMod's built-in root access different? I don't know a lot about Cyanogen but realizing Snapchat fails to detect the root in it catches my attention. Does it have a different binary than su for root access? What mechanisms are different which grants an app root access?

Cyanogen has a different root method since version 11 upwards... It is now integrated with the stock privacy manager inside privacy guard !

I believe it doesn't recognize root for the reason that it can be disabled inside development options.

You need to manually configure it via development options, This means that snap chat wont be able to run a su or adb su / sudo command


Why there is one driver binaries file per android version? As you can see on the first screenshot, Sony (it's the same thing for Google with his Nexus and Pixel devices) provides one driver binaries tree file per android version for each device to compile AOSP (here the Xperia M2) :

Why there is not one driver file compatible with all android versions ?

Secondly, how xda developers make to compile android 8.0 for the nexus 4 while android oreo 8.0 driver binaries are not available for the nexus 4 ?

https://www.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-4-android-oreo-port

Thanks !

Why there is not one driver file compatible with all android versions ?

Because it's not possible to write one driver that's compatible with all Linux kernels. The driver has to interface with the kernel, and different kernel versions change this interface for many reasons - to enable new features, to improve efficiency, and to fix security problems. This is what makes them "different versions". Each new Android version standardises on a different version of the Linux kernel, so the drivers need some source code changes to work with the new version.

There's also a lot of testing that needs to be done with the new versions, to make sure the changes didn't break something.

  how xda developers make to compile android 8.0 for the nexus 4 while android oreo 8.0 driver binaries are not available for the nexus 4 ?

As the summary you've screenshotted clearly says, many features such as NFC just don't work with this port - likely because drivers are not available. Sometimes, even though a driver for the particular hardware in this phone might not be available for newer Android versions, there might be a newer version for desktop Linux, or a driver for a similar device, which is unsupported but can be made to mostly work with some fiddling.

Also, hobbyists might be more interested to try something even when it's not economically worthwhile for the manufacturer, and there's a lower bar for them. If Google or LG shipped a release where only half the features worked and even those had only been tested on one phone, you'd be pretty upset, but if some guy on XDA Developers does it, that's a success.

It really is a success: I don't want to detract from what Ziyan has done here. It's just that the quality bar is higher for an official port from the manufacturer, and they don't have free time to spend supporting old devices.


Is it possible to find the full SELinux ruleset for OEM's stock ROMs? I'm writing a root app following Chainfire's documentation, but I found I've to run some command in another SELinux context.

Using that context on my device (OnePlus One with CM12 nightly), I've no problem, but when I try to run it on another device (HTC One) the command fails. If I temporarily disable SELinux (setenforce 0), the command runs without problems.

The analysis I made revealed that some file on the HTC One has a different SELinux domain than the OnePlus One. I used ls -Z and id -Z to figure out where the problem was and I verified the output of supolicy --dumpav, too.

Is it possible to find the SELinux policies definitions of the flagship devices from all the major OEMs?

It could be sufficient a supolicy --dumpav output of each device.

Yes, but it depend where these policy files are stored. Many manufacturers like to move stuff around, thinking their own security solution is better. On top of that depending on you AOS version, things may have changed again, since SEAndroid is a quite recent implementation.
One place to look for these files is at the Android Census site. There you can navigate to each device policy/context file. For example:

/seapp_contexts:

isSystemServer=true domain=system
user=system domain=system_app type=system_data_file
user=bluetooth domain=bluetooth type=bluetooth_data_file
user=nfc domain=nfc type=nfc_data_file
user=radio domain=radio type=radio_data_file
user=_app domain=untrusted_app type=app_data_file
user=system name=com.sec.knox.containeragent domain=knox_system_app type=system_data_file
user=system name=com.policydm domain=knox_system_app type=system_data_file
user=_app name=com.centrify.mdm.samsung seinfo=knox_untrusted domain=knox_untrusted_app type=app_data_file
...


Change "contact" photo when making a call I've started using Google Plus and I want my Android "contact" picture to change to the picture used in G+; a real photo of me. It's currently using an old avatar picture I once set for Google Talk, so when I call them it pops up with a silly avatar instead of my real photo. This shows up as my Phone contact picture as well, not just Google +.

Is there some way to set which image is used either via android, Gtalk or Gmail or something?

I always use Gchat via Gmail, but I don't know where or how I set my Gtalk avatar anymore, and I don't recall setting that picture for myself on my phone ever.

I am on Android 2.3.4.

Turns out I had to change this via the "Mail Settings" menu in Gmail, under the General Menu is a My Picture menu, where you can select the image used for Google +, Google Voice and apparently the icon used for contacts synched with gmail.


Expand RAM on Micromax Canvas A76- Android 4.2.2 I want to use my SDcard to expand my RAM. I am falling short of RAM memory and due to which I need at least 500 MB more RAM space. For this, I have a class10 8 GB microSD card. Can anyone suggest how do I expand my RAM on my device. If any efficient apps are available in the Play Store, please let me know.

P.S. I am a new Android user.

Suggestions and help are always welcome! :)

You cannot expand your RAM to SDcard!
Instead you could create swap space in sdcard.

You could use applications like Swapper from google play store. The device must be rooted to do that.

Swap space may not be as fast as RAM.


How to remove the Google search bar? How can I remove the Google search bar from the main screen? It's taking up screen space and I'm not using it.
I have a Pixel running 8.1.0.
I found ways to remove it from other models and versions, but not mine.

Google Pixel phones rely on an exclusive "Pixel Launcher". For Google to be able to push itself more onto the user, the search bar is made permanent.

There is currently no way to hide/remove the search bar from Pixel Launcher. If the bar hurts you a lot, then you need to switch to a different launcher. Nova Launcher is one such highly recommended launcher.


Flash a ROM without using recovery mode I have an LG Prada 3.0 p940, running Android 2.3.7.

I have a problem accessing recovery mode. Is it possible to flash CyanogenMod ROM on stock ROM through PC without installing custom recovery?

Does anyone know a software that is trustworthy to do that, or to back up my current ROM?

No. You can not delete the system while it is running. If you have root access, you could "program" the stock recovery to flash your custom ROM on the next reboot by using a specific command line in a terminal.

There is LG Flash Tool for your device, but it is not official.


OTA update failing after rooting phone I have an unlocked Nexus One that I rooted to remove a system application (Twitter), but now the OTA system update fails with the message

Verifying current system ...
assert failed: apply_patch_check("/system/app/Twitter.apk", "<long hex string>")
E:Error in /cache/c8847c98b948.signed-passion-FRG83-fromFR91.c8847c98.zip
(status 7)

Un-rooting the device doesn't seem to fix this. Is there more to removing a system app than doing a 'rm' of the .apk? For example, is there some configuration file that also needs patching?

It looks like you need to re-add the Twitter.apk, update, then remove it again.  Have you tried that?  The patch itself is trying to find that apk for the update (not sure if you can change the patch since it is probably signed?).


Can I trust apps downloaded from Aptoide? I just downloaded an app from there that is suppose to allow Screen Off Writing. After installing, it was anything but that. How much checking does Aptoide do on apps? Can I trust apps I get from there?

Anyone can upload apps to Aptoide, iirc without good, if any, verification.

Aptoide is also known to be a source of pirated apps, so if you want to use any app, consider downloading it from Play Store or from the official source.

Many apps are the original ones and considered safe. If you have concerns, do not use it.


fastboot devices returns nothing while adb devices does Device is OnePlus 3. I'm unsure of why this is happening - I have made sure to install the fastboot and adb drivers correctly, however fastboot devices does nothing when I put it into cmd even though the adb devices returns my phone normally.

I found the solution - I needed to enable the installation of unsigned drivers on my system (Windows 10) and manually install the OnePlus bootloader driver while the phone was plugged in and in fastboot mode.


No exchange option in gmail "add account" drop down I cannot see exchange account option on gmail add account. Gmail version 5.0.1. How to rectify this?

Gmail 5.0 added support for Exchange accounts, but it requires an additional APK (Exchange Services) which you can't get from the Play store unless you already have it.  As one of the other answers indicates it seems to just be with Nexus devices at the moment (maybe some newer Lollipop ROMs do for other devices, not sure).

However, you can sideload it!  I just did from APK Mirror (using this version) and after fully closing and restarting Gmail I had the option to add an Exchange account.


ADVENT Vega tablet - USB Drivers I just got my hands on an old ADVENT Vega tablet. All the download links in its official website are broken. I the file named USB System Driver. I can't find it anywhere else either. Every link I came across turns out to be broken.

Can anyone provide a healthy link to it?

The device seems to be forgotten. Any other files related to this device are welcome.

Thanks.

I really don't wanna lie, your device support accessories are outdated. Its really difficult to find the official softwares for your device.

However after a bit of digging I found out its a bit of proceedure to get the instalation of your device drivers. Based on the following thread: ADVENT VEGA USB DRIVER PROBLEM

You might need to find the two tools :

AUDI - Automated USB Driver Installer
VegaTools

You need to  download the 97MB file (which include the tools, custom rom and drivers) Ignore the ROM files, we just need the USB drivers (containing NvidiaUsb.inf" and the other has: androidwinusb86.cat, androidwinusba64.cat, android_winusb.inf )
here: r8-vega-update-modacocustomrom

Read full instructions here: ADVENT VEGA USB DRIVER PROBLEM

Credits:

Vega clone USB drivers problem (and bootloop)

Hope this works


How to uninstall SuperManager I installed the SuperManager app and every time I try to uninstall it it just stays there. Has anyone experienced that and found a solution?

This might seem like running in circles, but try downloading and installing the "Uninstaller" app http://www.appbrain.com/app/uninstaller/com.rhythm.hexise.uninst and use that to remove Super Manager.
I can't speak on Super Manager itself, but I know I've run into problems with not being able to uninstall things before, and this app has helped out.  Then, once Super Manager is gone, you can just uninstall the uninstaller app and you're no worse for the wear.
Good luck!


Charging "hesitation" with Pixel Here's an odd bit of behavior I'm seeing from my refurbished Pixel:

When I plug it in using the rapid charger that came with it, it at first immediately shows as charging. Then stops less than a second later. Then starts less than a second after that. Stops. (This may repeat five or six times.) Then finally goes to "Charging Rapidly".

It never fails to start charging, nor do I see this from other chargers which, admittedly, don't have the same amperage and so don't kick things up to rapid charging.

Normal? A minor quirk? Or have I got a defective model1?

Notes:

I did not see this with my original Pixel; only with the refurb
This is the charger and cable that came with the original
None of the other chargers I have have enough wattage to kick the Pixel into "Charge Rapidly" mode
It doesn't always do it, but I saw it stop-and-start a dozen times, once

1 Again! I'm on my second unit because the first suddenly stopped recognizing the headphone jack and the microphone stopped working.

Normal? A minor quirk? Or have I got a defective model?

Not normal - it's not the expected behaviour

It is more likely a quirk , being a one time occurrence , not noticed since nor on your previous device

What may have caused it?
Firstly, being a one off occurrence, it is non – reproducible ruling out further investigations to establish the reason.  My best guess is this :

From Andrew's answer , to a related question, the charging speed indication is

....based on power (in milliWatt) it receives. As shown on the commit log, "Charging speed based on voltage", from the same config.xml file,

<!-- Threshold in micro watts below which a charger is rated as "slow"; 1A @ 5V -->
<integer name="config_chargingSlowlyThreshold">5000000</integer>
<!-- Threshold in micro watts above which a charger is rated as "fast"; 1.5A @ 5V  -->
<integer name="config_chargingFastThreshold">7500000</integer>

Charging slowly: < 5W
Charging: 5W - 7.5W
Charging rapidly: > 7.5W

In your case, the hesitation you refer to , indicates that power received by the device varied casuing it to fluctuate between Charging -stop- charging rapidly . This may have been caused by loose contact of the USB (on either end ),  pocket lint or dirt preventing proper contact or power fluctuations at source ( voltage fluctuations ).

Edit: Note that that difference between Charging upper limit ( = 7.5 W ) and Charging rapidly ( > 7.5 W ) is borderline (unlike Charging slowly  < 5 W), so intermittent poor connection or marginal fluctuation in input power is enough to have caused this
Next steps

You would need to pay attention to see if it happens again, which then would be a cause for concern as reported in Google forums - Pixel and Charging Problem and elsewhere on Internet. Solutions offered there have mixed results

If these solutions, don't help, my suggestion would be to change the cable and charger  (see related question  at bottom ) - simply because , they are more likely to fail rather than the device itself being the culprit ( probability wise , from experience  and information on Internet)

Should this behaviour be  a cause for worry? -  No. Since it has not been observed since.  If I were in your place, I would anyway buy, spare accessories , just to have peace of mind and use the current ones as back up (doesn't hurt to have spares) , especially it being a top end device.
Related How to select a Non OEM USB Type C charger or cable for my device?


How to empty "Pictures, videos" folder? I have a LG F60 phone, it has only 1gb of internal storage, and I can't find a way to empty the "Pictures, videos" folder.

Any help?

The pictures and videos I want to keep are already backed-up in Google Photos. I have the regular 'File Manager' that comes with the phone. If I browse the folder I only see the files in the external storage and what I want is to delete all the pictures and videos from the internal storage.

Regular File Manager

Regular File Manager

I go to images and as you can see most of the folders are in the external memory... the thing is that I can't access that 'storage/emulated' folder..

If I go to videos folder, all external.

And if I go to 'All files', Internal I see this 'storage/emulated' folder which I can't access..

Your device should be having an inbuilt file manager, if it doesn't you can download from Play Store. Many are available. Solid Explorer is a good one. Photos are stored in /sd/DCIM or if you have downloaded videos/ photos, they would be in /sd/downloads. You will need to search for the location and delete them, if stored elsewhere

If you don't wish to identify the folders, use Solid Explorer, on launching the application , tap the menu button on left and scroll down where you will find photos and videos folder. Browse through them, select and delete

Alternatively, DiskUsage gives a good visual feedback of your storage and let's you select the file you wish to and delete


Samsung Note 4 - Network Locked - But which carrier? I bought one Galaxy Note 4 on Amazon. I used it in Europe with no problems. Few months are passed and now I moved to China for a while. Well, I can't use my phone here because it is Network Locked (asks for a code at the splash screen). Nothing when I bought it let me suppose this phone was locked to some network, nor I can find any information inside the phone (or the box, or some appearing logo) suggesting to which network it is locked.

I am aware there are many service to unlock a phone, but I can't even step up the process of unlocking since I have no idea which network my phone is locked to.

My questions:

1) how to know which network carrier I'm locked on?
I got some information on the *#0011# menu, but nothing useful, also in about of the phone no hints.

2) Are this unlock services reliable?

Thanks for your help.

Try to use this page: IMEI INFO

It may tell you the carrier who locked your phone. Good luck!


Google Maps not showing actual location Google Maps is not showing my actual location. It shows me as being nearby (almost a kilometer away). What can the problem?

There are a number of possible reasons for an inaccurate location, mostly relating to the lack of a good GPS fix. If the phone cannot get an accurate GPS fix, it will use more approximate methods of deriving its location - such as cell tower locations and wifi hotspot locations.

Possible reasons for no good GPS fix, in vague descending order of likliness:

You are indoors, or the sky is otherwise obstructed (trees can have quite an impact)
GPS is turned off or disabled on your phone, or you are using Google Maps on a device that does not have a GPS receiver.
You haven't used the GPS for a day or more, or you have moved a long way since you last used it, and it is taking a while to get a fix - this can take a minute or more in some circumstances, especially if you don't have a data signal.
The GPS isn't working properly. Some phones have GPS trouble occasionally and require a restart.
There is interference with the GPS - e.g. naval forces sometimes conduct exercises with GPS jamming, and I've had... variable results trying to use it near a large naval base before.

Normally if Google Maps can only give an approximate fix it will show a circle around your position, showing uncertainty. It might help with diagnosis to know whether you are seeing this circle, as that will indicate whether Maps knows that it has an approximate location or whether it thinks that it has an accurate one and is wrong.


Enable voice control on Nexus 4 How do I enable voice control in my LGE Nexus 4 for system commands like "turn on bluetooth", etc?

By default that is not possible on stock Android phones.

It works for Samsung, because they have basically taken the Android source code and made their own fork of the repo. Having access to the source code allows them to turn on/off or even edit features.


Android voice recorder with unlimited recording time I've tried the Bighand and Tape-a-Talk Voice Recorder apps, but both only seem to record continuously for about 1 hour.  Is there an Android app which will allow me to record until I run out of storage space?

I use PCM Recorder and it will record until it consumes entire storage space.  Also, I am able to use the phone for other tasks and PCM Recorder seems to keep recording in background, which is cool. I can even lock the phone and there by switch off the display which makes the drain on battery to very minimal, in par with the stock voice recorder application.


How do I "forget" an out-of-range Wi-Fi network on a Galaxy S7? I want to remove old saved networks that are no longer in range. I can forget visible networks, but out-of-range networks are not visible anywhere so I can't do the standard long-tap => "Forget Network" action.

There is no option for "Saved Networks" or "Manage Networks" under the built-in Wi-Fi app's "More" menu.

I have tried a third-party app, WiFi Manager, where the networks are visible but reported an error on forget:

  Android 6 allows apps to change (edit password, forget) only those networks that were originally "created" in same app.

I quite distinctly remember being able to view saved networks on previous Android phones...

My phone is rooted, so methods requiring root are acceptable, but it's better if that's not necessary.

I have an Australian (CSC XSA) Galaxy S7 Edge (SM-G935F).

Apparently this was a problem with the S6, where the 'solution' was to use third-party Wi-Fi management apps that no longer work in Marshmallow.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6-edge/help/how-forget-range-wi-fi-networks-t3137257
http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s6/596840-how-do-i-forget-saved-wifi-networks-when-they-out-range-samsung-devices.html
http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s6/567924-how-do-i-remove-saved-wifi-other-locations-my-samsung-galaxy-s6.html
http://ericscorner.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/how-to-remove-out-of-range-wifi.html

But that no longer works, as per the error message above...

The method described in this answer does not require root, but it does require that you have a Wi-Fi access point ("router") you control.

One possible but very tedious and hacky solution is to host the SSIDs on a Wi-Fi access point you control, so that they are visible on the S7. Then you can "forget" them through the normal Wi-Fi settings page. The list of saved SSIDs can be retrieved (but not altered directly!) with third-party Wi-Fi management apps.

Having an access point capable of hosting "guest" networks/SSIDs is particularly helpful here. Otherwise, you'll need a wired connection so you don't kick yourself out by changing the SSID around.

Of course, this is quite a terrible solution in every way except that it works. So hopefully someone will have a better solution available.


Android Studio doesn't see device I know that this question was asked for several times, but I tried almost every solution that was suggested and Android Studio  still doesn't see my device.   My configuiration:

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
ASUS ZenFone Go ZC451TG. Andrdoid ver. 5.1

 What I have already tried:

check usb3 or usb2. Lollipop doesn't work with usb3
check the orginal cabel
try reboot Windows, ASUS
try drivers from Google, ASUS
Install drivers from ASUS, only 2014 works on my device. Last Update from 2015 doesnt' work because of 64-bit system.
Turn on developer's mode on device
try MTP and PTP modes
Try PC Link standard utility form ASUS. It doesn't work properly on my PC

On this screen you can see how Windows detected my phone.

Is it right? I worry that Winodws see my ASUS as memory device not AVD.
Can you suggest any ideas how to fix it?
Thanks in advance.

Don't have enough reputation to comment but are you certain you've installed the USB driver? If not, start at: https://developer.android.com/studio/run/win-usb.html

Then go to this link b/c you may need an OEM driver: https://developer.android.com/studio/run/oem-usb.html#InstallingDriver

Your above point 8. Try PC Link... doesn't work properly on my PC may be the place to start. Make sure you can connect, transfer files, etc. before moving on the the Android Studio drivers though. I use Motorola phones & always had to make sure their connection worked first.


The phone as hotspot doesn't use its own DNS Summary
I use my phone (Android 8.1) as access point. The qualified name of clients is resolved for other clients, but not for the phone itself.
Details
My laptop (Linux Mint 19) is set up to connect to WiFi networks using DHCP. When it does, it registers its qualified name laptop in the DNS of the access point. This is verified in several circumstances (e.g., when the laptop and other devices are connected to the WiFi network of my home DSL box, they can ping the laptop using its name).
When the laptop is connected to the phone access point, its qualified name seems to be registered as well. I test this by running host laptop 192.168.43.1 on the laptop itself, where 192.168.43.1 is the IP of the phone in the access point network. The command returns 192.168.43.44 which is the IP of the laptop (it is shown in the connection informations on the laptop).
However, apps and commands run on the phone cannot use the qualified name. Two tests:

the DAVx⁵ app cannot reach Radicale running on the laptop at http://laptop:5232/ (whereas it can at http://192.168.43.44:5232/). the log says:

  java.net.UnknownHostException: Unable to resolve host "laptop": No address associated with hostname
    at java.net.Inet6AddressImpl.lookupHostByName(Inet6AddressImpl.java:111)
    <snip>

under adb shell (phone connected in debug mode via usb), the command ping laptop returns an "unknown host" error.

Questions
Is this a bug or a "feature"? Can it be corrected without rooting the phone? (I need DAVx⁵ to be able to connect to Radicale with the same URL whatever the WiFi network used by the phone and the laptop, hence the need to use a qualified name that will be resolved to the laptop IP in any circumstance.)

This answer could be written thanks to Irfan Latif's comments.

Is this a bug or a "feature"? It's expected behavior (see details in the first comment).

Can it be corrected without rooting the phone? Yes. I installed Virtual Hosts, created a one-line file containing 192.168.43.44 laptop and pointed the app to it. The app is really easy to turn on/off, so I can use it only when needed.