Unlocked Nexus 6p stuck in boot loop I have a Nexus 6p that is unlocked and rooted. Last night it restarted unprompted (this has happened a few times since Nougat) and it no longer boots into the OS. I get the initial warning about the unlocked bootloader, the white Google logo with the unlock icon, and then it just keeps on rebooting. I powered it off last night and let it rest but that didn't help.

This morning I downloaded the 7.0.0 (NBD90X, Oct 2016) angler image. I tried flashing boot, cache, recovery, and system manually with fastboot and it was still in a boot loop after restarting. I ran flash-all.bat and that didn't help either. I'm not sure what to try next.

Update: I found the hidden menu in recovery mode (hold power+volume up in the recovery menu). Then was having difficulties getting ADB to recognize the phone when I noticed there was a different ADB version running in the background by Droid Explorer. I got that sorted out and uninstalled when I still couldn't get ADB to see the phone when some combination of uninstalling/reinstalling the USB drivers from google and trying different usb ports finally was able to list a device when running adb devices.

So after running wipe cache partition and running apply update from ADB with the latest OTA update (bootloop), and the latest Marshmallow update (Warning: Nofile_contextThis package is for "angler" devices; this is a "".), I'm still stuck.

Update #2: well since I haven't had any luck with anything so far, I tried doing a factory reset with hardware buttons in the recovery menu. Still boot loops. Are there any other options or should I ship it off to Huawei?

Final Update: since no other options worked I contacted Google Fi and they are sending me a replacement phone. Even though I am a few days beyond the warranty's expiration they are sending it free. (I also contacted Huawei and they comically sent me an email telling me to call their support's phone number.)

From what I understand, you said initially that the phone was unlocked and rooted, added to that, since you get the warning message during boot, the bootloader is also unlocked (evidence is the unlocked symbol that comes up at the bottom center of the screen). I used to run into this trouble while rolling back to stock and clearing userdata and cache before the first boot. What you can do again is:

Boot into fastboot.
fastboot erase userdata  [or fastboot format userdata]
fastboot erase cache [or fastboot format cache]
fastboot flash radio <<radio img>>
fastboot flash bootloader <<bootloader img>>
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash recovery <<recovery img>>
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash boot <<boot img>>
fastboot flash system <<system img>> [at this point, you must see
 it actually recreate the system partition]
fastboot flash userdata <>
fastboot reboot-bootloader
volume up / down and get into recovery mode
Power button + vol up [then let go of vol up, then power] to enter
 recovery options
use vol up / down and format the device [I believe it's the last
 but one option]

Reboot device and sit tight for at least about 10 mins.


cache formatting not working I already had problem where my phone was turning on for a while, showing 'apps are optimizing' and 'no storage left'. I had fixed it previously using recovery mode and wiped cache partition. Everything worked perfectly straight away.

However this time I tried already wiping cache partition in the same way about 10 times already and I also tried to manually delete all content of /cache using adb and su, with no success.

Is there anything I could do to fix it?

If this can help, my phone is Nexus 4, running rooted 5.1.1 lollipop.

If you are familiar with fastboot, you could boot or flash TWRP and format the cache that way.

Download the current TWRP img file, copy it to your fastboot folder, and issue the command

fastboot boot twrp-3.0.2-0-mako.img

Once it loads and starts at the main menu, select Wipes and then untick everything except Cache and Dalvik cache and execute the wipe and reboot.

If that fails, it might be time to flash a new factory image.


How do I know which process or app currently accessing camera? How do I know which process or app currently accessing camera ?

android 5.1, nexus 5, shell access (no root)

Try going into settings>privacy>privacy guard. It shows which apps has permission to camera, location, etc...
Also, when you're viewing all your apps in your setting, when u open them it usually shows which apps have which permissions.


samsung s9 Charging time My new Galaxy s9 is taking around 1 hr 39 mins to completely charge the battery. I checked with Samsung customer care they said it should take normally 50 mins to 1 hr.

They did some test on mobile to see is there any other app is preventing to charge, but nothing helped to see the problem. So before I send the devices back to them, I just wanted to see did any of us is facing this kind of issue or is it normal to take this long?

I am not sure why Samsung support would tell you that a full charge cycle is less than an hour... All references I have found, like this one, indicate a normal charge time from 0-50% of around 36-40 minutes, and a full charge cycle from 0-100% would be in the range of 1hr 37min to 1hr 45min using the stock A/C wired charging adapter.

There are many possible things that could make this charge cycle time take longer, but not less time. I am not aware of anyway to get it in the time frame you were told.

I believe your device is functioning normally and your charge time of 1hr 39min falls well within the normal range.


Where does Google Now get its weather data? What source/data provider does Google use for its weather data for Google Now (and other services)?

I've checked its forecasts against weather.gov, weather.com, accuweather.com, wunderground.com, and weatherstreet.com and can't find one that matches for the same location. The reason I ask is because there have been multiple times that it's forecast is horribly wrong. Case in point: currently its forecast is 13 degrees F lower than the closest one of the others above.

Google displays Weather conditions using Weather Underground as per Google Web Search Features page.

  All weather conditions and forecasts are provided by Weather Underground, Inc.

So, Google Now also might be picking from the same source.


Setting permissions for which networks an app can access New to this forum, not sure if this is a duplicate.

Is there a way to restrict which networks an app can use? For example, I don't want to use a location-based dating app (or similar , e.g. Snapchat) on my work/university/school network. I would prefer those apps to only access the internet from my home network (private) or cellular data (again private). This is to avoid legal issues, etc.

I've set network settings to "restrict background usage" and also restricted networks. But as far as I can tell, this only stops apps from accessing the internet in the background.

I'm using lollypop on a Samsung in case that makes a difference.

How should I go about restricting the particular networks (WiFi, cellular) that an app can access? Is there an app I need? Do I need to root?

Apologies again if this is a duplicate.

You can try NetGuard - no-root firewall to block internet access for apps selectively (forbid an app access to WiFi or cellular data). It works without Root as name suggests. It's available from Google PlayStore as well as from F-Droid.
You can use it to disable particular apps from accessing internet while you're connected to your work/university/school network.


Is it possible to extract the kernel and device tree from a rom? Is it possible to extract the kernel and device tree from an android 6.0 rom?

If it was that easy then we'd have custom ROMs in no time for every phone on the planet.

What's on our phone are compiled, it's basically impossible to decompile them (modern decompilers are not as powerful as you'd like to think), and sometimes illegal when dealing with proprietary components.


Activate Android app by pressing thumb on timeout / locked screen for few seconds This might seem  like a strange question. Is there some sort of way for an  app to launched by pressing the screen for a few seconds on touch screen phones? the reason why I ask is because this would be a great feature for like a panic button. of course the app will have to calibrate to the owner's thumb to prevent accidental pressing from objects in purse or pockets.

Regards.

There are several shutdown apps on the market, they all needed root. You can combine them with WidgetLocker and put their icons on your lockscreen for quick shutdown.


Android L Preview After device unlock Contacts app open In My Nexus 5 after I unlock my device ervery time contacts/people app is open up automatically. Do I Need to change any settings??

Is it possible that you are swiping sideways?
the contacts app is on the left of the lockscreen, the phone app on the right, and to unlock you must swipe up


Sensitive option is missing on App Notifications Nexus 5, Android 5.

According to this article on LifeHacker, I am supposed to see a "Sensitive" option like below, but I don't, for any app.

I have a lock screen pattern. All lock screen notifications appear with a title and then, in italics, Contents hidden.

How can I get the Sensitive option for my apps?

I assume that you are seeing the "Block" and "Priority" options from the screenshot, but not the "Sensitive" one. In this case, I have been able to replicate your situation.

In the Sound & notification settings page, there is an option called "When device is locked". If this is set to "Show all notification content" then the "sensitive" option is available. If it is set to "Hide sensitive notification content" then it is not.

From a little bit of experimentation, I think that this option is poorly named. As far as I can make out, what actually happens is,

If it is set to "Show all notification content" then the content of notifications is shown on the lock screen unless you have specified that that app's notifications are sensitive, in which case they are hidden.
If it is set to "Hide sensitive notification content" then it is assumed that all apps are sensitive, and no notification contents are shown (but the titles still are).
If it is set to "Don't show notifications at all" then no notifications are shown on the lock screen.

In other words, despite the wording, the "When device is locked" menu is an overall setting, and it can be overridden for individual apps when this is applicable.


How to access phone via USB cable (not SD Card) I am using a HTC G2 running Android 2.3. I would like to access content on my phone (not on the SD Card). This includes phone contacts and any data in the phone memory. Also is there a way to access the contacts inside the SIM card via USB cable and the phone.

Thanks for any assistance.

You need root to access most of the phone storage, such as the data partition and databases (e.g. contacts).  Even then you need to use adb from the Android SDK which is not particularly user friendly.  There's no way to access the SIM over USB that I know of — it would be pretty complicated to make that work.


Android devices shows up in wrong account on Google Dashboard I noticed today that my Android device shows up in the Google Dashboard for my work (Google Apps) address, as opposed to the Google Dashboard for my personal address.

I am wondering if this is even an issue? Of course I would prefer to have it associated with my personal account dashboard.

I have not tried to remedy the issue yet. Maybe my first step would be to delete the work account on my Android and see if it would default to a different account. As far as I can tell there is no option for changing a "default account" with which your Android associates.

Thoughts?

The default account is the one that you logged in with first. If this was your Apps account and the "Remove account" option doesn't work than on a non-rooted device the only way to remedy this I to perform a Factory reset. However the device will still show up on your dashboard, I have devices I stopped using two years ago still there.

One other thing to note is that your phone should show up on all accounts that you're logged in with. If it doesn't, try downloading a free app with that account.


Android Photo/Media/File Permission I've downloaded an android application, then the application asked about this permission:

I've searched for it but there isn't any efficient answer. Does it mean that the application is able to send all of my files through the Internet?

Google has mentioned following info about this permission here:

  Photos/Media/Files

  An app can use files or data stored on your device. Photos/Media/Files access may include the ability to:

  Read the contents of your USB storage (example: SD card)
  Modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
  Format external storage
  Mount or unmount external storage

  [Does] it mean that the application is able to send all of my files [through] the Internet?

Nothing can be concretely  said solely based upon the data mentioned in the question. However, if the said permission is the only permission requested from the app, then the answer would be NO, the app can't send any of your file through the internet.

This may be of your interest: Photos/Media/Files and Full Network Access


When receiving a call, how do you mute the phone? This might seem like a stupid question, but I couldn't find the answer on this SE so here goes. When I receive a call and my phone starts to ring, how do I mute the phone without answering or dismissing the call? Is this done differently depending on the Android OS version?

Just press any volume button while its ringing.
On side note, make sure there isnt an option like answer by volume buttons in settings->accessibility. If there is, make sure its disabled. If its not there, then you are fine ;)
Hope this helps.


How to use or uninstall a hidden app in Android? This question is about a Nexus 4 bought in the United States and used in India.

Backstory: A friend from US gifted the phone to me. When I first switched the phone on, it had the app google earth. After configuring the phone with accounts and installing apps, the google earth application disappeared from the apps shown in the App Drawer. I initially presumed that the app may have been uninstalled after learning that Google Earth app is not available for the country India.

Few days later, I installed AppBrain, a third party app market app on the phone. AppBrain lists all the apps I have on the phone and even shows Google Earth. From the AppBrain app, attempting to open the Google Earth app gives the message "This app is not executable"; attempting to uninstall the app gives the message "Uninstall unsuccessful".

Questions:

How do I use this hidden app (or how do I unhide the app) on my phone now that I know its present and installed?
If I wanted to uninstall it, how would I be able to do it?

You can't uninstall it. On Android, the apps you install yourself are stored in the main internal storage. The apps that come pre-installed are not installed there, but rather in the phone's ROM. They're not taking up space that you could use for other apps, and they can't be changed or deleted.

To remove this one app, you'd have to replace the whole ROM (including the operating system) of your phone with a custom one such as Cyanogenmod. (See the custom-rom tag info for more information on custom ROMs.) This would have other effects too, so it's probably not something you'd want to do just to remove an app that doesn't run and isn't occupying any internal storage.


Error 64 when flashing OpenGapps One Gapps (pico and nano) errors with 64 when I try to install using twrp-3.3.1.4. I know I'm using the right version. I'm on a brand new One Plus 7 Pro.

##############################
  _____   _____   ___   ____
 /  _  \ |  __ \ / _ \ |  _ \
|  / \  || |__) | |_| || | \ \
| |   | ||  ___/|  __/ | | | |
|  \ /  || |    \ |__  | | | |
 \_/ \_/ |_|     \___| |_| |_|
       ___   _   ___ ___  ___
      / __| /_\ | _ \ _ \/ __|
     | (_ |/ _ \|  _/  _/\__ \
      \___/_/ \_\_| |_|  |___/
##############################

Open GApps nano 9.0 - 20191017

- Mounting  /vendor

find: /system/system: No such file or directory
ls: /system/system: No such file or directory
- Gathering device & ROM information

***** Incompatible Device Detected *****

This Open GApps package cannot be
installed on this device's architecture.
Please download the correct version for
your device: arm

******* GApps Installation failed *******

- Copying Log to /sdcard

- NO changes were made to your device

Installer will now exit...

Error Code: 64
cp: can't stat '': No such file or directory
ls: /system/system: No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/system/system/etc/g.prop': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/system/system/default.prop': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/system/system/build.prop': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/vendor/vendor/build.prop': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/data/local.prop': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/build.prop': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/system/system/addon.d/70-gapps.sh': No such file or directory
cp: can't stat '/cache/recovery/log': No such file or directory
__bionic_open_tzdata: couldn't find any tzdata when looking for CST6CDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0!
__bionic_open_tzdata: couldn't find any tzdata when looking for posixrules!
- Unmounting  /vendor

Updater process ended with ERROR: 64
I:Install took 9 second(s).
Error installing zip file '/sdcard/open_gapps-arm64-9.0-nano-20191017.zip'
Updating partition details...
I:Data backup size is 0MB, free: 227550MB.
I:Unable to mount '/usbstorage'
I:Actual block device: '', current file system: 'vfat'
...done
I:Set page: 'flash_done'
I:operation_end - status=1
I:TWFunc::Set_Brightness: Setting brightness control to 5
I:TWFunc::Set_Brightness: Setting brightness control to 0

I found that if upon receiving this error, before booting into LineageOS I can

Boot into the bootloader from TWRP,

Click on Reboot
Click on Bootloader

Boot into a new TWRP from the bootloader

Run twrp boot ./twrp.*.img

I can then install the gapps.

What cause this? Well my theory now is that the instructions on the Lineage OS suggest Wiping the System partition

  Now tap Wipe.
  Now tap Format Data and continue with the formatting process. This will remove encryption and delete all files stored in the internal storage.
  Return to the previous menu and tap Advanced Wipe, then select the System partition and then Swipe to Wipe.

I was doing that and it was working for the purposes of installing LineageOS, but I believe after the Advanced Wipe on the System Partition something wasn't working. It's as if the wipe was complete and LineageOS could be installed, but mounting the partition after the install of LineageOS required rebooting into the recovery again. If you allow LineageOS to boot up before you flash GApps all bets are off. Worse this was the only way for it to work because if I rebooted into the recovery I would get the LineageOS recovery -- LineageOS now replaces TWRP entirely. I may have been able to install GApps from the LineageOS recovery's ADB Sideload option, but  rebooting into TWPR recovery by proxy of the bootloader worked too.


Enabling adb on Beaglebone Black I have successfully loaded TI-Android pre-built image on a BBB which was downloaded from here. Everything works well on the device. I have been trying to enable adb without much luck. Basic HW and SW is as follows

Hardware

Beaglebone black.
4DCAPE-43T.
5V power supply.
mini usb connection to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS host system.

Software

TI-Android JB pre-built image
(TI_Android_JB_4.2.2_DevKit_4.1.1_beagleboneblack.tar.gz).
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS host system.

On the BBB I have turned on USB debugging by

App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Developer options"

On the Host side

lsusb output is

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 10f1:1a52 Importek

/etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0451", MODE="0666"

I have executed the following two command

chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
sudo service udev restart

When I do an

adb devices

I don't see the BBB, but when I have HTC phone attached I do see a valid response.

What I am doing wrong?

Also I plug the mini-usb to the host machine. Is this correct? Or do I have connect to the serial debugging port.

Thanks

Neither of the vendor IDs you've added to the udev rules file correspond to a device listed by lsusb. Other sources on the net suggest that the correct device ID is SYSFS{idVendor}=="1d6b", SYSFS{idProduct}="0104", but this device doesn't appear in your lsusb output either. Run lsusb with the device unplugged and plugged in to find which device is the right one, and edit your udev rules appropriately.

To confirm: you don't want to connect to the serial debugging port to get adb to work.


Is There an Official Google Reader App With Widget? Does anyone know if there is an official app from Google for Google Reader?

I would like an official app with a widget that displays the number of unread feed items.

Good News! Google just added widgets to the official Google Reader App.

There is a dearth of official apps for google's own services on google's own mobile OS.

No official Google Reader App, no official widget.

That may be because they work on optimizing the mobile versions of those web-services, to obviate the need for an additional app. You've already got the browser -- why install an app for a web-service?

This 2008 article on how gReader renders in mobile webkit might explain some of the concept.


How do you resize the Gmail widget? I can't seem to get the Gmail widget resized to full screen on my SG2. How do I resize it so that it covers the whole screen area?

Android 4.0.4.

If you're using the stock launcher, you can't.

If you use an alternative launcher like Nova Launcher or Apex Launcher (one which has support for scrolling & resizable widgets), then you can. Put the gmail widget on your homescreen by long-pressing and selecting the label of choice. THen long-press the widget itself and from the popup menu, choose RESIZE and resize the widget's dimensions as per your liking.

You haven't mentioned what version of Android you're using and Nova/Apex work only on v4+ (ICS). If you have an older gingerbread version, try ADW launcher. Instructions are similar, if not exactly the same.

You may also have to enable the functionality for "scrollable widgets" from within your launcher's settings panel to get the full benefit.


Every Google app stopped working and I cannot act on this Yesterday morning suddenly all my google apps (except partially Chrome) stopped working at the same time and I don't understand why, and surprisingly enough I cannot even act on this via the usual Google settings.

More precisely, this is a list of the issues:

Whatever thing I try to search in Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps and Google Play, they get stuck and let me wait forever without showing any result, and I have to terminate them.
Nothing happens if I uninstall the updates for these apps, leaving the preinstalled versions.
If I click on "Manage space" when selecting "Google Play Services", the corresponding window appears but disappears immediately after less than one second, thus preventing me from clearing data (for example).
If I select my Google account in "Accounts" and I click on "delete account" the account is never deleted and stays there, without generating any error message.
All the apps relying on Google services (like the apps which use Google Maps) are not working properly, some of them get even closed suddenly without generating any error message (perhaps because they get unexpected behaviour from the Google services.

So my two questions are:

Why is this happening? Do you have any clue?
How can I make my Google apps and services work again? I have the suspect there is no way to do this by just using the phone, perhaps I will need to connect it to a PC and do something via adb ?

My phone data:
Model: Huawei ALE-21 (P8 lite)
Android version: 5.0.1

I do not know how much control you have over your device, but I may have a few ideas.

1 requires root and the ability to flash zip files.

Deleting the google apps using an app (this does require root) and then flashing the correct gapps package from www.opengapps.org should reinstall all Google apps, thus remove the data stored in the apps.

2 does not require root and should work on a stock device

I believe Huawei phones have the ability to run in safe mode, and not start any apps in the process. This way you should be able to wipe the apps.

Enabling safe mode:
Off.
Press and hold to On.
When "Huawei "logo is displayed, release the key On.
Immediately after releasing the Power key, hold the key Volume down .
Keep holding down the Volume Down key until the phone finishes rebooting.
Release the key Volume down when you see Safe Mode appear in the lower left corner of the screen.
- source: www.howtosafemode.com

Disabling safe mode:
Simply restart :)

I'm currently on my phone so I'm sorry for the bad formatting.

Ideas?
Probably something went wrong with Google Play Services. Just reverting it to stock should fix it.


Arabic support for my Android device I've got a new phone (Samsung galaxy SII) with Android 4 on it.  I would like to be able to add Arabic support on it.  Is there a simple way to do so ?

I'm a newbie with Android related subjects, so I'm not able to handle complicated processes.

ICS supports arabic, and you can add keyboard languages from the settings of the device


How would I go about fixing SIM card not registering after flashing a custom ROM made for a clone of my device So, I have a BLU Life One X, which is a clone of the Micromax Canvas 5 and a few others.  I've installed a ROM made for the Canvas 5, after making a bunch of mistakes, including wiping my entire system.  The ROM is working just fine except for the actual phone part, which is not registering the SIM card.  WiFi works just fine.

More details here.

Cheers,

Neveraht, or whatever my name is on here.

I fixed it by doing the following:
Wiping Dalvik/ART Cache, Data, System, and Cache.
Flashing the ROM (Resurrection Remix).
Flashing the kernel fix.
Restoring Tee, NVData, and NVRam from my TWRP backup.

See this XDA thread for extra details.


2014 moto x battery life I'm experiencing an issue with my 2014 Moto X's battery running Android 5.1 and I was wondering if someone have any suggestions or something ...

for example, yesterday I had about 30% left of my battery when I launched "Real Racing 3" game to play and right before game even get to load, my phone powered itself off( since it was on 30% mark before, I decided to start it again, one phone finished booting I noticed my 30% went down to 5% and shortly after that phone powered itself off again, when I plugged in my phone into a charger and almost immediately my phone reported 30% mark on my battery...

today i let my battery completely die (it was about 10% when phone powered itself off) and I just finished charging it completely as well, but something tells me that isn't gonna fix anything...

any advise?

Even though you already drained the battery and recharged it, I would recommend doing it once more (except let the phone die), just to recalibrate the battery. After that, check out what is eating up your battery in the settings. Try playing with the different radios (BT, WiFi) and seeing what effect each one has. If all of these don't work, try getting a new battery under warrenty or buying one and replacing it yourself (I would try Motorola Moto X 2nd Generation Battery Replacement - iFixit)

If ALL of these don't work, then 5.1 is messing with your phone (even though I have a Moto X running 5.1) and try installing a rom of 5.0.1 or even something else like cyanogenmod.

Good Luck!


Overwrite chat back up Google drive I read that googlse drive only keeps the latest 7 days whats ap chat back up . And the older ones are over written.  Is this true

https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/android/20887921
   `Your phone will store up to the last 7 days worth of local backup files (Google Drive will only have the most recent). If you wish to restore a local backup which is not the most recent, you will need to do the following:

Download a file manager. Here are some choices: File Managers and Explorers.
In the File Manager, navigate to sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases. If your data is not stored on the SD card, you may see internal storage or main storage instead of sdcard.
Rename the backup file you wish to restore from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 to msgstore.db.crypt12. It is possible that your earlier backup may have been on an earlier protocol, such as crypt9 or crypt10. Do not change the number of the crypt extension.
Uninstall WhatsApp.
Install WhatsApp.
Tap Restore when asked.    `

As far as I understand if you manually backup to google drive you will have everything but with auto backup only last 7 days.


Samsung S3 I9300 no recovery no boot and odin fails to flash I have Samsung S3 GT-I9300

It was working fine but suddenly, I turned it on and it is stuck on the Samsung LOGO forever. It doesn't go to recovery mode when pressing HOME+VOL UP+POWER.
But I can still go to Download mode. However, Odin fails to install CWM and TWRP or official recovery

I tried to install Bootloader_XXELLA_Odin.tar via odin but it failed and now I start getting this message:

  Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in keys and try again

I can still go to download mode, what I can try now? Please if you have an answer be specific, or if you suggest flashing a boot-loader I would appreciate providing a single link (not a page with bunch of links).

Update

Now the problem is worse, I tried again to install CWM via odin after I disabled antivirus (thinking it maybe the cause). But the install failed again, and the phone is completely dead! It shows NO sign of life. No light, nothing.

What were you actually doing with your Phone? Did you try to install custom ROM/Recovery/Kernel/Mod and so on?

I too have S3 GT-i9300 which is working fine after replacing my motherboard because I came across Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) in S3.

If you are able to go to download mode then download the latest Stock version of S3 which is 4.3 JellyBean and flash it via latest odin.
Make sure USB Debugging is ON in your phone and your phone driver must be installed correctly.
You may use this link to download driver for Samsung Mobile.
Make sure before installing this software all the other previous/old driver are uninstalled.
I would recommend that you should try to ADB to see your phone has proper drivers installed. Just Google ADB and download it. (Put all the files in one folder named adb.)
Press +R to open Run. In it type cmd. Now Command Prompt should have started. (I assume that you put the folder adb in root of C: drive) Type the following commands.

cd <space> / - this will take you to root of C: drive
cd adb - this will take you in adb folder.
adb devices - this command will show all the devices currently attached to your system.

If you can't find any device then it means drivers are not properly installed.

Try it, hope this may help you.


Should I clear cache for Google Play Services or will an app misbehave? I need more space and I saw somewhere that I can clear the cache for Google Play Services but I'm not sure if something will go wrong

Help please!

Clearing cache for an app will never delete any important information, only data held to make loading images etc faster. Data, however, is often used to store important information.

If the app is using too much data, I would say that there probably isn't much harm in clearing it, but if the app doesn't store much data, there isn't much point.


Transfer all Contacts in Phone and Sim to Google Contacts Possible Duplicate:
  How to move phone contacts to Google?

I am using my New Samsung Galaxy Y mobile phone.
In My Contacts, I see that some are in SIM Memory, Some are in Phone Memory while others are in Google Accounts.
In the Import/Export Option, I see Import/Export to SD card and Import/Export to SIM Card.

I want to copy all my contacts in phone and sim memory to my Google Account. How do I do that? Is there any way to do it rather than doing it manually?

In the Contacts Menu there should be an option called Merge with Google.


mm-qcamera-daemon wakelock when idle My phone will randomly get the mm-qcamera-daemon wakelock. I know how to fix it, a simple reboot and all that, but it pops up when my phone is idle in my pocket. The phone starts to run hot and I can't restart it until it's nearly too late.

I haven't installed many apps that use the camera, and all of them are usually closed by the time I don't use my phone at school or anything. Possible culprits IMO are Lux and Flashlight.

This is a known bug with Android 4.4.2 KitKat.  Google is aware of it and are promising a fix with the next update.

According to the Google Code discussion, simply killing the responsible app is not enough to stop the drain. A reboot is always necessary. Uninstalling the app seems to be the only sure way to avoid having this happen in the first place.

Skype seems to be the most frequent culprit because its background services seem to interface with the camera, triggering Android's bug. It is recommended to temporarily uninstall such apps until Google releases the fix.


Added lock screen pin to encrypted device - can't unlock on boot now I have an encrypted cyanogenmod 13 device. I set the password manually via the command line using a guide like this. More recently I added a lock screen pin, and I think I set it to not ask on boot but I'm not certain now. I rebooted the device for the first time since adding the new pin but I can't unlock it now.

When it boots, it's loading the same disk unlocking screen as before, but it's asking for the pin instead. Entering it doesn't work, however. Since it's expecting a pin all it presents is a number pad - can't type the encryption password in case that's what it wants.

The question is, obviously, how can I unlock it. I know both the encryption password and the lock screen pin so I could do it via the USB+command line but neither ADB nor fastboot detect any devices.

Some users elsewhere have suggested trying the sim pin but a) same thing happens when sim is removed and b) the sim pin doesn't work anyway.

I'd like to get this unlocked soon, if not possible I need to do the whole setting up from scratch process as soon as possible.

Note: I have access to the device via the teamwin reovery thing which has a filemanager and terminal. Is there some command I can run to set the unlock type/keyboard back to normal?

Edit: I was able to use ADB when in recovery mode, but obviously changes made to settings.db don't propagate. What do I need to do to regenerate the "initramfs" or whatever android uses that contains all the necessary data to boot when encrypted? I assume that it has it's own copy of settings.db.

Since I have access to the recovery, I simply backed up everything, did a full-format (which wipes the encryption), restored, disabled the damn lock screen pin and then added the encryption again.

Not the ideal solution but hopefully helps someone in a similar situation.


LTE doesn't work after attemp of fixing hotspot using ADB I had problem with hotspot in Xiaomi Mi5s Plus after updating to MIUI10. I used ADB:

settings put global tether_dun_required 0

Unfortunately, after that mobile data and 4G network stopped working. Changing back this setting to "1" or "null" doesn't give any resoult.

2G and 3G network works (calling only, mobile data doesn't), I tried default settings, I tried restarting APN - no resoult. I got only notification, that system cannot install SIM Card.
I already reinstalled my system - also no resoult.

//Small edit:
I partly solved the problem by changing SIM port (my phone has dual-sim), but when I put SIM card to sim1 again - problem still exists.
When I put card to sim2 slot it says that it uses "default settings" and it works as should. What can I do to reset settings of sim1?

Try resetting your APN first

You can revert your APN type to default to remove the dial up networking feature i.e (dun) by this method:

On your phone, go to Settings → SIM card and mobile networks
Tap the entry for your carrier (or SIM card in question) → Access point names.
Scroll down to APN Type and replace,dun at the end (so the it should say default,supl,mms, or whatever was there).

Or just tap on your SIM card option → Access point names → Reset to default

If you do not see a change, then I'd suggest you reset Network settings:

Settings → More → Network settings reset


Problem With Phone Camera When I take a picture it says couldn't find file and when someone sends a picture on WhatsApp it says file doesn't exist on the sd card. I have to turn the phone off and back on and they have to send it again. I have ESfile explorer. I know my cousin moved some stuff. I don't know what to do please help.

I have the LG g stylo Android version 5.1.1. I have tried changing where my picture saves and erase es file explorer but nothing.

This is a pretty vague question (if you could modify to explain other details it would help, such as locations where images are working, how long after reboot does it stop working, etc) but it just sounds like an issue with Androids tmp folder used for "caching" images for quicker viewing.

This can be caused by deleting tmp, or by system IO errors on the dom, or a load of other possibilities. Without a more precise question I suggest you try reinstalling affected apps. If that doesn't work try backing up your important stuff (images, whatsapp, etc), wiping your phone, then restoring. If you have to do this DONT use system backup, that also points to the tmp IO handlers, which is probably what you're having an issue with.

Hope this helps


Transformer Primetouch screen response: is this normal? I recently got a transformer prime and just want to check whether the odd responses in the touchscreen are normal or not.

Below I have attached a screen shot from Photoshop touch. The odd snakeing down the diagonal strokes makes me think something is not quite right about the tablets touch screen. Is this normal on other primes?

THIS IS the ASUS answer I received!  Really, sweep it under the carpet.  I cannot return this unit, is already over the return period time....

I own a TF 201, I installed SketchBook Pro.

I also have an Ipad 2 (from work) with the same same software.

My issue, is the Transformer Prime, does not respond very well compare to the Ipad.

I truly wonder if this is a problem with the Transformer since all application even Skitch do not produce very smooth response be it with finger or capacitive stylus. Rendering drawings on the prime, results in broken lines, circles which are not complete and always feel like the line has to "catch up" to your finger or stylus. This is not a problem I experience on the Ipad.

Can you please advise if this is "working" as designed or is this a case of a screen not working to par (and how to resolve or exchange)? This is truly proving to be a disappointment has drawing is a very important feature to me. More so since this works flawlessly on the Ipad.

My unit, has the latest firware updates;
IML74K.WW_epad - 9.4.2.15-20120221
Touch Panel : MXT- 2.0 build -170

  Thank you for choosing ASUS products.

  We apologize for the late response. It is only till your email sent to
  Satisfaction-CA, I have picked up the case. Regarding to the problem
  that you were/are having, I ams afraid ASUS will be limited to support
  your product since this is a third party software, and you might have
  to contact the vendor for technical support. Given the fact that iPad
  and Prime are equipped with different OS, it is possible that the
  experience of using a complete identical software might varies. We are
  very sorry for the inconvenience induced in this matter. Please let us
  know if further questions and concerns raised. Your kind understanding
  is greatly appreciated.

  Tom Wang

  ASUS Canada 802 Cochrane drive, unit 2 Markham, Ontario, L3R 8C9
  Canada Fax: 905-489-2717

Tom, are you kidding?

This is the same with ANY drawing apps, or note taking application.  The ASUS screen is not as responsive and not responsive enough.

I'm using Android designed software for ICS, other users are doing the same and having the same issue.

You cannot really tell me this is working as designed?

Even user with the original Transformer are saying their older screen was more responsive compared to the new one!

Come on ASUS be responsible and add this to the list of must have fixes!

Thanks,


Samsung Galaxy S3 (i9300): Wiped Download mode Something went badly wrong while trying to flash my phone. I have somehow managed to delete Odin/Download mode. I CAN access ClockworkMod, but it's a very old version not supported by the ROM I wanted to use. I cannot access download mode.

Is there any way I can update ClockworkMod and/or restore Odin?

Galaxy i9300

I appear to now have some kind of download mode, though it's not the Samsung one - I just flashed a new ROM. Going to close this either way, as I don't think there's a simple solution other than sending it back.


Can factory reset recover deleted built-in apps? If ill root my phone and delete the browser and the play store for example... and then ill go into recovery mode and make a factory reset, will those app will come back?
If yes, is there a way to prevent simple factory rest to recover those app?
ty

If you have deleted those apps from system partition using root permissions (via su) then a factory reset will not restore those apps (see also this question for details).
Only installing a new firmware or manually installing an "firmware update" via recovery that contains the deleted apps (e.g. a OpenGApps package containing PlayStore) can restore them.


What could be the cause of not receiving push notifications through 3g (gsm)? When I'm on wifi I get push notifications normally. But if I go on 3g/4g only, I can use the net normally but I am getting no push notifications.

This is the same for several applications that get push notifications, so it's not an application's fault.

I was reading and there seems to be a single appplication in android that passes the push notifications? I was wondering if maybe that application had background traffic blocked by accident or what other reasons there may be.

If not, what other reason may be causing this?

I have mobile data enabled. Other internet stuff works fine.
My android is: 4.4.2

(this is a recent thing, I dunno what may have changed, but imagine a small child messed with my cellphone, it's possible)

I have found this. A while ago I went overseas and got paranoid and turned a bunch of the background data off in the data usage page. Had a play with it tonight and discovered "Google play services" was restricting. Turned it off and tested it, it seems to work. If you haven't already, try that.


What should I try to bring a rear camera back to life? I have been handed an H801+ Android phone, where the rear (main) camera has stopped working, and I have been trying to fix it without much success. I am looking for ideas as to what to try next.

The phone has been obtained from eBay and seems to be of no-name Chinese manufacture. It has 2GB of RAM and a 4-core CPU. It has three SIM ports, two cameras, a 2800 mAh battery, and all the usual wifi/bluetooth/GPS/gyro interfaces. The screen is approximately 6 x 2.5" in size and supports full HD. It is running Android 4.2.1 (I believe this is Jelly Bean).

I am told that the rear camera used to work, but now no longer does - I am wondering whether my friend received an Android update via her provider, which stopped it working. The front camera seems to work, although (since I am not used to large-screen devices) it seems to be permanently auto-focusing and clicking every few seconds. I don't know whether this is a feature or a fault!

Having done some research, I believe a "swirl" arrows icon should appear superimposed on any live camera image to toggle between camera devices, but I cannot see this anywhere. I have tried the following apps:

Camera (stock app) - front camera works fine, no way to switch to rear camera
HD Camera Ultra - crashes
Camera (downloaded) - only front camera
Dual Camera / Double Shot - crashes

Both of the crashy apps seem to have a lot of Play reviews, so I am minded to think there is a problem on my device specifically, rather than just that these apps are of low quality.

I notice that if I put Camera (the non-stock version) into Panorama mode, it tries to connect to the rear camera, whereas for movie and pictures it uses the front camera. However it seems to fail to connect to the rear camera:

  Camera error

  Can't connect to the camera.

I suspect this is a good sign - it is perhaps "half connected"!

I wondered if it just needed a factory reset, so I have done one, taking it back to "here's a demo of your device" state. However this hasn't made any difference.

My thoughts on the reasons why I cannot get this to work:

The rear camera has developed a hardware fault
The whole phone is fussy about what version of Android it uses and/or — given that it is unbranded — has not been tested as well as it should have been
The front camera is stuck repeatedly auto-focusing and as a result does not give the rear camera an opportunity to initialise (update: I don't think this is the case now; if I hold the phone far enough away, and focus on something in good light, the focus box goes green and the front camera stops auto-focusing)

There are a few things that might be worth a try:

Find a test (camera) app to give me techie info about the devices the phone can detect. I have looked for such a thing but cannot find one
Do a hard reset with a pinhole switch, though I cannot find one, and presume this is not an option
Downgrade Android an official way (using my SIM). This might bring the camera back to life, but possibly it may be overwritten when my friend puts her SIM back in
Upgrade Android the approved way. Using my SIM I have searched the Play store for "upgrade Android" but cannot find anything useful. I believe (from material on the web) there should be an upgrade option in "About this phone" but I don't seem to have that
Root the phone and try a later minor version
Root the phone and try a later major version

I haven't asked whether my friend would mind me rooting the phone, but I am given to believe it is safe these days. What do you suggest?

This is a common problem with this unit. I contacted the manufacture about it (http://www.orientdeal.com/orientphone-one-max-5-inch-1080p-screen-quad-core-1.5ghz-2gb-ram-32gb-rom-android-phone.html) and was told that due to the heat that builds up around the camera the modules fail. They recommend replacing the entire camera module. My unit they told me was under warranty and the work would be completed without cost, IF it was returned to them in China. I sent the unit off and many months later it was returned as "Undeliverable" I contacted them again and they re-confirmed I was shipping it to the correct address and had no idea why it had been returned. I sent the unit back again (At another $14 cost!)and once again after many months it has been returned as "Unclaimed" This time the manufacture will not return my emails or chats and I am beginning to question their honesty. For purchasing a brand new phone, I have now had to buy another to have one that works. I recommend looking at Elephone, quality is good and so far they stand behind their products. I am looking into replacing the camera module myself, but I doubt I would ever buy Orientdeal products again.


Change language for one application (Google Now voice recognition, root available) I normally run my phone in French. But unfortunately, Google Now will only support voice commands if I set the phone's language to US English.

I tried setting Google Now > Paramèters > Voix > Langue to anglias. This allowed me to perform Google searches using English. But I still couldn't use commands like "call…", "navigate to…" or "set an alarm…". These only seem to be available if I set the phone's overall language to English, which I don't want to do.

Is there any way to change the phone's language on a per-application basis? This would presumably require root access, which I have available. Basically, I'm looking for a root app which will chance the Unix locale for selected apps, or something like that. I want to make Google Now work without changing every other application to English. Thank you!

There is a way of forcing a certain app to be in different locale / language than your general phone settings!

you need to be rooted
install "xposed framework" from xposed.info
within this app install a module "app settings"
within this module search for "quicksearchbox" (it's the google search app)
change its locale to "english-us"
enjoy

Unfortunately xposed framework stopped working with android 5.0 Lollipop... so enjoy it until your phone is hit with the update :(


HTC Droid Incredible 2 - Mobile Data in Germany I have an old Verizon branded HTC Droid Incredible 2 running with Android 2.2.1. I got it second hand from a friend from the US, but I live in Germany and I want to use it here. Calling works, WiFi does too, but mobile data connection (UMTS, GPRS, EDGE etc.) does not.

My carrier is o2 (Telefonica), in Germany this means that I am using GSM frequencies around 1800 MHz.

Why does mobile data not work on my smartphone? Is it due to the frequencies, which aren't supported by my phone? Or is there a software trick, maybe trying CyanogenMod?

Thanks in advance!

Here are the details of my phone:
http://m.gsmarena.com/htc_droid_incredible_2-3938.php

I found the correct answer on my own.

I needed to add an APN to get mobile internet working.

Settings -> Network Settings -> Mobile Networks -> GSM-UMTS-Options -> Access Points -> Press Menu Button -> New APN

Add the information from the following link:

http://www.androidpit.de/de/android/wiki/view/APN_Einstellungen_O2

Have phun =)!


How can I view detailed information on a WiFi connection on an Android device? Background / Purpose
I'm setting up a wireless network in which a Raspberry Pi works as the router & access point (following Adafruit's Guide). After getting it all set up, I tested the network by connecting my Samsung S6 to the new wireless network (having disabled mobile data, of course), and successfully accessed the internet (and double-checked by watching the RasPi's syslog).

I'm having trouble connecting other devices to the network, and I think it may be due to settings or parameters I'm using but known nothing about (pairwise (TKIP?), proto (WPA2?), etc.).

I'm not asking about those settings & such, I know that's a question for a different forum -- rather, I want to know if it's possible to get detailed information from Android about the WiFi network it's connected to. Perhaps through the developer/debug mode, or using an external tool or application connected to or installed on the Android device?

From most (all?) Android handsets you can dial *#*#4636#*#* which will display a wifi menu with lots of detailed information regarding the wireless status.


How to update the software of an unrooted device? (Error Message) My device is recently unrooted, so I decided to update the software of my Samsung Galaxy Tab 3V (SM-T116BU) but this error message (The operating system on your device is modified in  an unauthorized way...) always shows up each time I tried to update the software even though I have unrooted my device. Is there a solution for this problem?

did you try with "Smart Switch" program from your PC, and download the update from there? As I saw in the video, you have to download the program, and check the latest update for your phone when connecting via USB. You can check this video, I think you can solve your problem by this way.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRDyAlqIrhU


How dangerous is the fact that SELinux is in "Permissive" mode? What should I be wary of? I have installed a certain ROM which comes with SELinux in "Permissive" mode. This is the only (good) ROM that properly fits my device and there is no way to change the state of SELinux.

Now I'm not really sure what are the consequences of such a decision and would be happy if someone could explain it to me (I have googled it and know what it is theoretically... just not in practice).
Said ROM has its root on "disabled" so the device is supposedly unrooted but how does that fits with the SELinux I'm not sure.

TL;DR: Feel free to jump directly to the conclusion at the bottom if you like :) !

SELinux goal is to prevent privilege escalation by enforcing a mandatory policy which restricts possible actions from both unprivileged and privileged users.

The term "users" here also includes any process running on the device, no matter if it is directly related to the physical user actions (the human, you ;) ), since every process is running using some system "user" account.

Historically, permissions on Unix-based systems are handled using what is called a Discretionary Access Control (DAC) system. In this model:

Resources like files have owners who can define access rights on the resources they own: this allows them to decide whether a particular resource should be private (only the owner can access it) or if it should be shared with some other users.
On top of this you have the super-user (called root on Unix-based systems) which is the administrative user and has access to everything on the system. This account can be used interactively by a human (typically a system administrator) to maintain or repair the device, but usually this account will mostly be used by background or low level services which require such privilege level: device drivers, network configuration services, services needing to access files from every users or handling internal inter-users communication.

This is very nice and already provides a good security. However, what about circumstances such as these:

What would happen if a bug in a service running as root is found which would allow an attacker to trick such service into running some arbitrary code? Such attacker would gain a complete access to the device. To give some concrete examples, such bug could be triggered by sending specially crafted network configuration information (DHCP) or a MMS to the phone.
What would happen if some user does not protect private resources correctly? Then these resources could be maliciously accessed (read, maybe even modified or deleted) by other unprivileged users. This is typically what you have when a malicious application is running on your phone (no matter if you have been tricked into installing it, or if it came here by-itself by using a bug in another unprivileged application, a browser or mail client for instance), and this malicious application tries to directly access other applications data or storage locations (it can do so to access normally unreachable data or to install itself in several places in order to make its removal harder).

Here comes SELinux.

SELinux is a Mandatory Access Control (MAC) system. While in the previously described DAC system users were responsible of setting appropriate right on their own resources, with a MAC system a system-wide policy (provided with the operating system) is enforced to both privileged and unprivileged users.

This solves the two issues mentioned above in the following ways:

As I said, this policy also applies to privileged users. This means that, with a properly designed policy, a service designed to handle the device's network configuration will be unable to do anything else: it will have no access to SMS for instance, and a service handling SMS will have no access to the network configuration, and neither of them will have access to the user's data, despite the fact that both are running using the super-user account.
Android recently included a multi-user feature which is enforced by SELinux, preventing any user from accessing other user's data. But beyond that, SELinux policy is also responsible from describing permitted applications behavior, and most likely even if some resources are not properly protected using the DAC system SELinux will come at the rescue and still prevent the malicious application from directly access them.

The DAC and MAC systems are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary the MAC system (SELinux) acts as a second layer of defense behind the DAC system (the traditional Unix-like permissions). The job of SELinux is to block any activity contrary to the policy which, given only the DAC system, would otherwise be accepted.

The tricky thing is that such policy can be very complex to write: it must indeed cover every device's components for every possible usage in every situation. In fact, no matter if some action may be legitimate in your situation: if it is not in the policy, it is forbidden. Poorly designed policies can therefore have random consequences, like application crashes, unusable functionality, and so on.

That's why the first versions of Android shipping SELinux included it in "Permissive" mode by default. In this mode, SELinux will log policy violations, but it will not attempt to block the associated activity. By analyzing the resulting log files, it becomes possible to correct and enhance the policy up to the point when the only remaining policy violation are indeed malicious or undesired behaviors. At this point, SELinux can be turned into "Enforcing" mode: it will now not only log but also block every offending action.

Conclusion

SELinux is a mitigation technique. It does not prevent attackers from entering into your phone, but it ensures that once there they can do as few things as possible, ideally nothing useful thus removing any interest of attacking the phone in the first place.

The older the ROM, the larger the number of security bugs which would open such access. SELinux would be an efficient way to keep a minimum of safety despite these known vulnerabilities, however to function properly SELinux relies on a complex policy.

If your ROM is provided with SELinux in "Permissive" mode by default, this likely means that the policy it contains is not reliable enough to be safely switched into "Enforcing" mode.

If you are techie enough and have access to the phone log (dmesg at least, but usually they are also copied into logcat: there are applications allowing to see the latter one but depending on your Android version they may require root access), you can check if you find "avc" entries: these are messages telling you that SELinux has just detected an action going against the policy.

Here is an example of such entry taken from CyanogenMod's website:

type=AVC msg=audit(1363289005.532:184): avc: denied { read } for pid=29199 comm="Trace"
name="online" dev="sysfs" ino=30 scontext=staff_u:staff_r:googletalk_plugin_t
tcontext=system_u:object_r:sysfs_t tclass=file

If there is none, just a few of them or for any reason you think they may not keep you from using the phone, you may try to switch SELinux into "Enforcing" mode. In older CyanogenMod ROMs, this was easy and possible simply using an hidden option in the GUI (no need to root the phone or install any specific application), I don't know if other ROMs offered the same feature but since you used the CyanogenMod tag I suppose you may be lucky ;).


What is Windows animation scale? My  Samsung J3 (2016) running Android 7.1 used to sometimes lags while playing games (And also, FPS is bad). I read many posts and articals about speeding up my phone. I saw that you can improve its performance by going to Developer options > Windows scale animation and replace x1 with x0.5 or Off.

Question is, what those that affect? Those a higher setting make it run smother, better FPS? What happens when its at a lower or higher setting? That setting helps my phone, but I would like to know more about that setting.

This article at howtogeek explains it a bit (rather indirectly). As you may already know or have guessed, animations take up CPU cycles. How much, depends on this value.
Think of a flip book: If you want to make the animation look smooth, you need many pages. If you don't care, you skip some – but still take the same time from the first to the last page.
That's about what "animation scale" is about: the higher the value, the more "pages" will be used. Thus, when you lower the value, less CPU cycles are used – leaving more of them to "other stuff".

Other resources explaining this include androidtipsandhacks:

The Window animation scale, Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale all control the duration of the animations that appear as you open windows and switch between screens. The longer the duration the smoother they appear, but if you set them to be shorter (or even off altogether) the device feels much snappier.
Set the Window animation to 5x then tap the Transition animation button to see its immediate effect. We recommend .5x for all.

(see, they also recomment 0.5x). LiveHacker even recomends to turn them off altogether.


Can I use Titanium Backup to migrate from a Galaxy S2 with custom rom to a new Sony Z1 Compact? Next weekend I plan to buy a Sony Z1 Compact. Right now I have a rooted SGS2 with Android 4.3, custom rom (Avatarrom). I use Titanium Backup and this has always been great for restoring apps including their data, but that was always on the same phone. I think I'm going to root the phone immediately, connect my google account, reinstall all necessary apps from the Playstore, and then use Titanium backup to restore data only. I'm not going to install a custom rom right now I think.

I wonder if this is going to work out, if you have tips, what the risks are, what to watch out for.

Be careful with restoring data from system apps, that might break things (and you'll have to factory-reset and start over). Different ROMs, different (structures of) system apps (their databases might differ). I had that once; in my case, affected apps (e.g. SMS) simply force-closed either right at start or shortly thereafter.

If you really want/need to restore system data, make sure to enable TiBu's "migration mode" (in the settings "troubleshoot" section). That way TiBu won't simply replace the apps' databases, but only try to "merge in" the data.


Add URL to homescreen Can I somehow place a link to an URL to the homescreen without having to open it first?

I would like to place a threema:// URL to the launcher -- of course, my browser won't show it long enough for me to choose any "Create shortcut" option, since it instantly opens Threema.

For anyone searching: Fennec Fdroid can do that with a little detour. Create a bookmark for any page and then edit that bookmark -- you can then enter any URL you like. For the bookmark, you can create a shortcut on the launcher afterwards.


Transfer everything to new phone? I am changing from one Galaxy S3 to another S3. How can I transfer ALL my stuff? (I am not rooted.)

Your apps will be synchronized with your Google account. You can see what apps are synchronized by going to the web-based Google play/android market site and going into account settings.

Your contacts as well are synchronized by default but to make sure, go to account settings on your phone.

Your pictures, downloads, and any other files you may want to transfer can be uploaded to your computer temporarily and then from your computer to your new phone.

Alternatively, you could do this last bit a number of ways:

Bluetooth: Bluetooth File Transfer
FTP: FTP Server, FTP Client
SAMBA: SAMBA Server, SAMBA Client

You get the idea: File Transfer Apps

You would need to root your phone to be able to access or copy the application data to your new phone.


'Clock' app does not show up in Running Applications My Nexus S comes with a default clock application where I can set an alarm. When I set an alarm then I see a little clock in my status bar.

If I go to 'Manage Applications' or 'Running Services', I would expect to see Clock there, but I don't?

If I go to 'All' from 'Manage Applications', then I do see the Clock app, and I can Force Quit it, however the clock in the status bar still appears.

Why doesn't the default Clock application ever appear in Running Applications or Services?

I use Go Launcher Pro. There in the running tab it shows Clock. May be he stock launcher application hides running system processes from showing.


How to cut and paste on Sony XPeria Z1? Assuming a healthy phone, what is the normal procedure for cutting and pasting from editable text fields on Android?

On my iPhone this pops up after selecting text, but I cannot even select the text on Android. The whole process is so intuitive on iOS I cannot even remember how I do it, it just happens naturally. On Android I can't work it out!

I'm mostly interested in version 4.2.2 and the multi-line plain text input used on the Wordpress app, though I have equal trouble with Notes and Chrome's address bar.

I want to occasionally move sentences around within a chunk of text, without duplicating them (so Copy is of limited interest, though I note it is equally difficult).

I have a Sony XPeria Z1.

NOTE: this question is about cutting, not copying. Thanks.

According to Sony, on their phones you double tap a word and some draggable gadgets will appear. Cut, copy etc appear at the top edge.


Displaying all images automatically in the gmail app? Is there any setting in the gmail app to show images automatically when you open an email instead of pressing on the little links?

Currently Gmail Released new App 4.7.2 with Auto Show Image feature By storing all images in specific server(Correct me if wrong).

See here

Link to Apk file


S7 Edge second sim disappears randomly I've got a dual-sim Galaxy S7 Edge (SM-G935FD) this spring and everything was fine until a week ago my second SIM started to disappear randomly. Basically I wake up the phone after a while and I see no indications of the second SIM: no signal bars and "No SIM card in slot 2" message in settings. Rebooting the phone sometimes solves it for a while -- the second SIM becomes visible and works as expected but after a few hours it disappears again.

Things that I have tried so far:

wiping out cache partition
forcibly setting second sim to "2G only"
manually choosing mobile operators for both sim cards
swapping sim cards -- problematic sim card would still disappear after a while,
now from slot 1.
putting the problematic sim card into another phone -- it works just fine, not disappearing at all
factory reset

The issue still persists. Currently my first sim (the one which works well) is set to "auto (4g/3g/2g)", also mobile data goes through that card. My second sim (the problematic one) is set to "2g only", although setting to "auto (3g/2g)" gives same result.

Inspecting phone logs with adb logcat while the second sim is invisible hasn't revealed anything suspicious..

My software:

Android 7.0

ROM: G935FXXU1DQEJ

Build: NRD90M.G935FXXU1DQGN

It appeared to be a bizarre SIM issue: after replacing the SIM I haven't seen such behavior for more than a month. It's weird that the SIM would fail sporadically and a reboot would fix it, also that it would happily work on other devices. Anyway, this is hopefully solved now.


Developer options for a second user on Android 4.3 I have a Nexus 7 (2013) edition with Jelly Bean and set up several user accounts. I have enabled developer options on one account (clicking Settings::About tablet::Build number 7 times) and everything is working as it should.

Now I would like to enable developer options on a different user account. However, no matter how many times I click the Build number field, the Developer Options refuses to appear.

Is there a way to enable Developer Options on another account? Is there a way to switch Developer Options from one account to another?

(I have tried clearing settings in the account with developer options. It did remove developer options, but it still didn't allow developer options in the second account).

Only the main user (owner) has access to Developer Options.

Related question:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14223748/android-4-2-developer-settings-still-unavailable


Install Android OS To Other Mobile Phones is Possible? Possible Duplicate:
  Can I install Android on my non-Android device?

I want to install android os to other mobile phones like nokia and other non branded china mobiles....!

if it is Possible? or not Possible?

Thanks...!

Generally speaking, not possible.  It would require someone to do a lot of development work.


What level of permeability is there between Android and installed apps? I just installed Protonmail on my Android device, and I was wondering how much data can Android (Google, really) can get from my use of that app, or from any app in general for that matter. I write this post with a faint level of paranoia, as you can guess - with all the mail scanning that gmail does to get data on you, one can tend to think that anything entered or typed on a Google-powered platform is being analyzed, be it Gmail or Android. But of course, I'm assuming it must not be that simple or even that bad. The problem is that getting actual data on what is going on can be quite cryptic.
So, what can Google really get from my use of any given app? Can they somehow "see" what I type in my Proton mails (I'm not thinking about keylogging, that would be illegal), do they collect any kind of metadata that are a bit too comprehensive, etc?

Probably they can not see what you write in proton mail. As comment explains, typically the apps have no access to the data of the others, thus the apps of the google have no special permission, and no access to other apps (and not even to the data of each other - for example, gmail can not see your google maps timeline).
However:

The OS itself is developed by the Google, and although it is open source, it is very complex. Furthermore, this is customized by the phone manufacturer company, and their version of the source code is already not public, but it arrives in binary form, as system update to your phone. Thus, both google and the phone manufacturer can access all the data what is your phone, if they really want to.
Even if it has no access to your protonmail, a large part of the people with whom you are exchanging mails, use gmail. Google obviously can see what you send or get to/from a gmail user.

Snowden's leak revealed that U.S. secret services have big data processing facilities where they collect information from many sources (gmail, facebook, yahoo, your bank account operations, your phone calls). The important thing is, that they listen from many sources and collect them.


Google contacts not syncing I have a Lenovo A6020a40 with Android 5.1.1.
Local GMail contacts and cloud ones have always been in sync till some day ago.
Then, suddenly, without any modification on my phone and/or on the cloud, sync stopped working.
I realized something was wrong when I created some new contact on the cloud and I didn't find it on my phone.
Then I created a new local contact and there's no way I can see it on the cloud

Naturally I've gone to Settings > Accounts > Google > Gmail and checked Contacts sync is on; I've also tried to turn it off and the on again, but nothing changed: after a sync attempt I have 778 local contacts and 777 cloud ones.

I've also tried Contacts Sync Fix app (as suggested on some forum), but app says none of my 778 contacts are having problems.

I'm out of ideas...

--- EDITED ---
After a few days and some brand new account created on my phone (and saved in my GMAIL profile according to my phone), GMail contacts are still 777.

--- EDITED ---
Contacts are not in sync anymore, even if everytime I change something I see my phone trying to sync.
If I change/add something on the cloud contacts, modification is not sent to my phone and vice-versa.
Note that emails and calendar are synchronized properly!

You can simply remove that account and again add it in your account. Then it will again sync all your contacts to your Gmail.


Install default Android keyboard It seems as the default keyboard is removed from several Android devices. I have two, a Sony Xperia (4.0.4) and a Samsung Galaxy SIII (4.0.4) and neither of them has the default Android keyboard (or I'm missing something).

Is there an official way of installing the default keyboard? (And why would hardware makers disable the default keyboard?)

This is related to my other question
Switch to another keyboard language using stock keyboard

Yes, you can now install the stock Android keyboard from the Play Store - it's called Google Keyboard.


AC3 Codec for MX Amlogic MX2 Android Media Player Box OK, so I have just bought the MX Amlogic MX2 Android Media Player, and I see that it doesn't play the most common audio file, AC3. I know that there are some licencing issues, and I also know that there is some workaround for this, but as I am a technophobe for all things with googly amps, could anyone please provide me with a step-by-step walk-through to show me how to get AC3 Audio?

For instance, do I need to connect the box to the internet to connect to the appropriate website, or can I just download the needed codec onto a memory stick (via my PC) and upload it to my MX2 Player? Aaaaand, where can I find the codec?

Hoping someone can help me..... :-)

AC3 is not by any means the most common file type/format for audio files.
MP3 and Apple's AAC/m4a is do l far more often used especially on mobile devices and on the internet.

Downloading codecs like on PC is not possible. Android has to ship it in it's system or your media player has to support AC3 files.
This is also not very easy because AC3 is patented and licensed so developers have to use free codecs.


suddenly can't change language in keyboard I used to use 3 languages in my keyboard English Chinese and Filipino, using it by just sliding the spacebar; however recently this feature disappeared. I can't change language anymore even tho 3 languages in settings. please help

Try disable all accessibility services. It may be a security measure to prevent malicious apps from changing keyboard without user interaction, since an accessibility services can automate the process without the user knowing.


All system audio being transmitted over calls So I have a Huawei Y9 (2018) running Android 9 with EMUI 9.1. Whenever I'm on a call (I've only observed this with Messenger calls so far), all the audio from my notifications and media (if any) also get transmitted over the call and the other person complains about having to hear them. I don't know what's going on really. Any help?

Check for the secondary microphone on the phone (usually, it is near the back camera or top of the phone). This microphone is used for noise cancellation. Do not block it with your hand while talking on the phone.


How do I get list of all application packages together with their activity label from adb shell? Sometimes I have a trouble matching application's package name in /data/data/ or /data/app/*.apk with the user-friendly activity label I see in GUI.

How do I list application packages together with their activities?

Expecting something like this:

$ adb shell list_apps
de.shandschuh.sparserss "Sparse rss"
org.vudroid "VuDroid"
jcpezzullo.statical "StatiCal"
tone.control "Tone Control"
...

Based on my answer on the question Andrew linked to, this is what should be in your list_apps script:

for app in $(ls /data/app/*.apk); do
    appname=$(aapt d badging $app | grep 'application: label' | sed -n \"s/.*label\='\([^']*\)'.*/\1/p\")
    pkgname=$(basename $app)
    echo ${pkgname} "${appname}"
done

Run this on your Android device.

Requirements: Either a CM based ROM with Kitkat or higher (which seems to ship with the aapt binary) – or a rooted device where you can install aapt onto yourself (find it here; tested with Android 4.1).
Known issues: app name most likely gets truncated when it contains a single quote (see sed expression). Not having such one installed here I could not test that.
Only lists user apps. Easy to fix by repeating the block for /system/app ;)


How can I find the exact factory image version that my Pixel is using? I have a Pixel 3XL on android 10 and a Pixel 3a on android 11. I had previously installed magisk on the Pixel 3a when android 11 was in beta. Recently I found that it had lost root, presumably because android 11 is out of beta and the phone had upgraded to the latest android 11 and was not using the magisk-patched boot image anymore. So, I patched the corresponding boot image for the latest android 11 factory image for pixel 3a, and fastboot flashed it, and it worked.
Unfortunately, I had mixed up my two phones in the fastboot flash step at first, and so then I ended up with the Pixel 3a with android 11 rooted again, but also with the Pixel 3XL stuck on boot, I guess because it had a wrong boot image (for pixel 3a actually) flashed into it. I tried to fix the Pixel 3XL by getting the latest android 10 factory image for it and patching the boot image with magisk. However, after fastboot flash of that patched boot image, it only worked partially. Namely, it could boot, adb shell works, etc., but it no longer responds to touch, so can't be used except for adb shell.
I'm guessing the problem is that I didn't know what was the factory image actually installed on my Pixel 3L, so I just guessed it was the latest, but the boot image from the latest might have some incompatibility with the actual factory image in the phone. I would like to find out what is the actual factory image installed on the Pixel 3L, so I can try to patch the matching boot image.
Hence, my question, how can I know what is the exact version of the android 10 factory image installed on my Pixel 3L? Googling doesn't seem to help, as most pages talk about how to install factory images, not how to find out what is the version installed. In answering my question, please note that I can't interact with the phone now through touch, so cannot check anything under "Settings" with the touch GUI, but can only see the fastboot info (see screenshot below) as well as anything I can access with adb shell (for example, any file in the phone I can check to find out the factory image version installed on the phone?)

Problem solved, my android 10 phone is working again!
The first crucial observation was that there are something like 18 different different versions of the factory images for Pixel 3 XL for Android 10. However, there is an interesting difference in the naming convention for the first 5 of these factory images, compared to the rest. The first 5 begin with "QP1A" where the rest begin with "QQ1A". See snapshot below for what I mean ..

Originally, I had just tried with the most recent factory image, which is QQ3A.200805.001, dated August 2020. Now, the most recent QP.. image, QP1A.191105.003, dated Nov 2019, was emerging as a candidate to try.
The second crucial observation was, looking at the factory image for QQ3A.200805.001, in the same zip file inside it that contains the boot.img, there is also an android-info.txt file, highlighted in blue in the screenshot below. So I was like, "duh .. why don't I see what it says?"

Here is what the android-info.txt says:

require board=crosshatch|blueline
require partition-exists=product
require version-bootloader=b1c1-0.2-6374987
require version-baseband=g845-00107-200409-B-6382632

Now, compare the bootloader and baseband versions here with the versions shown in my fastboot screen (the screenshot posted in my question above). So for this phone, I have bootloader=b1c1-0.2-5672671 and baseband=g845-00048-190722-B-5745561
Unless I misunderstand what "require" means, then "require version-bootloader=b1c1-0.2-6374987" and "require version-baseband=g845-00107-200409-B-6382632" clearly explain why the boot image from QQ3A.200805.001 didn't work as desired. It requires different versions of the bootloader and baseband than I had on my phone.
Excitedly, I checked the android-info.txt from the factory image of QP1A.191105.003, and the versions matched!

require board=crosshatch|blueline
require partition-exists=product
require version-bootloader=b1c1-0.2-5672671
require version-baseband=g845-00048-190722-B-5745561

By the way, I also checked another of the QP.. factory images (QP1A.191005.007, Oct 2019), and the bootloader and baseband versions also matched. Whereas even the earliest of the QQ.. factory images, (QQ1A.191205.008, Dec 2019), didn't match.
Anyway, happy to report that after patching the boot image from QP1A.191105.003, Nov 2019, and flashing it to the phone, touch has been restored and everything appears to be working properly again.


How to detect if an apk is from the Play Store or Sideloaded? I understand that apps are signed by both Google and the developer.

How do I detect if an apk is from the Play Store or if it is sideloaded.

I'd prefer if the method worked on all major platform only if possible including Android itself.

Even if sideloaded I'd like to know the source of the app. Like is it from Play Store.

I'm thinking of using an app or method that uses signature detection.

You cannot tell if the .apk originally came from Playstore – but you can tell whether it matches the one available at Playstore. Here's what you need:

the .apk in question
the .apk of the same app in the same version from Playstore
openssl

Unzip both .apk (each into its own directory), and compare their certificates (stored in the META-INF/ directory. Details on a thorough comparision can e.g. be found here. The command you'd need is:

openssl pkcs7 -inform DER -in META-INF/CERT.RSA -noout -print_certs -text

Alternatively, if you haven't openssl installed but the Oracle JDK:

keytool -printcert -file META-INF/CERT.RSA

or

jarsigner -verify -certs -verbose ../Example.apk

If the certificates match, both APK files where signed using the same key. Unless the dev's key got compromised, that should mean the potentially sideloaded APK should be fine (no guarantees the dev himself didn't play games – but if size and MD5 of the APK also match, I'd say it's safe).


What are com.sonyericsson.usbux and com.sonyericsson.capabilities? This list tells me that I should not remove them, but what do they do?

According to this post, com.sonyericsson.usbux is enhancedusbux.apk app, which handles USB support.

com.sonyericsson.capabilities belongs to DefaultCapabilities.apk app, but I haven't been able to find anything about its functionality, other than a cryptic "hardware capabilities" description.


Why do some devices ship without the Market installed? Someone explain to me why some tablet manufacturers use software hubs other than Market.
I bought a Coby Kyros ($160 @ KMart, Puerto Rico) and it brings AppsLib instead, and I immediately noticed that not all apps are there.
I already found steps to root the tablet and install Market, but the question still bugs me.

Google only allows the Market, which is not open-source like the rest of Android, to be bundled with devices that passes their Compatibility Test Suite.  Devices that do not pass are not "officially" Android devices.


Programmable MP3 player with audio recording capability I'm looking for a device that:

Is programmable like the iTouch, Android, devices.
I'd rather not go Apple, but the iTouch is a nice device.
I want a line-in jack or at least the ability to connect a real mic

What I 'really' want is this:

I want to set it to record, put it on the table and whenever something interesting is said, be able to hit a marker button.
I want to be able to have a menu of movie quotes, "it goes to 11", "what is your name!?", "How you gonna lose your job,... on your day off?!", "Groovy baby!".... as well as the ability to record my own quotes. Then I can just hit a button and boom, it plays the quote.

That must exist, but if not, I can program it myself.

Web browser/wi-fi would be a bonus.

The Archos devices look nice, but it's not clear that they've got line-in's.

Just buy any Android phone and you can easily have all of the features of an iTouch and more. I'm sure you could find one on Ebay now for $100 or less. Maybe an old G1 or something like that. You can use cell phones just fine without activating them, including Android phones. But you will want an Android that has WiFi in it if you won't be activating it. That way you can still use the marketplace and such.

Update:
I forgot that you could also look at devices supported by Rockbox. You won't likely get anywhere near the functionality of Android or IOS, but might be enough for you depending on the device.


What does the blue 0 mean in the top right hand corner of my camera? I have a Samsung Galaxy s II and recently a 0 in a white box has appeared in my camera on the right hand corner. Why is this? What does it mean? How do I get rid of it?

The user manual (p.58) only shows one possible display of a number, which would be the number of photos you can take given the available space (No. 4 in the below screen example). It is in the top right, below the button to switch between front and back facing cameras. Zero would imply that you cannot take any more photos.

If you still have this problem, please try get someone else to take a photos of the screen as suggested if you don't have another phone or camera.


stuck installing cyanogenmod on htc one X+ After using the standard android on my one X+ for a long time, I decided to get started with cyanogenmod today.

I started by using this manual: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_endeavoru
I already rooted it a long time ago, so I skipped everything up onto installing recovery.

First I tried installing the enrc2b, but this gave me the error that my phone was a endeavoru (A bit strange, because everywhere they say that's a HTC one X, while mine is definitely a HTC one X+).
After that, I continued with the version for the endeavoru and successfully installed cm-10.2.1-endeavoru.zip on it.

After rebooting it, I got stuck on a endless boot screen of cyanogenmod. I noticed this line in the description:

  his device, if unlocked with HTCDev Unlock, must have its kernel
  flashed via fastboot. Extract boot.img from the CyanogenMod .zip
  package and flash it from the bootloader with: fastboot flash boot
  boot.img

I have no idea if I rooted it with HTCDev Unlock, I did it a long time ago, but I thought I would give it a try. After executing fastboot flash boot boot.img I rebooted, and now I am stuck at a endless HTC splash screen.

I can still get to the fastboot and recovery menu, but have no clue where I wned wrong and how to continue. I already tried a factory reset, but to no avail. I also tried getting the backup that I made back from recovery, but it says it can't find any backups.

any ideas how to continue...?

I got a little fit further. When I look at the boot screen, it should clearly be a enrc2b

I downloaded cm-10.2.1-enrc2b.zip , extracted boot.img and flashed that onto it. This at least brought me back to getting stuck at the cyanogenmod screen instead of the HTC screen.

After that I tried to install cm-10.2.1-enrc2b.zip onto it, but that's giving me this error:

In the CyanogenMod zip's updater script, remove the entire assert() line. That will remove the device identity verification and will let the recovery commence flashing immediately.


Does flashing the stock ROM repartition the device internal memory? After I have repartitioned my tablet I wonder what would happen if I flashed the stock ROM again.

A full firmware from the manufacturer can do that. You can see the flash sequence has a file similar to gpt_both or anything with GPT in the filename and is flashed to the partition partition. For example: fastboot flash partition gpt_both.bin

If there's no such file you can find, then the flash sequence is most likely not rebuilding the partition structure.


How accurate is the GPS in my Mobile Phone? I was wondering how accurate is the GPS is in my HTC Desire Android compared to a dedicated hand held GPS unit or in car satnav?

The reason I ask is that I have read articles complaining that the iPhone's GPS is not very accurate and wondered if it applied to all mobiles.

I have an HTC Kaiser (AT&T Tilt) that I had Google Maps installed on.  Google maps gave me the number of satellites that it could see in parentheses at all times.  When I used my phone's internal GPS, I would get about 4 satellites, when I would use an external Bluetooth GPS, I would get about 12 satellites.  When I use my TomTom, I get about 7.  The number of satellites is the biggest deal for getting good location; the more the better.  I never tried an external GPS antenna on my HTC Kaiser to see if it was just the antenna that was the issue or if it was something else.

The program called "GPS Status" available from Google Play Store, will show you how accurate your GPS is at any given time. The number of bins with green bars in them is the number of satellites that your phone can "hear/see" at any given time and then it also gives you the accuracy in meters on the display.


Increase internal storage of android device I have 178MB on internal storage and I'm out of space, currently I have installed CM 10.1 and I want to know what choices do I have to get more space to install new applications, removing applications is not an option and deleting junk files either. I count with a 2gb sd card and I have heard that switching sd with phone internal storage is possible. What tool do you recommend?

There are two kind of solutions. One is to repartition, as you don't mentioned what kind of Android powered Smartphone you have I will try to get deep and the other to move apps to microSD (please read below).

If your device has a MediaTek cpu you can try Meteos Tool for repartitioning, you can find some details here http://www.modaco.com/topic/365701-re-partition-any-mtk6589-phone-without-a-pc-more-data-storage/. This application can be used on the smartphone and repartition the memory to different sizes depending on the selection of the user and the limit of the memory itself. I have used it, it's very easy to be implemented.
The other solution is to use something that is called Link2SD. This although is not repartitioning the memory, it moves every app even other files to the microSD memory (there are solutions to run the whole ROM from the microSD) and have free space at the smartphone     memory. This way it solves the problem of the internal low memory.


How can I get missing apps back after factory resetting my rooted x10 Mini? I rooted my Sony Ericsson xperia x10 mini and linked my apps to my sd card using link2sd, I then factory reset my phone from the android privacy settings.

superuser still exists on my phone

how do I get my linked apps to become visible and usable?
my Android Market has the (killing me) "starting download" forever (and I don't have GTalk, Google Talk that I was told I need to resolve this.) I've tried both wifi and SIM data connection

I've tried clearing market cache+data and nothing

I can't access my memory card because I can't download link2sd and I cant use the Market.

I want my phone to show my linked apps and for the market to work

If you need more info please don't hesitate to ask...

Are you running a custom ROM on your Xperia x10 mini? If you are missing the Google Talk app, this means that factory rest deleted some of the Google apps required for Market to work properly. I would suggest finding the appropriate GApps package for the ROM you are running and re-flashing it.


Call forwarding from device 1 mobile network to device 2 data network My brother's new job is underground with no cell reception or 3G. He wants to leave his phone upstairs so it can receive calls and SMS, and somehow forward them to him downstairs to Android / PC / Mac (any of these would be fine) that are connected to the office Wi-Fi.

The upstairs phone may or may not be connected to the same Wi-Fi network; it may just have 3G.

Is there any combination of apps that can do this? And if the request is confusing please let me know.

Google Voice could work, if your brother ported his number to Google Voice (about $20). His cell phone could even be off, yet his computer would be able to receive the calls, since Google Voice can route calls to any numbers associated with its accounts. This method would allow text messages as well.

Alternatively, he could get a brand new Google Voice number, and have his cell carrier forward calls to that number if his cell phone is out of range or goes to voicemail. This would only work for incoming calls, though, not text messages.

Granted, this solution isn't Android-specific, but I'm not sure an app on his phone would be the best solution anyway.


android VNC and linux installing I was thinking of using Linux Deploy to install Ubuntu in Nexus 9 (2014) Device. I Would be using the VNC viewer by "realvncunlimited" and Linux deploy by "meefik". My question is, how secure will the connection be between the VNC viewer and the Linux os on the device? Is there encryption or SSH, and will this get sniffed on wireless if there are none of those securities (Is the VNC even traveling outwards to a router or in the device the whole time?). I understand that a normal VNC connection will go from the device to the router (or whatever else in use) to the computer, but this connection may remain in the device. Please help, I will accept any answer pertaining to the topic of VNC security, although a definite answer will help my project very much.

The data won't travel outside your device at all. If you're paranoid, turn on airplane mode and you'll see it still works. An exception is if you're connecting to the Internet with the distro to download packages etc but that's a given.


Mobile to PC skype video chat? I have tried to no end, but Skype for Android doesn't support video chat (unless someone leaked a new version that i haven't seen yet), and I cannot find another video chat app that will connect with Skype contacts. As per the title, I am looking for an app that will allow me to video call from my phone to someone using Skype on their computer. Does anyone know of such an app?

UPDATE: I didn't realize it needed specification, but it does turn out Skype supports video calling for some devices:

  Requirements Android 2.1 operating system and above Video calling
  supported on the following handsets: Samsung Google Nexus S, HTC
  Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro

So to revise my question, is there an app that allows the HTC EVO to video call from phone to pc?

Since you're rooted, you could also try the newest version of Google Talk. It isn't officially supported but I use it on my EVO just fine (I run CyanogenMod 7, though).

ooVoo has a desktop client and a mobile app, enabling mobile to PC video calls (supports the EVO, but haven't tried it myself).

There also appears to be a plugin for the Yahoo! Messenger app which enables video chat between mobiles or with the PC client. Again, I haven't tried this one myself, but it seems to be the least restrictive about what devices it supports.

Edit: It looks like there's a thread on XDA where people are talking about Skype with video on the EVO. Might be something helpful there.


how does auto brightness work? there is a similar question to this one How does the automatic brightness settings work?

however, I do not think it answers my question. This is more to do with the UI.

I just got myself a Galaxy s3. The phone has under the notifications the ability to change the brightness.

As can be seen from the screenshot, I can both adjust the brightness manually and select auto. Adjusting the brightness manually does visually affect the brightness of the screen even when the autobrightness is checked.

So what does the manual adjuster do when auto-brightness is turned on?

The Auto option enables the lightsensor of the device.
On some Samsung devices there remains a slider when the checkbox Auto is checked. With that slider you can set a delta (small change) in the brightness set by the data of the sensor. You can chose if you want it a bit brighter or less bright than the sensors standard value.

In short:
 - Box checked: Sensor defines brightness (+/- delta)
 - Silider in the middle: delta = 0
 - Slider to the left: delta = - amount of steps from the middle
 - Slider to the right: delta = + amount of steps from the middle


Why do widgets disappear after running out of battery? After phone shutting down by running out of battery, when I start it again all the widgets disappear. At first I thought that this is a problem of my launcher (Apex), but even the native one (Trebuchet) lose all the widgets. They won't disappear if I shut down or reboot the phone as usual. Why is that?

Phone information:

OS: CyanogenMod 11
Model: Samsung GT-I9195
Launchers: Apex (free) and Trebuchet

Are you installing apps on your SD card? If so this is the main reason for this to happen. Apps having widget functionalities should be installed in phone storage . Some app even give you a small pop up saying

Widgets Functionalities might not work if you install this app in you external storage.

Hope This helped.


WEP Encryption for WiFI Hotspot in KitKat Is it possible to enable WEP encryption for the hotspot function in Android 4.4? It only shows WPA and WPA2 for me and I would like to create a WEP hotspot.

Alternatively, are there any hotspot apps that support WEP? All the ones I found just refer to the inbuilt hotspot functionality.

Since WEP encryption is very, very insecure it was replaced by WPA/2.
Creating WEP encrypted WiFi networks today is very risky because it can be hacked within seconds.
So the answer is you can't create a WEP encrypted WiFi Hotspot with Android.

BTW:
An app can only use hotspot features the device is supporting. And because the newer Androids don't support WEP there is no way for the apps to create hotspots with WEP.