Nexus won't boot after update So I have a Nexus 7 2013 no root vanilla. I just recently flashed it with vanilla 6.0.1 since it could not update from 5.1.1. Then a few days ago an update came out and I updated. Now my nexus tries to boot goes to the colorful boot screen then the text comes up saying starting apps then shuts off and tries to boot once more. When ever I try to boot into boot loader with volume up and power button it says no command. Any idea on what I can do to fix this?

This most probably means that you are stuck in a device boot-loop. The easiest way to fix Nexus devices (in my opinion) is to use the Nexus Root Toolkit, which automatically fixes most problems with a click of a button.

You'll need a machine running windows and a USB cable to make this work. First, install Nexus Root Toolkit on Windows. After the setup is completed, open the program and add the phone type in the popup box. Now you should see 2 windows (the toolkit and the log). Click on Soft-Bricked/Bootloop on the Restore/Upgrade/Downgrade section then click on Flash Stock + Unroot (this is for both root and non-root devices). From here, just follow the steps the guide tells you and your device should go back to normal. However, MAKE SURE that you click 'no-wipe mode' on the third slide if you want to keep all your data.

That is the easiest way I found for fixing bootloops on Nexus devices. There are plenty of other ways to do it manually though (especially if your device is not rooted).
Here are some listed below:

http://xda-university.com/as-a-user/how-to-recover-from-a-bootloop

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fix-boot-loop-issues-stock-rooted-android-467411

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/fix-boot-loop-android-78426.html


How do i detect my android phone on my PC? While installing custom rom i think i deleted some key file and not the phone is not getting detected While installing custom rom i think i deleted some key file so now my PC is not able to detect my android phone, nor I have any saved roms on the phone to recover. I do not have SD card slot but have clockworks recovery software so if someone can tell me how i can make my PC detect the android phone it would be great.

Which device do you have? There might be an option in CWM to enable MTP to gain access to storage over USB.


Can 'coredump' folder be deleted safely? Internal memory (1.21 GB) of my phone is mainly occupied by a folder named 'coredump' (size ~900 MB). Will it be safe to delete it? What should i do to release this memory?

Short answer
I wouldn't recommend deleting the folder itself, but it should be pretty safe to delete its content (i.e. the files inside). I'm just afraid you won't be able to do so – unless you have root access on your device.
Explanation
Core dumps (on some Android devices also called "tombstones", which somehow explains their purpose) are generated when an app crashes (or force-closes). They usually contain a complete dump of the memory that app was using, plus some additional information – and are intended for debugging purposes (to provide the developer with information about the state the app was in when it crashed – hence "tombstones", describing the "dead of a process").
The system itself doesn't need them at all, so deleting them should be pretty safe. However, depending on implementation, the system might rely on the fact the folder is there – so removing the folder along might have "negative side-effects" (should not, but who knows). As an empty folder is not using up any space, it shouldn't hurt to keep it.
On the other hand: as its only purpose is collecting those "crash reports", and as they probably won't go anywhere either: who cares whether "writing those crash-logs crashes"? ;)


Samsung GT-S7562: Network Goes off I have Samsung GT-S7562. I did update the handset with KyleOPEN custom ROM. Was not satisfied with the custom ROM so again ported back to Original ROM.

I updated the ROM + Kernel using Odin tool. After I update, the network goes off suddenly. I have re-register with the service provider to gain the network back. This happened thrice.

Also, is there Cyanogenmod or any other custom ROM (Apart from KyleOPEN)for this handset.

Any suggestion will be helpful.

Thanks.

you've lost the efs file that contains the serial number


When does google backup stop waiting? I enabled google backup on my galaxy S8 this morning. Photos synced in a few minutes, but all other items ("App data", "Call history", "Contacts" etc) have a message under them reading "Waiting to back up".

Under what conditions does the google backup start for these other items?

The phone is connected to Wi-Fi
The battery full battery
All OS updates are installed (or those that I've been prompted to)
No power-saving features are enabled
Tried attaching to recharger
Tried rebooting
Tried disabling/re-enabling backup

Is there something else I'm missing?  Perhaps there is a setting somewhere to control when backup should be performed?

As I just discovered, on a Note 8, screen lock seems to disable backup - including greying out the "backup now" button.  Disable screen locking and everything works.  Re-enable locking, and no backup.  Kind of strange.


How hard is it to modify Android to add/remove required applications I am new to Android world and I am really curious about how difficult it is to modify OS to add/remove applications. I am not talking about installing/removing apps from Android Market, but actually customizing OS to only include apps of my choice. That includes both standard/system apps as well as apps from Android Market. For example, what if I only wanted to have access to Google Voice application (and nothing else)? I guess in this custom version of the OS, I would not necessary have to remove the application, but could just somehow hide it from user.

In any case, any clues on the amount of effort/approach would be greatly appreciated.

You can modify system image. Pre-installed applications are located at /system/app/ folder. You can add new application to this folder or remove pre-existing applications from that folder.

Applications from this folder are not removable (if device is not rooted).

As a fast example for customizing Android emulator:

Go to Android SDK folder, .../platforms/android-9/images/
Note system.img file, it will be modified (you should back it up)
Extract system.img using unyaffs
Customize files inside extracted folder
Pack new modified system using mkyaffs2image (this tool is built when Android source is built).
Replace old system.img with new customized system.img
Create emulator for Android 2.3, launch it and verify that your changes took effect.

This mostly an overview of process, and customization of a real device is much trickier.


What functions are in the ROM of an Android phone? I would like to get a clear picture of what is in the ROM vs. what is in the OS. This will help me understand what those custom ROMs are all about.

Well, the OS is in the ROM, to start with.

You're suffering from a terminology problem: "ROM"s these days are all typically Flash memory, which is erasable and rewritable, but not byte-by-byte. So the OS may even live in the same physical ICs as the 'main' phone memory.

Basically, custom ROMs can enhance/modify/break EVERY aspect of your phone's operation. There is a separate 'radio rom' which includes the low-level drivers for the wifi/gps/3g/gsm/bluetooth functions, and these typically aren't 'customised' but you may still find newer versions available that can improve certain aspects of your phone.


Will the HTC Desire HD have superior hardware than the Samsung Galaxy S? I'm thinking about ditching my iPhone and going Android, so far the best contenders are the HTC Desire HD and the Samsung, which one has superior hardware specifications?

It really depends what you mean by superior. The Desire HD will be basically the same as the existing Desire but with a 4.3" screen and will have the same amount of internal storage as the Galaxy S.

The Desire HD will have 768 MB of RAM instead of 512 MB on the Galaxy S.

But the Desire HD will have the same Snapdragon processor as the old Desire, whereas the Galaxy S has the superior Hummingbird.

However, the Desire HD will have a 8 MP camera whereas the Galaxy S only has 5 MP, and the Desire HD has dual LED camera flash whereas some of the Galaxy S phones don't have a flash at all.

That sums up the major differences, and personally I'd lean toward the Desire HD, but you should compare for yourself and see what better fits your needs:

HTC Desire HD specifications
Samsung Galaxy S specifications


Boot only when connected to a Pc Is possible to set my Android(Asus Zenfone 2) to only boot with it's connected to a specific computer via usb.

No problem if root is needed.

No, there is no trivial way to do this. You would have to write a custom bootloader for your phone.

If your intention is to protect your data, a viable option would be to use full disk encryption, which does not even require root.


Moto G not showing up properly in Android Device Monitor after upgrade I was able to enable USB debugging, download, and run a an app I wrote in Android Studio when it was running KitKat.  I have since upgraded to Lollipop.

I also changed from 32 to 64 bit Linux Mint due to warnings in Android Studio and the need to -force-32bit in the debugger.

Now my Moto G shows up in Android Device Monitor as shown in the attached image.

Any ideas on what might be causing this?

There was quite a bit of change so the issue could be anywhere within the opertion. To start troubleshooting lets first look toward your device.

Since the upgrade to lollipop to cover all bases just assume everything reverted to its original state. looking at the basics go to developer settings and verify USB debugging is enabled. next connect device to PC and now within the device verify that MTP is enabled. two ways to check one the devices notification pull down menu press the connected as media device enable media device (MTP). the other option is to go to settings/storage/menu-dots/USB computer connection then verify MTP.

Next focus on the PC next and with changing from 32 to 64. Its thorough to just assume if it changed then compatibilty issues followed. So go to devices and check that the proper drivers are installed.

Device manager click launch emulator and once its up that means its time for adventures in ADB.

  adb devices

check what itt returns and if the question marks are still present then try this.

  adb kill-server

then

  adb start-server

hopefully by this point you are up and running that was just a few common causes.


Is there a way to route all traffic from Android through a proxy/tunnel to my Tomato router? I'd like to be able to connect my Android phone to public Wi-Fi points (some with unencrypted connections), but:

People can see what I'm doing by intercepting unencrypted radio transmissions
The AP owner or other people logged into it can see what I'm doing
Hackers can pretend to be the access point and carry out man-in-the-middle attacks

There are tools like Wi-Fi Ruler and WeFi to automatically connect to access points, but I don't trust random APs.  I'd like all my traffic to go through an encrypted tunnel to my home router, and from there out to the Internet.

I've done such tunnels from other computers with SSH/SOCKS and PPTP before.  Is there any way to do this with Android?

More specifically:

My phone now has CyanogenMod 7.1.0
My router currently has TomatoUSB Version 1.28

I'm willing to change the router firmware, but I was having issues with DD-WRT disconnecting, which is why I'm using Tomato.  Some possible solutions:

SSH with dynamic SOCKS proxy:

Android supposedly supports this through ConnectBot, but I don't know how to get it to route all traffic.
Tomato supports this natively.

I've been using this with Tunnelier for my web browsing at work.  Requires setting up each app to go through the proxy, though.

PPTP:

Android supports this natively.
Tomato does not support this, unless you get the jyavenard mod and compile it?

I previously used PPTP for web browsing at work and in China because it's native in Windows and DD-WRT.  After a while I started having problems with it, then I started having problems with DD-WRT, so I switched to the SSH tunnel instead.  Also it supposedly has security flaws, but I don't understand how big of a problem it is.

IPSec L2TP:

Android (phone) and Windows (work/China) both support this natively
I don't know of a router that does.  I could run it on my computer using openswan, but then there are two points of failure.

OpenVPN:

CyanogenMod apparently includes this, and now has an entry to create a new OpenVPN in the normal VPN interface, but I have no idea how to configure it.

TunnelDroid apparently handles some of this.
Future versions will have native support in the VPN settings?

Tomato does not support this, but there are mods that do?  I don't know how to configure this, either.

TomatoVPN
roadkill mod
SgtPepperKSU mod
Thor mod

I could also run a VPN server on my desktop, I guess, though that's less reliable and presumably slower than running it in the router itself.  I could change the router firmware, but I'm wary of more fundamental things breaking.  Tomato has been problem-free for the regular stuff.

Related: Anyone set up a SSH tunnel to their (rooted) G1 for browsing?

You can configure android to use a proxy server. But you must do it either from the adb client, or from the terminal in a rooted g1.

> adb shell
# sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
sqlite> INSERT INTO system VALUES(99,’http_proxy', 'proxy:port');
sqlite>.exit

read about @ http://discuz-android.blogspot.com/2008/01/set-proxy-for-android-web-browser.html


How do I disable Google Chrome from using regional google search? I am using a VPN app
 and I don't want google to give me Arabic searches if my VPN is Arabic (besides, the whole site is mirror-imaged, since Arabic is written backwards). I want every search on Google to go to either google.com or google.co.in. I have tried searching, but all of them are about Chrome in PCs, and not for Android.

You can visit these addresses below everytime you want to do a search or simply bookmark it. There is no way to add a custom search engine on the mobile Chrome version.

Google Search No country redirect or www.google.com/ncr

And now when you search with Google Chrome, it will always search using Google.com in English without the country redirect.


How to add S/MIME certificate to samsungs native email app on galaxy s3 In my Android 4.3 Samsung Galaxy S3 there is a builtin Email App. If i open the account configuration there is an option to sign outgoing emails.

Configure Email Account > Security Options > Sign outgoing Emails (check)

Below is another item called PRIVATE KEYS.
If i open it, it shows an empty page. I can click Menu>Import Key and it shows me another empty page.

I have S/MIME certificate signed by a trusted root CA (StartCom) and i copied it via USB to my phone. The file is a "filename.p12" file maybe this is the problem but it worked for outlook on my computer.

How can I add my private key to my email accout to be able to use the "sign outgoing emails" option?

Please help me, i am struggeling around since hours. It cannot be the case that nobody used this option before.

After a long time of researching I found this useful link:

http://www.gridshore.nl/2013/09/30/setting-up-keys-to-sign-emails-in-samsungs-android-email-app/

It seems to be the case that it is not trivial to make android to find the keys. You need to place them in a special folder with a special filename.

But the worst is that samsungs email client supports S/MIME only for exchange connections and not for pop3 or imap. I cannot imagine why this is the case but it seems to be true.

All of that makes me belive that some people dont want us to encrypt or sign our emails. What a shame!


I can't use android emulator in android studio in Mac Can anyone help me run emulator in android studio in Mac? I tried to run it but it says the following as portrayed in the given image.

The app you are trying to run has a larger minimum SDK requirement than what is provided by the device you are trying to run on (22 vs. 23).

Check out the changes you need to make in your manifest file in this article - specifically the part with:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="integer"
          android:targetSdkVersion="integer"
          android:maxSdkVersion="integer" />


How do I get room in memory? I have tried to move apps I have a 64gb SD card an my phones internal memory is full an it's not letting me download any more App's says I have insufficient space,  how do I fix tht i have 64gb. I should be able to download alot,  I've tryed unmounting sd card I moved couple apps to card n memory is still same plz help...

Uninstall some useless app and clear your phone cache and download and install sd maid in your device and try to reebot your device after that try to download what application you want to download, if insufficient space is not poping up, comment me
 if work...


How can I set a new app as my default launcher on a Galaxy Ace? I downloaded a launcher app on my Samsung Galaxy Ace (iPhone Locker; actually its a locker app but it pretends to be a launcher). Now when I press the Home button, the list of launcher apps pops up. This list contains iPhone locker, and when I select that it is set, but the next time I click on Home the launcher list pops up again. I checked in my application settings and iPhone Locker's Clear Default button is grayed out, so it looks like it has not yet been made the default app. How can I make this my default launcher?

Go to menu > settings > applications > manage applications > your current launcher and tap Clear data button. Then, after pressing "home" button, a dialog should pop out, asking you, which application should be used to complete the task.

If this won't work try reinstalling the application. And do not move it to SD card ;-)


Are there any other launchers that display a folder's contents instead of the generic icon? The Xperia Neo V stock launcher displays a 2x2 grid containing the first 4 apps that a folder contains instead of a simple icon. Is there any other launcher that does this or something similar?

This won't help people who are still waiting for their phone to be upgraded, but the stock Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) launcher has something similar built in - it shows a cascaded view of the first three icons in the folder.


What system apps can be safely removed with Titanium backup on Nexus 4? Is there an official list or something? :D

I'd like to remove some of them to improve battery life, but not sure which are safe to remove

If your real purpose is to improve battery life, you just can freeze them ($6 dollars spent very well for Titanium Backup). If you don't want to spend money, i think you can use Root Uninstaller Free, that includes "disable" option in the free version: all you have to do is to open it and disable the ones you don't want.
it also includes backup and unistall options if you don't trust. (backups to sdcard/rootuninstaller i think)

you just have to pay attenction to the ones you remove, bacause no official list is findable: just don't uninstall or freeze the app if its name does not convince you like OPP, HTML visualizer, package installer, SIM toolkit,... and so on.

just do a complete backup of your device and, in the worst case, reset your phone.

everything there requires ROOT access


I was listening to music on my Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini when the sound coming from my headphones got really low. The Phone is three days old, and suddenly all music coming from my headphones (yes, tried different ones, and they work the same way, really low sound) got really low. The headphones work on all other devices, but the sound on my Samsung mini is really low. My Phone is not rooted. Pls help!

Hold down the power button for 10 seconds it should reboot it this fixed my problem


Google Play insufficient space error I am using RED MI Note.

All my applications are installed in internal storage.

I have 2GB of space available in internal device.

But when i try to install Any.do and Greenify I am getting error that

"Not Enough Space Available"

  I tried Many ways:

  Uninstall lots of apps (Cleared almost 1 GB)
  Uninstalled Play Store and Re-installed
  Cleared Cache of Play Services.
  Uninstalled Play Services.
  Cleared Data of Play Store.
  Install older version of play store.
  Cleared App cache of all apps.
  Downloaded apk and then installed (not worked)

  9.Installed older version of apps that work earlier (not worked)

I am searching for this solution from several days. I tried almost every Possible solution on net.

I am asking it here so that i can get the solution.

NOTE I even tried complete factory reset. But It also doesn't work

I face the same problem on my Galaxy S Advance. I have 0.5GB remaining, but apps won't install.
I have very less reputation, hence I can't comment.
You may try the treatment by the Clean Master app, though I doubt its effectiveness in solving your (OUR) problem.


AnkiDroid doesn't detect apkg file in the requested location I have Android 4.1.1 and my AnkiDroid version is 2.3.2. I have downloaded a deck (.apkg file) and I would like to import it into AnkiDroid, which requires me to place the file into a specified folder /storage/sdcard0/AnkiDroid.

Oddly enough, the AnkiDroid folder didn't yet exist, so I went on and created it, paying attention to the proper 'CamelCase' in the name of the folder. I have copied the .apkg to this folder but I cannot import it because AnkiDroid cannot find the .apkg in that folder.

What is the problem? How to fix it?

Strange, it should be seen in the Import dialog. Please fill a bug report at https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/issues thanks!

Meanwhile, you can use the second method for importing a .apk file:
https://ankidroid.org/docs/manual.html#_open_the_file_using_android
Just install any file explorer (like File Manager), and tap your .apkg file. It will open in AnkiDroid.


Stop notifications from briefly lowering media volume I have an LG G6 running Oreo and whenever media is playing and a notification sound comes through something briefly lowers (not fully muted) my media volume. How can I stop this? I don't want notification sounds to change my media volume.

Updated Answer

I first thought that the OP was asking about modifying the behavior of the sources of the notifications which can be done in with finer levels than before using Notification Categories in Android 8.0 Oreo.

However via the comments, it appears that the OP wants to stop Audio Ducking
from happening in the media player. Unfortunately this is a feature of the
media app playing the music itself and requires the developer of the app to configure. See
similar question: Prevent music volume from being lowered when using turn-by-turn navigation

Original Answer

In Android 8.0 Oreo the App can now have Notification Categories

Check the notification setting screen in:

Settings->Apps & Notification->[App Name]->App Notifications

For the App(s) that are interrupting see if you can either disable sound or adjust the priority to one which suits your needs.


How to get permission for overwrite files in /system/fonts directory in Android phone I'm tryng to overwrite the fonts files (*.ttf) in my android device (Dell Aero). my new fonts are resident in the sdcard and I'm using the following command in a command shell (on the phone):

cd /sdcard/MyFonts/
cp *.ttf /system/fonts/

I get a "permission denied" echo from the cp command.

How should I do it correctly?

Thank you

You'll have to root your phone first, and probably set it S-OFF to be able to write to the /system directory while booted.

See this question for information on what rooting is.  S-OFF is the next step that gives you full control all of the time.  Neither are something you should do without understanding the risks.


cannot reinstall app A few weeks ago I've installed OpenVPN for Android from FDroid. Somehow it started to malfunction so I've rebuild the OpenVPN profile. While trying to activate the profile the device showed a screen about that the app should not be trusted and a weird claim that trusting it could result in data being encrypted by the app. I selected the checkbox to permanently trust the app. Unfortunately there was something wrong so I deleted the profile again to start from scratch. The warning appeared again but now I could not select the checkbox and the OK button was greyed out. I decided to delete the app completely and reinstall it. Now I can download the app but clicking on the install button does nothing. It looks like Android has permanently blocked the app or something. The same app downloaded from Google Play can be installed but this one too refuses to activate the profile. What is wrong with Android?
BTW: it's Android 4.4.

OK, I found the answer myself. This is almost too weird to be true, but it has to do with another app that dims the screen slightly.


Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 default email attachment location How can I change the default location on my Samsung Galaxy tab 4 for email attachments? When I download, say, a picture attachment it automatically sends it to internal device storage. I want to send my downloaded email attachments to my microSD card.

Well the tab4 runs on android kitkat. Google has added restrictions to apps on editing data on sd card. Only the default file manager has permission to edit sdcard. So you cannot send attachments directly to sdcard. You have to move them using default file manager.


Is there a widget that shows free/busy status of one of my Google Calendar calendars? I have, in my Google Calendar account, several calendars which have been shared by friends/family/co-workers.  Is there a widget which I can place on my phone's home page which will show whether or not a given person (or calendar) is "in an appointment" or not?  I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S, but it is running a 2.2 build (Team Whiskey).

Launcher Pro has a nice calendar widget that I use for this purpose.  It can switch back and forth between a month view of the calendar to an agenda view.  I have my own calendar and two other Google calendars hooked in which show up as appointments on my agenda.


Is it possible to configure the phone to charge when the battery left X amount of juice? Illustration: I plug in an android phone to either a power bank or a charger. However, I do not want it to start charging immediately. I want to configure the phone such that when the android phone battery reached certain level (e.g. 35% or below), then it will start charging.

So, is it possible to configure the phone to charge when the battery left X amount of juice?

Depending on the kernel the phone uses it may be possible. If you use a kernel with the ability to change the charging power like the Boeffla kernel then you can create a profile in the Configuration app that comes with that kernel and set the maximum power usage to 0mA. Then you can use Tasker, an app you can get from the Play Store, to send an Intent to that app to change to a specific profile eg. the one which changes to normal charging power and you're done.

As I have written: Check your kernel. If you don't know about anything I have written than just plug your phone in when you think it's time.


How do you continue to cast video with Google Photos after 5 mins When you play a video in google photos and your casting it to chrome cast the screen will shut off stopping the cast. So I end up having to use Wakey to keep the screen on. But that just heats the device up, draining the battery. Any ideas how to set it to continue to cast after 5 mins

If you have rooted device, you can use http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/app-screen-backlight-off-xda-exclusive-t3037380

Otherwise you can search for other app for streaming (I mean replacing Google Photos)


Usb tethering does not work but pdanet does Here's my problem: If I go to the built-in android tethering system and enable it, the computer connects just fine but it does not have internet access(the yellow icon is there). However, I installed pdanet and it works great but the free version is limited :/.

How can I get the built-in tethering to work?

Info:

I installed the adt and I can upload programs to the phone via usb with no problem.
Brand: LGE720
Android: Android 2.2 Kernel 2.6.32(there is no newer version for this phone)
I only want usb tethering.

Let me know if you need additional information. Thanks!

Android offers a standard usb-network adapter (implemented in software) to accomplish usb tethering.

The problem can be on the PC side or on the Android phone's side as well.

Some hints for debugging:

Do you see that usb network device on your PC if you enable tethering?
If so, do you get a DHCP offer from that "USB network card" on your PC?
Can you ping the phone gateway from your PC (usually ping 192.168.4.129)?
Can you resolve DNS entries (nslookup google.com)?
Can you ping a random host on the internet (eg. ping google.com)?

To view debug logs on the phone use a logcat viewer and see for obvious entries.

If the problem is your phone software and you're willing to void your warranty, the aftermarket CyanogenMod firmware also offers this functionality, as well as several other custom ROMs (your phone seems to be supported, according to CM's device overview).


How to recover photos from NQ Vault? NQ Vault itself suddenly vanished all of my data photos. How can I recover all of my photos back, those are very important to me. I am using Intex Aqua 4+ and I have same Vault password, same phone, same memory card.

Please help me.

Just go to your External Storage.
check the hidden files shown.
there will be some folder files with .ext format.
If there is these files, then install again Vault app from Google Play Store.
Wait for some seconds, It will automatically restore it.
and if you don't find any file over hidden area then


How to view own story in snapchat I'm not very good at SnapChat. Is there a way to view your own story? My friend helped me set a picture and now I can't find it.

If you'd like to view your own Story, follow the below steps :

Swipe left on the Camera screen to the Stories screen ;
Tap 'My Story,' or the circular icon of a Snap to the left of 'My Story.'

Source : Snapchat support.


How to disable "dreams" system service Some Android users often complain about some system service constantly executing, so just want to get rid of it at any cost to avoid battery drain. In my scenario it's DreamManagerService which is unimportant right now.

Since this is a system service (service list | grep -i dream) i can't find it in the process list (ps -x | grep -i dream), and interestingly also not seeing it in init.rc or similar. So my question is more about: how to stop a system service? (specifically on android)

EDIT: android version is 5.0.2 for the current question. It has been reported by other users that in android 6 apparently this service is visible and can be handled much better.

As a short introduction (bonus FYI), the so-called DreamManagerService namely DayDreams or simply screensaver, makes sense for OLED screens which turn off black pixels, but some LCD IPS phones also allow this functionality (unreasonably).

Obviously I have already checked that the configuration is okay (disable screensaver), but the service is still running and somehow preventing the CPU from sleeping, thus eating up the battery. This fact can be diagnosed by using Wakelock Detector app or similar one.

The short answer to kill whatever is running on Android is by using the Activity Manager, Package Manager, and deal with the Service Interface (see here).

However the DreamManagerService on my Lolipop is very tricky and it will complain it's not running at all (even if it is). So what I did was:

Enable the simple screensaver Clock and configure it to run only
when docked. This makes sure it's working properly.
Execute with root the KillDreams.sh script, which kills everything relevant. As a bonus I run it automatically after every reboot using Apps2SD.

sleep 5
echo Normal procedure for am...
am stopservice dreams
sleep 1
echo Force procedure for am...
am force-stop android.service.dreams
am force-stop android.service.dreams.IDreamManager
sleep 1
echo Stop service...
stop dreams
echo Finished...

And voilà! It worked!
Currently my battery lasts nearly double, compared to having it run in the background.


Connecting phone to PC internet using Connectify I am trying to connect my phone running ICS to my PC running Windows 7 to the internet using Connectify. Everything goes fine except when the phone tries to connect to my laptop wifi hotspot, it gets stuck at obtaining IP address . I tried to set the ip address to static in android but now it says connected but actually the phone is not connected to the internet.

As a static IP and DNS1, I set the address provided for the connectify network created in windows. I set the network length to 24 cuz without setting any value for network length, I wasn't able to save the setting in my phone.

How can I solve this problem?

Thank you for your support in Connectify. It sounds like your antivirus/firewall software may be blocking internet traffic. Check our Firewall/Security Settings article in our Knowledge Base.

If you are a PRO user and continue to have problems please submit a ticket by visiting our website. We will work to help you resolve your issue!


How do I video chat in Google+? Is it possible to video chat in my Google+ circles on my Droid X?

Currently there is no app released from Google that will let you video chat with Google+ circles like Google+ Hangouts. You can use Google Talk video chat on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Edit: Vtok is an app that allows google talk video chat.


How to enter CWM recovery on an encrypted Galaxy S3? I'm trying to enter CWM recovery so that I can back up my ROM.

While rooting my S3 I could enter CWM using the instructions I was following at the time (which I no longer have around).

Since then I've used the built-in encryption feature to encrypt the device.

Now when I try to press simultaneously the volume-up, home, and power buttons - the device only turns off, and doesn't start booting again until I release all buttons and press the power button.

What are the exact instructions for entering CWM recovery on an S3, and do these differ for an encrypted device?

How to get into Recovery Mode
Unplug the USB cable.
Shut down the phone.
Hold down the 'HOME' + 'VOLUME UP' buttons and press the 'POWER' button for about 5 seconds to enter Recovery Mode.

How to get into Download Mode (eg: for Odin)
Unplug the USB cable.
Shut down the phone.
Hold down the 'HOME' + 'VOLUME DOWN' buttons and press the 'POWER' button for about 2 seconds until a WARNING! Screen appears. Press the 'VOLUME UP' button to enter Download Mode.
To get out of Download Mode, simply press and hold the power button until the phone restarts.


Is my Android device vulnerable to CVE-2019-2234 and How can I mitigate this before a firmware upgrade? Background Info: CVE-2019-2234 is a serious vulnerability or (maybe an APT) which allow other apps to record videos, take pictures, and extract EXIF data without having permissions.
Edit: This question is other devices rather than Pixel & Samsung

I've tested this PoC (changed package name to my camera's package name) to check if is this possible on my (non Pixel) device, but all I have is the camera activity has been launched without starting recording or taking pictures.
Launch Camera:
adb shell am start-activity -n com.android.camera/com.android.camera.CameraActivity --ez extra_turn_screen_on true -a android.media.action.CAMERA --ez android.intent.extra.USE_FRONTAL_CAMERA true

Launch Video:
adb shell am start-activity -n com.android.camera/com.android.camera.CameraActivity --ez extra_turn_screen_on true -a android.media.action.VIDEO_CAMERA --ez android.intent.extra.USE_FRONTAL_CAMERA true

Question
Part 1: If this device is vulnerable are there other extras to add to make the PoC work and proof that it's vulnerable? or just it's not?
Part 2: If the device is vulnerable, what would be the best mitigation solution for this?

If I understood the problem correctly the vulnerability is located in the camera apps. Updating apps is the responsibility of the Google PlayStore or in case of Samsung there is also the Samsung "Galaxy Store" which is usually comes pre-installed on all Samsung devices.

Therefore in this case no firmware update is required.

In both cases Google and Samsung have simply updated their camera apps. As the vulnerability was a responsible disclosure the updates that fix this vulnerability should be already available and will be automatically installed by the Google Play / Galaxy  store.

Therefore Google and Samsung devices this vulnerability should be no longer an issue. The more important question is how many other camera apps of other manufacturer are also affected.

[Part 1] Regarding devices of other manufacturers there is no general way to be sure that their camera apps are affected or not. If the standard POC does not work and you want to make sure that the app is truly not affected you have to check every camera app individually if the vulnerability can be triggered in a similar way. To do so you have to decompile the app using the decompiler of your choice (Jadx, apktool, JEB, Ghidra, ...) and analyze the decompiled code.


No Microphone on CM12.1 My microphone stops working, when I upgraded to / installed CM12.1 on my phone.
It is still working, when my phone still doesn't have CyanogenMod installed.
However, some apps, such as Cortana and calls (the stock calling app), can still detect / hear my voice; but not on Google's Voice Search, Sound Recorder, and such Microphone Apps on the Play Store.
Maybe, a library (lib*.so), permission not allowed (android.permission. ...), or somethin', is missing on my device, that is preventing the microphone to work.

Phone:   Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
Model:   SM-G360HU
Recovery:   TWRP
ROM:   CM12.1
     - Link for the ROM can be found above ...
Android Version:   5.1 Lollipop

Please HELP!

UPDATE
I've seen an app (I installed it), and it requires root access. After looking at the log of the root access of that app, it showing a library / lib named libaudio_recorder_sf.so.
Does this lib have to do with the microphone, or any recorder (e.g. Sound Recorder app) ?

This bug is fixed on CM13.  The microphone is now working, when I upgraded to CM13.


forecast.io format for tasker I am trying to get hourly precipitation probability from forecast.io 's api.  I am very beginner with tasker, without any idea of JSON.
So as given in the first profile of the blog http://blog.artesea.co.uk/2014/06/one-line-weather-summary.html,  I have changed the info.minutely.summery to precipProbability.hourly.data,  which is not working.

Kindly help.

You're close on the syntax, but there's an error based upon the .api's structure.  Instead of  precipProbability.hourly.data, you'll need to use hourly.data[0].precipProbability.  Replace the [0] with any value between 0-48 for the number of hours into the future you want the data.

Also,it's helpful to get a json viewer to help interpret the structure for selecting the correct values.  I use json viewer which allows you to enter your forecast.io api call direct and see your data live.  You can also use the timemachine functionality and test your parsing against different weather conditions (e.g. severe weather alerts).


How to launch any activity? Activity Launcher from Google play doesn't see all activities. MyAndroidToos can see all, but can't launch it. I need easy way to launch any activity of any app.

Some activities are not launch-able. All activities are launch-able, but some of them may not have any effect when launched directly. They may be a window overlay, a notification, or even a simple broadcast listener.

Copying beeshyams's quotation:

  An activity is the most familiar type of component: it's a window you can see: either full-screen or dialog-sized. An activity only runs while it's displayed on the screen. Once you leave the activity, Android will keep that app in memory ready to be started again, but the activity won't run, meaning it won't use battery or network. An app starts an activity using an intent. The intent can specify explicitly which activity to start, or it can specify an action to perform (such as opening a particular file). If more than one activity can "handle" the intent, you see the dialog asking you to choose one.

If you insist on attempting, you may want to explore am start command. It can start any activity supplied as arguments. Root is required in most cases.

# am start com.android.vending/com.google.android.finsky.billing.acquire.AcquireActivity
Starting: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=android.intent.category.LAUNCHER cmp=com.android.vending/com.google.android.finsky.billing.acquire.AcquireActivity }

Well, the above command gave no visual responses other than am's output.

You can specify another action with option -a and another category with -c, to pretend you're another app rather than a command line. However I'm not a developer, so you should work things out further on yourself.


How to find the public name of a contact on Viber? I have added a new viber contact, but it (correctly) displays the contact with the name I've used in my contact book. Nevertheless, I want to view my contact's "public" name, the one that my contact has chosen to "advertise". It's the username you set up when creating a new viber account. How can I see this?

My contact has been able to see my "public" name, I assume before saving my phone number in their own contact book, so it is definitely advertised.

It goes when you delete the contact off your local contact list and then you intend to add it thru your Viber(tested on iOS and Android).

How I did it:

Fount a contact number that I wanted to see his/her name
Remover it off my local contact list
Opened Viber and Navigated to More, followed by Add Contact
Entered the contact number and pressed Done (on iOS)
Please note that it does not add the contact, nor it notifies the recipient anyhow of the resonance of it's public name.


How to hard reset a Galaxy Tab S? I cannot login to my Samsung Galaxy Tab S anymore and want to perform a hard reset. Googling the question yields to many answers which follow the scheme:

when switched off press Home + Volume Up + Power
when the Android system recovery menu appears scroll down to wipe

The problem I have is that after pressing Home + Volume Up + Power I get a different screen:

When choosing Volume Up I get to the ODIN download screen.

How can I hard reset my tab in such a case?

To get into recovery mode for this Samsung device. The correct button combination to push is

  Power button + Home button + volume Down button at the same time

The same combination but with volume up instead. Will take you into Odin/Download mode.


Lock screen when proximity sensor is covered I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Jelly Bean. I would like, for, my screen to lock if proximity sensor is covered (for instance, when it is in my pocket).

How can I do that?

I am searching for an app as I have not found anything within the standard menu.

Have a look at Smart Cover, Cover Lock, Simple Cover Lock [Beta] and others on Google Play. You can probably find other apps that maybe are better for you by just looking at the 'similar' apps section on Google Play.


Trying to update WhatsApp but having insufficient storage Recently I tried to update my WhatsApp as it won't work unless and until I update it. When I try to update it says "There is insufficient space on the device."
I deleted all that I possibly could have to free some memory. Moreover, I don't have any other apps except Google settings and WhatsApp on my phone. In the device memory, I have 165 MB used and 25 MB free.
What am I suppose to do to get my WhatsApp back?

First, uninstall WhatsApp, then go to the WhatsApp for Android's official website and install the latest version via the APK.
That should successfully help you update to the latest version of WhatsApp (old chats will be detected after you launch after the reinstall).


Can I set the minimum brightness of auto-brightness? I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 I9100 and I'm getting frustrated with how dark the screen goes. I do find value in using auto brightness but is it possible to limit the minimum or lowest point that the brightness will go? Is there an app that does it better, and I should just turn off the default auto brightness? I would prefer a solution in which I modify a config file though, over installing an app.

A calibrate option would work too, as the issue is worse when in a dim light situation. It seems to bottom out the brightness as if it's a pitch black room, when in fact the ambient light is quite a bit brighter.

Update: I thought maybe my Otterbox case might be interfering, but after some basic tests it doesn't seem to be the case.

It looks like this can be done on just about any device with the caveat that your device needs to be rooted and you need to be willing to poke around in your system's framework-res.apk file. These instructions come from a post on XDA with a modification intended to lower the brightness, but scaling in the opposite direction would make it brighter:

  Here is a guide on how to perform this mod on any framework-res.apk using apk manager (thanks for the guide goes to desean):

  Download APK manager and unpack somewhere
  Grab framework-res.apk from your phone under \system\framework\ (e.g. adb pull) and place it in the "place-apk-here-for-modding"
  folder
  Run Script.bat and select option 9
  Once done, go to projects\framework-res.apk\res\values\arrays.xml and edit your values as per first post.
  Once edited, compile the apk using option 11
  Qn: Is this a system apk. Ans: y
  Qn: Aside from the signatures, would .... least. Ans: y
  Prompt: In the apk manager folder u'll find a keep folder..... done then press enter on this script. Press any key to continue . . . You
  have to go to "keep" folder and delete resources.arsc because
  arrays.xml have been changed. After this You can press any key in apk
  manager window.
  Once done, input 22 in apk manager and select "unsignedframework-res.apk" by entering the number that stands for it.
  After selecting it You should see in apk main window in the top right
  corner "Current-App: unsignedframework-res.apk". Now press 5 to
  zipalign apk. You will find your completed, zipaligned apk under
  place-apk-here-for-modding\unsignedframework-res.apk. Rename it back
  to framework-res.apk and adb push the file back to your phone

The arrays.xml file should have a section like the below if your device supports auto-brightness:

<integer-array name="config_autoBrightnessLcdBacklightValues">
    <item>32</item>
    <item>69</item>
    <item>118</item>
    <item>177</item>
    <item>255</item>
</integer-array>

Basically, the values are ordered based on detected light from the sensor, with the top value being "lowest light" and the bottom value being "highest light". The values correspond to LCD brightness on a scale from 1 to 255, with 255 being full brightness. You could therefore scale up all of the low light values to be brighter if you wanted.


Rooted Motorola Moto G 2014 xt1068 OTA always loads up TWRP I've rooted my Motorola Moto G 2014, it`s using a standard ROM (I think).
Today I got a notification about the OTA update to lollipop so naively clicked it. It downloaded and then when it came to rebooting it turned off and booted into TWRP.
Every time I turn it off in TWRP then attempt to turn it back on again it gets to the unlock screen then powers off again and loads up TWRP...

How do I save my phone because its just repeating that process... is there any way to get it  not to go into TWRP and instead load whatever is meant to load to update the phone?

I just ran into this exact problem with a Moto G 2015. TWRP themselves warn not to install OTA updates with TWRP. Here's what I did:

Install the Android SDK or download fastboot separately
Get the build number for your phone

From TWRP on your phone go to Mount and make sure System is selected
Connect your phone to your computer and open build.prop with a text editor
The build number is on the line beginning with ro.build.id=

Download the stock ROM for that build number and unzip it
From TWRP on your phone go to Reboot → Bootloader
Flash the factory recovery

sudo /path/to/fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

Use the volume buttons to select the option to boot the phone. It should then install the OTA update successfully.

Next time you can save yourself some time by flashing the stock recovery ahead of time.

If the update fails for any reason after that point, it's normally because other files have been modified and the checksum failed. You can normally look at /cache/recovery/last_log to see which file is causing the problem and replace it with stock. More details on that here:

Moto G OTA update error


Can I use tasker to turn LTE/4G mode on/off on my Droid Bionic? I'd like to turn LTE on while I'm at work and off at home; I have the appropriate profiles, but I can't find an appropriate action.   Is this something that could be done with an intent?

I was hoping the "Wimax" or "Mobile Data 2G/3G" Net Actions would be what you need, but after looking around it doesn't look like Tasker supports 4G on/off switching. Per Tasker forum user Pent regarding this issue (on a different phone):

    If this isn't currently a feature is there any way to implement it?

  It isn't and there's no 'official' way to implement it. I was hoping
  there would be something in ICS, but don't think there is after a
  quick scan.

  One day I'll have to do some research, but I prefer working on
  features that will still work going forwards and benefit everyone.

  Pent

Sorry for the bad news.


Recorded calls of WhatsApp From where I could get my own WhatsApp call recordings? I need only one call recording, it is very urgent, I am in problem. I have searched for too long but i didn't find the solution any where.

WhatsApp does not record the calls automatically. So, if you didn't rely on a 3rd party app (I can't make a recommendation) and you did not record the call when it happened, you cannot find any recordings of the same. This makes it impossible to get that call conversation back.


Music stored on the External SD Card is removed from playlists at reboot So I'm getting a really frustrating issue happening with my phone wherein any .mp3 files stored on my external SD card are removed from their playlists whenever I restart my phone. Any music stored on the internal phone storage still remains in the playlists but everything else gets cleared out of them. I've taken a look into the Media Store's SQL logs and found this:

Basically, I cleared the Media Store's data to reset the Android media database, then I rebooted. On the first reboot, all my playlists displayed perfectly (external SD music AND internal SD music). This produced the 3 log lines above the highlighted line in the image. Then I restarted my phone again and once again all the music on the external SD card was erased from my playlists. Restarting gave the log lines below and including the highlighted line. What seems to be happening is Android is removing any reference to files stored on my external SD from the Media Store database at reboot, then it rescans when the phone starts, but it generates the playlists BEFORE it scans the external SD for media, so it just thinks there's loads of missing media in the playlists and removes any reference to external SD music. Then it scans the external SD for music and finds all my media there.

So in the end I can still access all the music stored on my external SD and my phone sees it just fine, it's just that it's never maintained in any playlists. If anyone has any method of fixing this or any advice at all, I'd really appreciate it! I don't have enough room on my internal SD to store all my music.

Thanks!

(I'm on a Google Play Edition Galaxy S4 running Android 5.1)

After more experimentation, I've made a breakthrough. Ultimately, this all happens cause Android's Media Scanner will scan the internal SD for media at startup. When it finds Playlist files it attempts to import them into the system database but because the SD card takes a while to mount at startup and is temporarily unreadable for a while at boottime, when it tries to follow the path back to the music on the SD card it can't find the music since the SD card is still mounting. Instead of, yknow, doing anything logical like waiting for the SD to mount, it just erases the entries from the playlist. So to get around this stupid flaw in the system, you need to move all your playlists (.m3u/.pla/etc files) to the external SD card.

By moving the playlist files to the SD card, it ensures that they only ever get read once the SD card has finished mounting and the Media Scanner then attempts to scan the external SD for media. At this point it finds the playlists and follows their mp3 file paths back to the finally loaded Music folder on the external SD.


Android Phone Storage Full due to APKs My OnePlus Two has 64GB Internal Storage and no SD card.
It shows Phone Storage Full warning. When I investigated, I saw below stats and am unable to free space.

Settings > Storage & Memory > Storage & USB
Internal Storage 53.62 GB Used of 54.00 GB

Break Up

  Apps      14.00 GB
  Images   565 MB
  Videos    8.00 KB
  Audio     44.00 KB
  Other      38.94 GB
  Cached Data   3.64 MB

I clicked "Others". Next, "Explore" > "File Manager" > "Categories" > "Phone Storage" > "Storage Information".

  Images   170.57 MB
  Audio      1.98 GB
  Video      1.02 GB
  Others    14.9 GB
  Archives   538.09 KB
  Apks          35.46 GB
  Documents   117.16 MB
  Available        339.48 MB

When I check "apks", I see several apks for each app (which are presently installed or were installed in past). It looks like on each update of the apps, the apk file for each update in present on my phone.

I have tried some uninstalling apps but that does not remove all apks. I still see several apks for each app which I uninstall.

Example of apk names.

Facebook_140.0.0.24.91.apk  86.2 MB
Facebook_141.0.0.31.91.apk  86.2 MB
Facebook_136.0.0.22.91.apk  82.37 MB
Facebook_135.0.0.22.90.apk  81.79 MB
Facebook_130.0.0.45.70.apk  81.77 MB
Facebook_134.0.0.25.91.apk  80.69 MB
Facebook_132.0.0.20.85.apk  80.55 MB
Facebook_131.0.0.32.69.apk  79.53 MB
::
::
Facebook_114.0.0.20.70.apk  69.49 MB

Similarly for each other app on my phone.

OxygenOS version 3.5.8
Android Version 6.0.1
Android Security Patch Level March 1, 2017
Kernel Version 3.10.84-perf+
OnePlus@ubuntu-56 #1
Mon Mar 13 11:40:18 CST 2017
Build Number ONE A2003_24_170313

Please help. Any solution other than phone reset ?

After an apk is installed it can be deleted from a file manager and you keep your apps/games.


Google music player restores deleted playlist Why does my Google music player automatically create some of the playlists I deleted before?

When I delete a playlist, the playlist appears again after I turn off my Nexus 7 and turn it on again. It doesn't happen to all playlists, only specific ones.

Try to clear data and cache.

Settings-->Apps-->select Google player(click on it)-->clear data&cache

and just turn off  sync with Google Play music( this may be the cause of your issue).


Is there a way to do Nandroid backup directly to pc and then restore it directly from pc also? My phone doesn't have enough space to store backup files so I wonder if there is a way to do Nandroid backup and restore with files stored on pc.

I have written some tools for exactly this purpose, due to similar frustrations: https://github.com/dlenski/tetherback

These tools are written in Python and use adb to create either nandroid-style backups (raw partition images from dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0pXX) or TWRP-style backups (mixture of raw partition images and tarballs for ext4 partitions).

They attempt to probe the correct partition layout, and show the progress of the backup:

$ ./twrp_backup.py
Device reports TWRP kernel (3.4.0-bricked-hammerhead-twrp-g7b77eb4).
Reading partition map for mmcblk0 (29 partitions)...
  partition map: 100% Time: 0:00:03
Saving TWRP backup images in twrp-backup-2016-03-17--18-53-12/ ...
Saving partition boot (mmcblk0p19), 22 MiB uncompressed...
  boot.emmc.win: 100% Time: 0:00:05   3.10 MB/s
Saving tarball of mmcblk0p25 (mounted at /system), 1024 MiB uncompressed...
  system.ext4.win:   2% ETA:  0:06:29   2.69 MB/s

This is a work in progress—feedback is very welcome!

Requirements:

Python 3.3+ under Linux/OSX/Windows.

progressbar package is needed (pip install progressbar should do it)

adb (Android Debug Bridge) command-line tools
Rooted Android device with TWRP recovery installed.

The requirement for a rooted device and a custom recovery is never going to go away: if you don't have root access, then you have no means to copy the entire contents of your device's memory, simple as that.

EDIT: Looks like most of the traffic to https://github.com/dlenski/tetherback comes from this thread. The early issues with data corruption described in the comments below have all been resolved; tetherback now includes very strong checks against corruption.


how can i get the http sends requests from chrome just like from the network tab? just like that .
pls do not mention network monitoring tools like wireshark

There are two possibilities:

On-device solutions

Use an app like

tPacketCapture (capture traffic like Wireshark)
NetCapture  (on-device Proxy with HTTPS decryption capabilities)
Packet capture - similar to NetCapture
HTTP Canary

PC based solutions:

Use a proxy on your PC and redirecty all traffic through that proxy. There are a large number of Proxy that can be used like

Burp Suite (Java)
Fiddler (Windows/.Net)
Charles Proxy (Java)
mitmproxy


I just reset my android phone, how do I recover my Chrome bookmarks? I just reset my Moto G, hoping that the Chrome bookmarks would be synced to my account but they haven't and I lost them all. They were extremely valuable and I want all of them back. Please let me know any methods to recover them! I am willing to root my phone for this!

Just login to your Google account and all data will be automatically imported includng your history, bookmarks, extensions etc.


Developing applications under Cyanogenmod? How compatible to vanila Android? (Nexus devices) If I am to develop (and test) my application under Cyanongenmod (base install, without any additional changes), how confident can I be that I would see similar performance of my application on the vanilla Android version? In particular I am interested in the base/hardware performance that is not so much affected by changes to GUI, animation or depends so much on user interactions.

Is the default frequency governor on Cyanongenmod (OnDemand) is the same as default frequency governor on vanilla Android?

What other things could affect performance on Cyanogenmod versus vanilla/stock Android?

** I am using Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 devices.

The governor is dependent on the OEM's choice. For example, some choose mpdecision, others use ondemand or interactive. Still others use conservative. That being said, many of them are implemented differently (ie conservative mode on a Samsung may differ wildly from conservative on an HTC). Cyanogenmod though is just based on AOSP code so ondemand/interactive governor performance under Cyanogenmod should be comparable to the stock governors for that device (OEM's implementation).  This is assuming that the Cyanogenmod branch for said device has proper hardware acceleration and what not. As Cyanogenmod is built from AOSP code, this is not a given.

TLDR: I have had a lot of phones with Cyanogenmod. It feels snappier and is lightweight but for the heavy duty apps or games, I notice very little (if any) difference in performance.


is it possible to upgrade the android OS on all phones? Do Android phones as a rule allow you to upgrade the OS version at will, or does this require special support from the manufacturer or carrier?

You receive updates from the carrier.

You can circumvent this by rooting your phone and installing a custom rom (or stock rom, if available) to get the latest version of Android.


Candy Crush on HTC Desire? Am I not able to install Candy Crush game on my HTC Desire.

The telephone is not rooted and just hard reset
How can I solve it?

The device does not support all of the features, candy crush requires, and therefor the play store will not allow you to install it.

You can attempt to download the APK from the interweb or try an alternative repository. Amazon app store perhaps?


ADB is not detecting the device I am running an Ubuntu 14 host machine on my PC and recently I got an Eragon 820 Development kit which is running on Android Marshmallow, everything was working fine until I click the factory reset option in the Android settings.

After that the adb / fastboot neither working and In the Dmesg am getting like this

[  308.326141] usb 2-1.3: new high-speed USB device number 18 using ehci-pci
[  308.420065] usb 2-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=18d1, idProduct=d001
[  308.420072] usb 2-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  308.420076] usb 2-1.3: Product: MSM8996 for arm64
[  308.420079] usb 2-1.3: Manufacturer: unknown
[  308.420083] usb 2-1.3: SerialNumber: 77a941ec
[  310.055562] usb 2-1.3: usbfs: USBDEVFS_CONTROL failed cmd adb rqt 128 rq 6 len 256 ret -110
[  311.971228] usb 2-1.3: USB disconnect, device number 18

these same 8 lines keep on repeating (i.e. the device connects, is recognized, some adb rqt… fails, device is disconnected again).

Anyone know how to fix this issue?

Did you enable the developer options again after doing a factory reset?If not follow the below steps to enable it.

Go to Settings, About phone and tap on build number 7 times to unlock/enable Developer options again (factory reset would've put it back to the default of locked/disabled).

Enable USB debugging from the developer options after the above step for adb/fastboot to work.


How to make Android always use external SD card instead of internal storage? I created an AVD using
 bin/avdmanager create avd -d "Nexus 5" -c 2G -n nexus_5 -k "system-images;android-29;google_apis;x86_64"

The -c 2G is supposed to create a 2GB sdcard.
When I boot the emulator, however, /sdcard seems to point to internal storage on /data/media rather on the 2GB disk:
$ adb shell df -h
Filesystem                    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                         996M  604K  996M   1% /dev
tmpfs                         996M     0  996M   0% /mnt
tmpfs                         996M     0  996M   0% /apex
/dev/block/dm-2               2.4G  2.3G   64M  98% /
/dev/block/dm-1               124M  123M  444K 100% /vendor
/dev/block/vdc                775M  302M  473M  39% /data
/data/media                   775M  302M  473M  39% /mnt/runtime/default/emulated
/dev/block/vold/public:253,80 1.9G  532M  1.4G  27% /mnt/media_rw/1400-1801
/mnt/media_rw/1400-1801       1.9G  532M  1.4G  27% /mnt/runtime/default/1400-1801

$ adb shell ls -l /sdcard /storage/self/primary  /mnt/user/0/primary
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2020-12-01 13:29 /mnt/user/0/primary -> /storage/emulated/0
lrw-r--r-- 1 root root 21 2020-07-21 03:02 /sdcard -> /storage/self/primary
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2020-12-01 13:28 /storage/self/primary -> /mnt/user/0/primary

$ adb shell mount | grep storage/emulated
/data/media on /storage/emulated type sdcardfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,fsuid=1023,fsgid=1023,gid=1015,multiuser,mask=6,derive_gid,default_normal)

When I try to adb push data to /sdcard this fails because there’s not sufficient space available (on internal storage).
How can I tell the emulator to use the external sdcard instead?

/sdcard isn't physically external SD card but a symlink to primary external shared storage. See details in my answers to Android's Storage Journey and What is /storage/emulated/0/?
From your comment:

How can make Android use the 2GB device instead of the smaller one. How do I configure this?

Android by-default doesn't use secondary external shared storage. But apps can, if they want. See my answer to How to save files to external SD card on a non-rooted Android?.
If you want to make Android always use physical SD card as primary external shared storage, you need to change your ROM's configuration from Emulated primary only or Emulated primary, physical secondary to Physical primary only. It's possible by editing the fstab file and some init's .rc file. Follow the above official documentation links for details on configuration changes.


LG P500 Rooting Isuue I got a LG P500 Android device and I want to root it.
The device is on stock ROM, android 2.3.3 V20e.
Should I use SuperOneClick? And if so, how can I reboot my phone after the SuperOneClick procedure is finished? If I power off my device and then turn it back on, will it break it, or is this "reboot"?

Just few minutes before I again rooted my LgP500 running v2.3.3 stock v20d. I used SuperOneClick v2.3.3 and rooting was just a cake walk. I charged my phone fully and installed Lg's drivers and enabled USB debugging support. In the SuperOneClick's UI, I just clicked Root and waited for few tense minutes. Phone restarted automatically and after that the UI said rooting was successful.

It is not clear what you ask about booting, I just switched on normally and phone works normally.

Update: Found a link as asked...


Reset Partition Table for Nexus 7 2013 (Flo) To cut a long story short I wanted to make the system partition larger on my tablet PC as it's far too small to do anything practical on. I used ADB push to put Parted into the root directory and proceeded to resize some of the partitions, but it has failed terribly to the point I have bricked my tablet. I have luckily enough found some guides on the internet to after I got QHUSB_BULK in Windows Devivce Manager. At the moment I have managed to execute the command

fastboot boot twrp-3.2.3-0-flo.img

but this is temporarily running from RAM as I'm unable to flash any of the partitions as they are "missing".

This is the my original partition table:-

https://pastebin.com/rhhjZtef

From some reading on the internet Linux can only have 4 primary partitons. I'm no expert in Linux. I know some basics but partitions is out of my area of expertise. All I know is that I have 30 partitions that I need to re-create and I don't know what partition type to set them to; primary, logical or extended.

I've played around with the three partition types but I get an error message saying "Too many primary partitions".

Could someone shine some light here please?

Many thanks

Will

I was in the same position as you re a total resizing of the partition table > System to Data.

The following posts will help you.  The first is a script to recreate all the required partitions.  The second is a method to get the bootloader functioning from a Hard Brick.

Worked on this for hours last night and have now had successfully recovered back this morning.

Good luck.

Mo

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75465233&postcount=222

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75360854&postcount=199


High CPU load during file copy to SD card Copying large files to micro SD card (via MTP mode or USB thetering and FTP) causes a high CPU load (around 90%) with the result of my phone rebooting from overheating.

Is this a normal behavior? Any suggestions?

My system is Cyanogenmod 11-M8 on a Galaxy S4 mini with a SanDisk Ultra microSDXC 64GB.

EDIT

Here are the last messages before reboot according to adb logcat

I/ThermalDaemon(  322): Sensor 'tsens_tz_sensor0' - alarm cleared 1 at 47.0 degC
E/MP-Decision( 1785): num online cores: 2 reqd : 1 available : 2 rq_depth:0.000000 hotplug_avg_load_dw: 29
E/MP-Decision( 1785): DOWN cpu:1 core_idx:1 Ns:1.100000 Ts:190 rq:0.000000 seq:1069.000000
E/MP-Decision( 1785): num online cores: 1 reqd : 2 available : 2 rq_depth:2.500000 hotplug_avg_load_dw: 58
E/MP-Decision( 1785): UP cpu:1 core_idx:1 Nw:1.900000 Tw:140 rq:2.500000 seq:182.000000
I/ThermalDaemon(  322): Sensor 'tsens_tz_sensor0' - alarm raised 1 at 50.0 degC
E/NetdConnector(  832): NDC Command {4878 bandwidth gettetherstats} took too long (1006ms)
D/MobileDataStateTracker(  832): default: setPolicyDataEnable(enabled=true)

No, it's not. File transfer can cause some cpu load but not nearly as much. And then high cpu load can heat up a phone but should not cause a thermal protection cutoff. The problem also happens when you move files with the file manager with the phone detached from the pc?


Milestone rooted with the Universal Androot, can I install ROMs? I rooted my Motorola Milestone 2.1-update1 with the latest beta of Universal Androot, and it seems to have worked fine. I've installed busybox, used titanium backup, and installed a couple root-only apps.

Now I'm thinking about using ROM Manager to see what custom ROMs can be installed. However, I'm worried because I've read the milestone has some sort of lock in the bootloader, and I never actually unlocked the bootloader while rooting it. Am talking sense? Will I run into problems if I simply install ROM Manager and try to install a custom ROM?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that rooting and unlocking are separate issues. And so I'm wondering if I don't have to unlock my phone before messing with ROM Manager.

In short, your phone has a locked bootloader.  There is no way to unlock it (currently).  What does that mean to you?  Basically it means you can flash "ROMs", but you cannot flash a new kernel on the phone.  The kernel is what controls what clockspeed slots are available on your phone to over/underclock to.

For example, if someone made a Gingerbread ROM for the Milestone, you could flash it.  But you will always be stuck with the same kernel that originally came with your phone.

As far as I know, you should be able to use ROM manager to flash ROMs on your phone so long as it is rooted.  It's just that none of these ROMs will be able to change your kernel.


Disable swipe down to reload a page in Chrome browser While filling out an HTML form, I accidentally swiped down and lost all my filled information because the browser reloaded the page. Is it possible to deactivate this swipe down functionality?

My Android version is 4.1.2 and I'm having the Chrome latest version.

It is possible to disable the feature in Chrome browser version 41 and above. The easiest way to disable this is to visit the chrome://flags in your Chrome address bar and to disable the pull to refresh effect,

chrome://flags (disable-pull-to-refresh-effect)

Preventing the pull-to-refresh effect:(Based on this Chromium docs)

  The default action of the pull-to-refresh effect can be effectively
  prevented by doing any of the following :

  Applying “touch-action:
  none” to touch-targeted elements, where appropriate, disabling default
  actions (including pull-to-refresh) of the touch sequence.
  Applying
  “overflow-y: hidden” to the body element, using a div for scrollable
  content if necessary.
  preventDefault’ing some portion of the touch
  sequence, including any of the following (in order of most disruptive
  to least disruptive):

  The entire touch stream (not ideal).
  All top
  overscrolling touchmoves.
  The first top overscrolling touchmove.
  The
  first top overscrolling touchmove only when

  1) the initial touchstart
  occurred when the page y scroll offset was zero and
  2) the touchmove
  would induce top overscroll.

  Disabling the effect locally via
  chrome://flags (disable-pull-to-refresh-effect).

  Note that the pull-to-refresh effect will never activate if any
  scrolling occurs before the overscrolling motion, e.g., if the user
  first scrolls down, then back up, or if the page scroll offset is 0
  but has a scrolling div that the user scrolls up before overscrolling.

Note:

The pull-to-refresh swipe down feature is added to Chrome version 41.0.2272.92. So any version below that won't be have the pull-to-refresh feature.


Recovery Mode ---FAILED I just try the Cyanogenmod 12.1 Nightly and and my android version is now 5.1.1, whenever I try to go to Recovery Mode, it only shows the Samsung screen for a seconds (but sometimes twice) and then the Cyanogenmod booth screen. I'm doing the right thing (Volume Up, Home button and Power button at the same time) but no Recovery Mode showing. Please help, I really need to install GAPPS :(

--SAMSUNG GALAXY S2

Go to Settings. Go in about device and keep tapping build number.
Keep tapping until it says: You have enabled developer options!
Go back and tap developer options and turn on advanced reboot.
Then, hold your power button a little while like you usually do to turn off your device. Tap reboot and tap the recovery option and your phone will go to recovery! After if you want to make everything go back to normal, go to Settings, tap developer options and toggle the switch.


Override language setting for some apps? Is there a way to override the locale for some apps? My Android is set to German but I want, for example, all apps that don't have a proper translation to be in English - reading Google-translated stuff is horrible.

I know there's no native way, but maybe there's an app for it which I just couldn't find...

My device is running 4.1 and is rooted.

Somebody mentioned Tasker? So here I am. And in fact you could do that with Tasker and the help of the Secure Settings Plugin:

Create a new task:

Plugins -> Secure Settings -> Locale Picker (pick your target locale here)
App -> Run (select the app to run)
Plugins -> Secure Settings -> Locale Picker (pick your original locale here)

Assign an icon to this task
On a free place of your homescreen, long press, add a tasker widget, pick this task

I did not test it, but it should work like this.


Device uses non-USB charger. Can I still charge it through the USB port? I got a Polaroid L9H tablet for Christmas, which includes a carrying case with built-in USB keyboard. I assume that it is for this reason that the tablet was designed with a barrel connector for its AC/DC adapter, rather than the micro-USB charging I'd come to associate with all modern portable electronics.

I tried to locate technical specifications for the tablet, but could only find the mini-pamphlet provided by the manufacturer, which says nothing either way about this:

If I plug this device into one of the many USB chargers I have distributed throughout my house, will it:

not charge at all?
charge, but not as rapidly as when using the provided adapter?
maybe charge, but probably also damage the tablet?
drain the battery even faster than being unplugged?
ruin the USB port?
explode?

I would really like to know if I can safely plug this tablet into my other chargers, or if I will be forced to bring the manufacturer's cord wherever I take the tablet.

Being on safe side, my guess is No, you can't charge (no, it won't explode but just won't charge) since

User pamphlet shows only way of charging
The USB port may be data only not charging and data. Yes, those kind of ports do exist and you can read How USB Charging works

Having said that, I don't see any logic for having a port that does not charge. It has a 4500 mAh , which is typical and can be charged through USB
Port. There is no reason to have a "data only" port, unless manufacturer has form factor/manufacturing cost constraints. It is actually "odd" to encounter such ports in present day devices

Edit 1

Looks like my guess was right!

Edit 2

Apologies for quoting the wrong product in support of my answer.Fact is that L9H is not covered in FAQ and as OP pointed out, he is unable to register product so product support seems to be way behind

Yet, Polaroid Support Site lists out user manuals for your device in 16GB and 32 GB version

OP had linked in his question user manual which corresponds to 32GB and dies not show USB charging, and shows only mains charging

User manual of L9H 16 GB shows clearly USB Port being used for charging from power pack in addition to mains charging

Conclusion: OPs model is not supported for USB charging, for reasons mentioned earlier (data only USB Port and user manual not mentioning USB charging as an option)

OP can further reach out to the OEM to get additional clarification if needed, but that may not be warranted


Mysterious "Installation Failed" and reboots Non-programmer here. I've noticed recently a message popping up on my 4.1.2 Galaxy S3 running stock firmware (except I have root)  build number JZO54K.T999UVDMD5. This was happening before I rooted it and before I installed DroidWall in an attempt to prevent any uncommanded activity. "Installation Failed" is what it says.  I've also happened to have observed it restarting a few times when I was not touching it. I installed aLogcat today and set it to "Events" so that hopefully I will get more information. Any suggestions on how to learn more about what's up would be appreciated.

Sorry for the irrelevant answer to the OP's question but felt a need to point out about aLogCat.

aLogcat seems broken at the moment under JellyBean (due to an additional introduction of permission READ_LOGS required for reading logs).

Just keep an eye out for the update soon (or flag the developer by starring the issue here).

If you fancy the alternative, try this version called CatLog found here on github, this has the permission in place to do so.

As for Droidwall, forget about that version - its old and obsoleted in favour of the more updated version AFWall+, the linky to the play store version is contained on the github page, alternative linky to F-Droid Repository here.


Android Box crash, how to restore /data files I have an Android box that has the app Termux (command line app) and in there I have some node apps made by me that are important.
I have screw up my Android by modifying the /system/etc/permissions/platform.xml file in a way that Android doesn't like it (I was being to creative with it :/ ). So now my Android doesn't boot.
I'm wondering if there is a way to restore my node apps now that my Android doesn't boot.
My android box is a Mini M8S

I used an male to male usb cable and the Amlogic Burning Tool to flash a new .img to my box.
That was the only solution that I came accross. And I lost all my node apps.


How does Google find devices for Android Device Manager? I've seen the news story a few weeks ago that Google has finally implemented a feature similar to Apple's Find My iPhone.

The weird thing is that Google says that somehow magically all old devices with old firmware can now be found, which were released months and years prior to the announcement of the feature.

How does that work?

It's not hardware or even firmware.

It's part-and-parcel of Google Play Services, which is what Google is using to try to free Android users from the tyranny of OEMs and mobile carriers which do not provide timely OS updates (if at all).

It's not quite an app, although it installs like one. It's a framework upon which other apps and services can be built.

Since Google Play Services is needed by so many of Google's apps (plus others, such as Twitter) if you've updated any of your apps in the last six months or so you've probably already got it.


how can we clear whatsapp conversations in our contacts I have a doubt on whatsapp msgs.my frd msg me on whatsapp I seen the whole coversation.on the next day I didn't find any conversation in my phone.I face this situation from couple of my frds.Is it possible to delete the conversations from other cells reply me quickly.

The WhatsApp FAQ has instructions that should help you:

  To delete a single message from a conversation:

  Open WhatsApp and go to the chat window with the message you want to
  delete. Highlight the message. Press the 'del' key on your keyboard.

  To delete an individual or group chat:

  In the  Chats screen, highlight the chat you wish to delete. Press the
  button and select Delete chat or Delete and Exit Group.

  To delete your entire chat history and remove yourself from all groups:

  Go to WhatsApp >  Settings. Scroll to the bottom and select  Advanced
  Settings. Press the  button and select Delete Chat History.

  NOTE: Using Delete Chat History will delete all chats from the Chats screen, as well as remove yourself from all groups.

  To delete all messages in a conversation without closing the chat window or leaving the group

  Open the chat. Press the  button and select Clear conversation.

  To clear all chat history, but continue to participate in groups:

  Go to WhatsApp >  Settings. Scroll to the bottom and select  Advanced
  Settings. Press the  button and select Clear All Chats.

  NOTE: Using Clear All Chats will not remove you from any groups.


Moving Chrome saved passwords to Brave browser Is it possible in any way to replicate Chrome passwords to other Chromium-based browsers such as Brave? I have a rooted device. I tried copying the "Login Data" file from the Chrome data folder to the Brave data directory. But Brave didn't pick it. And there is no option to import CSV passwords in Brave browser.
The desktop version of the Brave browser has an option to import CSV passwords, and I did that, but there is no option to sync passwords between the desktop version and the Android browser.

So far, not yet. The Brave Dev team said it's on the roadmap, there are several overlapping issues (with sync, bookmarks, general browser data and specific password import/sync) but there has been no feedback from the Devs on an implementation timeline. Very frustrating. Brave is a great browser and has lots of potential, but if it's to compete with the other browsers it has to include basic features that users expect. Password sync, or at least import and export on mobile/laptop/desktop, is one of them. Payment, Address and other browser data would actually make it comparable to other browsers...


Based on what does translate appear only in some apps and some places it misses translated? I happen to open  a Chineese application and in that page all the info was Chineese so on top right corner there was a translate button On clicking translate it did translate the page but not the whole page.

Places like what's new section was still Chineese Why is it not translating the what's new section in some places it simply removed the text

I opened other Chinese app also and in that the translate  icon doesn't appear.

So based on what does the translate icon appear on some apps and also why does translate doesn't translate completely

Usually is up to the developers to translate their apps, so it means they had no time/didn't want to translate it. They probably chose to insert a translate button which uses something like Google translate to do the work, but gives approximate results.


Light Flow not pushing email notifications to my Pebble I've been trying to get everything set up on my new Nexus 5, and one of those things is getting notifications working properly, both on the phone itself as well as on my Pebble watch.  One problem I'm having right now (which I basically bypassed with my previous phone) is getting Light Flow to push notifications to my Pebble.  I know that Light Flow is handling notifications because the notification LED and vibrate settings are being used, but despite setting the "Send to Pebble" checkbox for the desired notifications, I'm not getting anything on my watch.  I did have it working with my past phone, though.

Before people ask in the comments, yes, I can still get notifications on my watch if they originate from the Pebble app.  However, I can't set the Pebble app to a sleep mode like I can with Light Flow.  There are also notifications that I can get from Light Flow that I can't get from the Pebble app, for instance low battery warning and lost cell connection that I also want.  Also, 3rd party notifications are enabled in Pebble.

Since I know that both Light Flow and Pebble are working independently, why can't I get them to work together?

The issue is actually caused by the feature that I wanted to make use of: sleep mode.  For some reason, if the option to disable Pebble notifications while in sleep mode, all Pebble notifications are disabled, regardless of sleep state.  (The release notes indicate that this was already fixed, but that apparently isn't the case.)  Since I can disable notifications at the watch (thanks, @GAThrawn), I have no need for preventing Light Flow from sending notifications to my Pebble while I sleep.

Simply disable the sleep mode check for send to Pebble in Light Flow, and notifications will start flowing.


Transfer of files and apps from old sd card to new sdcard I have got a new 8 GB SD card, but the catch is I have done the app2sd stuff. So what are the steps to be followed for the data and apps transfer without loss of anything.

Will a simple copy and paste including all hidden files be enough?

Depends on how the copy is performed. The SD card contains a couple of hidden files/directories (especially with App2SD being used, there's the .android_secure folder to be considered).

Usually, when on a Linux workstation, a complete copy from sdcard#1 to sdcard#2 should do the job (cp -dpR <source> <target>). Same should apply to Mac OS. As I have no Windows, I cannot speak for that.


How to view recovered (deleted earlier) images? I, sometime ago, formatted my memory card, and few days later I recovered the data in it. I then copied the recovered data to memory card again. However, I am unable to see many photos in my computer. I thought my Android phone would support this. But my phone also failed to show me those photos.

The images I want to see are of the previous size of the image, when I captured them. E.g. if I captured an image of size 1.2mb, the recovered image is also of the same size.

My phone is running Android 7.0, has 1GB RAM and internal storage of 8GB. The problem is with SD card. When I try to open those pictures I see this:

Recovering images from a previously formatted media usually means that the images are "carved" from the RAW data by detecting the image headers.

Images that are not stored as one data block (image is fragmented on file-system level) can not be fully recovered using the carving method because the information which blocks belong together was erased by formatting the media. You end up in having image files of the original size but from a certain point on the images just contain garbage data, not the image data.

A good image recovery tool should detect those defect images and let you decide what to do with them. Looks like your software does not work this way and now you have broken images that can't be loaded fully - e.g. for generating the thumbnail.

You may find software that is able to display the remaining parts of the original image, and save it to a new file. But this software has be be able to deal with defect image files and I don't know what Android apps could be used in such a case.


"Other" folder on SD card with Kindle Fire 10 A friend of mine has a new Kindle Fire 10 tablet and has a 64GB SD card.

When downloading content from Amazon Prime, the SD card fills up with more data than the content downloaded

This content is stored in the "Other" folder but no idea what this

Does anyone know?

"Other" is cached data (browser, other apps), downloaded files, game data (e.g., Minecraft worlds), etc. Basically anything that doesn't fit the named categories.

You can clean some of this up by using the functions in Settings->Storage to clear app caches/data, delete downloads, etc. If you know what to look for, you can also use a file manager to manually delete things that may not get cleared via Settings menus. However, please make sure you know what you are deleting if you attempt the latter.


google map problem today Where are the other options? I cannot see them on Google Maps. I used to be able to see a "route options" or "avoid tolls" button but now seems to have disappeared this morning.

Screenshot (click image to enlarge)

I think this not an Google Map Issue. This is Expected Scenario.
If in your current Selected Route any tolls are there then only it will show those options, In your current routes ferries are there. So, you are getting that in your route options.


Cannot install Chrome or Google Drive on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (P1000) I tried to install Chrome or Google Drive on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Android 4.0.4) but the app page in Google Play says "Your device isn't compatible with this version".

Can I install an older version? Or is there any workaround.

I updated my system.

Later update: Any other application that I tried to install was giving Error retrieving information from server. [RPC:...]

What I had to do to solve this was

Go to Settings > Accounts
Remove the Google account
Add back the Google account
Go to Settings > Applications > All
Clear data for applications 'Google Play Services,Google Play Store` (basically any system service or application from Google that had to do anything with Play Store)
Reboot the tablet

Now I can install applications, including Drive and Chrome.


Folder that automatically uploads to phone Here's something I that I want to do with my Android phone (Galaxy S2, CM9). I'll be happy if someone could tell me whether it's possible, and how.

I often want to transfer files from my computer to my phone. But it's a clunky process. the easiest way for me right now is to use AirDroid, but it's cumbersome. Connecting via usb is cumbersome too, because I need to enable the usb storage thing.

What I really want is this. I want a folder on my computer that I can put files into, and have them automatically uploaded to a dedicated folder on my phone's sd card without any further action on my part. It's important that this won't mean constantly having a heavy program working in the background on my phone, because it's slow enough as it is.

Any way to do that?

FolderSync could come in handy here. Define a "folder pair" (i.e. which directory on your Android device to sync with which directory on your computer), using any of the available protocols (SFTP, Samba, or any other). Then either chose for some "auto-check" (e.g. have it synced every night), or push the button manually. Using the paid version, you could even bring in tasker – which is what I do: "Every night at 3am, when connected to any power source and to MY_WIFI network → Sync all my backups, photos, whatsnots" :)


How do i fix low storage space so i don't have to reset my phone? I have an android Samsung Intercept SPH-M910 and I have read all the directions for resetting and clearing apps and cache. However I still have to reset my phone every three days because the low storage error comes back because what I have cleared out doesn't seem to really clear.

I have gone to settings and then applications, but there is no storage space after that... it is however after settings but does not let me change anything it just shows how much is available. How can I get my internal storage back to normal?

move the big application installed in the internal memory to sd card and clear cache .. with some appz like ccleaner for android..


How to turn off mobile-data/3G for each SIM card separately in Samsung Galaxy Mega Duos? I'm using Samsung Galaxy Mega Duos and use two SIM cards - one sim with very low charge for 3G connection (called SIM1) and the other with very-high fee (called SIM2).

I go to Setting - Connections - Data usage to turn off 3G on SIM2 but the checkbox Mobile data seems to be synced between the two e.g. if I check it on SIM1 and then go to SIM1 to turn it off, SIM2 is turned off too!?

My question: How can I turn of 3G for SIM2 but keep it for SIM1?

I had the same issue. Found this solution on another site:

Open "Settings" App
Go to "SIM Card Manager"
Tap on "Data Service Network"
Choose the SIM as the Data SIM

Note that only the first SIM slot supports 3G Internet. So if you want to use 3G you must plug your 3G SIM in the first slot.


What is the difference between a Restricted Profile and a User in Android 4.3? Android 4.3 introduced a new feature called Restricted Profiles. What is a restricted profile, and how is it different from a User?

With 4.3, Android apparently has three types of user:

primary user (admin, owner)
secondary users
restricted profiles

Primary user is the first user created for the device, when setting it up.

All users (the primary user and secondary users) have pretty much equal control of the system - they can alter all the system settings, create more users, etc. but they cannot access the data or the apps* of the other users.

Since all users can only access their own data, they can also be linked to different accounts. Likewise, they could also use a same account if you set it up for each user individually. However, this doesn't make the device aware of the different users using the same account - each user has their own "link" to the account, unaware of the others.

A restricted profile is different. Like users, it has its own settings, and own data. However uses the primary user's accounts and installed apps. The primary user controls which of these are enabled for the profile.

Further, these profiles can be given parental-type restrictions to content - such as blocking all content defined as "mature". (Note: This requires support from the apps providing the content in order to work.)

* - Google Play app-store does sort-of support some inter-user data - when you install an app that another user already has, the same app code is used by both users. This means it doesn't need to be downloaded a second time, and doesn't take up extra space. It also means that when one of the users updates the app, it is updated for everyone. However, only thing shared between the users is the app code, the users cannot access each other's data.

More information on developer.android.com, see specifically: Support for Restricted Profiles.


Cannot charge Xperia Z3 Compact I have a 3 week old Sony Xperia Z3 Compact (D5833). However, it suddenly turned off and refused to charge.

The phone was at ~10% charge before I plugged it in using the cable and adapter that came with the phone. I didn't notice that the charger light didn't light up because I was busy. Half an hour later, I noticed, and the phone refused to power on and also was unable to be charged.

I've attempted to follow the FAQs located on the Sony Support website:
(Main Page --> Z3 Compact --> Troubleshoot --> I cannot power on my device) and
(Main Page --> Z3 Compact --> Troubleshoot --> The phone doesn't seem to charge) but to no avail.

Is there anyone out there who can help?

Thanks in advance.

Sounds like a loose connection and/or hardware issue.

If you fiddle about with the cable in the port and the light comes on, it could indicate that the cable is potentially faulty, else, if it's only around three weeks old, can you not send it back and get a replacement under faulty/warranty terms?


I accidentally uninstalled one of my Factory App. What would I do to restore it? My phone was in my pocket for the whole afternoon until one of my friends borrowed it then gave it back again then asked why did I uninstalled my Camera though I always use it. I tried to open my Camera but it always says "App not installed" I tried to find it in Google play to see if Lenovo Cameras were there but they weren't. I also opened my gallery and the same thing happened, to see... My Phone Camera and Gallery are connected. What should I do? Searched online but nothing really helps...

I'd say your friend is making fun with you. If it's a system app (and there's usually a camera pre-installed that way), it cannot be uninstalled without root access (so you cannot have "accidentally uninstalled" those apps). He most likely disabled camera and gallery.

Go to Settings → Apps
Select the "All" tab (to list pre-installed apps as well)
Scroll the list to find your camera app. Check whether it is marked "disabled".

if so: tap that entry, hit the "Enable" button, done.

Repeat previous step for your gallery app


How to install Cyanogen without losing data I've been using ICS on my Samsung Galaxy S3 for a while now, but I can't update to Jelly Bean for multiple reasons.
I've decided to switch to Cyanogen Mod, is there any way I can move to Cyanogen without losing any application data?

As geff described, you cannot avoid a wipe/factory-reset. But you can do a proper backup beforehand, so you can restore most of your data afterwards. This should work without any trouble for the apps you've installed yourself ("user apps"), while special care must be taken for pre-installed apps ("system apps"): As data structures (inside their databases) might have changed, a simple restore (replacing the databases) might break things and even render those apps unusable.

Provided your device is rooted, Titanium Backup is a good choice. Backup all "user apps" and their data, plus the "system apps" and their data. Special care on restore: "user apps" can be restored 1:1. Before goint to the "system apps", make sure to turn on TB's "migration" mode. Then restore only data, and do so one-by-one, after each "data set" verifying there are no side-effects.

An alternative to be named is Helium Backup, which even works on non-rooted devices.

Safest is to stick to your "user apps", and let contacts etc. solve via sync. For several things like SMS, there are special backup/restore solutions which you could use.


3D using VR headset in Nokia 3 So let's say I have got a split screen 3D video. My Google search results told me that if I just play it in VLC in my Nokia 3 and use a VR headset, I will get 3D experience. However when I play 360 degrees VR videos from Google, they are distorted and not rectangle in shape. So I am afraid that when I play rectangular side by side 3D videos, the videos will be distorted and the sides will be missing. So what should I do to convert the side by side video to the distorted VR like video? Is there any app or something?

I have not tried them yet as my VR headset has not yet arrived but I want to have everything ready as soon my VR arrives. (Basically I have decided to wait for some time and if I cannot watch 3D with cardboard I might not buy it)

Screenshot of how video should look like when seen by google cardboard(i.e. what I meant by distorted video)

And this is what 3D split screen loos like and I intend to convert this to above form :

Use a player like 3D VR Player to play the video..

There are many such VR Player apps in Play Store (search for it). All you need to do is download the right one you need.