How can I know if fstrim was run when I put my phone on charging over night? Is there any logging where I can confirm this?

A charging, idle device over night is not the only way to run fstrim, there are other ways too.

What this old article quotes about scheduled fstrim on Android:

  The Android framework will send out a “start idle maintenance window” event that the MountService listens for, and then invokes vold to fstrim filesystems when a few conditions have been met – the device hasn’t been touched for over an hour, no idle maintenance window event has been sent in 24 hours, and the device is either off-charger with 80% battery or on-charger with 30% battery.

But IdleMaintenanceService was removed in Lollipop, things have changed. On Pie, scheduled fstrim is triggered from StorageManagerService (1) to MountService (2):

  if the device is alive at midnight + idle, fstrim gets run at the next available charging + idle time

* (3)
Mount service calls StorageManager which in turn calls Vold to do fstrim.

If the schedule is being missed because the conditions don't meet and fstrim has not run for last 3 days (4), it will be forced during device startup if the device is restarted. SystemServer (5), PackageManager (6), StorageManager (7) and Vold (8) are involved.

In each case, the file /data/system/last-fstrim (9) (since Lollipop) gets updated (10), so  you can check its timestamp (requires root) to find out when fstrim was last run.

If you want to do TRIM manually, use Android's commandline tool sm fstrim (requires root or adb shell). Previously this was vdc fstrim dotrim but added to Storage Manager in Oreo (11) and removed from vold in Pie (12).

In order to send FITRIM ioctl to selected filesystem(s) only, use fstrim tool (requires root); a busybox applet.

What if you don't have root?
And you suspect that the scheduled fstrim is being missed for 3+ days, restart device, fstrim will be forced (since Lollipop 5.1 (13)). Simple.

Apps can't TRIM without root; see this answer.

PS: HOW OFTEN TRIM SHOULD BE RUN?

Flash memory (including SSDs, eMMCs, SD Cards, USB sticks etc.) has limited number of Program/Erase cycles before it dies. But unlike HDDs, data can't be just overwritten on flash memory, it has to be Erased first, which is achieved through Garbage Collection.

Now if we do too much fstrim, this will cause frequent GC in background consuming precious P/E cycles and hence reducing life. If we don't do fstrim at all, there could be unnecessary GC (of already deleted data), plus the write operations will get too slow with time because Erase will have to be performed before overwriting data, which has very higher latency as compared to Program operation.

So we need a balance between both.

Also there are other factors e.g. whether eMMC controller supports over provisioning, how effective it is in background GC scheduling, wear-leveling and managing write amplification etc.

So unless you have the data sheet of your phone's eMMC and you are sure what you are doing, better is to leave the fstrim to OS. On PCs' (14):

  Running fstrim frequently, or even using mount -o discard, might negatively affect the lifetime of poor-quality SSD devices.  For most desktop and server systems a sufficient trimming frequency is once a week.

But this may vary with situations.

RELATED:

Coding for SSDs
Why is TRIM not supported on encrypted “/data” partition?


Backing up WhatsApp chats My WhatsApp has slowed down because of too many texts in the message database (thousands of texts in some threads). Now, I want to take a local backup of these chats for later retrieval (this part is important) and clean my WhatsApp completely. How do I do that?

Firstly, to update your local chat backup :
Settings -> Chat backup -> Backup

Now, take a copy of WhatsApp folder somewhere. This will copy all your whatsapp related data - chat backups, media etc. In case you want to backup & restore only your chat backup, copy msgstore.db.crypt12 from Whatsapp -> Databases folder.

Then, uninstall WhatsApp app and delete WhatsApp folder, i.e, "clean my WhatsApp completely"

Finally, copy WhatsApp folder back to phone storage (in case you only copied msgstore.db.crypt12, make Whatsapp -> Databases folders manually) then install WhatsApp app. In the setup it will say `Backup found,do you want to restore' : select yes.


What are the names of the various versions of the Android OS, and how are these names chosen? Many people refer to Android versions by "codenames" rather than version numbers (e.g. Android "Gingerbread"). What are the names of the various versions of the Android OS, and how are these names chosen?

Each version of Android since 1.5 has been developed with a specific codename. These codenames are chosen alphabetically and have thus far all been dessert items (or, generically, sweet/sugary foods). Some codenames are associated with more than one version number, while others are limited to only a specific one, and the reason for this inconsistency is not currently known. The naming typically appears to correspond to changes in the developer API levels, but this is not always true (example: 3.0 and 3.1 are both "Honeycomb" but they have different API levels).
The following names are used for the currently existing Android releases. Note that versions 1.0 and 1.1 were not publicly named. However, Android 1.1 was internally referred to as "Petit-Four" (noted in Traroth's answer, confirmed here):
Cupcake:

Android 1.5

Donut:

Android 1.6

Eclair:

Android 2.0
Android 2.1

Froyo: (short for "frozen yogurt")

Android 2.2

Gingerbread:

Android 2.3

Honeycomb:

Android 3.0
Android 3.1
Android 3.2

Ice Cream Sandwich:

Android 4.0

Jelly Bean:

Android 4.1
Android 4.2
Android 4.3

KitKat:

Android 4.4

Lollipop:

Android 5.0
Android 5.1

Marshmallow:

Android 6.0

Nougat: (official name: https://twitter.com/Android/status/748642375908589568)

Android 7.0
Android 7.1

Oreo:

Android 8.0
Android 8.1

Pie:

Android 9.0

Android 10 (no codename)
Android 11 (no codename)


I am using HTC Desire HD A9191. When I place or receive a call my phone speaker is automatically turning ON and navigation is popping on the screen I am using HTC Desire HD A9191. When I place or receive a call my phone speaker is automatically turning ON and for every 10-20 seconds navigation page is popping on the screen. Please help to fix this issue.I am facing problem from 3 weeks.

Have you tried any method from google for your problem ?

There is a software fix for this , try this :

Shutdown the phone, remove the battery, press the power button to discharge the phone. Install the battery again and turn the phone back on as normal.
Open the ‘All apps’ menu, open ‘Dock Mode’ press the phones menu button and select ‘Settings’. Un-tick the ‘Auto-launch’ option.
Open the phones settings menu. Open ‘Display’ and click on ‘G-Sensor calibration’. Follow the prompts to calibrate the sensor.
Open the phones settings menu.
Open ‘Sound’. Un-tick ‘Flip for speaker’.

Have you installed any new software or software updates recently? Uninstall the software and check if the issue still exists.

Clear the application cache for the car application.

Install Car Dock Settings from the android store. Using the application un-tick the ‘Enable speaker phone’ option.

Original source :  https://www.itsupportguides.com/htc-android-phones/solved-htc-phone-speakerphone-automatically-on-for-all-calls/

Hope it helps !


Moving sdcard to ExtSdCard I was an Android beginner, I know nothing of 'hacking' some Android stuff. I found several issues of this case but no one that I look pretty ideal for my case.

My Samsung Galaxy  Ace 2 has been inserted a new SD Card after a several time using no SD Card. That makes the system create sdcard in it's internal storage. Then my storage information (Setting -> Storage) become 3 parts, which: Device memory (internal), USB Storage (internal), and SD Card (extSdCard). This thing become very annoying since my internal wasn't so big.

And when I open my Gallery it pop some notice There is not enough space (0 MB) in your device memory. Delete some files. And always redirect me to the Files. On my Files there is 2 folders, which: extSdCard and sdcard0. On the setting of Files. I can't change the Set home directory that refers to /storage/sdcard0 to (my hope) /storage/extSdCard.

I done trying to moving all apps to internal storage with hoping that USB Storage not full, but it doesn't give any good solution just yet. I read several post and forum, also several solution using adb but I don't think those solution can manage all problem, since because of this case, I can't save any voice note or picture from social chatting apps, in some case, I can't receive any bluetooth transfer also.

So I want that USB Storage begone, and my sdcard0 was symlinked to the real external SD Card, or another step that make my system become like the old like Android system. Please help me. Thanks a lot before.

FYI: right now, my phone isn't rooted yet. But I can root it anytime, if it really needed.

thanks for upvoting this question but I'm afraid I still have no answer until this day either majority people. But let me share my latest research about this case which actually would be lame because I post this question pretty much long time ago. So, here it is.

When I do my research about it on the device, I try to root it, try to swapping the the storage and whatsoever (please notice that my Android's knowledge was not too much, so I think I may not trying all methods). It's all result nothing but pain and brick phone in the end of the day.

So I bring my phone to Service Center and after they re-install it I asked them about that case/issue, they trying to answer with 'not-clear-answer-to-preserve-reputation' answer, until I force them to spit the truth. Then finally they says that how Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 works. So, that's is, my last conclusion that this phone was made for experiment or whatsoever. I face this kind of experiment issue form Samsung not just once

So, I hope this story can brought us some unclear light to overcome the unclear darkness that coming from this phone (you can skip this last unclear sentence :p). Peace out :D


Samsung Galaxy S3 will not turn on. Can this be fixed or can I retrieve photos? My Samsung Galaxy SIII is doing the following: I cannot get the phone to turn on, the side power button does not do anything. When I remove the battery, and put it back in place, the phone vibrates once and then displays the startup screen of "Samsung Galaxy SIII" for two seconds, before going black again. The battery of the phone is charged. I have tried connecting the device to a power source and it doesn't do anything.

Is there something I can do to fix the phone/get it to turn on?

Is there a way for me to recover photos/notes stored on the phone's internal hard drive?

It actually is possible to recover data from the phone's internal storage, but it's likely to be too costly to be practical, unless you have the only known photo of the space aliens in there.  What would be required, once all methods of getting the phone to boot and transfer the files have failed, is to desolder the internal Flash RAM chip from the phone's motherboard, then use an appropriate adapter (mount/socket and circuits) to read out the contents.

This is difficult because desoldering surface mount chips without damage requires specialized tools, and the equipment to read out a dismounted chip is pretty uncommon.  Forensic data recovery specialists would likely have the right hardware and skills, but it's unlikely anyone else would have all of it in one place.

Commercial repair of the phone is almost certain to involve replacing the motherboard, which will lose your internal data storage (the Flash RAM chip will still be on the old motherboard, which will likely be recycled for the metal content, i.e. shredded and melted down).


How do I specify a different PIN than 0000 when pairing a bluetooth device on android I have a bluetooth speaker with default passkey 1111 rather than 0000.
I'm not able to connect to it using my android tablet because of this error:

  Couldn't pair with SP104B because of an incorrect PIN or passkey

How do I specify a different PIN than 0000 when pairing a bluetooth device on android 4.2.2?

To fix your speaker problem - Go to Settings > Bluetooth > Turn On and wait for your list of devices to populate. Locate your speaker and Long Press it (press and hold) and then select Un-pair. You'll be free to attempt to pair it again with the proper PIN!

If your device isn't paired with the phone, but it's still not connecting, you can try clearing your Bluetooth cache. Turn off Bluetooth, then Go to Settings > Applications > All > Bluetooth Share and tap "Force Stop," then "Clear Cache," then "Clear Data. If the device was ever paired or a pairing ever failed, it may have stored those credentials regardless of success. This should give you a fresh chance at it.

As for why you can't specify what PIN your speaker provides your phone - it's because the default PIN is assigned to the device when it's made, and can't be changed by the average consumer. Most 'dumb' Bluetooth devices have no way of changing the PIN it comes with.


Cannot install any Custom ROMs on Xperia Ray ST18i: assert failed: getprop Status 7 When I try to install any of the roms of that page: http://get.cm/?device=urushi I always get this error:

  Finding update package... Opening update package... Installing
  update... assert failed: getprop("ro.product.device") == "ST18i"||
  getprop("ro.build.product") == "ST18i"||  getprop("ro.product.device")
  == "ST18a"|| getprop("ro.build.product") == "ST18a"||   getprop("ro.product.device") == "urushi" ||
  getprop("ro.build.product") == "urushi" E:Error in
  /sdcard/cm-9.1.0-urushi.zip
  (Status 7) Installation aborted.

This sounds to me, that the prop doesen't get the right string "ST18i" which is strange, cause that's exactly my model.

Do I have to downgrade or install something else first?

I also tried to install the old image Xperia Ray (ST18i)_4.0.2.A.0.42_CE.zip again, but there is just sais "installation aborted".

Are there different Rescue Menues? I read, someone tried reinstalled his rescue menu with Odin.

I installed my Recovery Mod with the app x-Parts from Google Play that app installs the CWM.

You have to install the boot image that is included in the Cyanogenmod ZIP file an flash that in fastboot:

Connect your device with Vol-Up While plugging in the USB-Cable

fastboot devices

Seeing your serial number means we know all is good.

Now type these commands:

fastboot erase system -w
fastboot erase boot

then copy the boot.img in the same folder as fastboot.exe and type

fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot reboot

Now press the Vol-Down Button to enter the Recovery Mode again and install your image


Pulling an apk of paid app from the device I was pulling the .apk files from the device using the following command:

./adb pull /data/app/com.example.tracker-1.apk

When I tried using the same command for the encrypted app as below:

./adb pull /mnt/asec/net.stfj.spelltower-1/pkg.apk

I get the following message

failed to copy '/mnt/asec/net.stfj.spelltower-1/pkg.apk' to './pkg.apk': Permission denied

The device is not rooted and the app is a paid app. The intention of pulling is not piracy but to understand the library and architecture of a set of apps. Is there a way I can retrieve that .apk file?

You wont be able to pull a "protected app" without root, sorry.

This has nothing to do with the app being payed, except that usually only payed apps are "protected" (theoretically, free apps could be "protected" as well); think of it rather as a kind of "DRM".

Once your device is rooted, you can use "root powers" to pull those .apk files. This can be done either using a specialized app (such as AppMonster), or via adb pull if the ADB daemon runs in root-mode (it usually doesn't, but that can be achieved using adbd Insecure). adb root usually doesn't work on "production devices", so you have to use this different approach.


Why does my Samsung A8 have such poor contrast after updating to Android 9? I have a Samsung A8 2018 SM-A530W, which was purchased from a major Canadian carrier. It recently updated itself to Android 9 through a Samsung application.

Since that update, many of my applications are very difficult to read. In the case of Calendar and Clock, the contrast ratio between the text and background makes text illegible. In the case of the settings screen, transparency to the wallpaper does the same. I'm sure this isn't intentional, but I'm wondering what I can do besides reset my phone.

White text on an almost-white background makes the calendar impossible to read.

Gray text over a gray background makes the clock difficult to read.

Black text over a transparent background to the default Galaxy wallpaper makes settings difficult to read.

You can change that.

Go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Visibilty enhancements -> then try some functions there and see what is best for you (contrast theme,contrast font etc.)
If you are using any Galaxy Theme, after system update, they are also updated, so this can alse be a problen. You should try to change or just dissable theme you are using(if you are using) for a moment to test it.
If you love Night Mode,it can also solve your problem, but it is not good for using outside.


Can still sync email after revoking app specific password on gmail I was rather shocked today to discover that my android phone was still syncing email after I had revoked it's app specific password on gmail.

Can anyone else confirm that this happens on their devices too?

Found another users post about it here but there is no reply from google.

Feeling very uneasy about the security of my stuff now :/

UPDATE:

Yeah, I was doing it wrong.  But I think Google could document the process a little better.

What's going on is that your phone is not using your password. When you log in an Oath token is issued.
This is more secure, because your password is not stored on the device. It also has the additional benefit that it can automatically log you in in your browser. To deny access to your phone, remove the authentication token here.

Moreover starting with ICS you don't need to use applications specific passwords for your phone. Enter your regular Google account info; it will notice that you have 2-factor authentication enabled and open an internal browser where you can log in using your OTP.


Help with flashing rom I'm gonna try to flash a Marshmallow rom on my Lollipop phone. How do I backup all apps? Do I need root and a custom recovery first? And if so, would they be deleted after I flash the new rom? And if I successfully flashed the new rom, would I be able to restore the backup files made on a lower version of Android work on this new rom?

Backup stuff with apps like Helium or Titanium Backup.

Custom recovery is required, while root is not; however you often need root to flash a custom recovery.

Recovery stays in its own partition and will not disappear, unless you deliberately chose not to remove a script that replaces it with the stock one (this mostly happens on stock ROMs).

It's usually safe to restore data for user apps; however do be careful when taking care of system apps - especially don't just backup and restore data for Settings.


How to restore old screen power-off effect on android 5 I upgraded to android 5 and the screen power off effect which was imitating power off of these old CRT monitors is lost. Is there any way for me to restore it?

If you have rooted your device then Xposed Installer can do this.
Xblast tools & GravityBox are xposed modules that have crt off and many other effects.


Not able to send media on Whatsapp...Moto X I just upgraded to Moto X from Motorola Photon. I am not being able to send/receive any picture or media files. The settings for media is turned on but still the media button in mot highlighting.

This can be dependant on the app itself being compatible with your version of android, or the phone itself. Without more information, this is a hard question to answer. I've heard that Whatsapp doesnt like Android 4.4 (KitKat) just yet, or it could be a simple problem with the app that the developer hasn't fixed yet. If all else fails, give it time for the devs to fix the app, make sure settings on your phone allow it the app to work right, or just try reinstalling the app and restarting your phone.


Mount USB flashdrive on Samsung Galaxy Pocket Neo I have a USB flash drive that has two connections, one USB and one micro USB. I have attached it to may phone but it won't mount. I have tried rooting and using other file browsers but nothing seems to help. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could get the flash drive to mount. I have tried StickMount but that doesn't seem to work.

The flash drive looks something like this:

Edit: I have tried it in 2 other phones but no luck. I then tried it in my tablet and it worked perfectly. Can anyone explain why it would work in a tablet but not a phone.

The reason is that your phones does not support OTG cables, most android devices (70%) support OTG but some don't. The reason for this, is because your phone hasn't got the right hardware for it I have a tablet that doesnt support it and managed to get it to eventually working alright (It doesnt work in other apps, but you can copy the files at a fast speed using some applicatons that are built around this one) by using USB OTG Helper [root], Please let me know if this works for you
THIS REQUIRES ROOT ACCESSAlso you could try charging your phone to 100% and then trying again, If none of this works then it would be most likely because of your phone not supplying enough voltage to the drive, so you may need a external power supply


Jio sim unable to call I have this key sign showing near my Signal tower. In my phone screen and I can't make call please help me

Make sure your phone supports VOLTE. The key sign has nothing to do with calling. The Jio4GVoice App cwn be used to call through the jio sim (if VOLTE is not supported).


Create Something Like NTFS Junctions in Android 2.2 I'm wondering if you can create junction points on an Android device (v2.2) just like you can on a Windows computer. Basically, I want to move stuff from the /data folder on the internal memory to my sdcard, since my internal memory is almost full (due to Orbot) and I have plenty of space on my sdcard. I've already moved all my apps to the card, but apparently the /data files are still stored on memory.

I'm using a cyanogen rooted PRS-T1 ereader (very little memory). Is there a way to create junction points (or similar) using an app or the command line so that I can move those /data files to the card without creating any issues?

I think you may want a symbolic link.

You can create them in any good Linux system using

ln -s <link_target> <link_name>

eg

ln -s /data/app /mnt/sdcard/data/app

or (while in /mnt/sdcard/data)

ln -s /data/app app

You will want to be careful regarding removing the SDCard - you will need to completely shutdown the device prior to removal, and the same SDCard will likely need to be in the device prior to booting.


Does the myTouch 4g Slide require a data plan? Possible Duplicate:
  Smartphone without the expensive data plan

I was wondering because I was going to get it but I can not afford the data plan and needed to know. Thank you in advance!

Is there is nothing special about the myTouch the answer is: No Android smartphone requires a data plan, but it's no fun without a data plan.

The phone works perfectly fine without a data plan ( of course, syncs won't happen ). The major disadvantage is that you have carefully check that you don't accidentally transfer any data while connected to your mobile carrier, because this results usually in high fees. But Android has a nice setting to disable mobile data permanently. This should keep you safe.


How to set up a network connection between Android phone and Windows PC without Internet Is it possible to connect my Android phone (Galaxy S3) directly to my Windows (7) PC in such a way that I can make network connections to the PC from the phone, without a pre-existing WiFi network?

My specific issue is that I want to be able to browse a website that is being hosted on the PC from my phone.  It's for doing web development on the PC, and using the phone to check how it looks/behaves on mobiles.  There is no WiFi access point or network available.

Ideally I'd like a solution that doesn't involve the Internet at all - neither from the PC nor the phone.  In my particular situation, it would also be ideal if this can be done over Bluetooth, but over USB or WiFi would suffice.

If you are using Windows 7 try this,

Create an ad-hoc network in your PC (This would help you Create WiFi Network)
Connect your Android device to the WiFi network you created in past step
Open the browser in your phone and type PCs IP address/your web app name (I hope you run your web app on some servers like Apache Tomcat/WAMP ..)


How to fix Sync Browser not working on ICS I just got a Galaxy Nexus and all is good apart from that my Sync Browser doesn't work.  When I run logcat against it it gives me the error of :

BookmarksSync  I  Sync failed due to soft error: Skipping any commits.

I've seen some pages online which describe this issue and suggest fixing by removing all your bookmarks and starting again, but I'd rather not do this. *see edit below

Does anyone know how I can fix this without removing all my existing browser setup?  or if this is the only way, can someone point me to a page with clear instructions.

** EDIT **
I tried removing all my bookmarks and syncing and it's still giving me an error with no bookmarks present.

I had a similar issue.

Eventually, I disabled the following:

auto fill forms; sync via USB an developer tools. It worked!

Oh also I cleared data (settings..content settings) for Google sites.


Handling Notifications - Vibrations / Screen / Tones? My HTC One seems to vibrate for every damn notification that comes on.  When it does this, the screen does not come on and there's no sound.   I know how to turn notifications off, but I"m trying to figure out how define when a notification :

a) Turns on the screen so I can see the notification without having to turn the phone on, go to the notifications screeen, etc.

b) Provides a audio notification / tone

c) Does or does NOT vibrate

Personally, I find the vibrate with no sounds and no screen to be the most annoying.

This worked for me on my HTC One M8

First Go to Settings, then go to Accessibility, and click Notification Reminder to Off

http://www.reddit.com/r/htc/comments/2w3op7/htc_one_m8_lollipop_notification_constant/


Root and then unroot afterwards? On my device, I have a bunch of stock applications. Some of them I don't need. Some of them are outdated. Here's what I want to do:

Root my device.
Uninstall all my unnecessary apps (no changing of roms).
Install the updates that my other stock apps need (like Facebook). Note: I meant I want to overwrite where the older version will be replaced. This is a common problem with stock applications. You can upgrade them but the older version is still around (possibly because of lack of root access), thus eating up unnecessary internal space.
Add some more other apps.
Secure some of the newly added apps so that they are uninstallable when I go back to being unrooted.
Unroot the phone.

As you can probably tell by now, I just want to overall change the applications on my phone. I also want to secure some new applications that I will be installing (e.g. make them act the same as the Facebook app wherein I can't uninstall it unless I have root). I don't want to install another rom, I don't want to overclock or anything. I just want to change the phone apps then return it back to being unrooted and be on my merry way.

Is this possible?

Absolutely. Well...almost. Just make sure you set the partition from rewritable to read-only once you're "unrooted". However, once you are unrooted, binaries like su and the SuperUser apk will in all probability removed, so you will in effect be dropped to a lower privilege level. This will have the side-effect of having the apps installed in the system partition as being uninstallable.

A workaround is to remove/uninstall apps from the system partition, remove root and then add the apps as user apps - this will ensure that they can be updated in the future without the need for root.


What's the difference between Camera.apk and com.sec.android.app.camera.apk? I'm trying to install a modified version of the Camera app on my rooted Samsung Galaxy S (Captivate) through copying to /system/app and through installing a zip file via ClockWorkRecovery.  It doesn't seem to be working (based on the fact that the modified camera should have no geotagging).

Looking in my /system/app/ folder I have Camera.apk and com.sec.android.app.camera.apk.  Are these complementary files or are they different camera app files?  Camera.apk has a timestamp of August 1, 2008 (which doesn't seem right) and the other has a timestamp of August 1, 2011 (which is around the time I was playing around with this stuff).

The Serendipity ROM only contains Camera.apk and CameraFirmware.apk.  I would think that the version you're trying to copy over is being renamed by the system on reboot and the original Camera.apk is being restored.

What I would try:

Get the non-CWM version of the Camera.apk and put it on your SD card
On your phone, use Root Explorer or similar to mount /system/app/ as RW
Rename /system/app/Camera.apk to Camera.bak or something
Copy in the new apk from the SD card
Remount /system/app/ as RO, you may want to make sure /system/ is RO as well
Try to use the camera.  If it works, reboot and see if it still works.


WiFi and data connection switches on automatically although I repeatedly turn off the two features The WiFi feature and data connection in my tablet turns on automatically. After resetting, the problem goes away but as soon as I download programs that I need, the problem comes back. Anyone with suggestions?

Either an app that you have given permission to modify system settings is doing this which should be easily solved by checking each of your apps permission settings?

...Or maybe you have something like WiFi "Scanning Always Available"?

If you feel up to it, you may also find more information by looking at your Android's log files (either via an app that can look at the logs or connecting a computer and using "adb logcat")


Is Wi-Fi always favoured over other data connections? I am at home and I would like to be sure that the data connection is always going through the Wi-Fi rather than the (expensive) data connection.

Is it enough to simply turn on Wi-Fi and connect to the (password protected) network? How can I control that the download is happening through the right connection? Can sleep (or other events) disable/change/toggle this setting?

In Android, AFAIK, when you connect to an active Wi-Fi network, mobile data (GPRS, 3G, etc) will be disabled (even if are turned on) temporary. So it would be OK to just connect to the Wi-Fi network. But, if you want to be sure about disabling mobile data, you should go to Settings -> Wi-Fi and Networks -> Mobile Data and uncheck the option to disable mobile data.
(in ICS it's in Settings -> Wireless and Networks -> More -> Mobile Networks)


Lock screen is not changing after updating to Android 4.4.2 I have updated my Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 to 4.4.2 and after that I'm not able to change my lock screen wallpaper. It always shows a wallpaper which is already in the device which has red background. Home screen changes every time whenever I want to change but lock screen remains the same. But if I put a live wallpaper as my home and lock screen it applies to both home and lock screen. Please suggest something how I would be able to put any pic from my gallery as lock screen. I changed the lock screen through settings also but no use.

I have a HISENSE SERO7 e2371 tablet here. I could not get the lock screen wallpaper to change at all.

Finally figured it out and thought I would post it here just in case anyone is looking for a solution.

I went into Settings → Security → Screen Lock and changed  Hisense to Slide.

It seems that it was an issue with the Hisense custom lock screen they provided, so this may be  same on other devices where the manufacturer has added a custom lock screen option.


Normal Internet surfing, without being redirect Disclaimer: I'm new in the smartphone world.

So, I  have my new smartphone (LG5), I open the browser and I would like to surf internet as I do from my laptop.

I go to google, search a site, for example a newspaper page, I click and... I'm automatically redirect to a page starting with and "m" like m.normal.site.addres which is the page for mobile devices, and which is often a pay-service.

How can I see the normal web page without being redirect?

Thanks in advance for help!

In Chrome for Android, you select "Request desktop site" from the menu in the browser.

I don't know if your phone ships with Chrome as the default browser or something LG have cooked up, so the option might be named differently, but there should be an equivalent.

Most sites will respect this, but you might find that if a site is redirecting you to push you to a pay service, they have another way of redirecting you anyway.


How do I tether with an HTC Desire on Swisscom? How do I do tethering with an HTC Desire on the Swiss carrier Swisscom? When I plug the phone and pick share internet, my computer asks me for phone number, username and password; oh, and it says I plugged in a modem.

Are the correct drivers for your Desire installed on the laptop? I'm using Windows 7 and with the correct (64 bit) drivers installed, it just connects to the Desire and sees it as a connected network adapter.


Editing personal dictionary on Android 6 As it seems Android blocks third party apps from editing the personal dictionaries for some reason.

I just upgraded from Android 4 to 6 and want to import my personal dicitonary, but the apps I've previously used successfully fail (they claim the import was successful, but nothing is imported to my personal dictionary).

Where can I find the file on the phone, where the personal dictionary is saved?
So I can manually copy my old entries to the new system.

Well I guess just replace your IME apk with an older version and then try restoring the database, finally replace the apk again with the new version.


Copy contacts to sdcard from android 2.3 how to copy my contacts from my sony ericsson wt19i android 2.3 to sdcard? I tried to do this by adb, but does not work. I do it like this:
adb devices

adb shell

su

mount -o rw,remount rootfs /

chmod 777 /mnt/sdcard

adb pull /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db /mnt/sdcard/tmp/contacts2.db

an error appears:

adb: not found

what should I do?

Thanks to @Firelord for generously helping me out when I got out of my depth. The problem description and notes about the solutions have been made using his comments as reference.

Problem:

That is because after you've issued adb shell, you're in Android's system shell and cannot use adb pull any longer, as the client ADB binary you invoked exists on your development PC, not on the connected device itself. The device acts as a server with the development PC as the client. The client issues the commands and the server responds to them. The server itself cannot issue the command.

The ADB on-device itself can also act as the client, with 2 caveats:

ADB from device to same device needs ADB to be running in wireless and loopback mode.
The other device, supposedly the "server", must initially be connected via OTG to the ADB client (later client & server) device so that ADB can be restarted there in wireless mode.

TL;DR

If you're running adb from the platform-tools directory of the Android SDK install, try issuing ./adb pull instead of adb pull in case you are on Linux, and, I suspect, similar with Windows. ADB is probably not in your PATH variable. The terminal remembers the folder history 1 level down, and the local folder by default is not included in the PATH variable.

SOURCE: This question on StackOverflow.

Resolution:

What you should do after the chmod command is enter exit, followed by adb pull.... The exit command should drop you out of the system shell back to whatever terminal/prompt you were using adb in on your PC, from where you can safely use adb pull.

Alternative Resolution:

You could also use cp instead of adb pull after chmod to copy the database file. They have the same usage pattern, and cp is definitely available in the shell session.

Notes:

I have a niggling issue with the way in which you use adb pull to copy files from your /data/data to your SD card, which could easily be accomplished with a root explorer or cp in a shell session.
Ensure that you have issued adb root prior to this entire set of commands under Resolution: so the adb daemon runs as root and can access /data and its subdirectories.

PS:

From @Firelord's comment, adb root will only work if you have set the ro.secure property in your build.prop to 0 instead of 1, where 1 is usually the default with the exception of some debug-enabled custom ROMs. In that case, take the cp alternative.

I have personally faced this issue and avoided mixing up ADB and shell sessions from then on.


How to exit Toddler Lock without touchscreen My touch screen broke while Toddler Lock was enabled. Is there a way to disable it without touching the four corners?

My device is rooted and developer options are enabled. So I can access it via "adb".

Simulate input events for touch screen via adb:

FOUR CORNERS:
adb shell input tap 10 100
adb shell input tap 510 100
adb shell input tap 510 950
adb shell input tap 10 950

OKAY:
adb shell input tap 350 900

Edit: Note: The coordinates of the taps depend on the screen size resolution. These coordinates work on a device with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels.


does flashing a kernel ever wipe anything on the phone? + Doing it without CWM? does flashing a kernel ever wipe anything on the phone?

and is it ever dependent on android version?
e.g. 4.22 or 4.3

I have CWM and i've seen the option to install from zip within CWM recovery.

but is there a command with adb or fastboot to do flash the kernel? what is it?

Or do you pretty much have to install it via CWM>

No, flashing a kernel only wipes the old kernel. Generally, user-space drivers in the system image will be specific to a particular version of the kernel driver, and each kernel driver version will only work with certain kernel versions, so only flash a different kernel if you know that it was built to work with your user-space version, or vice-versa. Usually stock ROMs will only work with the kernel that came with the ROM, and third-party ROMs will say which kernels they work with.

On devices that support fastboot, you can use fastboot flash boot boot.img to flash the file boot.img to the boot partition. This is the one that stores the kernel.


User experience difference among Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S Currently, I am considering 1 out of the following 2 android phones.

Samsung Galaxy S
Nexus S (Not available in my country yet)

I was wondering, has anyone used the above 2 android phones before? What is the significant difference of these 2 phones, in term of software and hardware?

p/s Is there any online store where I can buy Nexus S from if I decide to have one? I am from Malaysia.

Hardware wise, they are almost identical (at least to some of the US versions of the Galaxy S) but there are some differences

Some of the differences are:

The Galaxy S has 3 hardware buttons (Menu, Home and Back), the Nexus S has 4 (Back, Menu, Search and Home). These are the buttons below the screen.
The Nexus S has slightly curved glass
The Nexus S has an NFC chip
The Nexus S DOES NOT have a microSD slot.
The Nexus S has a Flash for the rear 5MP camera
The Galaxy S supports Bluetooth 3.0, Nexus S, Bluetooth 2.1

In terms of Software:

The Galaxy S uses the Samsung RFS for a lot of the file system, the Nexus S uses EXT4

EXT4 performs a lot better then RFS does

The Galaxy S runs the Samsung TouchWiz 2.2 (Froyo) modified version of android, the Nexus S runs "Stock" Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

Here is a screenshot of the i9000


why don't events added to Samsung Galaxy S3 get shown in my Google calendar? When I try to add events to my phone it tells me that Google calendar cannot sync with Samsung Kies. Use My calendar to sync with Kies.

When I tick My Calendar, and create an event, it does not sync with Google calendar.How do I get my phone to sync with my Google calendar?

When I add events to Google calendar, they do get shown on my phone.

Not sure this if this exactly what you mean but if memory serves from when I ran the stock samsung rom on my SGS2 the Samsung calendar is separate.

When you create events you need to select the calendar you want to create them in.  Obviously, you should pick the google one rather than the 'my calendar' one.

I think you can also set the default calendar after you hit the menu button when you go into your calendar.

If it's strictly a sync problem rather than a problem with adding events you can try clearing the calendar data in your system settings > apps then re-sync your accounts.  Note: take care if you do this, google calendar events are stored in the cloud but if others are stored only locally on your phone you might lose them.

Hope that helps.


How can I close Skype so that it stops running? I installed Skype on my wife's phone (HTC Desire), played a bit with it and then exited using the back button as suggested in other question. I can still see her account saying she is logged-in though. How can I exit Skype so that it really stops running?

In the Skype app, press Menu -> Sign out, or use the Sign-out button on the top-right corner of the app's home screen, then confirm.


Why Tasker can't recognize WIFI SSID After I changed my device and import the tasker's profiles from the old Samsung to the new one (Huawei), the "Wifi connected" state can't recognize the SSID any longer.

I can confirm it's related to the SSID, I've created a simple profile detecting WIFI state only, and if I don't put any name in "SSID" field, the profile get green when the wifi is connected, and the profile with SSID still gray.

And it's also strange that, some times, while a turn on the wifi, the profile turned green, and maybe one second or two, it turns to gray again.

I think we're going to need some more information; always good practice whenever troubleshooting any system, look at the log files.

Switch on logging for Tasker using the instructions here: https://tasker.joaoapps.com/userguide/en/faqs/faq-how.html#x2

Set up your profile with no SSID name so you get a green profile, toggle the wifi off and back on again, then look at the log file.

Then set up your profile with your failing SSID name, toggle the wifi again, look at the log again.

Are there any obvious differences or error messages which start to point us in the right direction?


How do I find the right GApps for my CM? I've chosen https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?ty...&device=encore
(cm-11-20160815-NIGHTLY-encore.zip)

What GApps should I download?

PS: I've tried a random one (Gapps file), and it didn't work.

I think there's no need if you use chrome or Firefox as internet browser then OpenGapps will try to automatically determine your Android version.

If that fails then

Go to settings
About Phone
There will be - Android version or version

Select that on OpenGapps website and download the suitable package....

Hope it will be helpful....


Rooting A Motorola Droid Razr M Phone on Verizon Network I have a Droid Razr M, running on the verizon network. I would like to root this phone so I can use some of the more advanced features of Tasker; however, I am very fearful of "bricking" my phone. I see many approaches, which concerns me, because I would feel more comfortable if I could be sure process X is the one to use and works. Here are the particulars of my phone:

Model #: Droid Razr M
Android Version: 4.4.2
System Version: 183.46.10.XT907.Verizon.en.us
Baseband Version: SM_BP_101031.042.32.86P

Can anyone advise me as to the best approach to take, even if it means there is no current software to root my phone with the version it has?

Thanks,
FDijohn

If I could comment, I would, but yes, TowelRoot is a safe download. It is one of the most commonly used root methods for newer devices. Neither of the antivirus programs that I use have had any problem with it.

(If someone has the ability to repost this as a comment on @IAmTheSquidward's answer, that would be awesome)

EDIT: Several sites and forums state that it will work on the RAZR M and HD if your build number is .182 or .183. If you already updated to whatever came next, then it is too late and you might not get the chance to root again. Not to be rude, but that's what you get for having a Motorola and/or Verizon phone. They both (along with Samsung) try their hardest to make sure that you cannot root or unlock your phone.


Google+ 1.07 Widget not working I installed the latest Google+ app version 1.07 and now the widget has stopped working, and when I go the widget list, it is no longer listed as a choice.  Has this happened to others and is there a solution?

Widgets don't work when the app has been moved to the SD card.

When I originally tried moving the app back to the phone to test this, I couldn't get the widget to show up in the list either. However, I restarted the phone and then the widget was available to be used.

So, if you want the widget back, move the Google+ app back to the phone and then restart your phone. If you want to keep the widget, you can't move the app to the SD card.


How can I check if installed apps are latest versions? I used to have an app on my Desire HD that I think was called Something Dog. When launched, it would list all the installed apps and whether they were the latest versions.

My Desire HD crashed a while ago, and all my data was lost. I've since bought a One X and I'd like to have this app again.

Does anyone know what it's called?

The "dog" you are talking about is aTrackdog. :)

It queries your installed apps and compares them to the latest known versions.


Are there good resources for comparing performance of Stock Motorola ROMs vs. CM7.1? I'm looking for a good resource for which shows performance comparison - for Droid X - of Froyo 2.2 (stock ROM), Gingerbread 2.3 (Stock Verizon ROM) and any sort of Cyanogen ROM running on Droid X (presumably 2.3 based - 7.1?)

I'm NOT looking for first-person subjective accounts like these.

I'm looking for benchmarks - either as a direct single benchmark using identical set of installed apps; or better yet a set of collated averaged statistics.

I'm mainly interested in "normal business use" performance, not intensive graphics games one - I don't play anything heavier than Angry Birds. So if there is data from different benchmarks, whichever one approximates everyday business use would be preferred.

I would ideally like something which covers all 3 ROMs listed above (stock 2.2, stock 2.3 and CM7) but will be happy with any answers that only show pairwise comparisons of any 2.

NOTE: While the question is specifically about Droid X, I will accept an answer which shows a very good comparison of performance that illustrates a clear difference between ROMs across ALL comparable hardware (e.g. 1Ghz single-core, 512Mb memory, PowerVR SGX530 or comparable GPU) and makes a case that the difference should be easily carried over to DX.

Background: I am considering upgrading my Droid X from Froyo 2.2 (stock, rooted) to Gingerbread. I need to choose to either spend the time figuring out how to load the not-officially-supported CM7 from nightlies, or simply loading Verizon's stock Gingerbread ROM.

The 3 main things I'm concerned about as far as choosing ROM are (1) Stability, (2) Memory footprint, (3) Performance. This question only covers #3.

One baseline for measuring phone performance is the Quadrant Score.

Here is the quadrant score for Droid X with FroYo and Gingerbread.

This site shows various quadrant scores for the Droid X with CM7, as well as unofficial versions of Gingerbread and FroYo.

There are some debates about the usefulness of the Quadrant Score - hopefully since these are comparisons with the same model of phone, they would be useful.


What's the difference between the Xperia X10 and the Xperia X10a? What's the difference between the Xperia X10 and the Xperia X10a?

The X10 is distributed in two varieties for different regions of the world, and they're internally referred to as the X10a and the X10i by Sony Ericsson. Strictly speaking, X10 is just a general term for the hardware of either of the X10 phones, so there's no "difference" since an X10a is an X10.

As for the difference between the X10a and the X10i, you can find a good explanation on the Wikipedia page. Essentially, the X10a is sold in South America and the X10i is sold in Asia and Europe. Both phones are sold in the US and Australia, but on different carriers. For instance, in the US, AT&T carries the X10a and T-Mobile carries the X10i. Because they are targeted at different regions/carriers, they support slightly different frequency bands. The rest of the hardware is the same.


How to avoid reformatting external sd card when "Issue with SD card" pops up again? The comments in Does “How will you use this SD card?” wipe data?
 indicate that the second option in the dialog "Issue with SD card - Tap to fix", which is "Use for portable storage", will also format the external SD card.
My external SD card works without issue from the recovery and I can also mount it after boot from the terminal, but the system does not make it visible e.g. to the file manager app.
I have reinstalled lineageOS recently and until the fourth or so reboot the SD card was working flawlessly and I already used it with the apps that now no longer see it. At the moment, the phone takes long to start with the external SD inserted, and often crashes after unlocking.
How can I avoid reformatting it but still get a behaviour where it works normally and there is no such "issue with SD card" notification?
I have had this issue in the past as well, on different devices, running a different version of (stock) android, with a different SD card. Oftentimes, a reboot or a reinsert of the card would fix it temporarily. But what is going on and how do I actually fix, or at least circumvent, it?

fsck works surprisingly well. At least if you have root. Not sure if that's required but I'd guess so.
I have outlined my process in this answer and mostly wrote this question so that future visitors have it easier to find this solution with the phrasing as I used here. The relevant parts again:

Figure out what your filesystem type is.
I did that from the recovery terminal using mount and blkid because then there aren't so many other block devices around (e.g. all the magisk devices). My device was called /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 and of type exfat.
Make sure the partition is not mounted. umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 should do the trick. Or boot to the system and since android detects an issue it does not mount it automatically. It looks to me like the available fsck is actually slightly different, at least in my case.
Run the relevant command for your filesystem type. Use tab completion to see your options. My command was fsck.exfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p1. Depending on your fsck you can also provide it with the -y flag to auto-fix everything without asking you every time.


Install Magisk on Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (SM-G935FD) UAE ROM Going quietly mad here... have tried and tried. Steps taken are
I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge online - its an SM-G935FD, with an original ROM (official) from the UAE (XSG).
I install TWRP - no problems there - then install Magisk Manager on the phone via the website.
I download Magisk also, and then boot into recovery with TWRP.
I install Magisk, but after rebooting, I get the following message -
"Verification failed" "Unable to restart your device. The integrity verification has failed. You need to reset your device to factory default settings. This will erase all your data"
Any ideas or suggestions as to what I should do with this? I rooted to phone, and have lost access to Samsung Health, which I'd like to use. I don't need Samsung Pay.
Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Yep.
I finally solved my issue late last night. In recovery, using TWRP, after trying to install Magisk, I'd get a response that was something like "unable to mount /data partition"..and I believe that was what was causing the issue. I found this html site at XDA developers

https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/general/how-to-fix-unable-to-mount-data-t3830897

which steps you through the process of repairing the data file systems (both ext2 and ext4), and that worked. Magisk installed correctly and is now working with my banking details, as well as Samsung Health (which involved changing a digit in the System/build prop file (tima from 1 to 0).

Now if someone could show me what to do when the next samsung update comes along, I'd be grateful. Don't want to lose it all (Magisk install) after the next update...


How can I add two new tablets to my Google Play Store account? I have my mobile added already, but I bought my kids a tablet each and I can't find a way to add them to the Google Play Store account so I can download games onto the tablets. Thanks.

If I understand correctly, you want all devices under one account. All tablets and devices must be under one Google account. So whatever e-mail you use personally on your mobile, use that same e-mail/Google account for your kids' device.

Example: If your e-mail, let's say, for example is dad123@gmail.com, all devices must be connected to that Google e-mail account. So use the e-mail you use Google with, for your kids too.


Does Nexus 5 support EAP SIM authentication? As the title says, I can't seem to get it working at all. I am running Android 5.0.1 on Nexus 5.

From the answer on SO by chihchun,

  Since the AOSP did not have EAP-SIM support, there are different implementations on the market. [...]

(Emphasis mine)

Also, looking at the list of supported devices for EAP-SIM on this site, I didn't see any Google Nexus products, which might prove the statement on that answer.

Note: I would say that the list might be too localized and not too updated, so don't take it as a hard fact. Also, the answer was posted on Jan '14 (before Lollipop), so it might be outdated.

OTOH, it seems that Nexus 6 actually has this function, and Nexus 5 was supposed to also have it. However, Issue #81587 on AOSP Issue Tracker and Issue #509 on Lollipop developer preview might tell that Nexus 5 doesn't support EAP-SIM, even on 5.0.1 Lollipop.


How can I ignore an incoming bluetooth connection/pairing request? Major Android Flaw I accidentally tried to pair with a mystery bluetooth device from somewhere in the neighborhood awhile back, confusing it with a device I was trying to pair with. Now every time I turn on bluetooth in my house I get a pairing request from a mystery device. The neighbors don't know anything about bluetooth devices and I would feel weird going through their home looking for devices (plus that's really inappropriate). Can I get android to ignore this pairing request or is this a bug in android? If so, it seems like a serious flaw in the android OS itself. It's driving me nuts. I would pay money to stop this from happening. I use a Samsung Galaxy S5 with android 6.0. My next step is to reset my phone and see if that helps. I can't believe google left this big of a flaw in the android os that you can't block things when they spam you via bluetooth.

Just an update as of 8-23-2016. This looks to be a flaw in Android. I just wiped my phone completely and set it back up and the mystery device is still spamming my phone with connection requests and there is no way to stop it.

Unfortunately, I think it's not your phone, but the other device. When you tried to pair with it, it remembered that (I can almost tell for sure you did not only try, you succeeded to pair with it). So now, when the other device sees yours in range, it automatically fires up request to pair. That's how Bluetooth works, and that's why the protocol is so convenient.

Check if this thread works for you:
Ignore / stop incoming bluetooth connect/pair requests


Does my Galaxy S6 have an unlocked bootloader? I want to install the Resurrection Remix custom ROM on my SM-G920I (Australian Version). Before I start doing anything, I need to make sure that the bootloader is unlocked, so I don't brick my phone.

To find out the state of my bootloader, I tried doing a few things that I read online. First, having a look at download mode, by holding home, power and volume down on startup. It instead goes to "Odin Mode" and lists these items.

ODIN MODE
PRODUCT NAME: SM-G920I
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official
REACTIVATION LOCK: OFF
SECURE DOWNLOAD: Enabled
KNOX WARRANTY VOID: 0 (0x0000)
RP SWREV: B:4 K:2 S:2

Do any of these items tell me about the bootloader?

I then tried using the ADB and fastboot method. Fastboot refused to work for me, saying no devices found. I later found out that Samsung devices do not have a fastboot mode at all.

Lastly, I tried just going to Developer Options and enabling "Allow OEM Unlock", but this feature was nowhere to be found on my device.

How am I able to check if my bootloader is unlocked, so I can root and flash a custom ROM on my device?

Most if not all non-US-carrier Samsung devices come with unlocked/unlockable bootloader; those without the "OEM Unlock" switch are simply unlocked by default. Just proceed with flashing TWRP or whatever ops you need to do next.


Update Cyanogenmod to latest Snapshot I am running Cyanogenmod on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
by the beginning of March 2014, Cyanogenmod released V11 Snapshot M4.
As far as I know, I am still running Snapshot M3, which I freshly installed in February.

When will 11 M4 arrive on my phone? Will it be available over-the-air?

There was one small OTA update in late February, was that already M4?
If I take a look at System -> Setting -> About Phone, there are various version and build numbers, but there is no number showing any Snapshot number...

Thanks in advance,
Sascha.

I too have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and I upgraded from CM11 M3 to M4 manually just one week ago.

But I looked it up on my phone and there is an OTA-Update to the M4 build.
Other than that, you can find your current CM11-build under Settings -> About phone and there it says in the entry named CyanogenMod-Version. It should end with your device's code-name (depending on your specific Galaxy Nexus it can be either "toro", "toroplus" or "maguro"; in my case "maguro").

And that update in late february cannot have been the M4-build, because that's just too far in the past. The M4-build was anounced officially by the team of CyanogenMod on march 7th.

I hope I could help you.

PS: If you still do not get the OTA-update, I would recommend you to flash it manually.


How to remove all of default speed dials of Opera Mobile? Opera Mobile comes with some pre-loaded speed dials which annoy me. So, I remove them all leaving speed dials added by me. But, whenever I restart Opera Mobile after that, those default speed dials are restored. How to counter this?

The problem is gone after a fresh install. Now, there's no need to answer.


"Avoided poor Internet connection" even though signal strength, speed is great My phone keeps disconnecting from the WiFi network, saying "avoided poor Internet connection"... but I'm less than 20 feet from the router. It shows full bars while connected and the speed is fine. How can I make it stay connected?

Figured it out...go to the WiFi settings, hit the menu key and choose "Advanced", and uncheck "Avoid poor connections".


How can I abort a voice mis-dialed call? When I use voice dialing, the wrong contact is selected often enough that I'd like a chance to abort the call before it starts.    If I tap the call button on my headset, it seems to transfer the call back to the phone; by the time I reach for the phone, and hang up, I've left a missed call on a random person's phone.
What is the proper way to abort a call from the headset when the dialer picks the wrong contact?   Is there some way to get a bit more delay before the call connects?

Moto Droid (stock), 2.2, Moto H720 headset.

On my Spica (Samdroid Froyo Mod), there are two stock voice caller, the Android's stock "Voice Dialer" (com.android.voicedialer):

On the stock Android Voice Dialer, when you start the Voice Dialer app and then speak "Call ", this shows up:

the stock Voice Dialer can be cancelled by pressing the highlighted "Cancel" button. The Voice Dialer does not automatically call the contact, it waits for you to tap on the contact's name to start the call.

The other voice caller is using Google-branded "Voice Search" (com.google.android.voicesearch):

when you tap on the Voice Search button on the Google Search Widget and then speak "Call " this screen shows up:

the Google-branded Voice Search automatically dial after a short delay the spoken contact, and you can tap "Cancel" before the spinning highlighting is out to cancel the call without leaving missed calls.

I'm not sure which voice dialer you're using, can you clarify?


How can i open a file with non compatible software? In windows we can try to open a pdf with an pdf with VLC or such type of operation. In short "open with" option works more freely in windows than in android. Sometimes because of this even, we can not open some files that we know can be opened with available apps. Is there a way to achive this in android?

Try installing Total Commander file manager for Android (from Google Play store) - it's free and has no ads.

Navigate to the given directory, long press on the file, and select the option Send to */*, then select the application you wish to open the file with.

That's the method I used to send a .epub to Google Play Books.


Can anyone explain all these Developer Options? Can anyone explain these developer options?

Force GPU rendering
Disable non-rectangular clip ops
Force 4X MSAA
Disable HW overlays

What are the possible effects that can be seen in my device by disabling/enabling them? [Note: I've found other options by Google-ing but not these.]

Do the developer settings affect battery life by using lower animation speeds (all to 2x precisely) or higher animation speeds (0.5x precisely) at the expense of user experience?

Please keep in mind these are Developer options, and may be of no use, or have a negative impact on the performance of your device.

Force GPU rendering

The GPU is the Graphics Processing Unit. It's very much like the CPU, but instead of crunching numbers and taking care of tasks for the operating system and hardware, the GPU renders graphical information and puts it on the screen for you.

The CPU can process graphical instructions just fine, but doing so takes time away from doing other computations, and can lead to lag while graphical instructions are processed

In Ice Cream Sandwich onwards, developers (or power users) are given the option to force apps to use GPU rendering, whether that bit is on or off in the app's manifest. This does not necessarily make the app faster, and may cause issues.

Disable non-rectangular clip ops

This is too technical for me to explain in great detail. Basically a "canvas" is used for drawing. The source Code for Android contains this:

/**
     * Turn on to **debug non-rectangular clip operations**.
     *
     * Possible values:
     * "hide", to disable this debug mode
     * "highlight", highlight drawing commands tested against a non-rectangular clip
     * "stencil", renders the clip region on screen when set
     *
     * @hide
     */
    public static final String DEBUG_SHOW_NON_RECTANGULAR_CLIP_PROPERTY =
            "debug.hwui.show_non_rect_clip";

You could turn it off to create unusual (non rectangular) canvas areas. See here for more details on this

As  per @IanNi-Lewis points out in his comment:

  It's probably worth pointing out that "non-rectangular clip regions" is a little misleading. It should be "clip regions that aren't screen-aligned rectangles." If you have a rectangular clip region that's rotated by some non-multiple of 90 degrees, then it goes down the same slow path as a clip region shaped like a donut or what have you. (The "slow path" uses the stencil buffer, and probably doesn't need to be as slow as it is; it's a good area for future optimization.)

Force 4X MSAA

Force 4x MSAA  does not require a rooted device. This option does the same as any Anti Aliasing filter in PC games - smooths out all the pixelization and provides better rendering, which means better looking graphics. Users should know that this function is only recommended for devices that have GPU capable of native MSAA support.

From Wikipedia:

  In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing is an effect that causes different signals to become indistinguishable (or aliases of one another) when sampled. It also refers to the distortion or artifact that results when the signal reconstructed from samples is different from the original continuous signal.

Disable HW overlays

Without a hardware overlay every application that is displaying things on the screen will share video memory and will have to constantly check for collision and clipping to render a proper image, this can cost a lot of processing power. With a hardware overlay each application gets its own portion of video memory, getting rid of the need to check for collision and clipping.

As @DanHulme put it: Windows in Android are always composited rather than rendered into shared video memory. Normally, SurfaceFlinger uses the GPU for composition, but it will use a hardware overlay when that's possible, which is faster and uses less battery. Disabling overlays means it will always use GPU rendering. It's only useful for debugging system integration or HW video decode: even app developers don't need to turn on this option


"Phone may be monitored" I'm seeing this message is because I installed a device owner, right?  (Note that I'm talking about a "device owner" in the sense of a special device administrator app, not the first user in a multi-user setup. Thanks to Izzy for drawing my attention to the possible ambiguity.)

This is Android 6.  I never saw this message on different device running Android 5 with the same device owner installed.

The device owner must be configured immediately after a factory reset, before setting up a user account.  I could factory reset the device and see if the message goes away, but I'm hoping to avoid that since I've already set up a bunch of other things.

This message is shown when a device owner is set.

I bit the bullet and reset my device.  It only cost me a few hours of setup.  The "Phone may be monitored" message appeared when I ran the ADB shell command dpm set-device-owner.


Failed installing Ubuntu using termux-ubuntu I want to mine sugar on my Android phone.
Can someone help a simple complete script, especially to complete method 1 or 2, whichever works.
METHOD 1
Installed F-Droid and Termux
Commands
pkg install automake clang git vim
press y to continue

clone git https://github.com/decryp2kanon/sugarmaker

When it's done, I enter
$ cd sugarmaker/
-/sugarmaker $ ./autogen.sh

it says
bash:  no such file or directory

METHOD 2
These two methods I tried each of them on both phones.
On method 2, when I get here, it keeps saying error on Huawei Y Pro phone and Huawei P20 Lite.
pkg update
press y to continue

pkg upgrade
press y to continue

pkg install git

pkg install wget
press y to continue

pkg install proot
press y to continue

git clone http://github.com/Neo-oli/termux-ubuntu.get

The problem start here on P20 Lite
-$ cd termux-ubuntu
-/termux-ubuntu $ ./ubuntu.sh

It says decompressing Ubuntu image, but this does not look like a trz archive.
Making start Ubuntu executable. You can now launch Ubuntu with ./start-ubuntu.sh script.
And it shows code 404 like the link to the image is not working also.

Here is the ubuntu.sh, you get an error because the disco image has been removed and the following URL doesn't download anything:
https://partner-images.canonical.com/core/disco/current/ubuntu-disco-core-cloudimg-${archurl}-root.tar.gz

Check the available images from this directory. Edit the ubuntu.sh by adding a valid URL. Here is an example using focal Codename. Replace the following line:
 wget "https://partner-images.canonical.com/core/disco/current/ubuntu-disco-core-cloudimg-${archurl}-root.tar.gz" -O $tarball

with:
wget "https://partner-images.canonical.com/core/focal/current/ubuntu-focal-core-cloudimg-armhf-root.tar.gz"  -O $tarball

or using the archurl variable:
wget "https://partner-images.canonical.com/core/focal/current/ubuntu-focal-core-cloudimg-${archurl}-root.tar.gz"  -O $tarball

Then run your script it should work as expected.


What would cause the existence of a /sdcard/logfile.log? Since quite some time I've been getting a file /sdcard/logfile.log which gets really big quickly, last time I checked it was about 2MB. That file seems a general system log since I remember seeing references to several applications. How can I find out what is causing this?

It seems that On{X} was causing this. No logfile is created anymore in SD card since the application has been uninstalled.


Enable notification badges on the Galaxy S III Is there a way to enable notification badges on the Galaxy S III?  For example, when I have 5 unread emails, the email app shows a red circle with a 5 in it.  Can other apps that I install do this as well?

Yes, other apps can do that, but it is up to the app developer to implement Notifications.

This morning when I grabbed my phone I had two different new email notifications (multiple accounts), a Facebook message notification, an app update notification, a Draw Something nudge from my daughter, and a notification that I had new podcasts downloaded in DoggCatcher.


what does "flash recovery" mean? In the instructions for ClockworkMod Recovery for Galaxy S i9000, there is:

  Step 2. Flash Recovery.

I don't understand what this means. Which recovery to flash? How to do this? (With a USB cable, or it can be done by some manipulation with the phone alone, without connecting it to another computer?)

The general consensus is there's usually different partitions available:

system
data
cache
boot
recovery

When a guide says to flash "partition" where partition is one of the above, then that implies transferring the contents destined for the partition. The mileage will vary depending on the handset/manufacturer as not all of them actually have implemented partitions like the above.

Usually it can be done with using the cable plugged in and using fastboot.

For example:

To flash a kernel onto the boot partition one can undertake it like this:

sudo fastboot flash boot boot_image_file.img

followed by:

sudo fastboot reboot

Likewise in the OP's case, its referring to the recovery partition.

sudo fastboot flash recovery recovery_image_file.img

I would be wary about using ROM Manager to do this for you without using a computer; Have got bitten by it, and found that it can sometimes, be incorrect with regards to using recovery i.e. ClockworkMod Recovery, it was so convinced that I had a very old version of CWM, when in reality, the latest was installed; end result, I messed up the recovery and threw away ROM Manager as I preferred to do it on the computer - less errors and that the human checking is in place.


Is there a real "Gmail Tap" app? Gmail Tap, one of Google's April fools, would give the phone a three-keys Morse keyboard. Is there a way to get this functionality for real, preferably for input to any fields?

Yes, there is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rgam.morsekeyboard


How to use GPRS (not wifi or 3G) to get internet access? With my Galaxy 5, I can visit websites using wifi, but how can I access them using GPRS (=when no wifi around)? I don't want to pay for a 3G data plan with my mobile operator.

Background: On my old Nokia phone (which didn't have wifi), I was able to visit a website using GPRS (useful only for emergencies, but still, useful). This meant that I did not have to subscribe to some data plan with my mobile operator (at least in my country this is so); I did have to pay for the GPRS connection, but that was only when connected.

This sounds like something that you need to make sure your operator has enabled on your contract, normally with smartphones a data plan is a data plan, once you've got one they give you a (monthly/weekly/daily) bandwidth limit which you can use either on 3G or GPRS, the operator doesn't care which you use.

It sounds like you don't want to pay for a monthly data limit, you want to get a metered contract where you only pay for when you use it (normally charged by the megabyte or by the hour, or something similar).

You can then turn the data connection on or off depending when you want to use it. The exact setting for this can vary from phone to phone, but is normally under something like Settings -> Wireless and Network -> Mobile networks -> Use packet data. On many phones you can also switch to only use GPRS or 3G (sometimes called GSM and WCDMA modes) but all that does is control the speed of your connection, not normally how you're charged.


Adding email address from Gmail to Contacts Suppose I have a contact in Contacts named John Smith. John's email address is jsmith@gmail.com. I've emailed him in the past, but I've never  added his email to his contact details. Now, suppose I compose an email to John, then as soon as I type js, Gmail guesses that I want to email John and his full email address pops up for me. At this point, I'd like to copy his email address and add it to his contact details in Contacts.

Any way for me to do that easily?

I'm using ICS on the galaxy nexus.

You don't need to copy the email address. Gmail pulls it from an auto-created contact (with only one value). Merge this contact with the contact you created manually.

Procedure: Using stock contacts app, Select the contact in which you want to insert email. Tap Edit from menu. On Edit contact screen, tap Join from menu and choose email address contact.


My Samsung Galaxy 3 (GT-i5801) is not being detected by my PC -- What should I do? I have a Samsung Galaxy 3 (GT-i5801) Android phone. Currently, my phone is not being detected by my PC. Initially, when I purchased this phone, I was developing applications and I was able to run the applications on my phone. I have purchased a new cable as I thought the data cable may have been damaged, but that did not solve the issue.

What can be the possible solutions or what do I need to check for in order to connect my Samsung Galaxy 3 to my PC by using a data/USB cable?

I have Windows XP installed on my Dell Inspiron laptop.

After searching for a long time and trying a lot, I found a solution:

Resolution

Unplug the USB cable
On the cell phone, dial the number *#7284#.
Once the last # is hit, the PhoneUtil application is launched. Choose USB -> Modem and then USB -> PDA mode. The good mode should be PDA. Even if the mode is PDA, switch to Modem and then back to PDA.

Also choose UART -> PDA and then UART -> MODEM mode. The good mode should be MODEM for UART. Even if the mode is MODEM, switch to PDA and then back to MODEM(UART).

Plug in the USB cable.

Note:

This is not only for Samsung Galaxy 3 - Android phone, but it is also used to repair the USB connection for any Samsung Android phone.


Is it safe for the battery to turn on the mobile data all the time? I usually turn on my cellphone Mobile Data & WIFI all the time because I don't want to miss SMS and Emails. I'm afraid the battery could lose capacity over time if I keep turning on the Mobile Data/WiFi all the time or something might happen to my mobile. However, I believe modern electronics should be able to handle this kind of scenario. Does this apply to modern Android phones? Or do I need to continue disconnecting and connect only when needed?
Note: I have an unlimited mobile pack.

It all depends on your usage requirements

If you can't afford to miss mails or messages your wifi /data will be on and that will certainly lead to battery degradation. See Battery capacity wear-down, and its relationship to charging practices, specifically the graph and it's explanation.

Turning wifi /mobile data on/off isn't harmful. You can do that if you can live with missing messages or mails.

If your device is rooted you can prevent battery degradation by making the device run from mains as explained here Don't charge the battery but use connected power to run the phone or at least keep the battery charged and discharged within safe limits as explained here Ideal charging / discharging percentage for maximum battery life?

If you don't want to root your battery, your battery will lose its life quickly and you would end up changing the battery or the device. Unfortunately, that's true.


What Launcher app lets me put the most on one screen? I'm currently using LauncherPro which lets me have 4x5 icons and a bar at the bottom of my home screen. Are there any alternative Launcher apps that will let me cram more in?

Not a launcher app itself, but MultIcon (review link) lets you cram multiple icons into a teeny tiny space. Also available via cyrket.

Now, that unconfigured screnshot is the extreme example -- but the density ranges from 4 incons in the space of 1 on down. It's pretty handy -- plus it comes with its own shortcuts widgets to a few things. Can't have icons for normal folders, however. Bummer.


Does Galaxy Tab 10.1 USB adapter allow an external web camera? Does the Galaxy Tab 10.1 USB adapter allow you to plug in an external web camera?

The Samsung site does not appear to say either way (or to even list what you can use with the USB adapter.)

And if it does not, are there any tablets that do?

Does the Galaxy Tab 10.1 USB adapter allow you to plug in an external web camera?

No

  And if it does not, are there any tablets that do?

Acer Iconia Tab A500

It all depends on the kernel configuration. You can install custom kernel on any device to make it to allow external camera. It is a lengthy process and involves rooting the phone.


How to update webview without using the Google Play store? I have an Android 5.1 device, where I have full root access. For this device I have written a cordova application and installed it as a system app. It is working good, however the webview-version of Android 5.1 is very old and unfortunately has a few bugs.

I know that you can update the webview with the playstore, but unfortunately the device does not have the google apps and therefore I am not able to update the webview with the playstore.

So my question is:
How can I update the system webview without google playstore?

I already tried it with a rather naive approach, which unfortunately killed my application:

I have downloaded the latest webview.apk from the playstore (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview&hl=de)

Then I did:

adb remount
adb push webview.apk /system/webview/
adb reboot

Now I get errors when I try to start my cordova application and the app itself doesn't show up anymore:

I/CordovaActivity( 1931): Apache Cordova native platform version 6.1.1 is starting
D/CordovaActivity( 1931): CordovaActivity.onCreate()
E/WebViewFactory( 1931): Failed to list WebView package libraries for loadNativeLibrary
E/WebViewFactory( 1931): android.content.pm.PackageManager$NameNotFoundException: com.android.webview
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.app.ApplicationPackageManager.getApplicationInfo(ApplicationPackageManager.java:281)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.webkit.WebViewFactory.getWebViewNativeLibraryPaths(WebViewFactory.java:282)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.webkit.WebViewFactory.loadNativeLibrary(WebViewFactory.java:397)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.webkit.WebViewFactory.getProvider(WebViewFactory.java:103)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.webkit.WebView.getFactory(WebView.java:2194)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.webkit.WebView.ensureProviderCreated(WebView.java:2189)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.webkit.WebView.setOverScrollMode(WebView.java:2248)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:3595)
E/WebViewFactory( 1931):        at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:3689)

How is the correct way to update the webview.apk without google playstore?

The Google WebView application is very different from regular ones. You cannot use Package Installer to install or update it in a common way. You must do it yourself (As for my Lollipop 5.1.1).
Here's the way I've done it several times. Run in a root shell. You may need busybox for unzip (or do it with a file manager).

#!/system/bin/sh
rm -r /data/app/com.google.android.webview*
mkdir /data/app/com.google.android.webview-1
cd /data/app/com.google.android.webview-1
cp /path/to/your/webview.apk ./base.apk
unzip base.apk 'lib/armeabi-v7a'
mv lib/armeabi-v7a lib/arm
# Do the following 2 lines only if you're on an ARM64 ROM
unzip base.apk 'lib/arm64-v8a'
mv lib/arm64-v8a lib/arm
#
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} +
find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} +
find . -exec chown 1000.1000 {} +

Alternatively, you can try creating directory /system/priv-app/WebView and put the new APK there. Remember to get rid of the old one.


Xiaomi. Unable to allow app run in background [solved] I accidently disabled play market run in background. As result when display is turning off play market stop upgrade apps in background. I'm trying to enable again. But there no play market in list.

Upd 1.

Yes, it's Google play store. I has another locale and trying to translate in English all names :)

I followed next way:

Permissions / Other Permissions / There no play store here

Here are screenshots:

Upd 2.

Two more screenshots:

You could try uninstalling Google play store and then re-install it (you can also side-load it).

Sometimes this application comes as a system-core application and thus can't easily be uninstalled and the only option is unistalling the updates. In that scenario go for the latter option.

(This workaround is what solved the OP's problem )


How to install Android apps without having Google Play? If you have Google Play application installed is very easy to find and install an application. But some devices seem not to have Google Play application installed. Maybe you can use Google Play in browser to search for those applications.

Is there a way you can find and download the .apk files if you know the application name without rooting and installing Google Play application?

What you're referring to here is called sideloading - this is a term used when loading an app on to a device without using the/a market store.

It is possible to get APK files for apps, but there're generally good reasons why most developers don't make these publicly available - some developers will make these available thought, it depends on the individual.

I would email the developer in question and ask if you could have an APK version of the app.  I wouldn't imagine that they would have any issues with this if your request is legitimate and above board.


Importing contacts from SIM fails in Marshmallow I tried to import contacts from SIM in Marshmallow phone. But it tells me that no contacts was found on the SIM card. But an old phone had phone numbers on that SIM. Are there more robust play market apps to extract contacts from the SIM card?

If it tells you that there are no contact on your SIM card, it's probably right. Are you sure that the contacts were not on the phone instead of the SIM card?
Have you access to the old phone? If yes, look if there are still contacts on it. You can save them to an SD card and transfer them for example by wire or bluetooth. You also could use your google account to sync them between your two mobile phones.
If you don't have access to it anymore, you still can use your google account - maybe they've been uploaded to google. If not, you have a problem ...


What is yakju, gn, yakjuxw, takju etc? I'm in the market of buying a Nexus 7, and these are what I understand some kind of firmware/maker identification. Can someone please explain all the different names?

Google sadly wasn't much help for me today.

For Galaxy Nexus these are different builds:

takju: devices sold through the Play Store in the US. Contains the Google Wallet aplication.
yakju: devices sold through Google outside the US.
yakjuxw: devices sold by Samsung.

If you buy yakjuxw I would recommend that you update to yakju with factory images provided by Google.

This way you will get the updates in time.

I wasn't aware that there are similar builds for the Nexus 7.


Build Image for emulator I have Android source code. I make some changes in framework code. Now I want to see my changes in emulator. Can anybody tell me how I can make Image for emulator...???

Thanks in Advance

You'll need to build the whole source using

source build/envsetup.sh
lunch
make -j4 # change 4 to the number of cores+1

and then make a SD card image, detailed instructions for example here: http://nilvec.com/testing-an-android-image-built-from-source/


How do I transfer files to ebook reader from phone using either an OTG cable or wifi? I've a rooted Sony reader PRS-T1 (based on Android 2.2) and usually when I need to copy files to it, I connect it to my laptop with a USB cable. However, sometimes I travel without my laptop and have only my phone/tablet.
I tried using an OTG cable, but my phone does not seem to be able to read the reader storage.
Is there a way of transfering files to my reader from my phone without using an external sd-card?
In the past I used to connect to Dropbox in the reader's browser to download files or send the files thorugh gmail, but the browser is very old and this is no longer possible.

Now there are plenty of ways to do this;  perhaps the easiest method given that you have the OTG cable, is just to use a suitable file explorer (preferably MiXplorer which has custom OTG drivers) in case your storage device is formatted in a different file system.

I wrote a guide on MiForum on how to achieve this:  Alternative easy way to mount Pendrive(NTFS FileSystem) via OTG without root its not only limited to ntfs but can also use others like exfat etc.

In your case you just need a USB Flash drive (pendrive) that you can insert on the OTG female port then,
Simply open the app, tap on the three dot menu → More settings → Enable Custom driver for USB OTG (tick the box to enable).
Done, now insert you OTG cable and place the pendrive on the port. The  pendrive will  be recognised without errors, and open the files you need  and copy to and fro the tablet <=> phone as you wish.

Alternatively I have posted a related method here, showing how to do it using wi-fi (which is pretty much related to what you're trying to achieve):

Android to Android file explorer using wifi direct

Or

File transfer with linux pc through mobile hotspot
Is there a way to access the phone filesystem from computer, wireless?

(In above cases the target tablet will be the pc or "second android device" respectively)

Hope this helps


Cannot sign-in Google account on Samsung Galaxy S with 2-step authentication I recently use 2-step verification to sign-in my Google account.

But after turning this on, I cannot sign-in my phone since no SMS is sent to my phone.

What can I do to sign in now?

If you signed up for 2-step verification, you may need to enter an application-specific password in place of your regular account password. You can generate an application-specific password when you are authorizing access to your Google Account. This process takes a few minutes, and you only need to do it once per application or device.

Note: For Android devices running 4.0 or higher, you do not need an application-specific password and only need to submit your username and password. You'll be directed to another page where you can enter a one-time six-digit code.

To check if 2-step verification is on or off, visit https://www.google.com/settings/.


Where are the game save files in PC? Bluestacks (without opening bluestacks) There's someone who already asked this question but the answer requires opening bluestacks.

The problem is my bluestacks is broken and unable to open. It says 'Bluestacks app runner has stopped running'.

So I want to copy my game's save file, (Plants vs Zombies 2) and reinstall a new Bluestacks. So how do I manually search for the save in my computer?

You can find  it at C:\ProgramData\Bluestacks\android\SDCard.vdi
You must show hidden files and folder at folder options to access ProgramData folder.
And you need a .vdi reader to open SDCard.vdi.
I used PowerISO (download it from Google) to open .vdi file.
Then open .vdi using PowerISO and search for your game. :)


Understanding android app permissions section (Android Nougat) In android Nougat, using an android phone if you go to settings>installed apps>[name of app]>permissions

There are three sections there: Details, App Permissions, and other permissions.

What are the differences between these three sections? Why are they arranged in this way?

In details section there are detail explanation about a list of Notes Permission regarding Security, Privacy and Other. Are these permissions listed in the details section activated or not? Why are they different (or arrange in a different way) from the one listed in the app permissions sections for the same app?

Starting from Android 6.0(API level 23), app permissions are listed as normal permission and dangerous permission

  Depending on how sensitive the area is, the system may grant the permission automatically, or it may ask the user to approve the request.

The section App Permissions tells you about the Permission Groups, which are dangerous permissions requested by app and can be revoked by user.

  All dangerous Android system permissions belong to permission groups.

The section All Permissions provides you more details regarding permissions. In which permissions are listed as:
Permission Group for all dangerous permissions further followed by requested permissions in that group.
Permissions which are automatically granted by system are listed under Other app capabilities.

Since you are running Android N, if targetSdkVersion of any particular app is 23 or higher,

All the permissions listed under Other app capabilities are granted.
If you have granted permission for a particular group like Storage, then further permissions listed under storage are automatically granted. App will not ask again if permission is granted.
If targetSdkVersion of app is less than 23, then it will not ask for permission at runtime. However you may revoke any dangerous permission from that app.


IM+ Disable status string How to disable status string "On Android with IM+" when using IM+ for skype? I do not want to show that I am away from PC.

According to this site, it's possible to change the status by tapping it and selecting another status message. It's possible that this is not available in the free version, since they usually contain ads.


What is Flash ClockworkMod Recovery? Possible Duplicate:
  What is ClockworkMOD Recovery and what is it for?

I'm trying to use the Rom Manager to partition my SD card (so I can increase the storage size for my apps, since it natively installs to the first available partition which is known as "internal" and the rest of the sd card is "sd"), however, it asks me to install the ClockworkMod Recovery first. If I choose to install, will this install to the emmc or the sd card? I remember reading somewhere that installing ClockworkMod will void the Nook's warranty.

ClockworkMod Recovery is an custom recovery for Android phones, which is installed on the recovery partition on the internal memory.
AFAIK flashing CWM doesn't void the warranty, but rooting does.


Why do I get an 'insufficient storage' error when trying to install apps when I have sufficient storage? When I try to install anything through the Play store, I get a pop-up saying I have 'insufficient storage', with a button which takes me to view my current used storage. According to that program, I have 449mb free on my internal storage. Infuriatingly, I am not told how much each app actually requires, but 449mb should be enough to install anything, since the hungriest app I currently have installed only uses ~250mb.

I managed to get enough space to install the 1.5mb 'Move to SD card' app I wanted. Now that app reports that I have 'no reason to move to SD card, since it shares the same disk with the OS'. In that case I do not just have 449mb free; I also have the 16gb free on my SD card which it should be able to use to install new apps.

Why then does it still complain that it does not have enough space?

25 MB free internal storage is minimum requirement (source: TechniPages, AndroidCentral). If free space falls below that, the "insufficient storage" error is triggered.
for more information see

Why does my phone keep telling me it has low storage?
Not enough storage on android device


Can an Android device be remotely factory reset using any email ID on the device? We had created a common ID for the college group and I think someone remotely wiped my phone. Is it possible to do it with the secondary account?

Yes, with Google's find my device you can locate, lock, and ERASE, the phone. So anyone who has access to the accounts connected to your phone is able to erase all your data.
It's made for cases of lost phones where you want to stop the thief from accessing your data.
This feature is automatically enabled on most devices.

All the person would have to do in order to erase all your data, would be going to find my device page, put in the joint email address and password, and press erase and confirm. As simple as that.

It doesn't make a difference if this account is the primary one, or a secondary account.

In the future don't add any accounts to the phone, that others have access to.


Synchronize a folder in an Android device with a server folder Possible Duplicate:
  Application for automatic synchronization of remote folders?

How can I synchronize a folder in an Android device with a server folder? In other words, if in server a file is updated with the same name, then that file will also synchronize with the device.

Use FolderSync (Free lite version is also available with some limitations). It supports FTP, SFTP, FTPS, FTPES, WebDAVs etc. protocols to connect with server. It has many sync options: Two-way sync, One-way sync (up or down).


Save battery by switching to 2G after a few minutes of inactivity I'm looking for an app that'll switch to 2G only after a few minutes of inactivity. The idea seems simple enough, but I can't find it.

JuiceDefender just disables the data connection, and re-enables it every 5-15 minutes. But that's a bit too restrictive for me.

JuiceDefender can do this. It also can turn off data completely, and turn it on every 5 minutes or so to let stuff sync.


How to sync hotmail contacts in both directions? with iPhone, you just add your Hotmail account and it syncs your contacts both ways seamlessly.

I have to use Hotmail, not gmail, as I primarily use outlook on a PC, and gmail provides no (free) outlook sync method for contacts and calendar.

Now I have android phone, I cant find any way to do this. I have tried the following:

1) add Hotmail as an exchange account.

This puts your Hotmail contacts into the android phone app. This is HALF the job. However, if you edit a contact, it does not sync back to Hotmail.  The edit is local to the phone. If you lose your phone, you lose the number.

Note: to get this to work, you have to create a manual setup, chose exchange, then set the server to m.hotmail.com.

So I removed the account and went back to zero contacts in the android phone app.

2) install outlook app and add hotmail account.

Next I installed outlook app and added my Hotmail account. Your contacts are visible in the people tab of outlook BUT YOU CANT EDIT THEM OR ADD NEW ONES.
It also adds an android account called "outlook", and puts your Hotmail contacts in the android phone app. Great no?  NO. Again, if you edit a contact, it stays on the phone, the sync is one way. Even worse, if you add a new contact as a Hotmail contact, it does not sync anywhere.

Am I missing something, or is outlook/Hotmail on android completely broken/ only half implemented?

Surely there is someone who uses outlook on a PC and has an android phone, and needs to sync contacts two ways, something I have been doing with out issue for the last 10 years with windows CE phones and iphones?

Google nexus 6 +  Android 6

=== update ===

Recently, MS "upgraded" hotmail to use exchange protocols for synchronization, rather than the hotmail connector, so I decided to dust off the nexus and try again.

start off with no contacts in the phone app, outlook for android installed with no accounts.
Add hotmail.com email as an exchange account in outlook for android.
Wait
Now I see

a) all my contacts in outlook for android, but they are not editable, they are read only.  If I change a contact in outlook on my desktop, I see the change in outlook for android. But no way to get changes or new contacts back the other way. Unfortunately, contacts in outlook for android are largely useless as I don't use email on my phone and would rarely use outlook for android, I only installed it to try to get contacts to sync. I need the contacts in the phone's phone book.

b) All my contacts appear on the android phone app, but its a one way sync only. If I change a contact on the phone, the change is not reflected or saved anywhere.  If I add a new contact, its not synced or saved anywhere.  If i updated a contact on the pc or in hotmail web browser, this change is synced back to the phone, overwriting any changes I have made to an existing contact on the phone.  Contacts are correctly marked as belonging to the hotmail/exchange account.

You didn't write explicitly that "sync contacts" is turned on, but I assume it is. If it is, well then you don't really have an alternative other than contacting Microsoft support, send them a mail and ask - if you don't get an answer by anyone else that is. I would be surprised if this function isn't implemented.