Nexus 4 factory image restore Hey I've download the factory image but i can't open the folder it's just gave me an unknown type file and i really need to open the folder to use the flash command

The image shows that you have downloaded the factory image archive, but it's not the official one. I'd suggest that you read the instructions on the official page, Factory Images for Nexus Devices and download the archive from there. This includes the tools needed to flash the image.

Download the Android SDK which contains the necessary tools here
You need to have fastboot in your path
Put your device into fastboot mode with the bootloader unlocked and connected to a PC
Extract the downloaded archive to a directory
You should see the following files:

bootloader-mako-makoz30d.img
flash-all.bat
flash-all.sh
flash-base.sh
image-occam-kot49h.zip
radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.98.img

Run the flash-all.bat file with Administrator privileges (i.e. right-click and Run as Administrator...)

The process will flash your device with the stock ROM, assuming the previous steps were done correctly.


take Nexus 7 from android 4.3 to 4.2.2 I have just purchased a Nexus 7 (2013) and it auto updated to android to 4.3 as I was setting up.
Unfortunately USB OTG now does not run.  I purchased the Nexus 7 for it's OTG feature.
I've done a factory reset but it still loads 4.3
Is there any way I can go back to 4.2.2 - which does support OTG on the Nexus 7

I don't think the Nexus 7 (2013) ever had Android 4.2. I was going to suggest flashing a factory image but the only one available is Android 4.3 which suggests it's not possible.

As the other answers have suggested you will probably need to root to get the USB OTG functionality you are after.


Why are there two different Firefox icons? Why are there two different Firefox icons? The version is 57 I guess.

Single app can use different small-icons or status-bar-icons for different notifications. In your case there are two notifications from Firefox for which the icons are different.
They are set programmatically like setSmallIcon(R.drawable.icon_name) for every notification.


Whenever I tap the empty space below the spacebar, while using Chrome, the keyboard closes unexpectedly Ok, so this has to be the most annoying thing for me about Android phones. If you look at my screenshot, I've circled the empty space below the keyboard. I am ALWAYS accidentally tapping this empty space, and when I do this... it acts as if I had tapped the little downward arrow to the left of that empty space!!! I'll be typing in some search terms in Chrome, only to accidentally tap the empty space, and there goes everything I was typing. Poof. It's INCREDIBLY annoying, and I just might buy an iPhone if I have to continue to endure this. It is SO easy to accidentally hit that empty space.
It happens with both Gboard and the stock keyboard, and swiftkey. It seems as though this is an intentional feature.
Is there anyway to completely disable that little downward arrow?

I have experienced this on Android as well.  Many virtual keyboard apps have a resize/reposition feature.  I was able to fix this issue by using this feature to manually move the keyboard to the bottom of the screen.
The location of the feature varies for each keyboard app, but it's typically available via its Settings UI.


Why does my Android phone download files slower over the same network than my laptop? I have a HTC Legend running on JB. While on the same network, the same download file gets downloaded on my Legend slower than it does on my Laptop? (no change in any conditions whatsoever)

You seem to be using different measurement units, 50KBps is the same as 400Kbps. Remember that 1 Byte = 8 bits.

If that's not the case, check if your laptop is connecting using 802.11n, HTC Legend does not support 802.11n, it only supports 802.11b/g.

  How do I check the connection speed?

Download SpeedTest app from the Market. And in your laptop, go to speedtest.net.


Using MyWi USB 3G Tethering from iPhone to Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 I've been using MyWi on my jailbroken iPhone 4 for over a year now and it works great giving me a 3G connection to my laptop anywhere I am via the USB tether.

Is this possible to do on my Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 tablet the same as I can on my laptop?  When I enable MyWi and plug the USB into the Galaxy Tab, nothing happens where I would expect it to pick up on the 3G connection my iPhone has just like my laptop does...

Has anyone got this to work?  The tablet is not rooted and is not part of any Verizon or AT&T plan, no SIM in the tablet...

Anything would help!

Thank you,
-Derek.

The short answer is no you can't share your iPhone's 3G connection with your Galaxy Tab 2 over USB.


Turn the speakerphone on a call using ADB shell I'm trying to find a command in adb shell that lets me turn on the speakerphone when I start a call.

First I make the call

adb shell service call phone 1 s16 "" s16 "#####"

the call starts and I try to start the speakerphone with something like this:

adb shell input keyevent <keycode>

You can use combination of keyevents to achieve the goal. The important ones you would need are:

19 -->  "KEYCODE_DPAD_UP"
20 -->  "KEYCODE_DPAD_DOWN"
21 -->  "KEYCODE_DPAD_LEFT"
22 -->  "KEYCODE_DPAD_RIGHT"
23 -->  "KEYCODE_DPAD_CENTER"
24 -->  "KEYCODE_VOLUME_UP"
25 -->  "KEYCODE_VOLUME_DOWN"
66 -->  "KEYCODE_ENTER"

See ADB Shell Input Events for more.

According to the interface of your dialer, the combination would vary. E.g.:

adb shell input keyevent 20
adb shell input keyevent 21
adb shell input keyevent 21
adb shell input keyevent 66

It may take more steps, and sometimes, you won't get to see whether it affected the interface or not, but continue combining them, and you would get the result.

That aside, the technique mentioned by Bo Lawson here and taken from this answer by Omar

  adb shell service call audio 7 i32 3 i32 0 i32 1

isn't working on my Lollipop at all. Neither it is switching the call into speaker, but adjusting the volume of the earphones only in my Kitkat 4.4.2.

Also, if you intend to use a service call method and the linked answer isn't working, then you may wanna take a look at the source code of the audio service to figure out the things. Find it here.


How to verify an ADB backup file is complete and in a good state? This is not a duplicate of How to verify a backup file from ADB backup. The poster there probably didn't know that an unrooted phone requires -nosystem (ref) and ended with a 0 byte file, where my backup file is almost 8GB.

Given that adb gives almost zero feedback on it's backup progress and success or failure. How can I be confident that the backup I've just completed is a good one? and that it contains what I think it does? and that it will (probably) work to restore or extract data from?

I have the one android device (Nexus 5), access to Win7 PCs, and ubuntu virtual machines if needed.

If you're on Linux, Adebar contains a tiny little shell script to convert ADB Backups (.ab) to tar files, which you then easily can investigate with any archive manager. Only limitation is: it doesn't work on password protected backup files.

The basic command it runs (everything else mainly is a wrapper for command line options and syntax) is:

dd if=$1 bs=24 skip=1 | openssl zlib -d >${1%%.ab}.tar && gzip -9 ${1%%.ab}.tar

A command I've found here on SE some time in the past (full disclosure: I'm the author of Adebar) – see here.

As you can see in the quoted command, it requires openssl and zlib to be available.


remap ab shutter 3 buttons to record video I have a lg g5 with the built-in camera app.
I bought a remote shutter (ab shutter 3) which is a remote control (bluetooth based) for the camera which has two buttons: one for android and for iOS (iphone).
Apparently, the "iphone" button also works for androind (I think it is the 'volume up' button but i'm not sure).
The shutter works great but the problem is that both buttons take a picture.
What I want is to remap one of the buttons to make video recordings.
I think that this problem is equivalent to remapping the 'volume up' button in the built-in camera app to make video recordings instead of taking pictures.
How can I do that?

I solved this problem on a Galaxy S7 running Android 7.0. Go into the camera settings and scroll down to the bottom. Click on "Volume key function" and select "Record video". I can now click the top button on my AB Shutter 3 to record video.


Is there a location tracker installed to my Android phone? I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 phone running stock Android 7.0. It's not rooted. I've left my phone unattended for 10 hours. I don't have a PIN code or any other security measure to unlock the phone, anyone can unlock it with a swipe.

How can I easily figure out if someone (possibly with physical access) has installed a location tracker or some similar unwanted app to my phone? Let's suppose the attacker is not working for Google, Facebook or Samsung, but may also have access to my Google or Facebook account (e.g. by stealing or guessing my password -- I don't have two-factor authentication enabled).

Please note that in this question I'm not looking for advice for protecting my phones and my accounts, I only want to learn about the presence of location trackers and other similar unwanted apps on my phone.

If the device came into possession of an unauthorized person than you should be more concerned whether the device's software integrity is intact or not. Although Android since Nougat informs the user if boot process is compromised (only when booting the device), one can employ a minimal cross-check on their own.

Some root checker apps attempts to ensure that the software is intact (includes bootloader, kernel and system partition). You can use them to get the state of integrity. Once you are confident here, find out which apps were recently installed. You can use adb to explore the dump of package service (adb shell dumpsys package) or try an app based solution such as Applications Info. It can show the apps by installation date.

This could single out an app for you. If you find a phishy app, then check out its permissions, location usage, battery usage and data (internet) usage.

That said, if you don't find anything convincing and still remain convinced your device is tampered with and could prove your hunch to yourself with evidence (such as high battery consumption suddenly; location icon toggling in status bar, or anything that is weird or incompatible with your daily routine and usage), than I'm afraid I don't have a single source to help out.

Based on your evidences or observations, you would have to figure this out on your own. As an example, for sudden high battery consumption, you can check with Battery usage history in Settings app. Same goes for Location and data usage. Android shows the usage app-wise.

You can also search into detailed usage output of battery, location, data usage and many more important services through dumpsys utility, which requires adb usage.


Tmobile my touch 3g (HTC Magic) doesn't give option to mount USB storage anymore I have a Tmobile MyTouch 3g. When I connect it via usb to my 64 bit Windows 7 machine, I do not get any option to mount for USB storage as I typically have in the past. I also do not get any option when connected to my Windows XP work machine.

I have tried getting the mytouch to dismount/mount the sd card under settings and then replugging in the phone with no effect. Not sure if there's anything else under settings I could try.

When I look in Windows 7's device manager under USB there's an "Unknown Device" listed. I "uninstalled" this device by right clicking and saying "uninstall". Then I reattached the mytouch 3g and all I got was "unknown device" again.

There appears to be a couple of forum posts on this issue, including here and here but none of them have been helpful. Only the last one seems to accurately 100% describe this problem, but nobody has responded to the post.

How can I fix this? I'm hoping it doesn't involve resetting the phone to factory defaults.

Try installing the official drivers from the Android SDK.


Record log before device reboots I need to record an log even if device restarts cause when I open a specific app my phone restarts so I need to log why.

As you can reproduce the crash you can connect your phone via USB to a computer and start

adb logcat -b all

and then start the problematic app on the device.

You will get the logcat output until the device reboots. Hopefully there is an indicator why the crash happens.

Note: this requires enabled adb on the device and adb running on your PC.

There is a second way reading the kernel messages after the reboot happens, but the path (e.g. /proc/last_kmsg) of the saved kernel messages have changed over the time and it is not enabled by default on all devices.

If you are interested in this way see for example this topics:

How can I enable last_kmsg?


You are already a developer/but no developer options I have a Huawei nova 3i and I remember unlocking developer options when I first got the phone a few months back. Problem is now I have noticed that the developer options are gone so I went to build number and went to press it 7 times but after the first press it says (you are already a developer) but the option is still not there. I have looked online for at least an hour but can find nothing. Any help would be appreciated thanks

I had the same exact problem with the mentioned phone and none of the provided solutions worked for me. Finally i succeeded to make the developer options visible by going to settings - apps - selecting "settings" app and executing "clear data" on it. It worked with me.


find command says: unknown group XYZ This question is the next part of this question. I'm trying to use find command (Android 4.2.1; Busybox installed, have root access) to list files owned by a specific group under /, but every time I use it I get the same reply. E.g. I'm trying to find all the files owned by group adb using find / -group adb and the output says:

  find: unknown group adb

I tried both single-double quotes but no effect. Tried for other groups but no effect again.

How should I use find then?

The method of using find is correct.

However there is no group "adb".

Run id -p to get all groups. You will get

  groupid(name)

Then run find / -group <groupid>.

  The groupid is an integer.


Why music downloader apps return unrelated, foreign-language songs? Every time I search for music in redacted apps, all do the same thing. Any artist or song I try to find, the search results find a few but are not that song or artist. They show up in some weird language.

Why is that?

Such app would be illegal: to keep working they usually do a really simple thing, using a dork they search on google for your song and show an ordered list of results.

Since google is becoming more and more intelligent it will not index copyrighted songs. Just deal with it.

Another way to download song from your phone, is to use a youtube-2-mp3 app/site. Much faster and easier.


What are the privacy implications of using Talk-to-Text? Given that the Android implementation of Talk-To-Text sends your voice to Google's servers, parses your speech into text, then sends the text string back to the handset, what are the privacy implications of using Talk-to-Text?

Does this mean, for example, that anything that I say to my beloved Nexus One is stored on Google's servers?

Do Google TOS refer specifically to this issue?

From Google's Mobile Privacy Policy:

  For products and services with voice recognition capabilities, we collect and store a copy of the voice input you make to the product or service and corrections you make to the returned recognition result. To improve processing of your voice input, we may also continuously record in temporary memory a few seconds of ambient background noise. This recording stays only temporarily on the device and is not sent to Google. If you choose to personalize voice recognition, we will associate your voice data with your Google Account.


Download and run Android APK files I want to download BitTorrent Sync to synchronize my Android and PC.

Question #1

What's the difference between download from here or here?

Since I'm not interested in register myself on Google Play, can I download an APK file from any site and run it with some sort of "double click" over the name of the file, in the same way as in Windows?

Question #2

After download a file where do I save it? In the smartphone RAM? In the SD Card?

Thank you

You can download the APK file with bittorrent to you PC. The other link is not usable if you don't want to register to Google Play. After downloading you transfer it to your phone. Under settings and security you have to enable unknown sources and while tapping on the transferred .APK file, it will be installed.


How to pair Galaxy J5 with Samsung gear S? I tried many times to install Samsung gear manager in my device(galaxy J5), but after a successful install what should I do?

When I use the app in my phone it gives me this error: check if your phone is compatible or...

My phone Bluetooth and my gear Bluetooth both are on.

Please help me how can I pair these two products of Samsung!

Thanks in advance

According to GSMArena, the Gear S is only compatible with some Samsung phones, not including the Galaxy J5. That page was from a few years ago, but the O2 product page for the Gear S agrees.

As Samsung has replaced the Gear S with the Gear S 2, whose chief selling point is that it additionally supports some non-Samsung phones, they're unlikely to revisit the Gear S software to make it compatible with more phones.

This linked question about an unsupported way of getting the original Galaxy Gear to pair with non-Samsung phones may also be relevant to you.


How to prevent an app from sharing its data with Google? The changelog of a popular SMS/MMS app, Textra, states:

Textra is now backed up automatically [emphasis added] using the built-in Google Backup service. Makes it so easy to swap devices or uninstall / reinstall without losing your settings and any customization! Supported from Android 6.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210519012025/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.textra
What does this really mean?  In Android 7.0 is there a way to disable a single app from sharing private/personal data with Google?  If not, how about all apps?
The app itself does not appear to have any options regarding this unwanted functionality.

See Data backup overview. Since changelog is talking of Android 6 compatibility, it is referring to Android auto backup (see table).

Enabled by default. Apps can opt out by disabling backups.

Contextually, it implies Textra had opted out of back up earlier and now has it enabled.
There is no option for the user to choose which apps can be backed up or not. Either they backup or not (search settings for backup to see the toggle switch). If backup is enabled, apps that are enabled for backup are backed up.
Developers can choose to exclude some parts of app data even if backup is enabled. Backup data size is limited to 25 MB and doesn't count for your drive storage usage. Users have no control on what is backed up, so if you don't trust Google (good idea) look for custom ROM options as suggested by Izzy in comments or turn  off backup in settings.


Distinguishing between placed received and non-received calls On my Android phone, under the list of all phone calls, there are several distinct icons to distinguish between:

outgoing calls (a green arrow pointing away from the phone)
missed calls (a red arrow bouncing off the phone)
received calls (a blue arrow pointing into the phone)

However, the user interface does not distinguish between placed calls which were answered on the other end and calls which were not answered on the other end.

Does anyone have a user interface which distinguishes between these two scenarios or does anyone know of an upgrade I may perform in the user interface (perhaps even by going as far as installing CyanogenMod) so as to account for this difference in the user interface?

I am running Android 2.3.4 (GingerBread) on an LG Optimus Net P690.

You can use a new dialer which supports this. I have tried Swipe Dialer Free and it does this (You get the same icon for all outgoing calls whether they were answered or not but for the un-answered call, you will have "Not Answered" mentioned"

P.S. - If your dialer shows the duration of call then I think for Non-Answered outgoing calls, it will show "0m 0s". All other calls will have different durations. So, you can differentiate between them (if this is what your purpose is).


Deleting an event in llama I'm trying to figure out how to use Llama. However, I'm having difficulty figuring out something that seems like it should be obvious. Namely, how do I delete an event in Llama once I have defined it?

If I'm missing something obvious, I apologise.

A few seconds after posting this, I found the following article:
Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter, which says:

  You can copy, edit or disable an event, or delete it when you don't need, by touching and holding an item on the list of events.

This works, but in my opinion is not obvious. Also, I didn't find this in the official documentation. I looked. If it is in there, and I missed it, I can delete the question.


LOST.DIR on my SD card contains 98 years old files I was cleaning up my SD card and find LOST.DIR i knew what it was for but i did not understand why the hell there are 98 YEARS old files
Does someone have got an explain?
I´m kinda scared

Take a sheet of paper and a pen.
Write down the following sentence:
"My birthday is 01/01/1924"
You can see there is nothing mysterious on that paper. just because it is written somewhere it doesn't mean it is true.
LOST.DIR is collection directory for restored garbage from corrupt files which is created when fsck_msdos is trying to repair your MicroSD Card.
imagine directory is like a folder and each file is a sheet of paper. access to folder is restricted (some room only your family has the key). each paper/file has three timestamps

mtime - modify time is time of birth/update of file (data) itself
ctime - change time is time of file permissions (day your mother gave you the key)
atime - last access time (so your father knows the exact date when your hands touched the sheet of paper or you read it's content with your eyes)

the timestamp mtime of files can be set to any value independently of "current" date/time. even the "current" time hwclock of your phone itself can be set to any date if you want so.

Why it is 98 years can be coincidence or set intentionally. The question can not be answered without knowing the origin of that files.
If it happens too often (every day) and there is again lot of data inside LOST.DIR even after deleting, that might indicate your MicroSD Card is near end of life and will become unreadable soon


How do I get 3D maps to work I have Andorid maps 5.0.0 running on a Nexus S but I can't seem to get 3D maps.
I have tried London and New York. Not sure if I am doing something stupoid or what.

3D maps includes 3D models of some cities. London isn't included, yet, but New York is, as are Cardiff and Birmingham on the UK.  You don't need to do anything to view them other than select the map layer, zoom right in, and then swipe down with 2 fingers to angle the view.

(the 3D models appear if you're looking straight down, but it misses the point, somewhat...)


Files show up on Nexus 5 but not in Windows 7 I have a Nexus 5 running Android 6.0.1 and all of my files appear on the media direcotries within the phone, but when I plug it in as an MTP device in Windows 7, only some of the files show up. When I add new files over MTP the opposite happens, they don't appear on the device. I've tried rescanning the SD card, I've tried rebooting the phone, I've tried rebooting my computer, I've tried reinstalling the Nexus device drivers. Please help.

Try to switch the USB mode to MTP/only charge or disable USB debugging and see if it works.


Change Google Maps Navigation language I use my phone in English (UK). But I would very much like to change the Maps navigation language to Turkish, since the English voice sucks horribly in reading Turkish place names (especially while using Android Auto). How can I do that without having to change the language of my phone?

Unfortunately you can't do that on your mobile device but is possible on your computer . See map help

Language selected on device is common to Google map. If your device is rooted , you can use Xposed App Settings to change language of apps


How do I transfer from HTC SENSE to the computer? I want to transfer contacts, photos and videos from my HTC SENSE to my computer. Does anyone know how to do this?
Thanks

One way would be to use WebSharing Lite available at Google Play/Android market. Once installed, you can navigate to an address set up by WebSharing via your computer and transfer any files you need.

EDIT:
There are many applications to do this as pointed out by @richard-borcsik below. This is just one off the top of my head. If you establish a Google Account for your android device and then log into Gmail for that Google Account, the contacts that you have on the phone/device automatically show up in your Gmail Contacts list. At least, that has been my experience. So you may not really need a separate application to transfer/update contacts.


Sync to Desktop then automatically delete local/original files I'm looking for something to transfer files and then automatically delete the original files. The situation that I'm planning is to take pictures in my phone, then when I'm in my house or in a local wifi, sync them to my notebook/desktop, delete the original in the phone and then from the copy from my notebook/desktop, upload it to Google Drive, I'm aware that there are other tools that can achieve this manually but what I haven't been able to find is something that can make this process automatically/seamlessly. Thank you for your help.

Google Photos is a free app that periodically offers to "free up space" on your device by uploading your photos to photos.google.com (at the quality you choose) and then deleting them from your device.

Items uploaded via Google Photos don't use your Google Drive's limited storage if they're stored in "High quality" but they do if they're stored in "Original quality" (higher quality than high quality).

In order to sync to your PC:
In Google Photos, enable the "Google Drive" setting.
In Google Drive, check the "Automatically put your Google Photos into a folder in My Drive" setting. (You should see a Google Photos folder in Drive then.)

Then, sync it to your PC with the Google Drive sync desktop program. (There's a link to download it at the bottom left of the Google Drive website. Sign in and select the folder/s to sync.)

Photos added to Google Photos will show up in that folder and sync to your PC, and any photos you add to this folder on your PC will sync to the website.


Turning on hotspot automatically turns off my Wi-fi in my Moto g4 plus With android kitkat (in my Moto g1), i could share my wi-fi via mobile hotspot. After upgrading to lollipop, turning on hotspot would turn off the Wi-fi which i thought was a bug.
Now to my surprise, it is happening in my new Moto G4 plus (marshmallow). If this is a feature, then i do not understand why it behaves like that. Is there a way i can share my wi-fi via mobile hotspot ? Sharing the 3G data does not make any sense to me.

The device has to support 2 WiFi frequencies, and the OS has to implement the feature (e.g. Huawei D2 and Samsung S7/Edge), or else you will only get either WiFi in or WiFi out. I've never seen any mention of the original G supporting the feature either, and since I've owned an original G myself, I can say that it can't do it in my experience.

The only way that was able to do it on non-OS-level was FQRouter2, but it's now obsolete and might not work.


Does my Android phone uses battery or outlet power to operate while being charged? I am curious about knowing which power source does my android uses up, while it is being charged while switched on..

I know i can test it by keeping it in charging and pulling the battery.. but i am unsure if its safe enough..

Anyone having any ideas??

If it uses outlet/USB power for operation,then i can be assured of keeping it plugged in and use wifi tethering for net surfing for long periods.. without thinking of any battery damage due to prolonged charging..am i right on this?

From my experience, my phone (HTC Desire) seems to use battery while being charged... or at least a combination of both. Reason is, while plugged in, if I am doing something intensive - eg playing games, I notice that either the battery % hasn't really increased or has actually decreased!

Also, not sure which phone you are using, so the behaviour maybe different to the Desire, but I'm guessing it uses a lithium-ion battery - here is some good info on "the best way to use Li-ion batteries" http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/02/ask-ars-what-is-the-best-way-to-use-an-li-ion-battery.ars

Basically:

They don't have memory
Don't worry about overcharging
Don't completely deplete the battery - lowest ~20%
Use your battery - you need to 'exercise' the battery
Try to keep the battery cool


Update/Reset android firmware by SD Card. Verizon Samsung S4 I have a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 that was rooted on the 4.3 build with the saferoot method (I think, it's been awhile). I had since installed Xposed framework and installer, etc.  I unrooted with the supersu unroot method. Now I can't connect my phone via USB in either Ubuntu or Windows 7 (it shows unknown device).  Another S4 shows up and installs drivers just fine on my computer, and my phone isn't recognized by other computers running windows. Basically, no matter what I've done with ADB and Windows drivers, my phone will not talk with my PC and I cannot connect to Odin. I've factory reset my phone, and I just want to be able to communicate via USB.

I'm looking at taking some of the firmware I've found on XDA-forums and installing that through the stock recovery with the SD card. SCH-I545_VZW_1_20131023084910_v4vth34m5z_fac.zip is the package I have.

My question: is this okay to just push this .zip via stock recovery?  Is there anything else I need to do, like install other packages, etc?

EDIT: After factory resetting both in the android OS AND in stock recovery, trying to take the OTA fails.

I replaced the actual USB port on the phone. Not only is it actually communicating, but it's charging a lot faster. The part is fairly easy to change and fairly cheap as well.


What does the "no thumbnail" error mean? I am able to take photos with my tablet, but when I try to view them I get a blank screen with the message "no thumbnail". I never had this problem before. I can see older pictures with no problems but I can't save any pictures any more. Please help.

This might be cause of low space in memory. This restricts your photo viewer app to make a thumb nail.

Thumb nail is a quick show sample of your original photo.


What does it mean when the connectivity icons in the status bar go white/gray? The connectivity icons (Data, Mobile Signal, Wifi) in the status bar on my Nexus S are normally green, but sometimes they go white. I can't seem to figure out what this means, as I still have a signal and can receive phonecalls/texts.

They are always all the same, e.g. either all white or all green. I'm on Android 2.3.4.

It has to do with whether or not you've currently got a good connection to Google's servers for sync services and the like. From page 27 of their Android 2.3 Users Guide:

  Network status icons turn green if you have a Google Account added to your phone
  and the phone is connected to Google services, for syncing your Gmail, Calendar
  events, contacts, for backing up your settings, and so on. If you don’t have a Google
  Account or if, for example, you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network that is not connected
  to the Internet, the network icons are white.

I'm not really sure why it bounces back and forth between green and white sometimes. I've noticed it on my phone but everything works fine (I run CyanogenMod, though, so perhaps it has to do with that). It could also be that green means it's currently in the act of syncing, but the wording in the document is a little vague, in my opinion.

In the case of Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich, the colors are blue/grey instead of green/white, but they still have the same meaning.

Edit: For the interested, here are links to the user guide in other languages. The above is the English version.


Can't download anything from Google play My internal storage has 400+ MB and the SD card has 9 GB left (I know SD card doesn't really matter). I deleted a lot of apps and I still get the message "Not enough space on your internal storage" when I try to download an app that is 7 MB.

This is not simple to solve. The solution that worked for me requires the device to be rooted, "Terminal Emulator" app and a file manager that can access to your whole file system (like "Root Browser"). I also have the "BusyBox" app installed which might be necessary to use the terminal emulator properly.

The first thing I did was to spot all files associated to the app I couldn't install. In my case, I achieved this in the terminal emulator with the commands

su
find / -name "*[some part of the package name]*"

The first command is to gain root privileges in the terminal in order for the find command to be able to search your whole file system. The second gives you a list of files and locations related to the app you want to install. The text in brackets [ ] must be replaced by a part of the name of package which distinguishes from all others. In my case, the package is the FB Messenger. The APK file is called com.facebook.orca-21.0.0.20.13.apk, so I decided to search this way:

find / -name "*orca*"

Then I deleted all the files and directories listed using the root browser (this is a brutal force method, may be it is not needed to delete them all...).

Finally, I rebooted my phone, let it start and installed the Messenger through Google Play Store. It worked :)

I hope this helps.


Reasonably how much free space should one leave for best performance? (Reasonably because freeing space brings diminishing returns, correct or no?)
Background
I'm testing different SD card schedulers to get the best performance. I'm assuming that when I will have more free space and use the best governor for that situation the performance should be better than now with the best governor for now's situation.
Question
I want to find out if I can somehow find out the best scheduler and read ahead combination without having to test every combination.
So is there some way to calculate/find this? If not then what is the best way?

IMHO these governor settings are overrated. Of course it's nice to have such options, but it's confusing users more instead of helping them.

Just check your ROM and ask other users for their opinions. In AOKP for example you only need NOOP and Interactive and you should be good to go for anything.

You should save your time for more important things in Android. Just my advice, though.


How to make volume buttons on earphones/headphones work with Android? I'm on the hunt for a great sounding, non-in-ear set of headphones with working mic, play/pause, and volume buttons.

I have Bang & Olufsen's EarSet 3i, which are among the best sounding headphones I've ever used. And all three button work perfectly in my MacBook Air and iPhone.

Obviously they don't work perfectly in my Nexus 4, since Android devices uses a different way of reading volume up/down buttons.

So, my question is rather simple, does anyone know how to make them work with Android, or alternatively any equally good headphones to the EarSet 3i's that work on Android? And to make it extra challenging, no in-ear ones please, cause I can't stand them :(

Or maybe anyone knows of some kind of adapter cable that can be used between an Android phone and iPhone compatible headphones to translate the volume button signals so the Android device understands them?

Apple and Android headphone wiring standard is different. You can either buy an converter or change wiring on headset connector. See here.
Apple Headphone is Not Working On Android or Windows Phone


Unable to access Google Play because of account verification problem My dad has a HTC desire A8181 and he has a problem where he can't log on to google play.

It happened like this: 2 years ago my dad got a message that he had to log in to google play on a Google account but he forgot his password so he did nothing and just didn't log in. Now he wants to log back on to his play store and download an app so I installed another Google account and that worked. Now his phone gives a popup every time i try to install an app that says

  Verification required, you have to log on to your google account (translated from dutch)

The app does not install and it says that every time. How can my dad log in to his account to verify it and solve the problem? Or is there another solution to solve this and install apps?

Because this account is the primary account on the device, Google Play tends to use it as the default. You can switch which account to use by opening the side drawer:

You can see the other account icons that are there, and I have a dropdown next to my primary account. Clicking on that allows me to choose a different account.

But since you don't know the password for the primary account, I would suggest the following options:

Log in to the Google account on the computer and reset the password. There you can click on helpful links like "forgot password". Once you reset the password you can change the password on the device and then the account will be verified.
Remove the account completely from the device. If the account isn't used for email and such, which since the phone is not logged in to the account, I would guess this is the case. Go into Settings => Accounts and remove the account that you do not know the password for.


Skype is denied to use camera My Skype on my Android 4.4.4 used to work fine, until about 2 hours ago, when it simply refuses to use my camera, flashing a message (AKA toast) that reads:

  Skype is denied to use camera

What gives?

I didn't change or touch anything in any settings that could possibly cause this. Is this a bug?

What could have triggered it?

How do I restore my Skype-on-Android's capability of using the camera?

Thank you.

Some devices with Kitkat can be found with Permission manager in Settings. If it is enabled and an app asks for a permission that the manager is required to scrutinize, you might have inadvertently blocked it, or could be default block for certain apps.

To ascertain that Skype is denied the Camera permission or not, go to Settings -> Security -> App permission. Your device might have another name for it but possibly should be at similar location. See if its enabled or not. The situation might also be similar to questioner's:

  Turns out Skype was on Always deny... Interestingly, App Permissions in Security was grayed out while ON! I had to turn it off first, which got me a security warning that I am going to lose manual control over apps. I proceeded with Yes anyway, then turned it ON again, and only then I received the familiar list of permissions to control.

It its enabled or similar to the one mentioned above, then either disable it or find your app into it and change the camera permissions.


Android phone connects to Airties only when phone or Airties is newly booted I just got a new ISP, and they set me up with AirTies as a wireless AP for my network (the actual router is some beast that lives behind a networking panel in my condo).

Problem is whenever I get home from work my phone refuses to connect to the network. It doesn't give an error message anywhere I can see (are their connection logs somewhere?) it looks like it tries to connect once (briefly says "connecting..." and the signal indicator suddenly reduces momentarily, before it returns to the simple non-connected state and the signal indicator is full again), and then it just stops and even though the network is listed with a strong connection in the wifi list it doesn't try to connect to it further. I have tried "forgetting" the network and reconnecting and it still fails in the same fashion (although it does ask for a password).

The REALLY strange thing is if I restart my phone it connects to the network briefly (gets through "connecting...", "authentication", "obtaining ip address...", and some other process that happens too fast), but is disconnected within 5-10 seconds. If I restart the AirTies I can connect to it for a while at least (I haven't tested this for an extended session, but at least an hour or two).

My phone has no issue connecting to another network (E.g., the one I have at work, connects with no issues and without prompting), and none of my other devices (currently only one) have trouble connecting to the wifi.

Any thoughts on how I can further diagnose this issue?

Running a Nexus 5 (2013) with the latest available android OS for it (6.0.1) and security patches.

So I happened to read about a long standing issue where I would need to reset my phone entirely in order to fix a similar networking issue.. however it was such a pain to move all my Google 2fa tokens over. I decided if I was going to commit I will just take this opportunity to get a new phone entirely.

Since my new phone I have had no issues with the airties.

In summary: Factory reset your phone or get a new phone. I love Android to bits but this really needs to be looked into.


A small app with a surreal name appeared on my phone. What is it? There's this on my phone. You know what it is it is?

This is the first time I've seen it.

As rule of thumb, if you can delete the app on an unrooted device, deleting it is safe.

Its size is very small, most likely it is some crap, or it might be some harmful thing, too.

Note also, that @pm@, as the name of the app, looks like a translation token. Multi-lingual apps are working typically, that the program code uses tokens instead of hardcoded text, like @pm@ or so, and there is a database for the translation of all the tokens on all the supported languages. It is also possible, that this translation database is damaged.

If you can't fix it by an uninstall, a factory reset has a good chance to solve it.


USB Connection Not Registering on Phone Starting about two weeks ago, I've been having some issues with my HTC Vivid running 4.0.3 regarding the USB port

For charging, once I plug it in it takes about 20 seconds before it registers and shows the charging icon.

My real problem however is that the phone will no longer show up as a drive when I connect to my PC. The computer beeps, but the phone never responds. (After a while it will start to charge, and that's it)

How should I go about trying to solve the problem? Is it an issue with the hardware or Android? Any pointers would be great.

As per TheFutureIsWild:

  Doing a RESTART (not turning off and on) fixed the problem. Also make sure you have a USB data cable, not just a charging one.


Google Play Music - Edit tags of Remotely Stored Music? I am often surprised by the treatment of MP3 names by the native music player, Play Music. Fairly frequently albums are split, or unexpected titles pop up, etc. I am pretty meticulous about ID3s in my collection, and I often can't exactly determine the reason for the unexpected behavior.

Luckily, for those files I copy directly to the phone (Nexus 4), I can fix the issue fairly simply with an app called MP3dit (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ADnet&hl=en). For those that I upload to the cloud via Google Music Manager I am not aware of any such option. Is there a method for changing these? I can't find any alternatives/plugins to Google Music Manager, or at least not yet.

I thought of trying the "Keep on Device" thumbtack button - doing keep, making the edit, and then unkeeping it. However, this is would be tedious and unwieldy, plus I can't seem to find the location of the file once it is downloaded.

One, but far from the only example. Tags looks uniform, but player splits album. And that one funky artist name with all the extra spaces!

So...

1 - Is there a way for me to change the artist/track/album info on these cloud-stored songs?

2 - Can anyone shed some light on the naming system in general? I'm fairly certain it isn't simply ID3s. Some albums that look totally uniform on my hard drive are then split when copied to the Nexus 4 (both on device and remotely stored, but at least those on the device are fairly easily fixed)

I would check the 'album artist' and 'composer' tags in addition to the 'artist' tag. I had Google play do some ridiculous things to my music because of those fields. Setting album artist equal to artist, and ensuring composer was blank, fixed my issues.


How much disk space does Android 2.3.3 and its default apps use? Different phones advertise different total disk space.  When you get a brand new phone with Android 2.3.3 and its default apps, how much disk space do those take?

It's going to depend on the device. Each carrier/manufacturer likes to add their own apps and widgets. Some even pre-load multimedia files for you. So, this question really can't be answered. (Most definitive answer would be to just get the file sizes of the stock Android ROMs.)


Ctrl+Click to open in new tab I use ASUS Transformer with the keyboard attached.

In Google Chrome for Android, I would like to use Ctrl+Click to open up a new tab which contains the website where the link is pointing to, just as I would on my desktop computer. But somehow this does not work on my Android device? I can use for example, Ctrl+tab to open new window.

BTW I click with my touchscreen, maybe this matters?

For now, AFAIK, every action associated with a mouse click can be accessed using a touch or a long-touch. Combo using a key-press and a touch aren't well supported (if supported at all).

Long-Touch over a link, gives you a popup with:

Open in new Tap;
Open in incognito mode;
Copy link address;
Save link as.

For future reference, Google Chrome shortcuts link, from Google support page (the majority of the Linux links are available for Android... just waiting to have this page updated with the Android shortcuts list):

Google Chrome - Keyboard and mouse shortcuts


Does OnePlus 2 "DUAL SIM 4G" support dual 4G? I've read that most dual-SIM phones can only use the other SIM for 2G voice service.

Is OnePlus 2 DUAL SIM 4G any different?

No, OnePlus 2 is not any different.

In fact, users on the forum report that the dual SIM functionality apparently requires the presence of a 2G GSM network.

https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/dual-lte.328953/page-2

  I have the OnePlus 2 (A2005) and am using it in Canada. SIM 1 on Telus (4G/LTE) and SIM 2 on Wind. When I want to use data on Wind, it switches SIM1 down to 2G. Except neither Telus nor Wind has 2G. So when I choose either one for data, it shuts down the other one completely due to lack of 2G. It doesn't just step it down to 3G. This makes the phone pointless for me. Due to their advertising I was hoping that both would be 4G simultaneously, not 4G on one and 2G on the other.

To summarise:

You can connect to any network from any SIM (e.g., can make either SIM a primary one)
The non-primary SIM can only connect to a 2G GSM network
If your non-primary operator lacks a 2G GSM network (which are being shutdown worldwide, and some GSMA operators never had any to start with), the non-primary SIM cannot connect to UMTS or LTE, and will thus be getting no signal at all


adb devices gives same serial number for all Micromax devices I have few micromax devices and I have different serial number for those in the box. But when I run the command adb devices for these devices, I get everything as 0123456789ABCDEF. Is there are way to get the proper device serial number for these micromax devices?

your problem may be incorrect drivers. if you installed correct drivers then restart adb and your phone too. if this does not help im sure you're not installed correct drivers. hope this help.


Stop sideway movement of menu revealed from top On my Galaxy S3, when I slide my finger from the top edge of the screen down, a sort of quick menu is revealed to switch WiFi, GPS, sound...

When it is revealed, the animation goes from top to bottom but also slides sideways. I would like to stop this sideways animation, but I don't even know how this menu is called to Google it and I found no setting for it so far.

I believe you are talking about the notification drawer, and the top row of icons that toggle functionality like wifi, GPS etc.

There appears to be no way to customize what appears in the top row when you are on Samsung's stock software/ROM. You'll have to switch to a ROM like CM9 for that.


Is the app "SIM tools kit" important I´ve CM 12.1 without the gapps. I would like to know the importance of the "SIM tools kit" app (I don´t know if that´s the exact name in english, in Spanish for me it´s "Kit de herramientas de SIM"), and if removing it will damage something, although the only thing it does is to show me publicity of my SIM´s provider.

And I also want to know if that apps meets the definition of free software according to the GNU project. Or at least if I can see its source code and license.

According to the information I can find, the SIM toolkit is act as an interface to the cellular provider's services. Removing this will likely break phone's cellular capabilities, however I cannot confirm this as I do not want to risk deleting it on my device.

Because this toolkit is dependent on the SIM card itself and not the cellular provider, you will need to look up the source code and/or licensing for each SIM manufacturer individually.


New Samsung S6 tablet stuck on Samsung logo? I have bought 20 Samsung s6 and after every 4 of them got stuck on Samsung logo, I keep them on charging for 2 days. Nothing work for me.

If they're new, I'd return them for an exchange.  (And make sure you're not getting cheap fake copies of Samsungs.)


Scan WhatsApp QR Code from device with broken screen to access WhatsApp Web i need to get a bunch of Whatsapp contacts off my phone, however i cant see anything on the screen. The phone still works.I tried to get it into debugging through usb mode but i cant see anything and is pretty much impossible. I need a way to either mirror the phone to pc without being able to interact with the device or retrieve all my whatsapp contacts via usb. Much appreciated.

There is an application through which you can control the screen over USB and adb called ADB control. Follow the link to install and use it. Then you backup contacts to your phone/google account once you have control.

Source: http://marian.schedenig.name/2014/07/03/remote-control-your-android-phone-through-adb/


How to monitor child's SMS messages? Is there any way to have my son's phone set to where any text message that he receives or sends comes to my phone too.

I use DeskSMS on my phone, which will forward all texts to an email address of my choosing (which could then be received on another phone) and also allow responding through email, but it will appear to that person as a standard text from your phone. I found it really handy when I was working in a secured office that didn't allow personal cell phones. I could leave my phone in my car and still be notified of any texts and still respond to them, and the person wouldn't have any idea I was using email to respond.

In using it on your son's device, it is relatively easy to disable, so if your son doesn't want you to see things and is technologically inclined, he could probably find ways around it. But I think if the kid is smart enough, just about any app is able to be bypassed. It isn't made for monitoring, but it would work just the same.

I believe there is a $5 yearly charge (I am pretty sure it comes with a 30 day trial), because of the costs involved in running the server that processes everything.


Android chroot ubuntu - is it possible to get ubuntu to recognise usb devices I've managed to setup the chroot but I'm unsure how to get the chroot to recognise usb devices. I'll be doing so work with microcontrollers hence I neeed to to recognise my usb based programmer.

For starters how do I populate the dev directory with the host dev directory(android)?

Is it then just a matter of getting the right kernel modules loaded?

I'm running prime1.5 firmware on the asus transformer

To populate /dev, use a bind mount (rbind=recursive bind, to catch /dev/pts):

outside# mount --rbind /dev /path/to/chroot/dev

You may also want to bind other things, like /home and /tmp (to make sharing files easier). Just remember to unmount them before rm -Rf'ing your chroot!

You can put bind mounts in fstab. I believe that'd look something like this:

/dev   /chroot/dev   none   rbind   0   0

You may need to set up udev to set proper permissions on your USB device. For example, here are the udev rules I use for my phone:

$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/local-android.rules
ACTION!="add", GOTO="local-android_rules_end"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", GOTO="local-android_rules_real"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", GOTO="local-android_rules_real"
GOTO="local-android_rules_end"

LABEL="local-android_rules_real"

# Mot Droid X
ATTR{idVendor}=="22b8", ATTR{idProduct}=="428c", MODE="660", GROUP="plugdev"

LABEL="local-android_rules_end"


Fastboot: failed flashing (remote: size too large) I'm flashing a GSI image using fastboot. After entering fastboot flash system system.img I get this:

E:\AndroidSDK\platform-tools>fastboot flash system system.img
target reported max download size of 535822336 bytes
erasing 'system'...
OKAY [  0.016s]
sending sparse 'system' 1/7 (523260 KB)...
OKAY [ 17.280s]
writing 'system' 1/7...
FAILED (remote: size too large)
finished. total time: 17.306s

I also tried to flash it using TWRP, same problem.

What's the problem? Can I make system partition larger? Please help.

Edit: I have the latest adb version.

Fastboot has an option -S Used to cut large files into small ones. Specific information can be found at man page:
fastboot --help

So, we can set the size of the crop block to 256MB:
fastboot flash -S 256M system system.img

Source


2.1 as a secure access point? I rooted my HTC Desire 2.1 and I want to turn in into secure access point.

Is there any way I can do that?

I do want to make is secure so user has to enter password to get Internet access.

Depending on what device you're using, Android Wifi Tether might work for you. It's also in the Market, but the Google code page has the most recent versions . It supports WEP, WPA, and MAC address filtering (they refer to this as "access control"). You may need a custom kernel for it to work - this again depends on your device/ROM.

You could also try one of the several other wireless tether apps that are currently in the Market. Some are free and some are not, but you can shop around a bit.

Yet another option would be to install CyanogenMod if your device is supported, since it has the AOSP wifi tethering built in.


How do I prevent Twitter from Texting me notifications? I've got twitter notifications disabled on my Android phone.
But I still keep getting text notification.

Found the answer, sharing for posterity.


How to fix the problem of offline packages not downloading in Google Translate? I'm having a problem with Google Translate and downloading offline packages for any language. I tap the download button next to the language, it says "Starting download" and the indicator is spinning, but nothing happens and the language pack is not downloaded. The app has the permission to use the storage.

My setup: the latest version of Google Translate (v5.20.0.RC10.199570264), on an Xperia L1 with Android 7. I should stress that with previous versions this used to work.

What I have tried:

1) Clearing cache and data of both the app and Google play (also the
    services).

2) Unistalling and reinstalling.

3) Rebooting.

4) Unistalling, rebooting and then reinstalling.

5) Moving the app to SD. Also the opposite.

6) Checking the permissions (everything is allowed).

7) All combinations of all of the above.

I'm about to try a factory reset, but before going nuclear I'd like to try some alternative.

Any hints/ideas are welcome!

The issue was solved by clearing the data of download manager as confirmed by OP .

Go to  Settings → Applications → Download manager → Clear data.

The download should proceed as normal.


samsung Galaxy s firmware I had a message about running out of space on my GT-i9000 so like a fool I started deleting things...turns out I deleted most of my operating system is there somewhere I can download the os rather than sending back to the manufacturer (and is this the firmwear)

Samfirmware.com or XDA are your best bets.  If you need instructions for flashing with Odin or recovery, we have lots of questions on that so just do a search :)


Get the first time Android device launched or used I am about to buy a new nexus 4, the seller claims its never been used.

Is there any guaranteed way to check the mobile first time use?

Thanks

Simply go to the handset service menu and check the total call timer. Simple and easy.


Is there a way to use Google location service without tracking my positions constantly in background? I want to use Google location service based on wifi or cell tower data without gathering and sending my (later anonymized) positions to Google in background when I do not explicitly make the requests. When I decline to send my location information for  in "settings - location", the location service is disabled.

I suppose this would be possible on a rooted phone only.

If your device is rooted, there is a solution available to you:

Location Cache can not only show you what currently is contained in your location cache, it can also delete cached locations, and even "lock" it -- i.e. it kinda "write protects" the location cache, so no new entries can be written into. Effects are multiple:

no data cached means slower location, as the last position is no longer available
as uploading your "latest locations" is handled "bulk-wise" from the cache, it also means: no data in cache -- no bulk-upload to Google's servers -- privacy protected.

I just remember: In Android 2.1 and earlier, we were able to activate "network based locations" and still keep our privacy by unchecking the "share with Google" checkbox. If you try this with Android 2.2+, unchecking that second box automatically unchecks "use network-based locations" as well. So it is technically possible (and even was implemented this way) to respect our privacy -- but intentionally disabled. Don't think evil...

Remark: Location Cache does no longer work from ICS up, it seems -- according to the description on the playstore :( If I can see any alternative, I will update this answer. Meanwhile, it at least provides help to those with Froyo and Gingerbread... As I read in the description of Android Location Cache Viewer, this might be due to the fact the locations are no longer stored on the device (at least not in the same place; so either the place has changed, or transmission to Google's server takes place immediately -- which would also mean the "last location" would no longer be present locally, which I doubt).

Those of you who cannot stop Google getting those data, but still want to protect their privacy, could make use of location spoofers (e.g. Location Spoofer or CatchMeIfUCan) to at least cause some confusion to potential abusers :)


Controlling call volume How do I set the volume of a call (ideally while being on the call)?

I can find volume settings for media, alarm and ring but none of those appears to impress the voice volume on a call.

Calls are currently much too loud on my phone.

OnePlus X, Android 5.1.1

As far as I know, this could be changed simply by buttons on the side of the phone at the moment you are calling.


Downgrade an app in Nougat Well, simple. I want to downgrade an app that has been accidentally updated. I've already read this question but it didn't provide me with a straight instruction. I have the APK I want to downgrade to so that question is unhelpful to me. It's not a test package (saved from Google Play) so option -t doesn't make sense.

Things I've tried so far:

Run in a terminal (with root)

pm install -r -d old.apk
Use adb on a computer

adb install -r -d /path/to/old.apk
Brutally replace the apk in /data/app and manually run dex2oat to force compile it

All of above were to no avail. So I'm quite bothered about this.

I don't want an answer telling me uninstall the new app, then install the old one. I want to retain app data without backing up.

This installs the old version without removing the new one:
adb install -r -d /path/to/old.apk

The -d flag is to allow a downgrade. -t allows test packages.

You can also uninstall the application, then install the old apk. This may be necessary, for example, if the application data has changed format in the new version and is not backwards compatible.


Google play services doesn't get installed I just wanted to upload a video on YouTube but after updating the app to the latest version , it says that it needs Google Play Services to run. I tapped different places of the screen because it sometimes works with other apps, but this case is not the same. I tried hitting the back button and it just quit. I installed that Google app several times but it doesn't get installed. What should I do?

You can download it from here,
you need to search for your android version.
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/google-play-services/
you need to download for your android version>4.1/4.4/5.1/6.0
or try to reinstall YouTube

I have the same problem.

I just download play services and problem was fixed.

EDIT:they support android 2.3+ im using old android phone now,and I can confirm that they support ,also confirm that it's  working for 4.0.


Update Sony Xperia C5303 ( with Android 4.3 ) to new version? Is it possible upgrade or update Sony Xperia C5303 ( with Android 4.3 )  to Android 8.1 with Xperia Companion software ?
Or any description else ?

A simple and clear NO.
Using the Sony companion app you can only install official updates. Your device is so old that Sony stopped supporting this device long before Android 8 was released.
Keep in mind that Android is not like Windows, every update has to be adapted to your device. Therefore providing updates for a device costs a lot of money which is the reason most manufacturer drop device support very early. Some cheap devices never get a single update.
Therefore the only newer Android releases for your device are unofficial (aka customROM, community builds by skilled Android developers) if they exist. Check xda-developers forum for your device for newer firmware updates. But for installing them you need to root and unlock your device which can go wrong and brick your device.
If you are lucky you may find an Android firmware based on Android 5 or 6. I doubt that there are newer ROMs.


What does "awake" mean? I obsessively check the battery info on my ICS phone, and I've noticed that I get the best battery life when the phone hasn't been "awake" much.  But I realized I don't really know what "awake" means.  I have not found a definition for it, and frankly am too lazy to download and grovel the SDK docs.

So ... what precisely does "awake" mean?

This is a power consumption thing. Most time when you're not using a smartphone it's in suspended state. I.e, as many as possible components are off and don't consume power. Awake means the CPU is in the running state. This usually means you're using it and the screen is also on.

Android devices also regularly wake up to check email, push notifications and so on even when thescreen is off. Also playing music or using navigation both with screen off forces the cpu to be awake.

Hence your finding: More awake -> more battery drain


2.3.6 update for Samsung Galaxy S 2 GT-I9100 does anybody know how to download the officially released rom from Samsung? I can't see it in the web site and kies does not donwload anything, currently I am using the 2.3.4 updated a while ago. I have the phone in Switzerland (Zurich) and my Phone operator is Sunrise. Thanks!

Samsung's Kies software is the official way to download and install updates. These updates are released on different dates for different countries and networks and some countries/networks don't have all updates. It may be that your network hasn't tested and certified the update yet, or they might not be releasing this version at all.

This page lists most of the official updates available via Kies for the Galaxy S2 I9100 phone:

Samsung Galaxy S2 Firmware Updates via Kies Official Releases compiled list (2012) | Android Stock ROM BlogPost


Save results of geometry dash for a new telephone I'm a geometry dash player, and i've passed some levels. I'm thinking about changing my smartphone. Do you know a way to store my results, and to reload them in the new telephone? I'd like to preserve my results in future...

The new version provides account registration, so results can be saved in the account


Software Updates in devices I want to know what is actually happening when we upgrade a device's software. For example we upgrade a device from Android ICS to Jellybean. We do download JellyBean from the server. Then we will install it. My question is: during installation does it replaces the ICS in memory or it resides in separate memory?

I know the Kernel is same for both ICS and JB. Can we downgrade to ICS from JB?

The new version replaces the old version, just like upgrading to a new Windows version or a new version of Ubuntu on your PC.

Also, it's not the case that the kernel is the same for ICS and JB. ICS uses a Linux kernel based on the 3.0.1 release, whereas JB's kernel is based on 3.0.31. Android-specific patches to the kernel were also added between the two versions, to support new driver features. But you can downgrade a device to an older version if you have a ROM image to downgrade to, whatever kernel versions they use. The only difference the kernel version makes is that if a device wasn't designed to support a particular kernel version, the manufacturer would have to supply device drivers for the target kernel in order to make a suitable ROM.


What is this icon- pi symbol in circle I have a pi symbol inside a circle on my phone's notification bar. What does this mean?

Do you have Pi music app? I get the pi symbol when Pi music is open.


Restore Google Nexus 5 IMEI that reads 0 I bought a Nexus 5 on Ebay. It came brand new with all the packaging, but having bought a previous Nexus 5 (directly from Google) this packaging seemed a little suspect (I think it might be a very well made imitation, or a modified LG version of the device. Seemed legit on the website though).

Anyhow, when it arrived i put in a local SIM, but it wouldn't connect to the cellular network, or it would connect intermittently (5-10 seconds and it would drop off). I went into the settings and noticed that the IMEI read '0'. It was on Android 4.4.4.

It seems that if the IMEI is 0, the device would fail security checks (either with the MEID or the IMEI zeroed) and thus not register on the network.

After Googling quite a bit, I came across these answers on StackExchange, however they're not entirely clear:
Nexus 5, IMEI 0, how to restore IMEI? (Refers to a Russian website, and you need to translate to English ... so it's kind of messy)
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/96397/nexus-5-imei-0-shows-how-to-restore-original-imei

None of these was actually clear and after quite a bit of fumbling about, nothing seems to have worked. So how does one get this fixed?

Finally i found this post on XDA which seems to be a better translation from the Russian page above to English: http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help/imei-0-efs-backup-t2769023/post60421668#post60421668 . All the files necessary are also attached to the post.

However not all of it is useful, i'll copy-paste the useful parts below, and add comments to things that were important:

Download all the ZIP archives from the post
Install the LG driver
Install QPST
Copy the entire folder EFS Professional to C:/ drive (Not sure whether
it necessarily has be be the C:/ drive, or you can just have it in a folder somewhere on your machine)
You'll need to root the phone and get shell access through adb.
Either:

Unpack the archive Nexus5 the root of drive C (this is only necessary if you don’t use WUG);

Or:

Use WUG Nexus Root Toolkit (a lot easier):

Make sure you're running stock Android 5.0.1 (Very important, I tried with 5.1.1 and it failed). Depending on which Android version you're on, you can either upgrade normally till 5.0.1, or use WUG to downgrade to 5.0.1
Root the device using WUG
If necessary, you can reset the IMEI using backups zero IMEI from the archive. To do this, simply make a backup of your EFS in TWRP, then replace in the folder's backup your files on the distribution of similar make and restore EFS. (Mine was already zeroed, so i had no chance of making a backup) If it is already erased and reads 0, then just skip this step.

Still using WUG, click on the Launch the Advanced utilities:

Install boot [kernel] 5.0.0_diag_BOOT.img from folder "restore_imei_files" (Remember that you were on version 5.0.1 ... if you happen to be on 5.1.1, you may end up in a boot loop like i did ---> So 5.0.1 is very important)

Open a command window (Windows prompt) at the location where adb and fastboot are located (You can do this by navigating to the respective folder, hold "shift" on your keyboard, and right click. In the context menu click "Open command window here").
Type:

adb shell
su
setprop sys.usb.config diag,adb    (notice the comma between diag and adb) This activates the diagnostic mode on the phone and will avail operations with nvram through the com port.

Open EFS Professional:

(a). Click on Qualcomm NV Tools, Hit connect and go to the Secure Ops tab.
(b). Hit Check off IMEI and MEID and hit 'Read' ... if it's zeros then you know you have to enter the IMEI and MEID
(c). Remove the SIM card from the phone (Note: If you had already removed the SIM card earlier, then you can skip this step)
(d). Enter IMEI and MEID (Note: MEID is just the IMEI without the last two digits). (Note: I found my IMEI laser-burned on to the SIM-card holder)
(e). Hit Write

Reboot the phone and check the IMEI by typing *#06#
If the IMEI still reads 0, repeat from 9(b) above again, then Read (note ESN now appears), then Write again (ignore the errors) > Reboot and check, it should work. This did it for me


How to import GPS coordinates track for using offline I have a map (GPS coordinates) of a route. The coordinates are in TRK,GPX,KMZ,PLT formats.

During my trip I will not have internet connection, so I can't upload the map too GoogleMaps and use it.

Is there an application that will allow me to use the map offline?

You can choose one specific route and save it to use later:

C|NET - Save maps for offline use in Google Maps for Android


Use proxy for stock android download manager? Play store not downloading through shadowsocks I'm in China.
I use proxy to access GFW blocked sites.
Proxy is connected as an android VPN.
Stock download manager does not go through proxy.
How can I use proxy with it?

On my Mi Mix 2S, I just opened the download manager app and disabled "Xunlei Download Acceleration" and then it worked. But there is no download manager app to open on my Nexus, and I can't find any settings related to it.

Now on my Nexus, everything I download in google play store is stuck at "Downloading...", without even starting the download process.

How can I configure the download manager so that it uses the proxy?

More Info:
•   Proxy App: Shadowsocks 4.8.0

•   Android Version: 9
•   StatiX OS Version: v2.0-OFFICIAL-20190225-2252
•   Android Security Patch Level: February 5, 2019
•   Kernel Version:
    o   3.10.108-Statix-Pie-g950b2df
    o   #1 Mon Feb 25 22:58:17 UTC 2019
•   Build Number: PQ2A.190205.003 release-keys

The only way to force everything through a server like a proxy on Android is a vpn. There are several apps to use a proxy via vpn

The theory is that if you get a bad proxy not everything is effected. Generally only web browsers respect proxy configuration and other apps must specifically support it (which they do not generally)

Also check the proxy configuration and that it is accessible


How to change default username in Google Play? I'm stuck to this problem. I used to have a google account which is now deleted and not existent anymore. I have a new Google account. The problem is that in my Android device when I have to go to Google Play, the default username is the old one. How can I change it?

You can try adding another gmail account through the "accounts & sync" (or whatever your manufacturer calls it) section of the Settings.  You may be able to choose that other account when you visit the Play store, depending on your specific device.  In many cases, however, the gmail account you used when you activated the device for the first time can only be changed by performing a factory reset of the device.


How to check if your bootloader is unlocked I'm about to flash a custom recovery, but I'm not sure if my bootloader is unlocked or not (phone is rooted, but I did it a while ago, so I can't remember the process I went with), and I don't want to do anything that might risk losing all my current data. Can I simply run fastboot flash recovery [recovery image], and if it doesn't work, take that to mean my bootloader is locked? Are there any negative consequences to attempting this with a locked bootloader?

Assuming your device adheres to some Android standards, you'd want to run fastboot oem device-info.

Often you can also run fastboot reboot-bootloader to get into the bootloader which often says right there on screen whether it's locked or not.

Different devices can display the lock state differently.

fastboot is located in %ANDROID_SDK_DIR%\platform-tools, where the part inside the %...%is where you installed the Android SDK.

Typically though it's not the bootloaders lock state that will result in failed roots. That is usually (depending on your method) due to the /system partition still being locked to read-only mode which has nothing to do with the bootloader IIRC.

An alternative method that may have mixed results:

Open your device’s dialer
Dial *#*#7378423#*#* and it will automatically open a new window if it works
Now in that window go to Service Info > Configuration

You ought to see one of these:

Bootloader unlock allowed - Yes (Bootloader is Locked)

Bootloader Unlocked - Yes (Bootloader is unlocked)


How to edit Sony Xperia J dictionary I like to use the built-in dictionary that suggests words when I use SMS or Hangouts.
It works okay but I'd like to edit some of the words it suggests.

Where can I edit the built-in dictionary? Is there a function for it?

Xperia: you can hold on the word displayed  and u have an option to delete it.
You can add words by going through 'language & input' then add your words in 'personal dictionary'.

I would like to edit from a 'list' of saved words but I haven't found my way to the list.


Is there an equivalent for coconutBattery (Mac) on the Android? My G2 android used to last an entire day without charge for the past year, now it appears that it gets to very low energy at about halfway through the day, is there something like coconutBattery (Mac) for the Android? Not sure if this question belong on SO or somewhere else?

I am essentially looking for original Design Capacity (ie. 6900 mAh) and now the Current capacity (6559 mAh)?

Thanks.

Most of the information is available in Settings -> About Phone -> Status but you can also use an app from the market called Battery Info (i am sure there are others as well) and it will show you all the information on the battery. This app also has a widget that can display some information too.

At the time of me writing this it is not possible in the android SDK to get the raw mAH value so you wont find any apps that can display the exact mAH, only how charged the battery is in percent, and what is drained.


Is there a free android app which can launch apps on a successful wifi connection? Is there a free android aplication which can launch other pre-selected apps when it detects a successful wifi connection?

Bonus, if it can kill the apps when the wifi connection is gone.

I know plug in launcher pro version claims that it has this feature (but it ain't free)

More background:

I'm using wifi powermanager to startup wifi whenever a power source is connected. Once wifi, is connected, I wish to start applications like airdroid, wifi fixer.

Try AutomateIt.  This app allows you to set up various triggers (WiFi enabled/disabled included) and then assign actions like launching apps or toggling other settings.


Why is there no Java compiler on Android? I'm not an Android developer but I do other stuff.
I just rooted my phone so I was playing around with a shell and I was trying to compile some C packages and realized there is no C compiler, OK.
Surely there must be Java right? Tried it and I can't get a java or javac command to work either.
How is that possible when Android apps are written in Java?

If you have Android 5.0 (lollipop) or later, use termux. (Terminal IDE is great but only works up to android 4.*). It's on the google play store, and the source is on github.

It has an apt repository with several compilers, including ecj, the
Eclipse Compiler for Java, and is much faster than javac.

There's also golang, clang, gcc, node, python and a whole bunch of other stuff (tmux, vim, ctags, cscope, emacs, latexetc etc etc).

NB: this doesn't actually answer your "why" question, but might be helpful...


Does retrieving backup from SD card retrieve malware & virus, too? I think I read in other questions here that you can reset your phone to factory setting to get rid of most bad stuff ordinary people can secretly put on your phone such as spy apps, malware, virus etc.

After reset, if you restore any back up data from your SD card, can you get the same bad stuff from it?

Yes, assuming you had some "bad stuff" in the backup to begin with.  For example, if you installed a malicious 3rd party app you found in some random site, then backed it up along with its settings to an SD card, then wiped/reset the phone to factory settings, then re-inserted the SD card with your backup and restored the malicious app from your backup, you're essentially back to where you started.

If you suspect that you have an infected/compromised system, and are factory resetting/wiping everything to start with a "clean" system, it may be prudent to re-download and then re-install all the apps from a known good source rather than restore from a backup.

If you suspect that the malware may have had root access, you may consider re-downloading and re-flashing the original stock ROM itself as an extra precaution using an update downloaded directly from the manufacturer.  (This is because the malware may have installed itself in the /system directory-- that is, the firmware software itself.)

This is not a 100% failsafe method for being sure to have removed all traces of malware (once it has root, malware theoretically could install itself into other unusual partitions such as the radio/baseband, etc. but this would be difficult, device-specific, and I have not heard of this ever happening... yet), so I would suspect this should be effective.

But yeah, don't wipe everything only to restore from a backup of your system that has the original problem...


uTorrent and bitTorrent on Android cannot download anything? I tried to see how download is like on an Android phone, so I emailed myself a torrent file and then saved it in the Download folder.
And then I tried both uTorrent and bitTorrent app. But it only has "Open the torrent on http://____________", or there is a search function that leads the user to do searching on duckduckgo.com
There was no way to use a local torrent file in the Download folder.
So I tried setting up a webserver on my Mac and then use http://128.0.1.123/try.torrent (something like that) but it could not load it.  Duckduckgo.com led to some magnetic URL site, and I copied and pasted to uTorrent, and they cannot load either.
Is it possible to make it work?  I tried the LibreTorrent app and at least it can open a local torrent file and start downloading.

I found one solution: go to the File Manager, and then open the torrent file, and choose "Open in app" and choose the app.
Why the app itself doesn't allow opening the file in itself, I am not sure.


How to stop "Monkey Test" and "Time Service" apps When I long-press the "home" button to close all apps, there is an app named "time service" with android symbol and another named "monkey test" that are always open.

How to stop this?

"Monkey Test" and "Time Service" are being reported recently by some anti-virus programs for Android as malware, as reported here in the Norton Community forum, and here at Android Central. In general form, they suggest the normal actions:

Disabling installations from "Unknown Sources",
 Settings -> Security -> Device administration -> Unknown sources
Disabling the app,
 Settings -> Application manager -> AppName -> Disable/Uninstall
Checking to see if "Device Administrators" has it blocked from uninstalling, and then trying the uninstall again.
 Settings -> Security -> Device administration - > Device administrators
Factory Reset

Both communities also suggest the use of some uninstallers for malware, which I won't cover here, in addition to rooting as a final option to totally remove it/them.


Enabling headset button automatically during calls I have a Samsung Tab 2, and a mono bluetooth headset.

The phone shows a bluetooth-connected icon at the top. When I dial any phone number, the headset button is not showing as connected. I have to click the headset button everytime to hear the phone audio in bluetooth headset.

Is there any way to enable headset button automatically during calls when the bluetooth headset is connected?

I don't know if they will work in this case, but maybe you could have a look at apps like Auto Bluetooth, Bluetooth Auto Connect, Automatic Bluetooth Toggle and many more (just look for somethinig like auto bluetooth in Play Store). Maybe there are some apps that can solve your problem.

As far as I know, there is no real built-in way to enable that button.


"Sorry, something went wrong" when trying to "Set up nearby device" I have a new Google Nexus 5X model LH-H790, that's meant to replace an also new Nexus 5X LG-H791.

When I try to transfer the account from phone to phone ("Set up nearby device") I see the confirmation code as expected on both phones.  Pressing next gives the unhelpful error message "Sorry, something went wrong".

The devices are next to each other, or nearby, or touching, both connected to the same WiFi, and both machines are virtually new.  What could cause "Sorry, something went wrong"?

I had the same issue today. I had to replace my old (broken) Nexus 5X to a new Nexus 5X.

After unsucessfull tries (same error message as you) I started to all reconfigure manually when I noticed my old Nexus 5X was running Android 7.0 and the new stock Nexus 5X was still on Android 6.0.

So here is what I did: I accepted the update to Android 7.0, then did a factory reset on the new phone and I restarted the procedure and it worked like a charm.


Filesystem for sdcard to store large file and apps access I am running android oreo 8.1 (custom ROM) on Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro.  I have a 64GB memory card in which I want to store large files of size 15GB, 20GB etc. So I can't use FAT32 filesystem.
I formatted it to exFAT but battery started draining faster as mount.exfat process uses CPU above 20-30% during read/write operation.

If I format to ext4, How can I made sdcard files available to all android apps ?
 Is there any other filesystem which can store large files and android apps can access it as well ?

I think your Micro SD card is not compitable with Android system try to use class 2 micro SD card sdhc(secure digital high capacity) type see if it's work. I do have same problem I have used 16GB Uhs-1 class 10 A1  (ultra high speed) micro SD card  but it's not compitable with the Android system it says can't read and Android system notify it's corrupted sd card, but soon after I try another micro SD card which is class 2 sdhc its work fine no countering any problem at all it's working  smooth when transferring data and fast rendering any apps I want to open that i have installed in my phone. There's so many type of micro SD card out there but need to see carefully some of it only suitable for hi digital camera which is usually using different file format system.


How to delete SuperSu and changes it made I inherited a Moto G3 which I unlocked and installed TWRP and a custom ROM. I foolishly attempted to install SuperSu. It supposedly changes some system files.  Now I want it off the phone. In any event, there is no obvious way for me to uninstall SuperSu and system files which were changed.

I did some Internet research. One site said I had to reinstall the stock recovery and ROM. That sounds like a lot of extra effort, and I don't think any changes got made to TWRP. As far as I can determine, any changes took place in the System partition.

My question is this:

Would it work for me to boot to recovery and use TWRP to do an advanced wipe of the Dalvik Cache, Data, Cache, and System partitions?

Yes, I know then I need to reinstall the ROM and GAPPS. That's OK, I did not make many changes I need to retain.

Thanks.

If you installed "SuperSu.zip" using TWRP Flashing, then you can also uninstall it by flashing the uninstall.zip


Can I use symbol links in Android to move programs onto the SD card when they insist on being on harddrive? I have a Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro Mini with Cyanogenmod OS.

One of the most frustrating things about it is that many applications want to be on the phone instead of the SD card, but the phone has very limited memory which is always running out, causing my phone to become slow and unstable.

Meanwhile my SD card is mostly empty.

I realize that under the hood, Cyanogenmod is Android, which in turn in Linux, so I expect (in theory) I should be able to create symbolic links (though I'm hardly a Linux guru).

Is it possible to create symbolic links and move applications and/or their data from the phone to the SD?
What can/should I move?
What would be the risks of moving these?
What should I absolute never move?
What would be the safest method way (either using software or the command line) to move that which can/should be moved?

Afaik Link2SD does precisely this - it moves apps to sd leaving properly designed symlinks only at where they were before.


Is there a way to allow certain numbers to be called from a locked phone? When I got my first cell phone I was told to put a "In case of an emergency call  XXX" at the top of my list of phone numbers.  While I haven't ever benefited directly from that, I have benefited from similar emergency preparedness advice.  My old phone finally made the trip to electronics heaven (RIP dear RAZR) and I moved over to a Verizon Android phone (Samsung Stratosphere - with Gingerbread 2.3.5). I really like that I can "lock" this phone to prevent someone else from using it in malicious ways, but I would really like a method for someone to be able to determine who my emergency contacts are, and ideally contact those people, if I'm ever incapacitated.

When I saw the "Emergency Call" button I thought that might be the functionality I was looking for, but it isn't - ( What is an "Emergency Call," and can I  set number for it? )

Is there any way to have two or three people and their contact info accessible without unlocking the phone?

Clarifying edit: Maybe I'm being picky, but I'd also like to have my emergency contacts actually able to be contacted, i.e., someone could pick up my phone - without knowing the lock code - and actually be able to call my emergency contacts.

Matthew's comment seems most practical ...

But you can try Contact Owner; that displays info for one contact on your lock screen.   I use it; it works fine.


Silence Notifications? Went to the sound profile of the apps, turned them all off or blocked them and still getting email notifications with a loud sound. IS there any way to turn them off, or what is the way to do this, without silencing the ringer? This happening through Gmail app.

Press volume up/down button and then expand volume bar and lower the notifocation sound.


Music Player with a smart Shuffle option One of the feature that I love on Amaro (Linux) or Winamp (Windows) is the ability to shuffle the playlist, ie take all the songs in the playlist and shuffle them like a deck of playing cards. That way, when I play the list, the same song never repeat after the whole playlist have been played once.

In the basic music player on Android, and the few ones I've tried from the market, the behavior is the classical "Pick a random song" each time the previous one is ended, meaning sometimes the same song gets played 10 times in an hour, and others never get played.

Is there an app that provide this feature?

There's an App called "Just Playlists" that states the "none repeating shuffle" as one of its features:

http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/media_and_video/just-playlists_byqz.html


Google drive only backup new photos How can I only backup photo's I make after I turned on automatic backup?

Move all your existing photos into a different directory anywhere else. Then just be sure to not allow Google Photos to backup folders. It will by default grab just the DCIM/Camera folder.

Gallery/other file managers will still have full accessibility.


Is it possible to install Nexus factory reset images on other Android devices The device I want to install Nexus onto is the Onda VI10 tablet.

I found some Nexus factory images here, and I would like to install them. Is this possible?

Short answer:
No.
Long answer:
Nexus factory images, as so kindly implied by their name, are complete snapshots of the software installed on a Nexus device prior to leaving the factory.
Due to the device-specific nature of Android, e.g. it needs specific drivers for it to run on any one given device, it is generally impossible (or illogical, as it seems) to run a build of Android for a specific device on another device.


Is GSM telephony feasible on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9? I'm looking to buy a small tablet to use as a "table phone" for use with a headset, and for video telephony. GSM telephony is a must - I don't want to rely entirely on Skype, or Internet connectivity in general. (Plus I'm eligible for a landline number on my mobile contract so people can call me from normal phones for free, which is great.)

I am hovering between the 7" P1000 Samsung Galaxy Tab and the more expensive, newer 8.9" one.

The 7" one officially supports GSM telephony. Various tests remarked that it's a bit too chunky for use as a normal mobile phone but for my use case on the desk, that doesn't matter. I really just want something I can carry around in a bag, and put on my desk to make calls with.

The 8.9" one supports GSM telephony, but doesn't come with it activated out of the box. You need third party Android products in order to use it.

This strikes me as odd, and makes me expect problems - why else would one build in the functionality, but not ship with it enabled? Telephony is the one thing I really, really need to just work - I can't afford to deal with dropping connections, bad voice quality, patches, and an overall "beta" experience.

Is telephony feasible on an 8.9" Samsung Galaxy Tab?

You write that the 8.9" tablet has support for GSM telephony but that it is not activated out of the box - and that suprises and concerns you.

Well, for many of us, the original 7" Galaxy Tab is the same: the hardware supports GSM telephony but the North American firmwares have no support for it.  Presumably this was done at the behest of the N.A. carriers who want users to use the tablet as a second cellular device - not as a replacement for a phone.

As a result, I had to root the Galaxy Tab and load a European firmware on it in order to activate its GSM telephony.  Once I did this it worked perfectly well as both a phone and a tablet.  (Though it does seem rather slow by today's standards, and it won't be getting ICS.)

It sounds like that is the same situation that you would face with the 8.9" tab: the fact that the GSM telephony was not supported out of the box did not mean that it didn't work well - but you need to be prepared to get your hands dirty to 'activate' this functionality yourself.


Turn animated gif into WhatsApp sendable video I'd like to convert a short gif-animation to a video so I can send it to a friend via WhatsApp. Do you know easy ways to accomplish that (e.g. codec etc.)? Best would be doing it on the device directly but I could do it as well on a computer.

You can use this online tool to convert it: http://www.giftovideo.com/

Regarding tools, you could use FFMPEG + ImageMagick, but it's kind of tricky finding the correct options. There is some instructions here. I tried but some of the cases didn't work.


Google Nexus S USB Drivers for Windows 7 64Bit Anyone knows how to get the Google Nexus S to be recognized by the Windows OS. The only option I could find was to download the Android SDK and then use the driver from there, but unfortunately, it is a very big download and I wish to find a faster way to connect and check the files and folders on my Nexus S

The USB Driver for Windows is available for download as an optional SDK component. You need the driver only if you are developing on Windows and want to connect an Android-powered device (ADP, Nexus One, or Nexus S) to your development environment over USB.

Are you going to develop android app or just want to browse the internal memory?

http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html


How to turn my Android tablet into general Wifi IP camera with AP? I would like to turn my Android tablet into general Wifi IP camera to be accessible as a standard wifi camera from another wifi enabled tablet, smartphone or PC.

There is a number of Android apps on Google Play, called Wifi camera, but to stream video GSM connection is required and login to gmail on both devices is required either.

All I need is to have my tablet to act as a general WiFi camera , supporting wifi pairing
and access from VideoLan VLC media player via
rtsp (example rtsp://10.1.1.20:554/ch0_0.h264).

I want to stream not encrypted video   at a selected resolution ( HD or above)

I need such appl to come with AP, I can set multicast mode, to let 2 or more devices to access the same video stream
I am interested to have such Android appl to feature and support ONVIF wifi camera standard to let me run more ONVIF tests.

darius

You have a few options,
What is AP ?

Do you only want Local Access ?
Whereas the camera can only be connected to from the same WiFi network, Not publicly accessible ?

Or do you want Publicly Accessible ?
Whereas the camera can be accessed from another device remotely over the internet  ( check on home while you're at work for example )

You can create a simple IP Camera app that works on local networks very easily, however you'll need a server to handle internet access, I use Ivideon to do my remote access.

My Setup ...

IP Webcam Pro    ( For Running IP Camera )
TinyCam Monitor Pro  ( For Viewing IP Cameras )
Ivideon Account  ( For Remote Camera Access )

Both TinyCam.. & IP Webcam .. Offer Free Versions.

Ivideon has a free limited account, the limits should be enough for Home use.

You can also grab some Free Open Sourced Alternative's from the website F-Droid Free Open Sourced Software Repository F-Droid.org

Part 2

OK, so I've looked into IP WebCam and it uses it's own dedicated website that you can connect to locally, however I remember the app from a few years ago and behaved differently back then... Maybe Android limitations.

You can build an application for what you need, or search for RTSP Camera on Google Play,

I know that there is some because you can get libraries on GitHub that are OpenSourced .. like this one pedroSG94's RTMP-RTSP-stream-client


Need an information on upgrade I bought a Galaxy S5 (G900F- International Model) two years ago. It was locked by carrier. I can't use any network sim from my country. So I spend some money to unlock the carrier (Country Unlock - This is what we name it). It was&is on Android Kitkat. Now I planned to upgrade it to latest marshmallow from official update using Odin and it's files. I just want to know Will it lock the carrier again?

It will not "relock" even if you use the carrier's specific update procedure and firmware. The status of your carrier lock is not stored in an area of the phone that is modified by flashing a ROM. It is similar to your serial number, MAC address, or IMEI number and is (sort of) protected from change.

You can safely upgrade, or consider a custom ROM without worry about losing your carrier unlock.