How can I save a web page offline? I have this url : http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/China and wish to download as an offline document. How do I do that ?.
I am taking that there is no wifi access in the place I intend to visit in China and hence this article would be useful to refer to as a 'offline document'.

I hope the question is clear enough for someone to assist me. Thank you

Chrome has a download as offline feature in the side menu, for downloading sites as offline sites.

Screenshot (click image for larger variant)


Get into fastboot mode without root or hardware buttons I own a relatively unknown Chinaphone, the CUBOT GT72+ (MTK6572 SoC) - on which I was attempting to gain root access. No known exploit-based root methods exist for this device (which runs on Android 4.4.2), so I found myself having to dissect boot.img using the MTK-Tools Perl-scripts.

After unpacking the boot image, I made some modifications in the initramfs, they are as follows:

Modify default.prop, setting ro.secure to 0, ro.debuggable to 1, and ro.adb.secure to 0.
Add the rootsh binary to /sbin.
Modify init.rc to mount /system as a rw filesystem, since (re)mounting /system is somehow not allowed by the kernel, even when root.
Replace adbd in /sbin with a version provided by a package called adbd insecure, which was supposed to automatically grant root access to adb-connections.

(Please note: Before replacing adbd I had also installed the su binary in /system/bin and the Superuser.apk package)

Now this is where the problem comes in: the hacked adbd no longer allows me to connect using adb. It shows the device - with an id of 0123456789ABCDEF as offline in the devices listing of adb.

Now, using an adb shell, I could simply get root by typing 'adb shell' followed by a simple 'su', and ta dah: root shell! Yet, somehow, the permissions on the su binary are all messed up - since when I use a terminal emulator on the device itself: I get presented with a 'Permission denied' error. Applications are not getting root, either. (I suppose the permissions are messed up somewhere, chmodding went fine, but chowning did not. Also, busybox is still missing.)

And here's the final problem: the phone does not have a way to get into fastboot mode using hardware buttons, so I found myself having to type 'adb reboot bootloader' to get it into fastboot mode... which, well, obviously doesn't work anymore. And to reflash boot.img I need to get into fastboot mode.

My device does work just fine when turned on (although not rooted), but I really want to reflash boot.img to get the proper adbd back. There is a button combination to get into recovery mode, but that doesn't provide me with a connection in adb. Sideload mode does seem to come up in adb, yet flashing any Update.zip has so far not been succesful (maybe due to a crippled adbd?), even though I have tried various methods of crafting (signed) Update.zip files with the only purpose to reboot the device into fastboot mode.

The device does come with a proprietary flashing tool, but that only works under Windows XP. I do not own any computers running Windows. And especially not XP. (The adb version I run on my computer is the latest provided by Debian (sid), so it should be quite recent.)

Now the question remains: How do I get my device into fastboot mode?

If you've had problems flashing your phone through adb, you should really consider the Windows XP installation route. I've had to look around for some compatible  drivers,as I've been experimenting using Windows XP and even Windows 8.1 with success using SP Flash tool. As one of the the answer given before in this thread, you don't need ADB to flash files to your phone SP Flash tools; just the required drivers and connect the phone to the computer with the battery removed.

You could try VMWARElinux to install Windows XP on with with required drivers/ files, etc. I can confirm VMWARE windows allows USB devices to connect to it, including this phone. I've flashed through it with success. Don't know if the Linux version does, though.

After lots of research and headaches I've finally managed to fully root my phone. I've posted my files so you can try it out here:

http://www.needrom.com/download/cubot-gt72-rooted-rom-twrp-recivery/

Best and luck and regards.


Nexus 9 upgrade to Nougat fails - how can I diagnose the problem? I'm trying to OTA upgrade a Nexus 9 tablet running 5.0.1 to Nougat. I download the update, verify, and tell it to install. After a little bit, I get the "dead robot" screen that says "Error".

I did a factory reset, downloaded the update again, ran it again, and got the dead robot again.

I've been googling, but I can't find anything offhand that explains what might be happening.

Is there any way I can debug or diagnose the problem?

Well if you've already done a factory reset then I assume there's no precious data to be backed up on the device - in that case just grab a factory image, install appropriate drivers and flash manually. The one for the WiFi variant is already out.


HTC EVO with Evernote App - pictures upside down I'm trying to use the Evernote app to take a photo and upload it.
I create a note, take a picture of a business card.  I'm holding the camera sideways, aiming down at the card on the table in front of me.  When I see the note in the Evernote app on the EVO or on Evernote site, the business card is upside down.

I've even tried rotating the pictures in the gallery and attaching them, but they always come out upside down.

I'm new to the phone, so could be I'm doing some really wrong. Or maybe Evernote has a limitation for the "free users"?

Update: I just uploaded pics to my PC, and they were upside down there to.  So the rotate/orientation on the EVO must own be for display there, not in the actual photo-file itself?

I'll try flipping the camera the other way... seems like I tried that last night, but will try again.

Try turning the camera 180 degrees.  Clearly Evernote is confused about where the top and bottom are.

Also, I have found when editing in the gallery then uploading to Evernote, if I only rotated the picture the edits don't seem to take. It does work however if I rotate it, then crop it (I don't really crop anything out, but just go through the motions) and save it.  On those photos, Evernote recognizes the edits.


Does OnePlus 5 use the same screen as OnePlus 3/3T? In the recent presentation, OnePlus CEO stated that because OnePlus thinks 2K resolution is unnecessary for a 5.5" screen, OnePlus 5 will continue using 1080p AMOLED as OnePlus 3 and 3T do. I've heard major criticism on the screen of 3/3T, so I wonder if there's any improvement on the screen of OnePlus 5.

Sort of.

The OnePlus 3T and 5 share the same display model. Pocketnow even wrote an article about it.

However after further inspection, only some 3T phones have the display model of S6E3FA5 (This is the OnePlus 5's display.) Others are S6E3FA3.

Therefore, only some of OnePlus 3T's share the same display as the 5.

Can't tell for certain but from this forum post, the OnePlus 3 shares a similar story.


Android is replacing some of my app icons with alternative ones. How do I stop this Homtom HT30

The picture shows the icon for Google Maps.
The programs seem to launch fine but the icons are changed.

I was using the stock launcher 'Launcher3' which was overriding the Google Maps icon (and others).  A different launcher doesn't have this problem, and looks much better.  User 'beeshyams' suggested 'Nova Launcher' but I installed the 'Google Now Launcher'

Thanks 'beeshyams' for the answer.


Mobile data is not working after missed call I have this strange issue in Sony Xperia U. Currently I am using 6.1.1.B.1.100 bulid ICS 4.0.4. There is no option in mobile network to select 2g or 3g or 2g/3g. All I have is Use only 3g networks in my settings. But I managed to select 2g network from the code *#*4636#*#* (Phone info) and select GSM only in Select prefferred network type.

But the problem is this when I am using 2g data( to save juice) whenever I get a missed call after that my mobile data is unavailable( I know unlike 3g in 2g you cant use data during voice call but this is after the missed call). This is not happening if I am in 3g and only for missed calls alone.

The only way I am able to use the data again is I have to enable 3g again and change back to 2g.

Is this normal? Any workaround for this? I didnt find this when I am using previous build.

A typical A-GPS-enabled receiver will use a data connection (Internet or other) to contact the assistance server for aGPS information. If it also has functioning autonomous GPS, it may use standalone GPS, which is sometimes slower on time to first fix, but does not depend on the network, and therefore can work beyond network range, and without incurring data usage fees. Some A-GPS devices do not have the option of falling back to standalone or autonomous GPS.


Install applications on android market through my computer My phone model is Xperia Neo.
My computer has an internet connection but my phone doesn't.
I followed following steps to install app to my mobile from computer

Go the market app website.
It shows my phone model and when I click on Install
It shows the message that This application will be installed shortly
but actually nothing happens.

I have seen following video also which shows how to install app from computer but It is not working for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evAiHzNPEgw

Is there any problem with my phone or do I have to do something else?

The Play store website works by sending a notification to your phone asking it to install the app. If you're having problems with that make sure that:

Your phone has Internet connection
You logged in with the same Google account that's on your phone.
You're logged in to Google Talk on your device
Background data is enabled
Syncing is enabled for your main account's Gmail.

These are the most common reasons that can cause push notifications (this is the way Web install is handled ) to malfunction.

If your phone doesn't have Internet connection and want to install apps though by downloading them to your computer first you could try following this tutorial.

However I would personally advise against it because it requires you to disable certificate error warnings and enter your password. If you want to do it at least create a second chrome profile for this and enable 2-step verification


No Vibrate During Calls Is there a way to get my phone to not vibrate during calls? I want it to vibrate for various notifications when I'm not in a call, but it's a bit startling with my phone up to my ear.

I've found a few SMS apps that can do it, but I'm hoping for something general, across all notifications.

EDIT: Upon further testing, it seems that my phone (Moto G, Andriod version 5.1) doesn't vibrate during a call by default, but sometimes it messes up and allows the notification vibrate to go through.

It might be different on other devices, but in a Samsung this is how you do it:

In the dialer app go to menu>settings>call settings>call alerts>notify during calls. Turn that off.


How can I find saved WiFi passwords within non-rooted phone? I have Android phone which is non-rooted. How can I know the saved WiFi passwords in my phone?

Without root there is no way to find the passwords of Wi-Fi networks on your device. That's because the Wi-Fi passwords are saved in the root folders.

On CyanogenMod devices, and possibly other AOSP ROMs, you should be able to grab it from the /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf file. Without root this is not possible since you won't have permission to read the /data directories.


How to fix android-x86 install on VMware? Using android-x86-4.4-r3.iso, I created a virtual machine in VMware Workstation 11.0.0 on Mac OS X.  I just clicked Create virtual machine, chose my Android ISO, and just hit Next repeatedly until finished (just like I do to create Windows VMs).

I'm not a master at VMware. What did I do wrong in there? I ran into trouble, as in this picture:

I wait, but it doesn't change. If I am supposed to enter a command, I don't know what command. Can anybody help me?

You need to follow the instructions.  Specifically:

You have to change your virtual disk type to be IDE because the default type in VMware is SCSI, and [the] Android-x86 kernel is not configured to support SCSI. You can follow these steps:

Create a virtual machine.

Edit [the] virtual machine settings after the virtual machine [is] created.
Choose the hard disk and remove it.
Add a hard disk to create a new virtual disk, then you can choose IDE as your virtual disk type.
When finished, you can install android-x86 normally.


Android Market gone after emulator reboot on Windows Possible Duplicate:
  Android Market gone after emulator reboot

I am having the same problem as mentioned here. But my specs are as follows:

OS=Windows 7 SP1
SDK Revision = 21.0.1

OS = Windows 7 SP1
SDK Revision = 21.0.1
Android-SDK=3.0(API Level 11)

  AVD Details

  Name: DemoDevice1

  CPU/ABI: ARM(armeabi)

  Path: c:\Users\The WABBIT.android\AVD\DemoDevice1.avd

  Target: Android 3.0 (API level 11)

  Skin: WXGA

  SD Card: 2048

  hw.lcd.density: 213

  vm.heapSize: 32

  hw.ramSize: 1024

I have already deleted the SdkSetup.apk from the emulator and then added the GoogleServicesFramework.apk and Vending.apk packages to the emulator.

But, upon reboot everything is reverted back to before changes was made. I am unable to find a updated img file in any temporary directory, or any directory, as outlined in above mentioned post.

Can anyone help me with this?

For those that are using the Windows version of the Android SDK the answer given in Android Market gone after emulator reboot stands as the correct thing to do. But the name of the .img file and the temp directory location differ from that given in that post.

The reason for the difference I cannot say, but I suspect it is because of one of the following reasons.

I am using Windows instead of Linux.
I am using a different revision of the SDK, can't really say as there was no mention of the SDK revision in the previous post.
Or it could be both 1 & 2.

Any ways, you will find the temp .img directory in the following location:

  SystemDrive\Users\ [username] \AppData\Local\Temp\AndroidEmulator

The file name will be similar to the following:

  TMP19AD.tmp

Note:
 - The file name will change every time you run the emulator.
 - That the file size will always be 0bytes will the emulator is running.
 - It is easier to work on one virtual device at a time when accessing the temp .img files. Otherwise it gets confusing which file is for which virtual device.

To make your changes permanent do the following:

Work on one virtual device at a time.
Copy the .tmp from the AndroidEmulator directory to a temporary location before exiting the emulator.
Rename the *.tmp file to system.img.
Copy the system.img file to your virtual device's AVD directory. Overwriting any previous system.img file.

I have created the following batch file to do the copying.

system_copy.bat

@echo off
rem
rem system_copy.bat
rem
rem Command-line reference:
rem     system_copy [drive_letter] [account_username] [virtual_device's_name]
rem

rem
rem check to see if the user entered the parameters needed
rem
rem check for the drive letter
if [%1] == [] goto :error1
rem check for the account username
if [%2] == [] goto error2
rem check for the virtual device's name
if [%3] == [] goto error3

rem
rem set the paths for the tmp_path and main_avd_path
rem to use in the copying process
rem
:SetPaths
rem Grab current directory before we change it
rem this will be directory outside of the virtual device's directory
set main_avd_path="%cd%"

rem set the current location for the temp AVD .img files
set tmp_path=%1:\Users\%2\AppData\Local\Temp\AndroidEmulator

rem now we need to verify a few things

rem verify that the temp_path exist
if not exist %tmp_path% goto error4
rem verify that the temporary .img file exist
if not exist %tmp_path%\*.tmp goto error5

rem now we begin the copying of the system.img file
echo.
echo Copying the *.tmp file to the virtual device's avd directory as system.img.
echo.

copy %tmp_path%\*.tmp %main_avd_path%\%3%.avd\system.img /y >nul

rem check for any errors in copying the file
for %%e in (5 4 3 2 1) do if errorlevel %%e goto copyerror-%%e

if not errorlevel == 0 goto copyerror-0

rem show copy succes message
echo.
echo Copying is complete.
echo.
goto :EOF

rem beginning of the error messages
:error1
    echo.
    echo ERROR: System drive letter not specified.
    echo Please rerun this batch file and specify the system drive letter.
    echo.
    echo Command-line reference:
    echo    system_copy [drive_letter] [account_username] [virtual_device's_name]
    goto :EOF

:error2
    echo.
    echo ERROR: User account name not specified.
    echo Please rerun this batch file and specify the User account name.
    echo.
    echo Command-line reference:
    echo    system_copy [drive_letter] [account_username] [virtual_device's_name]
    goto :EOF

:error3
    echo.
    echo ERROR: Virtual device's name not specified.
    echo Please rerun this batch file and specify the AVD name.
    echo.
    echo Command-line reference:
    echo    system_copy [drive_letter] [account_username] [virtual_device's_name]
    goto :EOF

:error4
    echo.
    echo ERROR: AndroidEmulator folder '%tmp_path%' does not exist.
    echo Please verify that the AndroidEmulator folder has been created at '%tmp_path%' then restart this batch file.
    goto :EOF

:error5
    echo.
    echo ERROR: Temporary .img file does not exist.
    echo Check to see if the virtual device is running, then rerun this batch file.
    echo.
    echo Command-line reference:
    echo    system_copy [drive_letter] [account_username] [virtual_device's_name]
    goto :EOF

:copyerror-0
    echo.
    echo COPY ERROR:  There was an unknown copy error.
    echo.
    goto :EOF

:copyerror-1
    echo.
    echo COPY ERROR:  No files were found to copy.
    echo.
    goto :EOF

:copyerror-2
    echo.
    echo COPY ERROR:  The user pressed CTRL+C to terminate xcopy.
    echo.
    goto :EOF

:copyerror-3
    echo.
    echo COPY ERROR:  Initialization error occurred. There is not enough memory or disk space.
    echo.
    goto :EOF

:copyerror-4
    echo.
    echo COPY ERROR:  Disk write error occurred.
    echo.
    goto :EOF

:copyerror-5
    echo.
    echo COPY ERROR:  No files were found to copy.
    echo.
    goto :EOF

rem EOF

copy and paste the above code into your favorite text editor and save it as system_copy.bat.

Place this batch file in the parent directory for the virtual device's avd directory.

To run it, while the virtual device's avd is running:

Bring up a cmd prompt
Goto the directory that the batch file is in
Execute the batch file with the following command syntax:

  system_copy [drive_letter] [account_username] [virtual_device's_name]

example:

 system_copy C "The WABBIT" Nexus_7

That's it. Hope this helps others.


Swype Private Beta for HTC Desire I read here that you can email the Swype developers to ask for an invite for the private beta of Swype on the HTC Desire, and you may or may not get an invite. I'd like to try it out as it looks pretty neat.

Is the private beta still running?
Is there some official announcement that describes how to register for the private beta?
What email should I write to and what should I write to increase my chances of an invite?

Answering your questions:

The beta is still running
http://beta.swype.com/
The beta is currently closed


How to open downloaded kindle files from Android? I have downloaded the kindle app from Google Play Store and installed it.

I have some Kindle files downloaded from the internet. How can I open them using my kindle app?

If you have the Kindle app installed, just open it and it should show a selection of the books you've purchased from the Kindle store.

Books that haven't been downloaded to your device yet are available via the "Archived Items" menu option that pops up when you press your device's Menu, you should be able to select and download any books there.

If you've downloaded Kindle compatible books from elsewhere on the internet, then if you move them into the "Kindle" folder on your SD card, they should appear in the listing of books when you open the Kindle app.

You have two options to do this:

Plugging your phone into a PC and mounting the SD card as an external drive,
Using one of the many Android file manager apps that are available from Google Play Store.


Difference CFAutoRoot vs CFRoot vs SuperUser vs Armeabi-universal? What difference CFAutoRoot with CFRoot with eu.chainfire.superuser with android-armeabi-universal-root-signed?

I'm still a little bit confused. Thanks for help.

Superuser application is to manage root that is already available from su binary.

CFAutoRoot is to exploit a security flaw to install said binaries and patch boot image to load said binaries with proper privileges during boot.


Something is filtering blue light and I can't figure out how to stop it I just got a Samsung Galaxy S9 last week and since day 1 it has been applying a blue light filter even though I turned blue light filter off in the settings (Blue Light Filter turned off and also schedule turned off under Settings/Display/Blue light filter).

The blue light filter's behavior is strange. The filter turns on around 6:56 every evening and turns off around 5:56 in the morning. Sometimes when I unlock my phone the filter isn't applied and a split second later I see it get applied. Even less often I see it applied in blocks quickly filling the screen. If I turn blue light filtering on in Display settings, the affect is additive.

When I got the phone all of the applications from my previous phone, a OnePlus 3, were installed, so I supposed it could have been one of those. I went into application permissions and turned off overlay permission (Settings/Apps/Special Access/Apps that can appear on top) to everything I thought might be affecting the screen color.

What else can I look into? Is there a way to check every process that's running to see what is changing the screen color?

So I did a bit of digging and found two related threads describing your problem:

User Friendly Solution

As you've described you had transferred over your settings from a different device and the 'Night Light' settings were hidden by the Samsung software.

The most user friendly way is from Reddit:

PSA: Night Light and Blue Light Filter Overlap

where the solution is use Nova Launcher and to create a Night Light shortcut from Nova Launcher:

  Easy fix is through Nova Launcher / Activities. Press somewhere on the home screen so you can select widgets. From there select Activities>Settings>Night Light. Open Night Light from your home screen and turn it off - and the scheduling, too, of course... Unless you'd rather use Night Light.

Reddit author made a video for visual aid: https://youtu.be/J9J1B2Q8Eu4

Alternate ADB solution

In my research I also found a different way, and while it didn't help you perhaps it may help someone else:

Weird Night Mode type issue

The XDA one lists adb commands to try:

Using adb to list out device settings

adb shell 'settings list secure

and then attempting to clear the appropriate ones:

adb shell 'settings put secure night_display_activated 0'

adb shell 'settings put secure night_display_auto_mode 0'


Android keyboard - Tab into next form field? I'm using a tablet with Android 2.2. Is there something like Tab to switch to the next form field?

Do you mean with an external keyboard or the on-screen keyboard?

With the on-screen keyboard, usually the <Enter> key turns into a <Next> key (looks like a right arrow) when there is another field after the current one. At least, this seems to be how most apps on Android work.

Sometimes it doesn't change functionality; this happens most often in web forms where the enter key is a valid input.


"Verification failed" for OTA "April 2016 patches" on a Nexus 6P I have a brand new Nexus 6P that gives me the following error when attempting to install the next OTA update.

Clicking the "Check for update" button doesn't help.

I've tried a factory reset but that didn't change the situation.

How can I come past this point?

You should try with a different Internet connection. That is often the problem.


how to capture any .apk download We are seeking a reliable method to get the .apk file for any arbitrary application that may currently exist on Google Play store. ("legit" reasons may be e.g. to later restore to application v8 even if only application v11 is available to public).

I am not aware of any utility that can do this, so one approach might be to capture all packets which cross your wireless network to your Android device, like when the user installs an app from Play store. So we want to see if it's possible to capture all .apk files downloaded to the Android device upon user install from Play.

which wireless capture utility should you use (e.g. pcap?), and should it be run from your Android or some other machine?
how do you reassemble a .apk file from a sequence of frames?
Is there any encryption of data that would prevent the capture of the .apk file?
Is there an easier way to get an .apk? Tried the emulator but it doesn't work for all apps. adb backup gives a compressed .ab file, but we want the .apk itself in extracted form, and not buried in some .ab compressed file.

Why so difficult? Simply install AppMonster Pro Backup Restore (yes, the Pro version -- the free doesn't do this automatically), and on each install/update the corresponding .apk file is automatically backed up to your SDCard. You can configure the app to keep all .apk files, or only the latest N (number freely configurable), even pinning of a "stable version" to always keep is possible.

AppMonster only takes care for the .apk files (not for app data). As a side effect, it even shows you if an app contains an ad module, and you can have it notify you if an just installed app can be moved to SDCard via App2SD.


How to see Android OS System log file? After leaving my Samsung Galaxy A-30 phone (with Android 9) for a few hours unbelievably I understood all of my internal storage is cleaned! I don't remember that I have installed any suspicious app but I just attached a USB flash to my phone for some data transferring last day.

Now I just want to know what happened to my phone's internal storage data, is there any system log file for Android 9? How can I find if an app with storage permission has done this?


Unsync bluetooth audio volume control After Android 6.0.1 update controlling the volume on my phone which is connected to a bluetooth device controls the volume on the bluetooth device. Before, when I changed the volume on my phone, the volume on the device still had his own volume control.

I understand, that for ease of use the merging happened - probably people disliked that they had to control two devices instead of one.

However, this means I lost a LOT of control over the fine tuning of the volume. This is a disadvantage for cases when you want to play through a bluetooth speaker a soft ambient in a low volume to fall asleep to. Now the lowest point of volume is high. Even though you can move the volume around in a non-discrete manner, you can hear, that only around 10-15 discrete volume values are used.

Is there no workaround, app, custom root modification or something I could do to switch back to two volumes instead of one?

Goto Developer Options, activate the "Disable Absolute Volume" toggle (see screenshot). Disconnect and reconnect your Bluetooth connection. Problem solved.

NOTE: This was done on Android 7.0. You can try on your own OS version.


Google App & Google Play Services Draining Battery in Cyanogenmod I have an old Sony Xperia Z I want to use in my car to use Spotify/ Google Maps/ Google Navigation/ Android Auto.

The phone is running Cyanogenmod 13.0-20161219-NIGHTLY-yuga / Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow).

There are hardly any apps installed and I've got pretty much every single power saving feature switched on but the battery is still draining in a little under 24 hours. Google App & Google Play Services make up the bulk of the battery usage.

I've setup the phone to only wakeup when it's charging and go to sleep when it's not - so this battery usage is happening when the phone is (theoretically) asleep.

To complicate things Cyanogenmod is defunct and LineageOS doesn't have support for the Sony Xperia Z.

Is there a known issue with/ fix for this battery drain?

Or should I install another custom ROM (and if so, which one?)

that's common in any custom roms... i have used Cyanogenmod and its normal because they all are not that optimised .... or may be you could try flashing some other kernel.. but i think you will never get better battery backup than stock rom.


Cyanogen mod 7.2.0 keyboard backlight not working properly I have recently rooted my phone (HTC Desire Z A.K.A. Vision) and installed Cyanogen 7.2.0. I have noticed that my keyboard and softkeys backlight no longer work properly.

What used to be the case: The backlight of the softkeys lit up when turning on the screen. The backlight of the keyboard lit up when "sliding" open my phone. After dimming both sets of buttons would come back to life at use.

What is the case now: The backlight of the softkeys only turns on when I manually adjust the brightness of the screen. The same applies for the keyboard backlight but only when the phone is "open".

Does anyone know a fix for this problem?

After quite some time a friend of mine goofed around and actually found the fix:
CyanogenMod Settings > Display > Automatic Blacklight
In here enable 'Use custom' and then look at the values in 'Edit other levels...'. The levels you want to edit are either the ones under 'Buttons' which are the values for the backlight of the soft keys (Home, menu, back and search) and the values under 'Keyboard' is for the  keyboard backlight. A value of 30 is standard for the 'Buttons' and the values for the 'Keyboard' are only 0 or higher than 0. (Even though you can choose values between 0 and 255, it doesn't seem to matter visibly.)


Is it possible to disable USB tethering from command line? I try to be able to stop USB tethering.
I tried:
adb shell am stop com.android.settings/.TetherSettings # Unknown command: stop
adb shell am kill com.android.settings/.TetherSettings # nothing
adb shell service call connectivity 33 i32 0 s16 text  # works

Latest works, but I don't know if it's very reliable like am commands
Related, but the opposite, Is it possible to activate the "USB Tethering" Android setting from the command line?

You can run this command:
adb shell svc usb setFunctions

This should reset the USB mode/configuration to charging only.


How to upgrade to Android 2.2 [Samsung GT i5800]? I have a Samsung GT i5800 with original Android firmware and an offical Windows 7 PRO/64bit machine and a Samsung USB cable that I got with the phone.

How can I update it offically to a fresher version of Android? [I read that Android 2.2 was alread out for this phone at Jan-Apr this year..so I thought it would be a very wise thing to upgrade it! OK.] Because it looks like Kies can't upgrade the phone....this is "funny"...

Here is what I have on the phone: http://i.imgur.com/Zho9Q.jpg - Android 2.1update1

Here is the Kies version on the machine: http://i.imgur.com/I6R4q.jpg - 2.0.3.11082_152 up-to-date

Here is the message from Kies that it cannot update the phone: http://i.imgur.com/VeGUE.jpg sorry, it's in hungarian..

:(
p.s.: I tried to: reboot the win7 machine, Kies has a troubleshooting part, I tried it. What else are there?

You could uninstall Kies and the drivers completely, and then install the UK version of Kies from here.  (Make sure to select the UK as your location during install).  This should allow you to perform the update, although it might not give you the language you want.  This worked for me to get Froyo on my Vibrant before it was released in the US.  Alternatively you could try another European country that has had an official update released.

You could also try flashing the latest European firmware via Odin.  XDA has a guide on this (see the UPGRADING section).  This is risky if you don't follow the instructions closely and will void your warranty just like rooting, but I've used Odin dozens of times on my Vibrant with no issues.


Double calendar notifications For some reason I'm getting 2 notifications for every 1 calendar event I enter.

I'm using Android 4.1.2 (CyanogenMod 10.0.0-grouper) on a Nexus 7.

Can someone please help me troubleshoot this issue?

CyanogenMod 10 includes an outdated Google Calendar app.

When I installed the updated one from the Play Store, I neglected to remove the system Calendar app.

Once I uninstalled the outdated system Calendar app, I only got 1 notification per event.


How to boot in download mode with a Zonda a450 Already googled this, no results, i tried with youtube video tutorial in which you supposedly boot your phone in download mode while holding the volumen down button and the power button, but it doesn't nothing.

I have a Zonda a450 with android 4.4, i want to boot in download to upgrade to android 5.

Okey. As described in the specs, the device has a Spreadtrum chipset (SC7731). There is no boot mode on SPD devices.

To flash a ROM, you need a file in the .pac format and use a flasher (ResearchDownload).

You MUST install SPD drivers, otherwise the device won't be detected by the computer.

As there is no download mode, just swicth off and plug the device by holding volume down or up.


Why are some songs are not named correctly in media players? Most songs in my collection display correctly. However some will display the name of the song as "01 Song name" instead of "Song name". Note that the file name is "01 Song name.mp3".
They also appear out of order in the album so doesn't seem to be taking the track number into account.

When I check the id tags all the information is correct.

This occurs in all media players that I have tried.

Does anyone have any ideas why this occurs and how to correct it?

Are you sure your tags are correct, it sounds like they're not?

Try looking at the files with something like MP3Tag or MediaMonkey they should show exactly which tags are in there and let you clear out any corrupted tags.


Was it my rooting that caused my Android to malfunction? Or what was it really? I finally rooted my phone around a week ago, amidst all those battling feelings, and I used it for around 4 days.

While the phone was charging through the USB port of my computer, I remember like putting the computer on suspend and then removing the phone. Thereafter, it never turned on! Except sometimes, where it came to the boot screen and got stuck, or it went just past the boot screen and got stuck again, or where it didn't even turn on the screen but just kept vibrating.

It was only charging through the USB, so I had not enabled file sharing or anything where I would have to disconnect the phone from the computer first before unplugging, so I'm quite sure that it's not anything to do with corruption of data due to just unplugging.

My Android (ICS) is yet under warranty, although rooted, so it's currently at the company service centre getting repaired. Their warranty card has got a whole bunch of terms and conditions that void warranty, but nothing to do with rooting thankfully. I only rooted it, and went NO further into flashing another ROM.

So my question, what happened to my Android? Was it some application that required root, misbehaving? Or was it due to overcharging? It can't be due to overcharging since when I plugged in my phone it was only about 60-80% charged, and I was at the machine for only a few minutes before disconnecting it from my computer.

Whatever the reason is, please help me figure it out. The phone comes back this coming up Wednesday, and I want to be knowledgeable enough to understand what's going on and whether I should root it again if the company has unrooted it (hopefully not! ;) ).

It's pretty unlikely that rooting will ever cause hardware to malfunction--software maybe, but even then unlikely.

In the event that you think a rooting process has caused your device software to malfunction it is advisable to attempt a full factory reset--since you had a hardware issue the device would still be malfunctioning.

Edit: As Dan correctly notes below this is not the same as a 'Factory data reset' that you can find in the phone menu, it is more akin to flashing a stock rom including the recovery and often bootloader(and sometimes specialized software will be required). It looks like the device mentioned might be OEM by ZTE, maybe this thread would have a stock rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1353526 )

One thing: It might be good to know what is actually happening with the root(maybe try to find a 'manual' root process) as some root procedures are more invasive/risky than others.


Email syncing on WiFi only I have a user with a new Nexus 5X. It is configured to sync his personal (Gmail) email and work (Exchange) email (using the Gmail app). Gmail syncs fine; however, Exchange will only sync when connected to WiFi. Even a manual sync will not download Exchange email.

I have installed all updates (he is on Android 6.0.1, security patch level March 1, 2016). I confirmed that "restrict background data" is NOT enabled for anything. Turned off battery optimization (Doze) for Exchange Services & Gmail. I've tried various sync settings for the Exchange account (Push, 15 min, 30 min, etc). No luck. Exchange email will not download while on cell service, but Gmail will. As soon as I have a WiFi connection, the Exchange email downloads.

Not sure what to try next; any ideas?

Caf:
I had what I thought was the same issue upon receiving the 6.0.1 update this past week on my Galaxy  S5. However, I realized that I was plugging my phone in when I returned to the office which was disabling power saver mode which I typically leave on. After turning this off, I was able to sync over the mobile network. Interestingly, changing the doze settings had no effect (I tried them on and off with the power saver). I would see if your user leaves the power saver mode on as that was not explicitly mentioned above.


Is there a way to see the device's screen *live* on PC, through ADB? I am a vlogger and after getting HTC Desire HD, found out its camera was all I ever needed. However, I usually have to see myself while recording video, to control my facial expressions, and with a rear-facing camera it's just not possible.

I know ADB allows for screenshots, but is there a way to stream the screen output to my PC's display?
Not necessarily at 20+ fps, just a couple frames per second will do.

screenrecord
screenrecord is an internal Android executable that dumps screen to a file, and ffplay from ffmpeg happens to be able to play an H.264 encoded stream from stdin
First enable ADB USB access and then on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install adb ffmpeg
adb exec-out screenrecord --output-format=h264 - |
   ffplay -framerate 60 -probesize 32 -sync video  -

You might have to make the screen move a bit before you see anything:

Uncut demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVgeoMYm61Q
Explanation of parameters:

-probesize 32 -framerate 60 -sync video reduce the delay between the image on the phone and the image on the disktop (thanks to @arbuz)
we use adb exec-out instead of adb shell because shell might mess up some control characters due to being a shell (thanks to @Bowi)

See also: Use adb screenrecord command to mirror Android screen to PC via USB

Tested on Ubuntu 20.04, Android 11, Pixel 3a.


Is it possible for my HTC Desire to interupt my iPod when I receive a call? I frequently miss incoming telephone calls because I am listening to my iPod Touch and I don't feel it vibrate.

Does anyone know if it's possible for my HTC Desire to somehow notify me of the call via my headphones?

I've seen bluetooth connection devices that purport to do this (such as the GEAR4 BluEye), but they are several years old now.

However given that this kind of hardware exists, and that the Desire and the iPod Touch have Bluetooth built-in, I wondered if there was an app or setting that would enable the phone and iPod to work together in this way?

I've found something for you, although it may not treat your iPod the right way.  The only way to find out is for you to give it a shot.  Luckily the developer of this app offers a version that's a five day free trial.

Super BT Mono

If you're running stock Android 2.2 try this.
If you're running CyanogenMod try this.

I'd follow the dev's instructions on how to get this up and running, and just treat your iPod like the BT headset with which this app is meant to interface.  It doesn't say so on the app page in the Market, but on some forum thread (of which I've unfortunately lost track, dammit) someone mentioned that it will send notification tones and ringtones to the BT device.


Nexus 5 Early Bootloop Fixable? My Nexus 5 goes into very early bootloop - basically during the initial 2-5 seconds from turning on it goes into bootloop. It also restarts even when in recovery mode (dont even have time to make any selection before it restarts). My suspicion is that this is a HW problem - just wanted to confirm if the phone is dead for good before I throw it away. If it is HW, it would probably require main board replacement, which would be very costly I assume? Or could it be something different?

Going to include my resolution in case it helps someone. The problem turned out to be malfunctioning power button, which the phone was taking as pressed all/most of the time. Some random jamming, pressing and squeezing of the button fixed problem. From what I understand this is relatively common problem on Nexus 5,as many are getting their power button replaced.


Any phones that support multiple concurrent bluetooth devices? Just wondering if there are any phones that support multiple bluetooth concurrent connections, such as a set of bluetooth headphones and a smartwatch, or a bleutooth keyboard and a smartwatch?

I have a samsung s4 with AT&T and it doesn't seem that its possible to connect two bluetooth devices of any type at once. I'm sure what the coming wearable craze this will someday be possible, but I'm asking if there are any devices on the shelf today that support using multiple bluetooth devices at the same time.

Thanks in advance!

Yes, most devices support up to 7 devices connected at once. I don't have a Galaxy S4 to test on, but it seems unlikely it would only support one. More likely, there's a particular problem with one of the devices involved.

You should post a new question about why Bluetooth isn't working properly for you, giving full details of the devices you're using, what steps you take, and what happens.


Do modern Android devices regulate AC mains power similar to a laptop? There have been a lot of discussions about lithium-ion battery life across the internet. However, within these discussions I have found contradictory details about the way power is regulated between battery needs and device needs when a mobile/Android device is fully charged. It's clear that the charging process itself is a "smart" process (multiple stages with different current, overcharge protection, etc.), but what happens when the charging stops and the device is still in use? My understanding is that in these situations most laptops have regulators that divvy AC power between directly powering the device and "topping-off" the battery as it looses charge to ambient factors. Do modern Android devices (and iPhones for that matter) do the same thing?

Consider the following hypothetical situation:

Device is plugged-in to AC mains with 1 Amp supply
Battery is charged 100%
Current ongoing device use draws < 1 Amp
Battery naturally looses 5% charge in 3 hours when not in use (I have not idea what an actual real word value would be here, but the point is that there is a slow loss even when no power is drawn from the battery)

In this case is the battery bypassed completely as long as the active needs of the device do not exceed 1 Amp, or does the battery remain an active power source regardless of charge state and cable connection status? If the battery is in-fact bypassed, does the device wait for some charge-level threshold (say 95% charge) before touching the battery to minimize accumulating (micro)charge cycles?

It's possible that this is more of an electrical engineering question, and though it has certainly come up in that context (such as here), the related discussion seems either too broad or too specific to laptops.

Update

I've been learning a bit more on the correct terminology (thanks to @beeshyams). I see that the concept of "parasitic load" plays a very important, and detrimental, role in charging efficiency. However, I am led to believe that it is not necessarily a key variable in the fully-charged state described above. Anyway, without getting too deep into semantics, it seems like the key variable would instead be "self-discharge" (the natural 5% loss in my example).

My original thought was that this self-discharge effect would be so small, and lead to extremely infrequent topping-off (micro)charge cycles, that it would have a negligible effect on the cumulative charge cycles of the battery. Therefore, by isolating the active load of the device to AC mains (keeping it plugged in most of the time), instead of drawing from the battery, one could potentially prolong battery life. Even though everyone says "don't do that" they never really say why, and that's really what led to this question.

What I'm now starting to see, and which someone will hopefully confirm, is that any charge cycles (even small and infrequent) are really really bad news when they happen near full charge:

They happen much faster than one would expect (the effects of self-discharge are increased near full charge).
They are really detrimental (it looks like a 5% cycle between 95%-100% can lead to several magnitudes more "wear" on the battery than a 5% cycle between, say, 45%-50%.
They exacerbate the negative effects of heat (heat at high change seems to be much worse for battery wear than the same heat at low charge).

So I suppose it's safe to say that these negative factors, even if only considering self-discharge as a catalyst for cycling, nearly always outweigh the benefit of diverting normal operational power away from the battery?

Good question and to give a definitive reply is not possible since OEMs use different battery charging algorithms both at hardware level and OS level. Details of these are deemed "proprietary" and not available on public domain.
By way of providing the background to understand:

Battery Charging circuits have a dedicated "Power Management IC (PMIC) to take care of battery charging operations. See PMIC from Wikipedia. The complexity of these chips has increased with multi core processors. These ensure that Power required for charging is pulled rather than pushed- meaning to say that chargers draw what is required rather than what they can possibly draw from the outlet
Battery Charging circuits "isolate" power required for charging the Battery and providing power required to use an application. For a detailed understanding of this,see my answer https://android.stackexchange.com/a/131169/131553. For purposes of this question, keeping the device on while charging constitutes a load, however small it may be
Refer Battery University post on charging Li-Ion batteries, which clearly depicts at Fig 1, various stages of battery charging-Constant Current stage, Saturation stage, Ready no current stage and Standby mode

Coming to your question,

*In this case is the battery bypassed completely as long as the active needs of the device do not exceed 1 Amp, or does the battery remain an active power source regardless of charge state and cable connection status?

Battery remains as an active power source. That is what is depicted in standby mode of referred battery charging article which shows current flow to " top up" depletion of charge. As to what level this topping starts send to be dependent on OEM implementation. For my Huawei Honor 6 device, it starts at around 97% and for Samsung Note 2, it starts way below at around 91%. In both cases, cable is plugged in and charger is switched on

Cable connection status as asked in your question is answered partly above, but if the cable is disconnected, there is no point of discussing charging!!

If the battery is in-fact bypassed, does the device wait for some charge-level threshold (say 95% charge) before touching the battery to minimize accumulating (micro)charge cycles?

As clarified above, it seems to be device and OEM dependent

Coming to micro cycles accumulating and resultant parasitic load (not asked specifically by you but micro cycles of charging and discharging cause parasitic load)- this aspect had been investigated by me and vetted by Battery University, in my answer is-power-consumed-from-battery-to-run-the-phone-when-Charging/. In this experiment, a load equivalent to mobile data download (by keeping screen on at 50% brightness" was loaded when charging was ongoing to study micro cycles and parasitic load and results submitted to Battery University for their views. Quoting Bruce Huang verbatim (emphasis mine)

I don't think the parasitic load is going to prevent the current drop forever. I guess the parasitic load only delay the current drop for a period of time. In this test, the parasitic load may be too small (turning on screen with 50% brightness is not huge load) to create a significant delay to the current drop.

tl:dr;

"Smart" management of battery charging is done by Power Management IC (PMIC) in Android phones. Key aspects relevant to question are:

Battery charger pulls power it needs

Battery charger isolates charging requirements from usage requirements and unless the latter is extremely high, will not affect adversely

At what level of battery will charging re-commence to top the battery seems to be OEM dependent

Micro cycles accumulation (and  consequent parasitic load) are negligible in the situation described by you

Is it safe to keep the Battery plugged in after full charging? Short answer NO , due to heating effects which causes internal stress. Detailed explanation on this available at Battery University article linked above, which clearly shows the deleterious effects of heating on battery health (Related: See this is your battery gauge lying to you (and it's not such a bad thing)

Edit: In response to edit by OP
As you have rightly concluded but packaged it differently, I do agree with your line of thinking but haven't come across any study which confirms it. You could consider this portion as a separate question in SE Electrical, which may elicit a suitable reply. My approach (simplistic?) would be to factor the potential damage at high voltage to the battery cycle life and that should be of more importance from end user perspective


Android not responding, screen off and battery drop I have a Lenovo s890 that sometimes stop responding and back after about 1 minute. I have checked the screen and seem there is no problem with the screen. On the other hand when the cell phone stops working, then the battery indicator drops significantly that is really annoying. Do you have any solution for that?

Here you can a similar video that shows the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB_w4WvDiUY

I played more than 3 months with the mobile phone and this is how to solve the problem. I Guess this solusion works for other mobile phones.

If you have a lenovo s890 (or other cellphones with similar symptoms) that sometimes stops and not responding or if your battery drains suddenly or if the screen goes off and does not back, then the problem is not with battery or screen. I have seen some people that asks for help and there are loads of solution that none of them work. The solution is a problem in the kernel of OS that manages CPU of the cell phone.

First install a CPU manager app from google play for example (link). Then
Decrease the maximum CPU frequency to one level down and set the governor to Ondemand (like screenshot).

I have tried other setting that none of them worked for me.


Can I connect to WEP-secured MyWi network from iPhoDroid? Yesterday, I installed Froyo on my iPhone 3G with iPhoDroid. I'm trying to connect to the WiFi using MyWi on my jailbroken iPhone 4 but the network isn't visible at all. The network is WEP secured. That's not a problem with Android is it? I see lots of unsecured networks around, but I'm at work and they're all through proxies anyway, so that wouldn't work. Anyone have any insight on this? I'm completely new to Android so this is exciting to me!

Have you checked whether the network is broadcasting its SSID? If it isn't then your phone won't find it and the network won't appear in the list. You can enter the network details manually by going into the Wi-Fi settings (under Wireless and network on my 2.1 phone), then clicking Add Wi-Fi network (at the bottom of the Wi-Fi networks section), then entering the network's SSID.

If you're already doing this and the network isn't being added, it may be that the router has restricted the client devices that can connect to it. In this case you'll have to use a client with an established connection and modify the settings to allow your phone. You can typically add the MAC address to a whitelist. You can typically find your phone's MAC address under Settings->About phone->Status->Wi-Fi MAC address


How do I get text messages from broken Samsung Fame dropped phone grrr.
Screen cracked, it lights up but, I can't swipe the screen. I have linked to Kies, got my Contacts over, But, I can't seem to find Texts/sms. Any help greatly appreciated.
Sue
Samsung Galaxy Fame.

Have a look at this page. It tells you how to backup your SMS messages using Kies. This allows you to load your messages on to a new phone.
An extract:

Step 3: Click on the Back up/Restore tab. Here you will see a list items that you can backup from your Samsung mobile device.
Step 4: To backup SMS from your Samsung mobile device, click on the checkbox beside Message and click on Backup.
Step 5: Wait until Kies finishes backup Samsung text messages. You can find the backup location at the bottom of the screen.
Step 6: Click on Ok. That's all you have to do to take backup of your SMS from Samsung mobile device.


Why can't I access Google and other sites when tethering my phone? When I tether my phone, I can't access Google or Gmail (other sites, too [see below]!).

cmd: ping http://www.google.com; Ping request could not find host...

List of problem sites/applications:

    Sites:

http://www.google.com; http://www.google.co.jp; https://encrypted.google.com.
http://www.gmail.com.

http://search.yahoo.com, same issue.

Also, http://play.google.com.

Further, https://github.com.

Dang!  https://www.freelancer.com.

http://www.sugarsync.com.

http://www.dropbox.com.

Parts of http://www.titanpad.com (i.e., login); makes me curious as to whether or not it's a language-blocking issue....

    Apps:

ET Naver Line (a.k.a. LINE) jp.naver.android.npush

I experience this on various sites and apps; however the above are sites tested as working over emobile (separate modem)--the URLs should be correct.  I would change the question title, but I have a support request in with the developers to contact me via this site for a resolution.

Device info:

    Phones:

 - Softbank Fujitsu Arrows 301F; 4.1-Jelly Bean.
 - Softbank Aquos 104SH; 4.0-Icecream Sandwich.
 - Connected via USB, debugging mode enabled, in MTP mode.
 - Phone's DNS: Google DNS; OpenDNS.
    PC's:

 - PC OS: Windows 7 SP 1 (please request any hardware specs).
 - Connection methods tested: chrome latest, IE10 latest, cmd (ping), telnet.
 - PC's DNS: OpenDNS; Google DNS; no DNS.
    Non-specific:

 - Tethering software: easytether lite (no root).

Known error messages:

Via Chrome:

  This webpage is not available

  Reload  Less Google Chrome could not load the webpage because
  www.google.co.jp took too long to respond. The website may be down, or
  you may be experiencing issues with your Internet connection. Check
  your Internet connection. Check any cables and reboot any routers,
  modems, or other network devices you may be using. Allow Chrome to
  access the network in your firewall or antivirus settings. If it is
  already listed as a program allowed to access the network, try
  removing it from the list and adding it again. If you use a proxy
  server... Check your proxy settings or contact your network
  administrator to make sure the proxy server is working. If you don't
  believe you should be using a proxy server: Go to the Chrome menu >
  Settings > Show advanced settings... > Change proxy settings... > LAN
  Settings and deselect "Use a proxy server for your LAN". Error code:
  ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

Via IE 10:

Via CMD:

  Ping request could not find host http://www.google.com. Please check
  the name and try again.

Via Telnet:

Connecting To http://www.google.com...Could not open connection to the host, on port 23: Connect failed

Via LINE:

  Unable to login due to network issues.  Please check your connection
  and try again.

Question summary:

Why am I experiencing these issues (not being able to connect to the above-mentioned websites), and how can these issues be resolved?  Can you help me test what I think is causing the issues?

Proposed causes:

Perhaps the reason I cannot access these sites is because they are in use by the phone?  If that is the case, I am not sure how to
test it.  So far, when I "force-stop" and "disable" an app like
LINE, I still cannot connect.  So, I thought: it's possible that
the phone is reserving the app's networking info, somehow.  So, I went so far as to uninstall Line from my phone and reset the phone
and PC.  Still unable to use Line on the PC.  Furthermore; Skype
works simultaneously on PC and Phone.
Perhaps it's a PC or OS issue?  I still have yet to tether my phones to a different PC or OS.
Perhaps it's a DNS issue?  I still have yet to test this, but I believe I get a similar error with OpenDNS when trying to access localhost.
"Activate EasyTether or use it with UDP and secure sites BLOCKED?  This message appears at the top of Easy Tether's settings screen.  I'm very curious to know whether or not this is the cause.  It seems highly likely.

Resolution

EasyTether Light (No Root) is the best tethering software I've been able to find on the Play store; however, it blocks UDP ports and secure protocols.  Updating to EasyTether Full (cost: 9.99 USD) resolved the issues on all of the above-listed sites and services.  It was very bothersome to go through all this and e-mail the developer, only to get a kind of boggled response from him.  Their FAQ does not mention this, and the message in the app was covered up by the "warning, do not scratch the camera" message I had written on my screen guard, up until yesterday; so, I simply didn't notice.  I hope the developer will upgrade the app to include some kind of pop-up message indicating that this is the cause of the issue, or at least add the issue to the FAQ.

Thanks for all the comments and wonderful help!


Android OS Storage Usage I have two fresh Galaxy device on Android 9 , the difference is in storage , one is 512GB and another is 128GB. System usage in both is different , 128GB version uses 27GB on fresh but the 512GB version use up to 47GB. There is no installed app and both devices are just out of box.

My question is why Android uses more storage on 512GB version and how can I decrease the amount? If it's dynamic what's the reason and should it decrease if the device is out of storage?

I don't want to root both devices, so I checked it on another device which is previously rooted. By df -h I see it's about device partition, the rooted device is 32GB out of which only 25GB is available. Other partitions are listed as below:

As you can see there is some duplicate mounted partitions , but sum of their sizes will be 32GB.

With root take a comparison of space usage on both devices by executing du -h /data | sort -h. Without root you can rely on figures reported by filesystem by running df -h.

From the updated screenshot you have attached, no partition is duplicate mounted. If you are talking about tmpfs, it's a volatile filesystem which lives in RAM and is vanished on reboot. It isn't part of your persistent storage.

Your /data and /system added make 29GiB. That's what you get on a 32GB device. Up to 2GiB difference comes because of Gigabyte (GB) and Gibibyte (GiB). Also there are usually 50+ partitions on an Android device which aren't mounted (except a few filesystems). And there's free space left by manufacturers for over-provisioning of flash memory.

For details see: How disk space is used on Android device?


How to sync Android and iOS photos? I currently have iPhone 5, iPad mini, MacBook Air and iMac.
I use the iOS and OS X Photos apps to store my photos and to share select photos with family. My photos are stored in iCloud for purposes of personal storage, and shared with spouse and parents via iCloud Photo Sharing.
I am desperate to move back to Android for my phone device (probably Nexus 5X) but feel the photos part is locking me in to the Apple ecosystem.

If I return to my Android heartland after too long away, What, if any, ways exist that would help me sync my Android phone photos with my other iOS/OS X devices - and vice versa? In other words, how can I get as close as possible to having a single, cross-platform photo library on both Android and iOS/OS X? When I take a photo on Android, it would also appear in my Apple photo library on both iOS and OS X devices (ie. in iCloud)? Likewise, if I took a photo with my iPad or added a photo to the Photos app in OS X, it would appear back on the phone.

I am investigating Google Photos on iOS and web. I fear family won't want to use this on their iOS devices for sharing. I love the auto photo identification but other aspects of it look weak.

Really struggling with ecosystem lock-in.
How can I ween myself off but only partially?

Maybe too late for this answer, but did you try IFTTT?

https://ifttt.com/connect/ios_photos/google_drive
https://ifttt.com/connect/android_photos/ios_photos


If I open a PDF from dropbox with Adobe Reader, where is it saved? Possible Duplicate:
  Dropbox for Android folder location

I opened a PDF from the DropBox app with Adobe Reader on my Samsung Galaxy Tab (running 3.1). It isn't saved in Downloads, as I expected. So where is it!? I can open Adobe Reader and find it there, but I'd like to know where it has been saved on the device. Any ideas?

There is a folder on the sdcard where dropbox saves the files locally.

/sdcard/Android/data/com.dropbox.android/


How to control, monitor and limit bandwidth usage? During my last holiday, an overeager podcast app used my entire quota for downloading one podcast.

Now I am looking for sulutions that will help limit bandwidth usage.

Primarily I would like to monitor and limit usage by apps (getting warnings,throttling and blocking  apps).
Sometimes up/down can be treaded separately (like photo backups)
I probably have a lot of apps that I can't monitor individually, I think I should be notified about those using resources, and then be able to set limits.
Would like the possibility of several different "policies", with automatic or manual selection. (I often use a mobile hotspot, so basing it on wi-fi or mobile data is not sufficient).  Can be home operator, roaming status/location, Hotspot name.
Sometimes the problem is hotspot clients of my device.  Some granular control would be best.
Perhaps granular control of browses - possibility to control websites, tabs perhaps by limiting heavy downloads like flash and photos.
Limit bandwidth used by ads.

On my phone I have a Data usage listing under Settings|Connections, which is somewhat useful.

There are several things you can do:

Restrict background data. You'll find this option in the Data Usage section of Settings.

Use an ad-blocker like AdGuard or Adblock to avoid wasting bandwidth on ads.
Navigate to the Settings page of your data-guzzlers and make sure they only do their data buffets over Wi-Fi.
Also do remember to check your Data Usage page regularly to stop any greedy apps you've forgotten about from chomping down all your data.


folders of apps not downloaded created in my memory card I use Sony Xperia Z phone
Recently i noticed that in my phone some empty folders of applications like hike and hookup are created. I did not download these applications...so how these folders came in my memory card. I had recently mounted my memory card in my friends phone which had these apps.. is it possible that these folders got copied from his phone to my memory card ? please help.

Yes exactly. Applications create (not copy) required folders as soon as a memory card is mounted. There is nothing to worry about and you can delete them manually. As an extra note - these folders are created for saving media files received and backup files.


How to allow an app to take screenshots automatically? How can I allow an app to automatically take screenshot?

I'm not talking about apps disabling screenshots on them, I can take screenshot of the thing manually, but I'd like to automate it. I use the app Automate, which has a screenshot action, but when I run it, a dialog appears asking me if I want to allow the app to see everything what is on screen, and that happens every time. I basically want to autoapprove this dialog.

Is there a way to do that?

Thanks

Ok, so I got one possible workaround: use the Automate interact touch block to click on the confirmation button, like in this flow


want amazon prime video on android tablet I HAVE a Toshiba wt10-a tablet and want to access my amazon prime video account to download and watch movies.   I am not a techie, .  All other devices are iPhones and kindles and want the Toshiba to connect to them if possible.  Thank you!

To get Amazon video on a "regular" Android tablet, you need to install the Amazon App Store, then install Amazon Video. This  should walk you through the process and is Amazon's official way of supporting Amazon Video on non-Kindle Android tablets.


Deleted Google Talk on accident Okay, got a bit carried away in Root Explorer and deleted GTalk. Cant access Google Play. I tried reinstalling versions online, those crashed instantly. Then, i grabbed my ROM zip and pulled out Talk.apk and put it into system/App and installed it. Google Talk doesnt crashes anymore, but play still does. Any ideas? I am using a Virgin Mobile WFS.

Sorry for the lack of ' characters, my autocorrect on my phone is being weird.

I was just browsing around for this issue and found this,

    I had exacly the same trouble with Google Play and I have managed to revert it
    back to original working version of Android Market. In Options (Android system
    settings) go for Applications. Choose Google Play. Clean cached data. Remove this
    application. After these steps Google Play dissappeared from my droid and I could
    put back Android Market icon onto my desktop and I can use it for installing new
    programs.

Link to source : Link to forum


Note 8 dies when battery is drained completely the samsung galaxy note 8 dies when battery is drained completely and it wont start or charge unless the battery is pulled and charged and pushed back again.
Why this happens and is there any solution for it ?

Since it's a Note 8, it MAY still be covered by a warranty. If so, take the phone to the store you bought it, they should look it up for you, and if it needs any repair they will take care of it, since as far as I can tell it's not your fault.


Changing number to new phone but keeping chat history When i tried backing up my old chat from google drive to my ne number on a new phone, it didnr detacted it. Does this mean i can only trasnfer chat if its the same number? If so how can i save my old chats on a new phone with a different number?

Chat history backup and restore feature can be used only to change the mobile device. Because the backup will be taken for the particular mobile number and can be restored in the same number.

how do i change my whatsapp number without losing chat history

There is an inbuilt option in the whatsapp messanger to change the phone number without losing the chat history. Please read the official documentaion to do the same.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/27585377
https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/28030001/?category=5245246


Network Error when invoking Google Now When I try to invoke Google Now by swiping up from the Home button, I get the message "Network error.  Check your network connections and try again".  I have a solid WiFi signal, and searches from the search bar work fine.
I get the same message when I go into settings after launching Google Search and try to enable Google Now.

ASUS Transformer Prime,  Android 4.1.1

Finally found the answer.   I had four Google accounts - one of them could not sync because it required domain policy to be enforced, and I hadn't allowed that.   I connected the tablet to my laptop and used adb logcat to see what was being logged when the error was displayed:

I/GLSUser (28125): GLS error: DeviceManagementRequiredOrSyncDisabled <<account name redacted>> oauth2:https://www.googleapis.com/auth/personal_derived_data https://www.googleapis.com/auth/paths.notifications
V/GoogleLoginService(28125): Returning error intent with: ComponentInfo{com.google.android.gsf.login/com.google.android.gsf.login.LoginActivity}
E/Velvet.VelvetNetworkClient( 4564): Failed to get auth token

(these messages were repeated several times).

I guessed that the errant account may have been involved (even though it was not the account I was trying to active Now with), removed the account from the device and all is well.


Importing contacts from Nokia C1-01 to Android I'm trying to import my contacts from an old Nokia C1-01 to my new Android Motorola G6 Play.  How can I do this?

So far I've tried a Bluetooth connection (connected but couldn't transfer the contacts).

And I've saved my contacts to the Nokia SIM card, but it is the micro-SIM format and I don't think it will fit in the Motorola G6 Play.  Should I cut it to size with a sim card cutter?

I can access the contacts in the phone using the Nokia PC Suite and make a backup of my phone. I can also export the contacts into a CSV. It is combining the first and last name into the "Last Name" field, so I can manually fix this in a spreadsheet and then probably import it into the new phone using Gmail.  I'm following the advice from this question.

As long as you don't have to cut anything but the plastic around the actual chip, it won't hurt anything to give it a try.

The last time I had a really old phone, I just went over to the nearest cell phone providers store and they transferred over the contacts for me.


I opened my phone and tore the power circuit, can it be joined back? I wanted to reseat my phone speaker because it wasn't working. In the process of dismantling my phone, I tore the power button's circuit. What kind of adhesive can I usually use to join it back together? Or I am pretty much screwed?

If the power circuit is torn, it's impossible to join it back. And definitely not with adhesive!


Titanium backup shortcut/widget to toggle app freeze My CyanogenMod 7.2 stock browser refuses to remember its defaults. I've taken to freezing opera mini, my other browser, with Titanium backup when I want to use stock to avoid all the preferred app prompts.

I'd like a faster, more convenient way to toggle the freeze. Is it possible to create a shortcut or widget on the home screen to perform this action?

Titanium Backup itself offers the corresponding Widgets:

long-press on a free space on your homescreen
select to add a widget
select Titanium Backup
select Action
select one of

deactivate App
activate & execute App
toggle (de)activate App

select the app
tap the "create widget" button


What can I do if I forget my passcode to my device (Samsung Galaxy Tab E(2017))? My brother changed the passcode on his device and it glitched out or something and he has no access to it at all, what can he do?

You need to perform a factory reset that will clear everything stored in the phone memory, unfortunately.

If you previously enabled USB Debugging in the Developer Options, there is a way to remove or reset the lock screen. No data is lost here.

Edit:

On some Samsung device, you can reset the lock code with AT commands when the device on Download mode (Never tried myself though). Some paid softwares can do the job just on one click. z3x, Miracle Box, etc


Do you need a special charger for a Nexus 7? Do you need a special charger for a Nexus 7? I've been trying to use the same charger as I use for my Android phone and it works poorly. If you tilt the tablet upwards it's charging, but otherwise it's not. What's the deal with these Android tablets?

No, you don't need anything unique. While it comes with something specific - it can charge off a USB in your computer (or the wall outlet -> USB). (Source: I have the 2012 one)

Sounds like you have other issues such as:

Bad/Obstructed USB header - Visually check the USB on your Nexus for physical damage or blocks (dust, debris, lint, etc)
Bad USB cable - Try an alternative cable or verify that cable in other devices if possible.
There are complaints of the 2013 Nexus 7, mostly related to odd behaviors with touch. Perhaps this could be another manifestation... Though I somewhat doubt it.

If you clarify further, that may help your cause: Did it ever work normally - if so, has anything changed between then and now (rooting, custom ROM, etc)? What came in the box with it? What did the manual tell you? What else have you tried? What do you mean "What's the deal with these android tablets?" - have you found other evidence of issues or reported complaints?


Stock mail app not showing email body I use the stock mail app to check a number of email accounts, including my Hotmail account (via IMAP).

Until recently my email worked just fine but now when I read an email the body of the email doesn't load. I can see the from name and email and the subject, but I don't get the content of the email.

As far as I'm aware I haven't changed anything. And other accounts load the complete email.

It seems like no one else has had this problem I tinkered for several hours... AND I fixed it. The action that fixed this bug was removing the Hotmail (Which is actually called Outlook online now) account and adding it again.


Are there any apps for advanced Japanese learners? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I study or prepare myself for an exam with the help of my Android device?

I passed JLPT2 a while ago and got an Android yesterday. Been looking for a Japanese learning app that does not focus on simple phrases + hiragana/katakana. I'm also not that keen on having an app that just uses one of the freely available kanji lists and just makes you drill those. Would like some more vocabulary-oriented app.

Are you familiar with the program Anki? It has many shared decks to study from, many of which relate to Japanese. The app Ankidroid is the android version and highly recommended.
Some advice on Japanese decks can be found if you browse the 'kanji koohi' site.
For intermediate studies -  if you concentrate on reading -  Japanese Vertical text viewer is good - and it will give you proper Japanese font support - as the Android system fonts sometimes seems to use Chinese characters that don't look right for Japanese.
Any new vocabulary you pick up, you can review later with Ankidroid, if you want to.
Also, I really like rikai - it's in its early stages but seems to work well. Use it to browse Japanese web pages, with access to a handy pop-up dictionary definiton for any Japanese word.


What do CPU Total, CPU Foreground, and Keep awake mean? I've been keeping an eye on my battery usage on my Android device (HTC One), mostly to see if I can drain it during a full work-day, and I came across the app usage details under the Power settings.

I get a percentage of battery used by the app, the CPU total, the CPU foreground, and keep awake. I'm not sure what they mean, although I can take a guess, but I'm wondering more on how they work.

For instance, I've used the Chrome browser extensively throughout the day (device was on for ~14 hrs, holding around 30% battery life left) and noticed that the battery usage for the app was at 54%. Under use details (see pic below) CPU total was 29m 31s; CPU foreground was 14m 43s; and Keep awake was 30s.

Screenshot (click image for larger variant)

How can these numbers be relatively low when I know I've used Chrome for more than a half-hour and had it as the primary app running for much longer than 15m, which is assuming that my ideas on CPU total and foreground use are what I believe they are.

In essence, what do those three numbers mean in terms of app/battery usage and what does it tell me?

The first thing to remember is that when an app runs, it doesn't actually do computation for the whole time it's running: most of the time it's idle, waiting for data to arrive over the network, or while you're looking at it on the screen. Only very badly-written apps and games keep the CPU active the whole time they're running: this runs the battery down very quickly, and makes your phone rather warm.

So even if Chrome has been on the screen for 30 minutes, it shouldn't have used 30 minutes of CPU time. If it's completely static in that time and you're not interacting with it, it might not have used any CPU time at all! But at the other extreme, even if it was continually scrolling a page, it wouldn't use 30 minutes of CPU time: the screen updates every 1/60th of a second, and each time it just has to run for long enough to work out what the next frame should be.

CPU foreground

Bearing this in mind, CPU foreground is how much time the app has been running on the CPU while an activity from the app was in the foreground. (It might also include when a service from the app was in the foreground: that is, displaying an "ongoing" notification.) It's not a very useful figure on its own.

CPU total

I'm sure you already know that apps can run services and broadcast receivers in the background, as well as activities in the foreground. (For more on this, see What's the difference between a service and a broadcast receiver? ) CPU total includes all of this CPU use. If it's a lot more than CPU foreground, you might suspect that the app is doing a lot of work in the background and therefore might be a battery hog. How much is "a lot" depends on the app. An app that keeps running to check some remote service will use more CPU in the background than a sudoku game.

Keep awake

When the screen of your phone is off, it starts to think about having a quick nap. It enters a low-power mode called sleep where the CPU is almost completely powered down until needed. Because this can interrupt apps' background activities, an app can use a wake lock to stop the device going to sleep until it's finished. (There's also another kind of wake lock, which stops the screen turning off automatically. A video player might use that kind of wake lock.) An app can also use an alarm to wake the device up to perform some background tasks.

Keep awake measures the length of time that this app has used wake locks or alarms to keep the device awake when it would otherwise have been asleep. In a way, this is potentially the biggest drain on battery. Sleeping uses much less power than staying awake, so if an app keeps a wake lock for a long time, it's keeping your device in a high-power mode all that time, even if the app isn't doing any useful work.

If you see an app whose Keep awake time is more than a few seconds, you should report a bug to the app developer, and you might consider uninstalling it. 30 seconds over the course of a whole day is reasonable for an app that does work in the background, but most apps will show less than a second here.


How do I turn off Stories to Read in Google Now? I do not want to see the Stories To Read cards in Google now. Is there any way to turn this feature off? I can only see an option to turn it off for particular websites.

Since Google's redesigned Feed as a replacement of Google Now on July 19, 2017, there's no easy way to remove Stories to read but to block every single source/topic.

James Wald commented:

  I was able to defeat the "Stories to read" section by blocking every single source using "Not interested in stories from ..." on each card. The stories section is now gone from my Google Now feed. There are hundreds of sources, so it took a while.

However they also mentioned,

  The only addition worth mentioning is that Google matches additional story sources over time, so the Stories section tends to reappear, requiring more manual blocking. It may not be such a great solution after all.

(Note: not tested personally)


How to root the SM-G900F Android 5.0 without tripping KNOX? I know the Galaxy S5 can be rooted without tripping knox on Android 4.4. but that "bug" has been fixed by Samsung, and the developer of TowelRoot won't fix it because he works by Google now. So TowelRoot will not work for me because I have already updated to Android 5.0.

Is there any other possible solution to root the Samsung Galaxy S5 G900F Android 5.0 without tripping the KNOX WARRANTY VOID to 0x1 or 1.

Screenshot:

(Touch for a larger image.)

Hope anybody will find a solution! Thanks!

Edit: Just updated my phone. Still on 5.0, updated the screenshot.

I did it following from this guide here. Broadly (though I strongly suggest you follow the guide):

1) make backups

2) buy mobile Odin Pro from android market (5 USD)

3) downgrade using Odin (normal one on PC) to 4.4.

4) install towelroot and run it

5) use mobile Odin to flash rooted lollipop ROM *

6) use normal odin to flash compatible bootloader and modem.

*For some reason, using mobile Odin did not trip Knox when I did this, per the guide I linked. It still warned me that Knox would be tripped, even though it wasn't. I have no idea why it didn't trip Knox, so I can't guarantee it won't when you do it.


Can't install apps on SD card I'v got the Alcatel One Touch Pop C9
It has not much space by itself, thats why I use a SD card.
I tried to set the SD card as default install.
But everytime I want to install something I get the error that I dont have enough space and first need to delete someting.

Can somone help me please?

With Kind Regards,

Vlusion

No app can be installed on SD card if it isn't set as adoptable. Some apps can store it's data but thar isn't much space if you want to really move apps to SD use app like link2sd, but your phone has to be rooted.


Will updating from KitKat to Lollipop delete my data? I have a LENOVO A6000 running KitKat and I want to update it to Lollipop. I have important pictures and videos on my mobile.

Will my data be deleted or remain the same if I update my mobile?

If you're updating through your phone via an official update, the data will not be deleted...

However, if you're trying to update it manually it MAY be erased and you will need to take a backup


Use an SD card as internal storage I recently bought a Coowell V5 with a S905X mobo. I overwrote its firmware with one from a Nexbox A95 (that has the same S905X mobo), and now my internal partitions disappeared(mmcblk0p0,...p1,...).

What I think is, that either my internal memory is fried, or that my partitions just disappeared.

My question is, how can I remake them? Or maybe I can use an SD card and bind its partitions to the /system, /data, and /cache?

Yes, you can use the app link2sd from here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.buak.Link2SD&hl=it


unable to go into fastboot on LG phone I have been told that LG phones are painful to get into fastboot but i didn't realize it was impossible. I have the LG K8 2017 (LG-M200n) and I have tried all: #adb devices shows the device is listed, then #adb reboot bootloader does nothing but reboot my usb connected phone. of course fastboot devices shows nothing. I even tried the recommendations to enter fastboot by power down phone, vol down key and connect usb, but phone turns on normal, no fastboot. any help?

I found the answer. It is not possible because of the hardware itself. LG sucks really. Here is the info from their developers site which explains all the difficulty (LG K8 not listed below :():

"The following devices support unlocking the bootloader:
• LG V50: LMV500EM for the European market
• LG V40: LMV405EBW for the European market
• LG G7: LMG710EM for the European market
• LG V30: H930 and H930G for the European market
• LG G6: US997.USA for the U.S. open market
• LG G6: H870 for the European market
• LG V20: US996.USA for the U.S. open market
• LG V10: H960A for the European market and Android M (Except France)
• LG G5 SE: H840 for the European market
• LG G5: RS988.USA for the U.S. open market
• LG G5: H850 for the European market
• LG G4: H815 for the European market
Unlocking the Bootloader is only supported on selected devices."

The lesson learned here: verify the capabilities of the phone you want to buy before wasting your money.


Do I need a new Bluetooth headset? I just picked up an HTC Droid Incredible a few days ago. I already had a Plantronics Discovery 975 headset, which I like, so I've been trying to use it with the phone. It pairs fine and does work, but I've been having some problems that make it not very usable.

Problem 1: The "Bluetooth in-call volume" always goes to minimum between calls, and I can't hear the voice prompts. It doesn't matter whether I raise the volume using the Bluetooth or the handset, it always goes back to minimum on the next call.

Problem 2: The standard Navigation app (Google Maps Navigation for mobile) doesn't work with the Bluetooth at all (even if I make sure it's connected before starting of the Navigation app). I have to speak into the handset and all sound comes out through the phone's speaker. I can't find any setting to change this.

Problem 3: The Voice Dialer also doesn't work through the Bluetooth. The only way I can use the Voice Dialer is to hold the main button on my Bluetooth for 3 seconds. If I activate it from the phone, I have to speak into the handset.

Does this mean my Discovery is just not compatible with the phone or is there something I can do with settings to get it to work properly?

If I do need a new Bluetooth, can you recommend one that works well with an Android phone (or even better, one that works well with an Incredible)?

If I recall correctly, for Navigation directions over BT you need A2DP (just like music).  I just checked the specs on Plantronics' website for the Discovery 975 and it doesn't mention having this.

There's also a setting somewhere in Navigation to route it over the speaker or the headset; I remember turning it off on mine because it was interrupting conversations when I was trying to listen.  Unfortunately I can't recall exactly where the setting is; I'll update this later if I find it again.


Is there anyway to increase the bass in Jelly Bean? I know the iphone had a similar feature built in. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android version 4.2.2

You can access the built-in graphic equalizer by going to Settings, then Sound, then Audio effects.


Can I safely install Android system updates with disabled Gapps? On my Nexus 5x for personal choices I disabled all the Gapps (Google apps) via the Settings menu, included "Google Play Services" and "Google Services Framework". With these two apps disabled the Software Update screen is not available at all, so I'd like to install the May 2016 security patch with the Adb Sideload method.

The question is, do I risk any bootloop or any other issue if I manually update while those apps are disabled?

I would say no for several Gapps because if so they wouldn't even let me disable them, but the two mentioned above are required to get the update screen, that's why I'm worried about it. The phone has the stock ROM, no unlocked bootloader, nothing unusual.

I answer myself, just updated and everything has gone smooth! Nice!


android x86 6.0 doesn't support mouse integration? A while back, I made a virtual machine on VirtualBox for Android 4.4. I had a little trouble getting mouse integration to work for it, but I figured it out.

More recently, I tried Android 6.0 Marshmallow on a virtual machine. Mouse integration would not work, and as such, I could not get as far as setup. I've since moved back to Android 4.4 which displays a mouse pointer just fine.

Does android-x86 6.0 not support mouse integration?

The solution from Android X86 – No Mouse Cursor in Oracle VirtualBox:

  Make sure the VM is not running (powered off)
  Click on the VM name in the list (e.g., Android X86)
  Click Settings
  Click on the System category
  Make sure you’re on the Motherboard tab
  Change Pointing Device to PS/2 Mouse


What does “hand with 2 arrows icon” status icon represent? Can anyone help me identify this icon that looks like "a hand with 2 arrows"

It's called Air Browse and it was available in some older Galaxy phones.

You can disable it by going to Menu --> Settings --> Section "Motion" --> motions and gestures --> Air Browse

Details here


Is it Essential to Root a Nexus Device in order to Customize or Personalise it to your liking? My understanding is that rooting an android smartphone or tablet allows you to add functionality and to flash custom ROMS (amongst other things) like MIUI or CyanogenMOD.

A Nexus device offers the pure "vanilla" android experience from Google without the additional "skins" etc. that mobile phone companies add/tweak to further differentiate their product from one another.

If it is the case that nothing has been added/tweaked, customised etc. on a Nexus 4/7/10, can I achieve this personalisation (via the Google Play Store) on such a device without the need for rooting?

If you're not sure if you need Root, you don't need Root.

There are any number of alternative Launchers you can install that will give your device a custom look-and-feel and add/adjust functionality from Vanilla Android. Heck, there are Launchers that can simulate the look-and-feel of iPhone and Windows Phone.

Have a look on the Play Store for "Launchers" or "Home screen replacements".


adb backups fail with "Internal exception during full backup" For a while now, I've not been able to create a full adb backup of my Nexus 4.

Now finally I've been able to catch a slightly more useful error report with logcat:

D/BackupManagerService( 2061): Calling doFullBackup() on de.blinkt.openvpn
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/r/app_webview
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/r/app_webview/Web Data-journal
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/r/app_webview/Web Data
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/r/app_webview/paks
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/f/8b8192c9-4aa3-42b3-affb-fd49fc7044d7.vp
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/sp/WebViewChromiumPrefs.xml
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/sp/activities.LogWindow.xml
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/sp/de.blinkt.openvpn_preferences.xml
I/file_backup_helper( 9115):    Name: apps/de.blinkt.openvpn/sp/VPNList.xml
I/art     ( 2268): Wrote stack traces to '/data/anr/traces.txt'
I/art     ( 2288): Wrote stack traces to '/data/anr/traces.txt'
I/art     ( 2717): Wrote stack traces to '/data/anr/traces.txt'
I/art     ( 2061): Explicit concurrent mark sweep GC freed 217771(9MB) AllocSpace objects, 32(1594KB) LOS objects, 33% fr
ee, 29MB/44MB, paused 2.136ms total 158.660ms
E/BackupManagerService( 2061): Internal exception during full backup
E/BackupManagerService( 2061): java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: length=32768; regionStart=0; regionLength=-1
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at java.util.Arrays.checkOffsetAndCount(Arrays.java:1719)
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at java.util.zip.DeflaterOutputStream.write(DeflaterOutputStream.java:174)
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at com.android.server.backup.BackupManagerService.routeSocketDataToOutput(BackupManagerSe
rvice.java:3135)
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at com.android.server.backup.BackupManagerService.access$900(BackupManagerService.java:15
8)
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at com.android.server.backup.BackupManagerService$FullBackupEngine.backupOnePackage(Backu
pManagerService.java:3271)
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at com.android.server.backup.BackupManagerService$PerformAdbBackupTask.run(BackupManagerS
ervice.java:3849)
E/BackupManagerService( 2061):  at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:818)
D/BackupManagerService( 2061): Full backup processing complete.
D/bu      ( 6589): Finished.
D/AndroidRuntime( 6589): Shutting down VM
D/BackupManagerService( 2061): Full backup pass complete.

I'm running CyanogenMod 12.1-20151007-SNAPSHOT-YOG4PAO334-mako. This problem started a few releases earlier though.

My Android file system is encrypted. I usually run the backup like this:

adb backup -apk -shared -system -all -f "adb-backup.$(date +"%Y%m%d").ab"

Any ideas?

(BTW, I think the fact that OpenVPN was being backed up just before the issue is probably a red herring)

While I was typing up the question I managed to finish a full backup. I used the -nocompress flag (which isn't documented in the help for adb), and used the same passphrase for the backup as for my Android file system encryption.

So, this was the full command:

adb backup -nocompress -apk -shared -system -all -f "adb-backup.$(date +"%Y%m%d").ab"

logcat:

...
I/file_backup_helper( 6652):    Name: shared/0/0/Ringtones
I/file_backup_helper( 6652):    Name: shared/0/0/Ringtones/hangouts_incoming_call.ogg
I/file_backup_helper( 6652):    Name: shared/0/0/Ringtones/hangouts_video_call.ogg
I/file_backup_helper( 6652):    Name: shared/0/0/Ringtones/hangouts_message.ogg
I/file_backup_helper( 6652):    Name: shared/0/0/Podcasts
I/file_backup_helper( 6652):    Name: shared/0/0/Music
D/BackupManagerService( 2061): Full package backup success: com.android.sharedstoragebackup
D/BackupManagerService( 2061): Full backup processing complete.
D/bu      ( 9722): Finished.
D/AndroidRuntime( 9722): Shutting down VM
D/BackupManagerService( 2061): Full backup pass complete.


Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) - Encryption, select different PIN than Screen Lock I was wondering if one can select different passwords for device encryption in ICS?

Having the same password for encryption and unlocking the screen isn't quite that secure...

Thanks for hints.

No. A quote from http://support.google.com/android/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663755:

  Note that this is the same PIN or password that you use to unlock your phone without encryption, and cannot be set independently.

EDIT: I found this on xda, but I think it might be risky and not worth the effort.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1680857


How can I remove the "Install Google Play Games" prompt in apps? I uninstalled the Google Play Games app on my phone to get rid of the other annoying prompt, but now I'm left with this one. Is it possible to remove the prompt shown above?

It's really frustrating to see that pop-up every time we play a game.
There's a solution if You've a rooted phone with Xposed installed in it.
It's a Xposed module which will stop that pop-up.
Be careful if not rooted.

Link - No Play Games - Xposed Module


ADB connection problems on LG Optimus Zone 2 running KitKat I have purchased an LG Optimus Zone 2 to develop on and I have removed all of the drivers for the phone on my Windows 7 machine. I downloaded the OEM driver from LG and disconnected my network. After installing the OEM driver, I connected my device to my computer (and I have already enabled developer mode on my device and selected USB debugging), but when I run adb devices, it says that no devices are connected.

Clearly it is installed on my machine because in compmgmt.msc it says that it found the LG Android MTP, and on the device itself it asks me for internet connection/MTP/camera or just charging mode (I always select the MTP mode).

I for the life of me can't figure out why it won't connect (I'm trying to test an app locally on the machine). Could anyone help me with this issue?

Rebooting the phone and setting it to connect via USB as Internet Connection -> Ethernet worked for me.

LG also has drivers on their site (http://www.lg.com/us/support-mobile/lg-VS415PP) but I'm not sure they're necessary for this to work, and even with them installed ADB only works when in Ethernet mode.

You're not wrong to be frustrated, though - I've been developing for Android since 2009 and have used dozens of devices, and I've never once had one that required a setting like that for ADB to work (at least not any Google-certified official devices). Weird.

EDIT (Aug 25 2014) - Looks like after the phone is rebooted or unplugged, sometimes it "forgets" its connection mode, or tries to connect as an installer even though it's still set to do an Ethernet internet connection. Re-selecting the statusbar notification and setting it back to internet+ethernet again works, but it's kind of annoying to do regularly. Then again, for the $25 I spent on this phone, I suppose I can't expect too much...


How to prevent MoboGenie popups in Chrome? I browse around with many tabs open. Frequently, an ok/cancel dialog "MoboGenie - Play Now" pops up for attention. The host (of the popup) site keeps the dialog hidden till it pops up for attention.

I find it difficult to single out sites which host this popup. None of them host suspicious or intrusive advertisements otherwise.

there is an application you can download for rooted devices called AdAway.
 it's not in the market, but if you don't have a problem with installing third party apks, this is a complete advertisement blocker for both in-app and browser.

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.adaway