ID a caller regardless of custom number prefix and/or suffix Where I'm living right now people can call you with reverse charges by adding 99 prefix to the call.

The problem if that the received call ID appears with 99 as prefix and suffix, and unless you know their number you have no way of knowing who's calling.

Example:

  Let's say John's number is 5 123 4567 and he calls me with reverse charges. My phone caller ID will then display that 995123456799 is calling.

What I would like to do is to get the phone to both tell me it is a reverse charge call and who is the person calling.

Is there a way to do this other than creating an extra contact per person named "Reverse Contact"? (e.g. "Reverse John")

It's possible to accomplish it using automation apps. I have used Macrodroid.

In the Triggers tab, in "Call/SMS" section, select "Call Incoming", then "Select Contact(s)". Choose "{Any Contact]", "[Any Number]", "[Non Coontact]" and "Unknown Caller". Click OK.
In the Actions tab, in "Macrodroid Specific" section, click on "Set Variable", then "[New Variable]". Click OK. Enter the variable name, set its type to "String". Keep it local then click OK.
In the Actions tab, in "Macrodroid Specific" section, click on "Text Manipulation". then "Extract Text" followed by OK. For the "Source text", click the 3-dot and select "Call number", then click OK. For "Text to match (regex)", enter ^99(.+)99$. Choose "Group 1", then for "Save variable to", select the variable create during step 1. Click OK.
Save the macro and give it a name.
Edit the macro. Click the "+" on the Actions tab. In "Conditions/Loop" section, select "If clause". Click the "+" next to conditions, then in "Macrodroid Specific" section, select "Macrodroid variable". Select the variable created in step 1, choose "Contains". Enter \w+ and enable "Enable regular expression matching". Click OK.
In the Actions tab, in "Notification" section, click on "Display Dialog". Enter the dialog title. For the dialog text, press the 3-dot and select the variable created during step 1. Click OK.
On the Actions tab, click the up and down arrows and move the Display Dialog created in step 6 between the "If" and "End If".
Save the macro. It will look like the image below.

Explanation: When you receive a call, the number will be stored in the variable. it will then be checked if it starts and ends with 99 using the regular expression ^99(.+)99$. If yes, the number without the 99s ( the (.+) part of the regex) is extracted and displayed in a dialog box. If no, then no dialog is displayed.

See Regular Expression


Please help, soft bricked my [US] [Sprint] Samsung Galaxy S6 SM-G920P After around 5-6 hours this morning/afternoon, I've officially given up on fixing this on my own, and I've all but accepted my device to be an expensive paperweight.
I decided to make one last attempt at saving it by posting for help.
Problem: My phone has a feature called "FRP" (Factory Restore Protection), which is tied to one's Google account. Basically, if you have a Google Account on the phone, it locks the phone to any custom binary/custom OS/whatever.
Once I realized this, in order to root my phone, I went in and removed my Google accounts. Sure enough, this disabled the FRP Lock, and I was able to root my device.
After rooting my device, I re-added my Google accounts and went about my business for the next couple of weeks or so.
Just this morning, my phone was having issues charging, so I decided it'd be a good idea to give my phone a reboot. Big problem. It turns out I simply haven't ever turned off my phone since I rooted it. On top of that, I didn't think the FRP Lock would apply to booting the phone, I thought it only affected flashing new firmware. I was wrong.
After my phone turned off, red text appears at the top of the screen: "Custom binary blocked by FRP Lock".
This is the problem. It simply cannot boot. Because it cannot boot, I cannot remove the Google accounts to disable the lock and resolve the problem. Because the lock can't be disabled, I can't flash the phone's original firmware, because FRP Lock will stop anything and everything I try to do.
tl;dr: Soft bricked phone due to FRP Lock. Not able to restore original firmware, factory restore, or boot into phone's operating system.
Important: The phone turns on, and I have access to the recovery menu as well as "Download Mode"
What I have tried:

Factory restoring through the recovery menu, doesn't have any effect
Flashing stock firmware through Odin (Nand write failure)
Flashing a custom recovery environment (TWRP) through Odin (FRP Lock blocked this flash)
ADB and Fastboot cannot recognize the device
Tried to use Kies 3 and Smart Switch to "re-initialize" my OS or something. Both failed, saying that my phone wasn't compatible, and that my serial number was invalid (it was, in fact, correct)

The point here is that I've done everything, and literally everything has failed for one reason or another.
I feel like it is a possibility that if I attempted another stock ROM, then I might be able to avoid the Nand Write Failure. But again, I don't know.

Turns out that the stock firmware was failing to write because it was an old version, and Android doesn't like old versions, and it won't work.

I downloaded the most recent firmware (6.0.1) overnight, and sure enough, it flashed, and my phone is now functioning again.


Which filesystem does Android attach to the root directory? I know that Android uses FAT32 for SD cards and mounts them via FUSE. But which FS is attached at /? Some kind of ext? ZFS?

There is no singularly defined "Android" filesystem, so this can vary between devices.  Any FS that the kernel can load drivers for is basically fair game.

By and large, you'll almost certainly find that ext4 is the most common filesystem on modern devices. Older devices may use older ext* versions as well, or other filesystems entirely. Since everything is built on Linux, ext4 a pretty sensible choice, with solid kernel support and a good track record. You can read a bit about why this decision was made in Ars Technica's article about the switch to ext4.

Some devices have also used Samsung's Flash-Friendly File System (f2fs). Notably, several of Motorola's devices, as well as the Nexus 9, use f2fs. The goal of f2fs was to create a file system that was designed specifically with the needs of flash-based storage mediums in mind, in an attempt to maximize performance on devices using NAND chips for their primary storage medium.

This does not mean that these are the only filesystems that Android is capable of running on, however, as I noted above. Given the kernel source and the know-how, it would certainly be possible to include drivers for other filesystems in a kernel image. Android x86 supports installation on NTFS and FAT32 filesystems, for example.


S4 won't boot into ClockworkMod Recovery I have a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4, and am trying to install CyanogenMod 11 Snapshot, but I'm stuck. I installed ClockworkMod Recovery using Loki, but whenever I go into recovery with my phone, it just goes into the default recovery mode, with a little Android guy saying "no command", so I'm unable to install the CM .zip from my SD card.

This is on a rooted S4 (Model SCH-1545) on Android 4.3, Kernel version 3.4.0, and Baseband I1545VRUEMK2.

Have you tried flashing clockworkmod via fastboot?   I believe the Samsung devices use their own version of fastboot, the cyanogenmod site will give you more info on how to install  :
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_jfltecri

I have found that doing it manually is usually more effective than using some sort of automated program (I assume Loki is, never heard of it). It might look complicated at first, but Cyanogenmod is probably the easiest to install, taking into account its large user base and overall decent support. If you feel that the steps required are too involved or time consuming then you may want to consider why you are rooting - it is certainly not for the mainstream user that expects everything to work. Cyanogenmod do provide an automatic installer, but I don't know whether the s4 is supported. The main reason as to why you have to jump through so many hoops is that Samsung don't particularly want you to install a custom rom on your s4. On the Nexus 5 it takes 3 clicks.


adb shell su: permission denied I was trying to unlock my android phone by adb installed. I tried to followed these steps:

adb devices adb shell cd data/system su rm *.key

But when I typed and enter su, it's showing permission denied. My phone is also rooted, but I don't know why after entering su it's showing permission denied.

Can you please tell what extra steps I have to do so that I don't get permission denied?

Most superuser apps don't allow adb su access by default. Depending on the app you used the option may vary in location, but basically you need to go to settings in the superuser app and change it from "apps only" to "apps and adb." This should allow you to use su in an adb shell.


How can I get the Amazon Appstore to stop re-installing applications? Whenever I install an app through the Amazon store, I usually set my phone down while I wait for the download, and pick it up afterward to hit the "Install" button when the OS prompts me.  Sometimes I won't do this immediately.

It seems that the Appstore assumes the install failed if it wasn't completed within a certain length of time, and tries again.  This is fairly short (a minute or two) and sometimes it might be hours before I go back to my phone.  Until recently this wasn't a problem; I'd either just hit Install twice, or Install once and Cancel once, and move on.

Now, however, the Appstore seems to get stuck in a loop.  No matter how many times I hit Cancel or Install, it just repeatedly asks me to install the app.  I have to kill the Appstore and/or reboot my phone, ruining any other updates I have queued.  Then I have to wait for them again, and I'll probably forget about my phone for a few seconds too long and run into this issue again.

Is there any way to make the Appstore behave reasonably?

Try to clean out the /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache directory. This is where the apks are stored when initially downloaded, and they should be deleted when the application is installed. Seems for some reason, they are not always deleted, so it continued to ask to install it.


Can't mount filesystem from LG-V20 on MacBook I have a question about connecting an Android phone to a Mac.  I expect you'll need to know some specifics about the hardware and OS versions I'm using.  So let me start with that.

Macbook: MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2012, OS: OS-X 10.8.5 (Mtn. Lion)

Old smartphone: HTC Rezound, OS: Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Old cable: Micro-USB connector to USB-A connector

New smartphone: LG V-20, OS: 7.0 (Nougat)
New cable: USB-C connector to USB-A connector

For years I've been able to connect my old Android smartphone (HTC Rezound) and my MacBook through a USB cable and OS-X will mount two filesystems from the smartphone so they appear on the Mac as if they were local filesystems.  One filesystem represents the phone's internal memory and the other filesystem represents the MicroSD card in the phone.  In a Finder window on the Mac, two new icons appear when I plug the phone in, one for each filesystem.  And at a shell prompt, if I 'cd /Volumes', two new subdirectories appear.

I should mention that years ago, when I first connected the two, the HTC asked me if I wanted to use the connection to charge the phone or for data transfer, and I selected data transfer.

I'm now trying to set up my new smartphone which is an LG V-20.  When I connect it to the Macbook with a USB-C to USB-A cable, the LG phone displays a number of things I might want to do with the connection, including charging the phone or data transfer, and I select data transfer.  But on the Mac, no icons appear in Finder and no subdirectories appear in /Volumes.

So, I'm unable to access the phone's filesystems from my Mac.

Anybody have any ideas?

I'm sorry I don't have a solution for you, only a small clue.  I have the same issue with my LG V-20 and Windows 10 on a Surface 3.  I run diagnostics on Windows 10 and it tells me that the V-20 does not support USB3. Since the only kind of port on the Surface 3 is USB3 I'll need to try another computer.  (I'm on vacation and have only the Surface with me so I cant try this out right now.)  If your macbook has USB2 ports you might try these or if not, try an older computer if available.


How to save messages as Draft I own and Optimus One(Froyo). I want to type some couple of messages(for the same contact) and save it for sending later. How to do that?

EDIT: User wishes to save message templates that can be re-used at a later instance.

For saving drafts, GMail and Email both save drafts automatically when you leave the app or lock the phone. For SMS, it should keep any text you've entered in the text entry field until you send or delete it.


Will installing Cyanogenmod speed up my Galaxy S? I recently purchased a used Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. While it seems fine for my purposes, it would be nice if it were just a bit faster, in terms of loading different pages more quickly. From what I've seen, Cyanogenmod claims that it's faster than many stock roms, since it doesn't use the company's extra interface, which, in this case, would be TouchWiz. However, Cyanogenmod would also bring my operating system up to Android 4.4, and I'm not sure how much additional power that would take. I'm also open to using older versions of Cyanogenmod, if that's feasible.

Would it be better in terms of performance to keep my phone at the stock rom or to install Cyanogenmod?

In theory, your phone should perform considerably faster with CyanogenMod 11, because KitKat was designed with entry/mid-level phones in mind; requiring only 512 MB of RAM to run. (See this page about Project Svelte for more information.)

CyanogenMod also adds a whole slew of features like Heads Up Notifications and Privacy Guard on top of the AOSP code, so your phone will not only be fast but also be very useful.

Keep in mind, however, that CyanogenMod (along with others such as PA and OmniROM) are third-party ROMs, and therefore lack the various "enhancements" that the manufacturer has made in the stock ROM; so don't be surprised if you see that the camera doesn't perform as well, the battery drains faster than usual, etc.


What is the easiest-to-explain way to read a QR Code? What is the easiest way to teach/enable someone else to read a QR Code?

Please notice, I'm not asking how to read a QR Code. I know there's a lot of apps to do it.
I'm asking what is the easiest way to enable someone else, perhaps someone without much technical knowledge, to scan a QR Code?

For example, this would be great if it actually worked:
http://www.labnol.org/software/scan-qr-code-with-google/27955/

It does not require downloading an app, therefore it's easier to show someone how to do it.
Unfortunately, for the 2 android phones I tried that on, it did not work. (there was no image search option as described in the post)

Is the easiest way really to have someone download an app and run it?

Yes, just download an app and run it.  You can't visually look at a QR code and decode it with your brain.


How can I mute the camera shutter on Motorola RAZR i (ICS, without rooting) Even when I silence the device the camera shutter continues to making sound.

I know that using rooting alternative we can move or delete the correspondent ogg file*. But i'm looking for a less invasive/complex alternative.

(*) How do I disable the 'click' sound on the camera app?

While I 100% agree with Liam's answer, there are still solutions for countries where that law doesn't apply (and to tell you a big secret: those solutions even work when the law is in effect -- but then you run the risk of punishment yourselves if you use such a solution where you shouldn't).

Searching the playstore for "shutter sound off" yields more than 100 results. As usual, not all of them are really hits: Most of the "spy cams" surely will disable the sound, but most likely you want to use your own camera app, and not one of those.

If you are rooted, you can simply delete the sound file for the camera shutter sound. Aside from this, an article on AndroidAdvices offers 3 different solutions:

Put your phone in Silent Mode

  By keeping the incoming calls ring volume to zero you can keep your phone in silent and thereby there will be no sound when you take a snap or record a video. This is the easiest way by which you can turn off the shutter sound. But mind you that you will not be notified of any incoming calls or any SMS or email that you receive. i.e., to stop shutter sound you need to put your phone in silent mode.

Use Uva Silent Widget Camera Android App (well, or one of the others from above search results)
Install CyanogenMod

  Once the CyanogenMod 7.1.0 up and installed on your rooted phone, you need to go through the Settings > CyanogenMod settings > Sound and then select Mute camera shutter.

On some devices with ICS, the camera app itself offers a feature to disable the shutter sound:


Stop splitting words for non-English languages How can one stop Android's autocorrect from adding spaces to split compound words? This is terrible behaviour for many non-English languages.

Short story long: The default behaviour of the Android input method is English-centric even for non-English languages. A particularly infuriating feature is automatic splitting of compound words. In many North European languages including my own (Danish), compound nouns must not be separated, or the result will be either nonsense or a subtle change of meaning. It is bad that this is default behaviour for Danish, German, Swedish, and other non-English language input methods, but worse that it is not obvious how to switch it off. Is it possible?

Many thanks in advance.

No, it is not a setting that you can toggle; however, you can add the compound word to your dictionary (in Google Keyboard, double-tap the word in the prediction bar), and in the future, it won't split up the words that you add.


LG G Watch R - Screen has gone dark and will not display anything Yesterday I found on my LG G Watch R the screen was all dark. When I performed a hard reset, the watch did so, but remained with a black screen. I have tried other resets, still black screen. My phone appears to be connected to it. When I take screenshots through my phone and upload them to google drive, they show the screen fully functional.

There have been no other signs of the screen being damaged. I have not exposed it to rough environments.

I don't know how to reset the device with a black screen. I have not enabled debugging on the watch either.

Any help or pointers for this problem? I really want my watch display the screen.

I would reset the watch through the recovery. You will loose all the datas on the watch. But the apps will all be re-synced.

Power off your watch.
Power it on.
As soon as you see the LG Logo swipe from the 11 o'clock marker to the 5 o'clock marker.
You will see a menu popping up, with two arrows and a circle at the bottom.
Press the right arrow button until you see "RECOVERY MODE" in red font above "FASTBOOT MODE" at the top.
Press the circle button once.
You will see an android figure with an exclamation mark in it. Touch the display once. A menu will pop up.
Swipe from 12 o'clock to 6'clock until "wipe data/factory reset" will be highlighted blue. Then swipe from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock.
Then many no's will be there. Swipe from 12 o'clock to 6'clock again until "Yes -- delete all user data" will be highlighted blue. And then again swipe from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock.
When the process is done you will be in the main menu again and "reboot system now" will be highlighted(when not swipe up until it is). Then swipe from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock again.
The watch will reboot...I will take some time...When the watch is started, the touchscreen should be working normal.
You will have to do the first setup again.


Samsung Galaxy Tab-2 USB connection issue I am working on Android application development, I want to run my application on Samsung Galaxy Tab-2 GT-P3100 but whenever I connect it with USB to the computer then it is not detecting.

snapshot -

EDIT:

I searched over internet about this problem I got same problem which is on the Microsoft Community MTP USB driver failed -Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

When I follows all steps still is shows dialog as follows -

EDIT:

  I got solution and also posted all the steps which I follow to resolve
  the problem. This is very helpful to me and hope you too.

I have followed the Exact steps from Link :

Samsung mobile MTP Device cannot be installed
StackOverflow tutorial

Here are steps :  (for Windows specific instructions):

Ensure phone is not connected to PC.
Uninstall KIES from PC. Reboot your PC and Reinstall KIES after that. Just for great measure... open KIES, go to Tools | Troubleshoot connection error. Follow instructions and wait for it to finish the troubleshooting procedure.
Reboot your phone (or turn off and then on your phone again). Do not connect it to your PC just yet.
Once rebooted, go to your phone's dialer, type *#7284# - A configuration window will appear. In that window's USB section, if it's default to PDA, tap MODEM, then back to PDA, (if it is MODEM in the beginning, change it to PDA) then press the back key to exit. Most importantly, it must set as PDA when you exit.
Turn off USB debugging in your phone.
(Optional) Set your phone's screen timeout to a lengthy time. (minimum 1-2 minutes - recommended 5mins to 30mins) its found in Settings | Display. You can change this back later on.
Connect the phone to your PC with USB cable and let windows load your drivers... and wait for the drivers to get reinstalled.
Once reinstalled, disconnect the phone off USB. Switch USB debugging back on in your phone settings, and reconnect the phone back - you'll see windows load another set of drivers for your phone. Wait until it is completed. (This step is a precautionative measure to ensure your phone is identified with all the necessary drivers)
Once complete, unplug your phone, and turn off USB debugging... This is to ensure MTP will initialize. Also, press the phone's home key until your homescreen is displayed. Only after doing all that, reconnect your phone back to PC.
Test and see if MTP works using Windows Explorer. You'll see your phone's USB storage and SDCard contents if it does.

Hope it will help you..


CyanogenMod 9 gives AuthenticatorException while adding account I had installed custom ROM CyanogenMod 9. But I am not able to make Google play work in it. It doesn't show Add Google Account option in the Accounts & Sync option in Settings.

I had also googled and found that I need the latest gapps to be installed. So, I downloaded the latest gapps from goo.im but still I am not able to setup my Google Account. When I installed google play apk and run it, it gets closed after few seconds. I checked the logs and it gave be below exception,

D/AccountManagerService( 276): there is no authenticator for com.google, bailing out
D/AccountManagerService( 276): bind attempt failed for Session: expectLaunch false, connected false, stats (0/0/0), lifetime 0.0, addAccount, accountType com.google, requiredFeatures null
I/AccountManagerService( 276): unbind() over.
D/Finsky ( 4061): [1] 13.run: AuthenticatorException while adding account: android.accounts.AuthenticatorException: bind failure. Finishing.

So, anybody had the same issue if future please let me know. What can be the way that I can solve my problem.

Download the gapps from here: http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip (latest)  download the zip.
check the MD5 and flash it from recovery.
Wipe data and cache.
reboot.


I forgot the email i used to register on my Samsung S6 edge+ mobile I forgot the email i used to register on my Samsung S6 edge+ mobile, it does not allow to use the phone without entering the registered email, Is there any way to find the email account.

Get the originall bill to prove your ownership , contact customer support with IMEI of your device and tell them your problem


Transfer files from Nexus 5 to PC I recently got a new phone and want to back up the files from my old phone (Nexus 5) before passing it on to a family member.

Using MTP connected to a Windows 10 PC the transfer is unbearably slow (around 10-20 seconds per file, even though a file may only be a few kB). Using MTP connected to a Mac using Android File Transfer is a lot faster, however the app crashes, freezes or gives an error after a minute or two and stops transferring files.

Is there a better way to transfer files, or a solution to the slow transfer speeds on Windows?

When there are many files to be transferred, and small ones at that, this has been reported

Consider PC to mobile transfer app, which uses FTP (best suited for for your purpose as against MTP ) to transfer on WiFi or Mobile data. There are other apps too, but this worked well for me in the past

Share Via http is another open sourceapp worth considering. It's handy to share with other mobile devices as well

Alternatively, you can consider other File Sync apps from the curated list maintained by Izzy


How can I change music track without getting my phone out of my pocket? I know there are apps that let you change tracks with the volume button. But that can be awkward (e.g. if the phone's in your pocket and you're jogging or something). I was wondering though, do you guys know of like a clip/ adapter thing that that you can use to change tracks on Android phones? I had something that could do that for my Discman back in the '90s, but I cannot find any mention of it on the internet today. You connect this adapter to the Discman, and then connect your headphones to the adapter.

Yes: there are essentially three possibilities.

Wired headphones often have extra controls inline (on the cable). You have to be careful when buying these: the way the controls signal to the phone is not standardized, so which one you need depends on who manufactured your phone. It's really easy to find "iPhone-compatible" ones, but you may have to search hard to find one which claims compatibility with your manufacturer. In that respect, things have not improved much since the Walkman days.
Bluetooth headphones can make this much easier. In Bluetooth, the media control protocol is standardized, so any Bluetooth headphones with volume and track controls will work with any phone that supports that protocol (the remote control profile). Pretty much all Android phones do, but some of the extremely low-end Chinese knock-offs might not.
Using the same Bluetooth profile, you can instead buy a dedicated remote control. This might well clip onto the cable of your wired headphones, or come in a convenient form factor (like Flow's Pebble, which is a lot more general-purpose), but it's still one extra thing to carry around.

Happy shopping!


How to fix phone booting only into fastboot mode after flashing a custom ROM? I have a Wileyfox Swift and I have tried to install lineageos 15.1 by following the tutorial that can be found on the lineageos website. I have successfully installed adb, twrp and used it to install the zip file that contains the lineageos files.

After installing the zip file, the phone only boots on what I think is the fastboot screen (shown below) which gives me the following options:

Start : this will boot on the fastboot menu
Restart bootloader : this will boot on the fastboot menu
Recovery mode : this will start twrp
Power off : this will power off the phone

Before installing the zip file, I have always checked the md5 file to make sure that there had not been a problem in the downloading process.
I have tried to install crdroid but with the same result. I have also tried to install numerous version of lineagos but it does not work either. I have read online that this issue could be resolved by pressing for a long time on the volume down/power button but it didn’t work.

I have run out of idea and am wondering if anyone has any idea on how to resolve this issue?

Old thread, but helped me fix my Wileyfox Swift as well.

I had the same issue - followed the TWRP route, erased and loaded the new image.
On restart, the bootloader refused to load the system, just went round and round. Speculation on my part, but this might have been because some of us had to "patch" the 'fox bootloader to get the Android 7 update to load in the first place.

The links on the facebook page posted by Bo Lawson (thank you) are still active at the time of this post. I selected the "last" cyanogen release (see the Swift links, used ZNH2KAS7EB).

TWRP was already on, so I booted to recovery, used adp to push the file SW27-WF-CRACKLING-CM-13.1.5-ZNH2KAS7EB-RECOVERY.zip to /sdcard, then used TWRP to install it.
This also replaced the "new" bootloader. The old Cyanogen image booted without issues, so just turned on USB debugging, then rebooted to bootloader.

Fastboot flash'd recovery with TWRP(3.2.3.0) again. Rebooted to recovery, then installed the replacement image (not Lineage, but e.Foundation's beta).

Works!
...and there was much rejoicing.


Why there's no proxy support in Android browsers? Android supports both Chromium-based and Firefox-based browsers since long now.

While those browsers have full support for HTTP/SOCKS proxies under all other OSes (Linux, OSX and even Windows), they are lacking it completely under Android. There's no setting at all to configure one.

I can easily configure a SOCKSv5 proxy on my Android device with, say, ssh -D to be used over whatever connections I have (wifi, ethernet, mobile data...), but I cannot use it with my browsers.

There's some system-wide support when you configure wifi, but that's not what I talk about. I mean the good ol' application-level proxy support. I don't want to send all traffic through a proxy, but just that for a specific browser on demand.

For the curious, I am asking this because I need and can compare results on my landline Internet link, but I cannot do the same on my mobile one.

Please, forget about VPNs which are also system-wide solutions like wifi proxies. I need to configure a proxy on a per-browser basis, just like I can do on a PC, and not a VPN.

So, why this lack?

There's no apparent "technical" reason for that lack. I suspect it'd be something related to the "Android Program Policy" (or whatever else it's called).
In my opinion it looks like an intentional choice as the system-level proxy you can normally configure could be leaking information for some reason or bug.
Anyway, we can configure the SOCKSv5 proxy for Firefox for Android prior to version 68.11, but there seems to be no way to do the same for Chrome/Chromium.
Provided that you already established such a proxy, for example with a suitable SSH client (-D option).

In Firefox address bar type: about:config. A page full of settings will pop up.

In the search box type network.proxy to reduce the settings to those we are interested in.

For a SOCKv5 proxy you can set:

network.proxy.socks to the proxy IP address

network.proxy.socks_port to the proxy TCP port

network.proxy.type to 1 for manual proxy configuration

(optional) network.proxy.no_proxies_on to address that need not to be proxied (or clean it up to reach remote loopback addresses)

For a "regular" HTTP proxy, any other proxy type or even any other setting that's not available in the setting menu, please refer to the above settings page and to the official online documentation.

N.B. Starting with v68.11 Firefox for Android doesn't provide anymore access to settings via the about:config pseudo-page, even if it's listed in about:about pseudo-page. This is not mentioned within the release notes.
This means that there's no way anymore to use a proxy within a browser.


Move to SDCard option Disabled I have a Samsung Galaxy Music Duos GT-S6012, which I got 2 days back. It has android 4.03.

The problem is I am not able to move my games and some apps to the SD card. The move to SD card button which is normally visible in the application manager is not visible in my phone. Please help me.

Is it default behavior on the phone, or is there a problem?

I even tried the move2sd app, but it did not work.

That's normal. Some apps will not work if they are moved to the SD card, because of some dependencies with the internal storage. So, expect some of those apps to have disabled Move to SD card buttons.


space storage running out - "used space" using a lot of storage Today my phone (galaxy s4 i9505) got some type of space storage problem, i removed a lot off apps and clear all the cache, first when the problem didn't start, i had 1,5GB space available, but now it stay between 5.5MB~0.0KB.

i tried to restart my cellphone, didn't work

So, i go into storage and my "used space" is using between 6,73GB to 8,72GB, a large part of this space is in using by "contact storage" - 2,93GB

i don't know what can i do, and i can't take pictures on my screen phone to show the problem because of this little amount of storage space

(sorry for bad english)

There are a few things that can be done here. I'll try to be as concise as possible here to help:

Option 1. If your phone supports SD cards, I would recommend you attach your phone to a PC, clone your current SD and then duplicate it onto the new SD. This isn't really ideal as from your question it looks like you're not actually using the space.

Option 2. It may be beneficial to un-install several applications that are not frequently used and delete a few files. Once you have some spare room you can install applications like: Easy Uninstaller to remove applications and their leftovers, All In One Toolbox to help uninstall applications, delete temporary files and perform general maintenence of your phone and Well File Manager.

By applying the use of one of these you can uninstall redundant applications, clear temporary files and redundant files from applications. One a side note, there is an option in Settings to keep application data- you may wish to review this and see if it helps.

Option 3. Perform a backup of your phone, factory restore it and batch reinstall all applications. This can be achieved with the use of a tool called Super Backup Pro for Messages and Contacts. All applications can be recovered via the play store.

It would however be curious to see what files are being stored in the directory reporting the large use of space. Unlikely, but it may also be beneficial to perform a scan of your phone to ensure there is no malicious applications causing this odd occurrence.

If this answer is sufficient mark it so. If you feel as though I have not answered this correctly please provide more informaton.


Samsung i9300 touchscreen not working, stuck at welcome screen/language selection My touchscreen is not responsive any more on my Samsung i9300 (Galaxy S3) - I don't know the reason. I successfully installed a stock ROM, but I'm stuck at the language selection/welcome screen.

The problem is simple: I need to select a language or to activate voice input to continue.

All hard buttons work and capacitive buttons (soft buttons) also work, but they are no help in selecting a language or activating voice input.

I found several solutions on that problem:

Summarized, it says to use an USB mouse connected to the phone by a OTG usb cable. I have tried it and I can not approve that, because the mouse is connected (lights on), but it is not recognized by the phone.
Here's the source: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/general/guide-unroot-reset-counter-touchscreen-t2074756
I had the idea of controlling the phone by using a USB keyboard connected to the phone like above (1.). This works a little bit better, because the phone receives key input, but very limited. CTRL+ALT+DEL works to reboot the phone. I wasn't able to figure out how to replace touchscreen functionality by using the keyboard resp. to select a language (at the welcome screen) where I'm originally stuck. There are a view keyboard combination lists on the internet.
Erica Griffn describes in this video the same issue and concludes, that she has no solution for it so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMG-_26NgXM

Is there any other solution I could try else?

A new diplay costs about $100 and a new S3 costs about $200. I don't want to exchange the phone or replace the display.

I bought a new display and replaced the old one. The procedure is more or less difficult, requires about 20 minutes time. Here's the tutorial I recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt8bl7oAPVU


Delayed incoming GTalk messages Recently, I performed a factory reset on my SGS (Froyo), since then all my incoming GTalk messages are seen arriving one hour before: if it is 5pm, the message is tagged 4PM.

Well, I could live with that, but the problem is that my responses are tagged with the right time, therefore any further incoming messages will be placed vertically before my messages.

I have tried changing the time, change time zones, accept network-provided time, and nothing seems to work...

Had this happened to you?How can I solve this problem?

Thanks

This sounds like an issue with Summer Time vs Daylight Savings Time? Most parts of the world are still running on Summer Time right now, which is generally +1 hour to your actual time zone.

As well as checking your phone's time zone, check to see if you have the correct settings for summer time/daylight savings set.


Calendar Notifications as Alarms Is there any way to have calendar event notifications show up as alarms?  Maybe via some 3rd party app?

I saw a rec here, but the reviews indicate that the app is not maintained and dysfunctional:
https://mondegreen2.blogspot.ca/2014/06/google-calendar-reminder-as-smartphone.html

I can't reliably notice notifications, since they are too short, so I make alarms for important meetings, but this is getting really inconvenient.

I also tried the "Calendar Notifications" app, but haven't been able to get it to help (it just adds another notification :P)

I also tried "Alarm Calendar Plus", which seems to work, except that it doesn't properly update when I add new events.  (also the UI is difficult)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moyou.acplus&hl=en

I tried Alarm Calendar Plus, but it didn't seem to work properly.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moyou.acplus&hl=en

I'm now using the premium version of Business Calendar, which allows you to set the notification to repeat many times, and snooze the notification.  I think it still uses the notification volume, but is serving my purpose.
http://www.businesscalendar.de/


(How) can I get contacts with no name to display the Organization instead of "Unnamed" on my Android phone? I have an HTC Evo with contacts that were imported by Sprint from my old Palm Centro. On the Centro, I could have contacts with no name but a business/organization, and the contact list would use that as the display, and I could search on that field. (Handy for calling pizza restaurants!) On my new Android device, that sort of contact shows up as "Unknown", and the Organization name can't be searched.

Is there a way to get the Android contact list to mimic the Palm's (quite reasonable and user-friendly!) behavior?
Is there a quick way to copy the Organizations into the (say) Last Name field, if the above is not possible?
What is the "right way" to deal with contacts that are businesses, not people, on Android devices?

On my HTC Magic, I just put the business name in the contact's name field, then have all the businesses in a Contacts group called "Businesses" for when I want to find one of them quickly. To be honest this is also the way I used to do it on my old Palm, too.


Can a android device really connects to Satellite using when LocationMethod set to "Phone Only"? All these years I was thinking like to get device location, android phones connects to nearby cellular towers or wifi. But recently I found another option in Settings > LocationMethod > "Phone only". Once I set LocationMethod as "Phone Only", I turned on the "Flight Mode"(No wifi and No network. Then I turned ON the Location Services & Opened Google maps and its able to find my current location when I'm outside the building.

I did the same thing inside my home and it couldn't show my current location. So is my android device really connects to satellite to get my location? If yes, how can a small & low power device send and receive signals to a satellite which orbit above 100km high, when it struggles to get a signal from a cell tower which are few kms away?

Many smartphones have a built-in Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver.

This receiver picks up signals from GPS satellites orbiting about 12,500 miles above the earth's surface.  If it receives simultaneous information from four or more satellites, it can calculate the position of the receiver on (or above) the earth.

There is no transmission from the receiver to the satellite.

The transmission rate from the satellite is extremely slow, 50 bits per second.  This allows a single signal to be transmitted at low power from 12500+ miles away.

The cell tower must transmit a different, high data rate signal to each device using it.  Thus the problems with sending many complicated signals even a short distance...


MIssing internal storage it says that internal storage is 8 GB and Ram is 2 GB.But while I can see only usable 3.65 GB internal storage.Where is the remaining memory goes?I am totally confused.Is Ram uses the 2Gb from this total 8 GB internal storage?I uninstall many apps from my phone.But it haven't give any good result.still usable memory get unchanged.Please help me.

You didn't name the device, but that's the usual way manufacturers fool their customers without lying: the storage chip has 8GB, but guess where the OS is installed? Looks like on your device, ~4GB are reserved for this (/system). Then there are other partitions on the very same storage chip, e.g. for /recovery and /cache. What's left in the end is /data – storage space available for apps etc. Those are your 3.65GB.

RAM doesn't play a role in this context, it usually goes to a different chip.

For additional details, please take a look at my answer on Android Folder Hierarchy.


Must I install ClockworkMod to install CyanogenMod on Samgung Galaxy SII? I want to install CyanogenMod on my Samsumg Galaxy S II. If I install ClockworkMod I think I will void the warranty provided by Samsung.

Must I install ClockworkMod or can I just install CyanogenMod?

Two things are important here:

1.) Even if you wouldn't install ClockworkMod, you'd lose your warranty since you replaced the pre-loaded operating system with unsupported one.

2.) ClockworkMod (or any other alternative recovery) is what actually installs CyanogenMod on your phone so it is required.

In short: Replacing your phone OS with Cyanogen will void your warranty in any case. You'll need some way of installing CM and Clockwork is probably the easiest around.


Can I force a wifi connection retry after x minutes? The Wifi SSID in my home is the default SSID of the used router. (I have no means to change it unfortunately)
The problem is, if i travel around my city, my android phone inevitably finds a network with the same SSID but the password doesnt match. Since then the network is stuck in "Authentification failed" until i manually force a reconnect.

Is there a way to force my phone to retry connection attempts to known networks e.g. every 5 minutes?

There are numerous applications on Google play. I had similar problem a couple of months ago. I used application named WiFi reconnect as I recall.

WiFi Automatic

WiFi Reconnect


Will google assistant allow the same account in two different phones I want to know will google assistant allow the same account in two different phones?

Will the messages or any other information will goes to secondary phone where the account is linked

Yes. You can use it on more smartphones at the same time. But you need to connect the other phone with your Google account. And then Google synchronizes everything. Your search history, contacts and more. Hope this helps you.

Sorry for my bad english.


Can't pass the initial setup wizard on SG3 with broken screen digitizer So i burned digitizer on i9305 by flashing corrupted recovery. Then i flashed new working custom ROM and recovery, after Stock JB tried some KitKats like MoKee, Omni, CyanOgen 10/11 but i'm facing the same problem with all of them. After booting fresh android i got stuck on the welcome screen / first run setup wizard, cuz can't click anywhere. This phone supports USB OTG so i am able to use mouse in TWRP recovery for example, but the driver is not working on the welcome screen yet. Also i cant use ADB to simulate screen touch cuz it doesn't connect when the initial setup is active. I don't have any backup of initialized/configured android so this is no go either.

Any ideas how to get further?
Thanks for any tip.

Finally found solution via editing /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db file via sqlite3. Just adb pull that file to your computer, if you use stock recovery you must mount userdata partition manually, in that case see Android ADB Shell Recovery Mounting for hints. Also you can't just pull the file directly but copy it inside adb shell to your sdcard or some intermediary filesystem. Eg. busybox cp sett* /sdcard

To get rid of the initial setup:

update global set value=1 where name='device_provisioned';

update secure set value=1 where name='user_setup_complete';
insert into secure (name,value) VALUES ('device_provisioned','1');

Yes, the device_provisioned must be present in both tables. However on the stock JB there was no global table, so you don't need to take care of it and the secure table is missing some records we update here so these need to be inserted instead. On stock JB before editing the settings.db run PRAGMA wal_checkpoint and PRAGMA journal_mode = DELETE described here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21258892/881375 otherwise updates on existing rows won't take effect because android will rollback on reboot. For CyanOgenMod 11 just delete the settings.db-journal file and it should be OK.

It was neccessary after pushing the settings.db file back to folder on device to

chmod 660 settings.db
chown system:system settings.db

in this order, because chmod may set the owner and group back to root

USB OTG mouse is still not working sadly, so i guess i must get access for adb anyway.

To enable USB debugging (ADB):

setprop persist.service.adb.enable 1 ('setprop persist.sys.usb.config mtp,adb' if needed)

settings.db:

update secure set value=5037 where name='adb_port';
update global set value=1 where name='adb_enabled';

After booting dialog to confirm PC's fingerprint appears. To avoid this get your adbkey.pub (on linux may be located at ~/.android):

adb push adbkey.pub /data/misc/adb/adbkey.pub
cat adbkey.pub >> adb_keys

After all of this you can input tap|swipe|text anything to control your phone and get access for bluetooth or OTG mouse/keyboard etc. I hope this helps.
The fingerprint injection is needed for Android 4.2.2+.

Thanks to xda-developers and android issues with adb security at code.google.com.


Nearby wifi networks causing notification I am using a brand new Blu R1 HD android phone running 6.0.

On my way to work this morning I was listening to a podcast over bluetooth in my car.

Every once in a while a notifcation would sound on the stereo. I would open my phone and it would say "wifi networks nearby".

I have never experienced this on an Android phone.

How can i disable notifications sounding when a nearby wifi network is detected (barring shutting down the wifi).

Uncheck or toggle notify when public network available (from settings> WiFi> advanced)- that may be the reason


Can I restart Bluetooth from the terminal? I have a rooted Galaxy S 2 (I9100) and was wondering if I can restart the Bluetooth on my phone via the terminal client on my phone.

The following terminal command should enable Bluetooth via adb shell or Terminal Emulator app:

su
am start -a android.bluetooth.adapter.action.REQUEST_ENABLE

On most versions of Android, this command will present a pop-up window to the user asking to confirm request to enable BT.  I believe this was done for security purposes whenever an app that is not system is toggling BT.

I haven't found a way to disable BT via a shell command unfortunately.

With WiFi it's a lot easier, and does not prompt user for permission:

su
svc wifi enable

will turn it on, and

su
svc wifi disable

will turn it off.


Whatsapp theme suddenly turned dark I was chatting on whatsapp, then I didn't look at my phone for 5 seconds, and when I looked back I saw that it turned dark theme with a wall paper

Why?

And now I can not get it back to previous theme, even if I select default theme or light theme etc.
How to return to previous theme? I was using default. I had not changed any setting for theme or Wallpaper

I use latest version of android (I guess) , and my phone is Samsung Galaxy S9

As suggested in comments, I looked at my phone settings and it was in dark setting. Whatsapp likely upgraded in the background to default theme so it automatically turned dark (latest version of WhatsApp does that).

To revert to light theme, from chat settings, change it to light theme. If it doesn't change, clearing cache and rebooting may help


Moving app sync from one google account to another Okay I am using a new Gmail account on my PlayStore to browse my tablet. Now the problem is that all the apps that I downloaded using my first account, so when I log into the using my second account I don't see the apps of my first account.

I have the question on whether we can move paid apps between accounts over here.

But all my apps are free, can I move them from one account to another ?

The list of the apps are as follows-:

ES File Explorer
Facebook
Firefox
Youtube
aTorrent
Gmail
Google
Google News and Weather
Google Talkback
Google Text to speech
Hangouts

Several of the apps you list most likely came pre-installed with your device (e.g. Gmail, Google, Google Talkback). Keeping that in mind brings up the question: How did they end up being associated with your account? Which leads to a possibility to achieve what you want:

Delete the "old" Google account from that device
Wait a little. It usually doesn't take longer than a day that a process of the Google Play app scans your device for installed apps, and links them to your (new) account if they have no link yet (that's how the pre-installed apps ended up here)
Once that had happened, and if you still need the "old" account for some purpose, it should be safe to re-create it (I'm not 100% sure about this step, as I've never tried it).


ZIP+4 ZIP codes in Contacts for Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) I have a Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) running Android 2.1-update1.  I have ZIP Codes for many of my contacts in the ZIP+4 format (e.g. 99999-1234). However, the field for ZIP codes does not allow any character except numbers.  Without being able to add a dash it makes it difficult to read (e.g 999991234).

I would have thought that it would auto-format the number they way it does for phone numbers.  Is there anyway to have the default Contacts program accept ZIP+4 ZIP code format?  Are there any alternative Contacts programs that provide the correct formatting for ZIP+4?  Is the Contacts program standard across manufacturers (e.g. part of the OS)?

It seems that entering ZIP Codes directly in the Contacts app in the ZIP+4 format under Android 2.1-update1 is not possible. However, I just updated to Froyo (2.2) (T959UVKA6).  Not only can the Contacts/ Storage app natively import and export contacts to and from the microSD card, but it also allows directly entering ZIP+4 with the dash in the ZIP Code field!


Locked out by CyanogenMod 11 upgrade I tried a CyanogenMod 11 to upgrade from 4.1.2 to 4.4 on Samsung S3 Mini i8190. When the phone rebooted, my pin no longer worked. The 3 button hard reset has never worked on my phone. This mod is supposed to have TWRP but can't get to recovery mode. I tried a few flash options for hard reset and one jacked the phone turning on and off repeatedly. I tried flashing a 4.1.2 stock ROM but the phone would endlessly reboot. Heard this was a common problem when downgrading. So went back to 4.4. I don't believe debugging was enabled, since the instructions I followed didn't say to do that. So adb shell won't work. WiFi and data transfer were disabled so Google Manager idea won't work as well.

Any ideas? Thanks

Best solution I have at this point for recovering usability of your phone would be to boot into Download Mode and flash a full suite with ODIN.


Abnormally high battery drain My battery drains extremely quickly, it can deplete completely in just over 1 hour.  It can even drain faster than the charger can supply.

Here is the battery graph after less than 60 minutes of load (this was playing candy crush saga).

Is this normal behaviour or is there something wrong with my phone?

The numbers in the usage stats don't add up to 100% either, it just says Screen 13%, facebook 8%, candy crush 4%, android system 2%, and a few other little 1% apps.

1 year old Nexus 5 with android version 5.0, kernel 3.4.0-g88fbc66

Definitely not normal. It could be that you need to re calibrate/replace your battery. This is the ultimate solution if nothing else you try works. Otherwise I would suggest either trying different versions of Android, or switching over to a custom ROM and see if that helps.


How can I root my Yarvik Tab411? How can I root my tablet, the yarvik tab411? I tried to find information on the internet, but had no success.

The tab runs Android 4.1.11 2.3.3.

1 according to the link, this device currently ships with Android 4.1.1. Marrssel has an older version, running 2.3.3. (comment by Izzy)

According to a thread in the yarvik forum (besides, the first hit on a Google search for yarvik tab411 root), you should be able to use the SuperOneClick tool. But while the name suggests "one click" should be pretty easy, it might be not the case.

However, you will need to:

download SuperOneClick e.g. from here
download and install the device drivers (for your device, possibly to be found on the yarvik's support pages) on your Windows machine
activate USB Debugging on your device
run the SuperOneClick application as administrator (oops) on Windows 7
now the most difficult: click the "root" button :)

As I have no yarvik tablet, I could not check the above. It's just the result from a little Google search -- so forgive me in case it fails...


Moto G4 Plus doesn't boot after root I have a rooted Moto G4+ running Lineage OS...
Due to fast battery drain, I want to revert to the stock ROM, but I still want to have root. I managed to restore an old backup with no errors.
Now, when I tried rooting it by flashing SuperSu zip from TWRP, it just didn't boot afterwards. It didn't even show Motorola's annoying unlocked bootloader warning. (I could still get to bootloader mode and recovery)
I restored the backup again, then tried to root with other versions of SuperSu, but all resulted in the same black screen and wouldn't boot.
I then tried to root with Magisk by flashing Magisk zip file, but I ended up with the same issue.
I have a strong suspicion that the cause of this problem is the modification of the boot image because both of the zips modified the boot image, yet other zips such as a boot animation worked perfectly fine.
So my question is:
How can I get my device rooted on stock ROM without losing my ability to boot?

Go to recovery and do "Wipe" or "Factory Reset"

It should help the bootloop problem


Is charging with a USB-C adapter and a type A charger dangerous? According to articles on HowToGeek and other sites, it can be dangerous to charge a phone with a USB-C connector by using a non compliant adapter cable and a USB type A charger or laptop outlet. I am wondering whether the same problem (drawing too much power for the cable to handle) occurs when using a micro USB to USB-C adapter like this one together with a generic cable?

My guess is that it is just as dangerous because the reasoning from the article can be applied to the adapter instead of the phone.
Can someone shed some light on this? I am about to recommend an adapter like the one linked above to a friend and I don't want her to ruin her charger or worse.

This question is not a duplicate of this one, since I am specifically asking about using an adapter + an older cable instead of an adapter cable.

Description of your adapter holds the key :

  Charge & Sync: Uses USB 2.0 protocol for high-speed Micro USB charging and fast data transfer (480 Mbps). Has a 56K? pull-up resistor for unbeatable safety and reliability

(Emphasis Added)

This kind of resistor is to specifically cater for generic cables - from the section Good and bad cables

  The specification table below shows what values can be used to set a specific Type-C charging mode and underneath, in the small print, we can see that a 56kΩ resistor should be used with all legacy cable connections. This is to limit the amount of current transferred to Default USB power or the USB Battery Charging standard (if the cable supports fast charging) when connecting up to older USB type devices.

In the specific adapter of yours, it is catering for legacy cables as a precaution whether the cable has it out not

tl:dr; You are good with this adapter


Samsung Galaxy S4 SCH-I545 official updates via Kies fails with: "Software update is temporarily unavailable. Try again later." I own a Samsung SCH-I545 Galaxy S4 and can not do update via Kies. It says:

  Software update is temporarily unavailable. Try again later.

The phone is sent by my uncle from America and I am from Romania. The phone does not have root. I tried to update via Odin, but it fails too.

What can I do to Update my Galaxy S4 to Android 4.3? Thank you very much!

The update for the Verizon S4 USA is set to come eout tommorrow not today.


Google play stuck on "Waiting for network..." when installing an app on mobile data I recently bought a Meizu m3 note. Everything works fine in the play store (after I put the SIM in), except the downloading on mobile data connection.

I can browse, search apps and request to install. But the download won't start. It's stuck on the "Waiting for network..." message. See screen cap below.

When switching to WiFi, everything works OK.

I have the axon 7 go to settings then apps then Google play then tap 3 small boxes in top right corner and uninstall update.... This worked out for me


Deleted my only Launcher and APK - Black Screen. Please help! I have a Lenovo A806. The device was rooted and I downloaded a root uninstaller from the PlayStore to uninstall some apps that I couldn't otherwise.

In the process, among other apps, I deleted the only launcher I had on the phone (Lenovo Launcher) and I might have deleted the APK (not sure about the APK). The result was a black screen without any apps.

When turn on the phone I can see the home screen (same one you see before you unlock keyboard) and I also have some of the functionalities (eg messages, can make calls etc). However, if I open one of these functionalities and I click on the "back" button, the screen goes completely black and the phone goes unresponsive.

I tried to,

reset factory settings by holding the Volume Up + Down + On/Off button which opened the "Lenovo Recovery" screen and I choosing the "wipe user data (both fuse format and fuse wipe data).
install update package option and I rebooted the phone. Nothing of those worked.

Could anyone direct me towards the right way?

Open play store in your pc
Install any launcher app like this
When installed you will get a prompt in notification
Clicking it will take you to play store
Click open which will give a launcher


Why does Google Pinyin Input need to access my contacts? A pop-up message says that Google Pinyin Input tries to access my contacts.  Does anyone know why an input method needs to access a user's contacts?
It is strange that this message popped up when I was NOT using the input method. I have never used it.  The app was installed by default on a tablet made in China.
Does anyone know if Google Pinyin Input is developed by Google's own engineers or outsourced to a certain country?  I will immediately uninstall it if it is effectively an app developed by a third party in a certain country other than Google's own staff.

Usually keyboard apps want to access your contacts for "predictive search" and auto-correction. If you don't like that, it should be fine to reject that request (and thus not giving them access) – without any "harm" to the app. Only it then won't know your contacts' names and cannot use them for auto-correction and "predictive search", of course.

That the request popped up while you were not even using the app might also be normal: depending on how it was programmed, it might want to update its dictionary while not being actively used. That it does so when you've never ever used it, is either bad programming or intentional bad habit (of course seen as a service to you, as it's always the case with pre-installed bloatware).

If this worries you, you can go to Settings › Apps, switch to the "All" tab (to show all apps, including the pre-installed ones), scroll to the app, tap its entry, and see if you can uninstall or at least disable it.


Can I update the adb shell's environment variables? I wanted to update the PATH environment variable permanently in the adb shell. I guessed the shell was mksh for I've found /system/bin/sh pointing to /system/bin/mksh. Then I tried

Making a new file /data/.mkshrc and adding the PATH definition into it.
Copy the above file into /.
Copy to /root.

But all attempts failed.

By default stock Android mksh uses this config file: /system/etc/mkshrc


Manage Phone Audio Player through Car Stereo over Bluetooth I spent yesterday evening looking through Q&A and I see this question asked in different ways, but not answered. I will try to make the question very clear.

I have a bluetooth-enabled car stero (Kenwood). I have a bluetooth-enabled Android phone (Samsung). I can pair the two without trouble. They automatically pair every time I get in the car. On the phone, I can enable bluetooth call control and  bluetooth audio control.

What I want to do is get in my car, turn on the stereo, and press the play button to start playing music from my phone. I cannot do that. What I have to do is get in my car, turn on the stereo, get my phone, open a music player app on the phone, press play on the music player app, and put my phone away again.

I downloaded a variety of Kenwood apps, but they are all USB apps, not bluetooth apps. Is there some way to make a phone start playing music by pressing play on the stereo?

In response to the comment below...
At lunch today, I went out to a coworker's car. She had her phone in her purse. She started her car and turned on the radio. She pressed "source" to change it from FM to BT. The radio showed playlists on her phone. She scrolled through the list and selected one. It started playing. She never took her phone out of her purse. She did everything from the radio. So, how can I expect the phone to respond to pressing a button on the radio? Simple. It does that for other people. I want mine to do it for me. I want to know how such a dismissive comment gets a +1.

Highly depends on the bluetooth profile and capabilities of your stereo. Some only implement call button profiles, some implement audio only and some support audio and buttons. Some have advance support for Playlist and file system. A FM Bluetooth adapter I had could play and stop my music but couldn't see play lists or anything.

If you press the play button twice does it work? Or long press? If you play your music, do the buttons play at that point? But in any case, there is no way to really change it, without replacing the stereo.


Tablet with android 4.0 update to the latest android OS? (currently 4.4) Is it possible to update a tablet that has android 4.0 to the latest version (4.4.2)? I'm looking into buying a tablet. It has android 4.0 which is cheaper than the other tablets that have 4.0 (which doesn't make senec to me).

Phones and tablets (especially cheaper ones) generally don't have much storage space, and their other components are not that powerful (low memory, slow processor, etc. The Operating System that runs on them must therefore be kept to its absolute minimal size, and be heavily optimized to the very specific hardware inside.

For example, in order for Windows to support a wide range of personal computers from various manufacturers, it ships with a myriad of different drivers, some are generic to handle multiple versions of hardware (i.e. video cards or sound boards.) This way one or two (32 bit Vs. 64 bit) installation packages can be distributed by Microsoft that would be able to be installed on pretty much any compatible PC.  The flip side is that this makes Windows installation huge in comparison.

On the other hand, Android at its lowest level has something called "Kernel". This is what allows the rest of the OS to communicate with RAM, screen, CPU, camera, buttons, etc., and is equivalent to drivers in Windows.  See this diagram of Android software stack.  Due to the above mentioned restrictions, the kernel must be tailored to perfectly match the specific device Android is to be installed on.  This way its size can be kept minimal, but the downside is that it would be incompatible with another device, even from the same manufacturer, that has slightly different components.

The kernel is developed by the device's manufacturer such as Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc.  Since it's based on Linux, the kernel's code is open source, but it usually contains some closed-source, proprietary code from other component manufacturers such as CPU or GPU (e.g. Qualcomm or Nvidia) in form of binary blobs.  Then there is a layer of customization that manufacturers and carriers add to "stock" android, which is also usually closed-source and proprietary.  Sometimes it's a couple of extra apps, but usually these customizations are more invasive in a form of a different user interface, as with Samsung's TouchWiz, or HTC's SenseUI.

When Google releases an upgrade to Android, they are changing all of the Android's software stack, including the kernel, libraries, runtime, framework, and applications.  You can already see where the difficulty is in upgrading a device.  Google's changes require the manufacturers to update their code for all the drivers for each specific device in the phone/tablet.  If Samsung uses Qualcomm's CPU/GPU instead of their own, they will also need to wait for Qualcomm to update their binary blobs.  The same goes for every other piece of circuitry: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular modem, flash memory controller, etc.  Manufacturer of each of these components will need to see if Google's changes require them to modify the drivers that will be included in the kernel, so that the phone continues to work normally.

This is also the reason why an Android OS upgrade intended for a specific phone cannot be simply "flashed" onto a different one.  Different phone models even from the same manufacturer will usually contain different hardware, thus needing a customized kernel.

Now consider the costs to the manufacturer to upgrade every device model they make every time Google releases an upgrade to Android.  Their software engineers must review the changes in the upgraded OS, modify their code for every driver, thoroughly test their changes to ensure their changes don't break anything, and release the final code for roll-out.  Now multiply this by every phone model they've released since the last Android upgrade.

Cell phone giants like Samsung or Motorola can afford this process in the name of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, but small-time manufacturers simply don't have the resources for this.  There's no incentive for them to upgrade the devices they are probably already selling at razor-thin margins in the first place.


How to disable the OTG (USB) on Android 9? I want to disable the OTG (USB) on Android 9. I coud control it on Android 6 by disabling a permission on the file android.hardware.usb.host.xml located in /system/etc/permission but it is not working anymore on Android 9.
Any idea?

Follow the steps below:

Open the Android settings, touch the menu button and select Settings or Android     Settings from the menu that appears.
Then on the Settings screen, you will show many different settings broken down under different categories. Scroll down the list of all the settings and touch Storage when you find it.
In the Storage settings, you will find the option to Unmount USB storage near the bottom of the screen – then select this option to start the unmounting of OTG (USB) storage devices connected to your phone via OTG or USB cable.
You will be shown a confirmation screen -  if you really want to unmount the USB storage. Touch OK to continue and unmount the OTG storage.
After the OTG storage has been successfully unmounted in Android, you can remove the OTG cable from your Android device without worrying about any data loss.


Getting verification error when attempting to "adb sideload" the OTA update on Nexus 7 (2013) Notes:

Tablet is unlocked and rooted (SuperSU Pro v1.75)
I have the following recovery flash in place: TWRP 2.6.3.0, but I am booting stock recovery for the adb sideload invocation
The drivers are installed, host is Win 7 x64 and the device is detected in every mode (MTP, USB debug, bootloader)

When attempting to adb sideload (via stock recovery) the file 7d9b309e11da82edb5373a1f59965bca89f6041f.signed-razor-KRT16S-from-JSS15R.7d9b309e.zip on my Nexus 7 (2013) [Wi-Fi], I receive an error:

Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifying update package...
Installing update...
Verifying current system...
"/system/app/Drive.apk" has unexpected contents.
E:Error in /tmp/update.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborted.

What am I doing wrong? What do I have to change in order to make the adb sideload succeed?

Goal

If you have the OTA image downloaded and, as in my case, ended up without success you should be able to adb sideload <filename> it still manually (video here).

Problem/Error

... unfortunately the OTA update via adb sideload errors out with:

Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifying update package...
Installing update...
Verifying current system...
"/system/app/Drive.apk" has unexpected contents.
E:Error in /tmp/update.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborted.

where /system/app/Drive.apk could be any system app.

Who's not to blame?

TWRP is not to blame, I thought so in the beginning, but it would work with TWRP as well.
TitaniumBackup Pro. Since I rooted my device and use a power-user feature, I should have known of its side-effects. Now I do know, though :) ... and there's a good chance you learn about this from this answer now.

Apparent cause of the error

Using Titanium Backup Pro I had used the "freeze" feature to get rid of some of the system apps, namely:

ASUS Keyboard
Calendar
Calendar Storage
com.android.providers.partnerbookmarks
com.android.sharedstoragebackup
com.google.android.voicesearch
Exchange Services
Gmail
Google One Time Init
Google Play Books
Google Play Games
Google Play Magazines
Google Play Movies
Google Play Music
Google Search
Google Text-to-speech Engine
Hangouts
iWnn IME
iWnnIME Keyboard (White)
One Time Init

This was apparently why the adb sideload bailed out early with the error message given in my question.

I also uninstalled some of the system apps, and I think I remember "Drive" (remember?: /system/app/Drive.apk) was one of them.

The solution

I found the solution over at forum.xda-developers.com in this answer. The gist is that if you have a modified image, you need to restore that to make the OTA sideload succeed.

First download the stock image for the build you currently have. Make sure it's the correct one for your device. So I was trying to upgrade from JSS15R to KRT16S on the Wi-Fi version, which meant I needed to download the 4.3 (JSS15R) image. That was the file razor-jss15r-factory-ec2d4f76.tgz in my case. I then unpacked that which gave me a subfolder named razor-jss15r. Inside of it there were shell scripts, a .img file and a .zip (image-razor-jss15r.zip). The latter needed to be unpacked. Then I had the .img files in the folder I unpacked the .zip into:

boot.img
cache.img
recovery.img
system.img
userdata.img

Then I followed the steps outlined in the linked answer:

boot into bootloader (keep Volume-down and Power pressed directly after turning it on)
connect USB (make sure before that, that all USB drivers are installed)
change into the folder with the previously unpacked .img files
check from the Android SDK prompt that you see the device with fastboot devices.
then execute fastboot flash system system.img which will flash a stock system partition

Note: unlike in the linked post, I left out the step with the fastboot erase system because that is apparently implied by fastboot flash system system.img as can be seen from the output. I also left out fastboot flash boot boot.img and fastboot flash recovery recovery.img because I thought it was unlikely that these "partitions" had been modified (I was right). You may need the latter two, though. It would probably depend on what you have modified that prevents the adb sideload step (i.e. read and understand the error message).

Here's the output:

# fastboot flash system system.img
erasing 'system'...
OKAY [  1.160s]
sending 'system' (603447 KB)...
OKAY [ 19.786s]
writing 'system'...
OKAY [ 26.720s]
finished. total time: 47.668s

Et voila, a clean system that can be OTA updated.

So in short, you may only need to fastboot flash system system.img from the stock image you are running, if you ever get an error during the verification phase:

Verifying current system...
"/system/<SOME>.apk" has unexpected contents.
E:Error in /tmp/update.zip
(Status 7)

Download for factory images (Nexus 7, both)

Factory Images "razor" for Nexus 7 [2013] (Wi-Fi)
Factory Images "razorg" for Nexus 7 [2013] (Mobile)


Flashing Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with Android on Linux Is there a way to flash my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with stock rom(Android KitKat 4.4.2) in Linux(any distribution)?

EDIT: I can't figure out how to flash this firmware with Heimdall. All I can find is different files and different devices.

EDIT:Here are the instructions building a Heimdall firmware package.

EDIT: I found a post on XDA saying that Heimdall doens't support KitKat 4.4.2, I got the same error as that guy:ERROR: Failed to send request to end PIT file transfer!
ERROR: Failed to download PIT file! When trying to download the PIT file for my device.

For flashing Samsung devices on operating systems other than Windows, you might wish to take a look at our heimdall tag-wiki:

  Heimdall is a cross-platform open-source tool suite used to flash firmware (aka ROMs) onto Samsung mobile devices

Thought your device doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned as being "officially tested" on the projects homepage, the page writes:

  Users have reported success with a wide variety of Samsung's mobile phones and tablets from all around the world.

Heimdall (Source: WebUpd8.Org; click image for larger variant)

Update: If Heimdall somehow doesn't fit your needs, according to our odin tag-wiki there's also JOdin3 which works browser based. Haven't tried that (no Sammy here), but might be worth a look.


Presenting screen in Teams for Android: Screen goes blank when I move hand near camera I have Microsoft Teams installed on my Andoid/Samsung tablet.
I often share my tablet screen in Teams meetings.
When I move my hand near the tablet screen, the screen goes blank (temporarily).
Why does this happen?
Is it some sort of functionality for quickly stopping presenting in an emergency?

You're triggering the proximity sensor. Those are located somewhere above the screen or in the notch, depending on the design of your device.
The purpose of proximity sensor is to disable screen and touchscreen inputs when you're talking with your phone next to your head. It prevents accidentally interacting with the touchscreen with your ear.
It's mostly useful for regular phone calls, but internet calling software can also make use of it.
Your screen sharing is probably still in progress while you do that, it only blanks your display.


How do I enable "Factory Reset Protection" in Lollipop I keep reading that Android 5.0 has "Factory Reset Protection", the so-called "Kill Switch" soon to be mandated in California, but that it's opt-in.  How do I opt in?  I've looked thru settings, including using the Settings search, but haven't found anything that sounds like this.  I'm on a Nexus 5.

In speaking with Motorola Support through some reliable channels, here's what they said: "Since all comments regarding Factory Reset Kill is not approved yet by Motorola, we cannot give you the answer". In other words, it's not released, you won't find the option available yet and they can't tell you why. As of 1/20/2015.


Is it possible to store app data on the cloud Alright. Let's see if something revolutionary works :)

In theory,  Is it possible to store app data on the cloud I.e a Dropbox account, and withdraw data from it as required? I have an amazing idea,  but naturally I want to know if it could work. If so, how? I have an idea with  something about using a file manager to grab an apps files, putting them on a Web cloud that does not need a pass code (so a private cloud) and having files in the original data folder to link the data In the cloud,  and use that? I have root,  BTW.

First, as Jared already pointed out, this is not possible without a "local copy" – i.e. without the data being present in the device's file system. Second, it won't work without root access on the device – as the directory in question (/data/data) is not accessible for a "normal user" (which includes apps: each app can only access its own sub-directory here).

Let's assume you're having root access on your device, this would still not be easy. Theoretical approaches:

using an app like FolderSync to synchronize your local /data/data with a counterpart in your "personal cloud". Might work somehow.
copying the entire /data/data to your personal cloud and remote-mounting it (e.g. using SSHFS with SSHFSAndroid or some other remote mounting). Again, might work – but if your network connection drops, apps might crash, plus you may risk data inconsistencies and data loss.

Apart from the risks named, there are more concerns:

privacy and data security. Might not be a concern if you're just doing that within your own (home) network, but it at least introduces another attack vector.
you might be tempted using such a "network share" with multiple devices simultaneously. Don't. That would be the best way to corrupt your data, have your apps crashing, and more.
performance: if all your app data have to be read from/written to the network each time you access them, it would slow down things noticeable. And I mean, real noticeable here – not just some digits somewhere after the decimal point.
file permissions and ownership must be maintained, which might prove tricky (depending on the remote storage).

If it were such an easy thing to do, it would have been done already – especially considering Google wants us to put all our data into their cloud. There are good reasons speaking against that (and I'm pretty sure this answer is far from covering them all). So while this might be technically possible, it's definitely not recommendable.


is it possible that my current chat on whatsapp is visible in my previously used phone? last month i have sold my phone to someone.
and now i got the information that my whatsapp chat was visible on that phone.
Now, is it possible that my current chats on whatsapp(the chats on my new phone) will still be visible on my old phone???

There are other apps which allow users to view Whatsapp conversations without starting the official Whatsapp application. Whatsapp also performs a backup of your conversations and stores it on the SD card (internal or external, depending on device). It's possible that when the new user entered his credentials, the app detected a previous backup and allowed the new user to import the old conversations in.

AFAIK, Whatsapp authenticates the app with the SIM card that is present in the device. So, your  new chats should NOT be visible. In any case, prudence dictates that when selling a phone, ALWAYS perform a Factory Reset AND wipe the data off the internal / external SD card(s).


How to install an APK on an Android Tablet PC? I had one normal Android apk. It is working fine on my Android mobile. Now I want to install the same .apk on an Android tablet PC; is it possible? If possible, how can I install it?

There are a few ways to install an app:

Post it online (with something like Dropbox) and navigate to the
URL in your tablet's browser
Use the marketplace if it's listed there
Use adb install to do it

Make sure on the device that you have checked the checkbox listed at Settings > Applications > Unknown Sources if it is not in the Market. This will allow you to install non-Market apps.


Clone and distribute Android 4 device with preloaded applications This may be related to Clone Android Device but I don't think it fits my need. I'm looking to accomplish something similar to Sysprep for Windows, which would allow me to distribute Android devices with preloaded applications and settings, such as:

Intitial data, settings, and connection information
Preloaded applications, with proper licenses/keys for non-free applications
addon / restriction for users

Is there a way to do this?

You would easily be able to do this via a nandroid backup, and there a apps on Google Play that allow you to restrict the device.

The only issue is licenses for apps - they are linked to the Google Account, so you would have to use the same Google Account on every device if you don't want to pay for every app for each Google Account on every device.

This is fine if it is a generic account, but it may not be wanted if it is a personal account.

If you make a nandroid backup with all the apps, and then restore it to all the other devices, it will have the apps, settings and licenses, as well as the Google Account.

I am going to check on Google Play for the app that allows you to limit ability (I know there is at least one).


Custom Alarm tone in 5.1 I am aware that by creating folder named Alarms, Ringtones and Notifications and placing audio files inside them will list those audio files as appropriate custom tones. However in my rooted stock Nexus 5 running Android 5.1 the alarm tones does not show the media files while it works perfectly for notification and ringtones.

Is this a bug in Android 5.1? I was able to achieve this in KitKat.

This worked for my 5.0:

Stored the files in the Alarms folder (don't think this will be necessary)
Go to file with ES Explorer (or other file explorer)
Play the file with the built in media player of ES
Tap on settings
Set as ringtone and choose Alarm
Go to Clock > Alarms and use your new music file as wake up alarm

Probably there is a option (just once/always) for choosing a ringtone in the Alarm menu. I think, I clicked on always by accident. (clearing cache/setting did not worked out) But this will be a pretty simple work around ;)


Blank Text Message from random number - is it a virus? So I just got a blank text message from some number that I don't know. My worry is that this is some sort of intrusion attempt.

My understanding is whenever I receive a text message, or a message with media, my phone automatically downloads it. So me receiving a blank text message from some unknown number leads me to believe that there was some sort of virus attached to the message and when the phone downloads the message, it will download that virus automatically.

So my questions are:

Is it possible that this is a virus?
How can I check to see if my phone has a virus?
Is there a way to detect an intrusion attempt so that my phone will tell me if something is happening that shouldn't be?

Is it possible that this is a virus?

Of course it is possible. Technology is beat. But what actually matters is whether if it is probable or not.

A text message (if it is an SMS) has to travel through the cellular network of your service provider and therefore the file types you can send are object to their limitations. Such messages can include media files(MMS) but not apps or executables. Instead, it might contain a link which'll lead you to download a malware. But an empty SMS on its own to infect a phone, sounds pretty NSA.

  How can I check to see if my phone has a virus?

You can use antivirus apps but their reliability is up for discussion.

  Is there a way to detect an intrusion attempt so that my phone will tell me if something is happening that shouldn't be?

Again, some antivirus apps like Avast warn you whenever an app that is malicious is being installed. But there are ways to outsmart it too.

Nonetheless, for your specific case, relax. I really don't think you are at risk.


Verifying USB-C voltage I have heard about some USB-C chargers frying tablets, phones, etc. If I ordered a generic charger online for price reasons, how can I can verify its voltage before using it with my Android devices?

There exists an Android app for this purpose called "USBCheck":
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jacob.uk.com.usbcheck

Unfortunately it is currently only supporting Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P.


How to mount sdcard1 (external SD) as internal storage? I understand that there are many tutorials and the like on this very subject, but none ever really matched my exact situation...
   I have a rooted moto g in which I have a 200gb micro sd card (laptop is down right now, I download all my media with my moto) and a mere 5gb of internal storage.   Now it becomes confusing for me... my storage folders are named 0 and 1, internal and external... and my "internal" storage is labeled as"emulated" sdcard0.  If I enter the sdcard shortcut from my phone's root directory I'm taken to this emulated SD.
   So, okay, I'm assuming that my internal storage is partitioned in two, perhaps the first partition is dynamically allocated so I have a place to store my pics and downloads at the same time maintaining the files in /data...so now I'm stuck constantly moving files from internal to external every time I download something because I get  insufficient storage warnings.  So how would I go about dedicating the 5gb totally to my /data and having the phone then make my 15gb sd take the place of emulated sdcard 0?

Due to how Android handles SD card permissions, it is no longer possible to "swap" the internal and external storage of the device and trick it to use the SD card as "internal" storage any more.

Since you are rooted, I would look into any of several Android 6 based ROMs that are available for the Moto G, after installing one of those you can adopt the the SD card as internal storage. Be aware that this will make the card unreadable in other devices without reformatting it and it can only be seen via a USB connection since it will be formatted as ext4 and encrypted. I would recommend using XDA's Moto G forum area for more information regarding specific ROMs and how to flash them.

The other option would be to use an application like Link2SD, which would require you to partition and reformat your SD card, and it uses symbolic links to the partition on the SD card. This still requires the app be installed on the device first and moved, but it can free up significant space and using the paid version can move even more data to the SD card. See the application linked above for more information.


How to Flash Android 5.1 in Moto E XT1022 I've update my Motorola Moto E with Android 5.0.2 in Soak Test. Here's my S/W version. . Somehow I was unable to got Android 5.1 update. thus I've decided to install it manually.
I've found Moto E 5.1 Stock ROM Here! But, my problem is how to follow these steps mentioned in website.  I mean what is Custom Recovery (TWRP), what is Factory Reset (System, Data, Cache, Dalvik)* and How to Flash ROM?. How to do this?.Thanks in advanced for any kind of suggestions, help or tutorial link etc...

A custom recovery is a replacement recovery software for your device. It basically has a backup feature and a system for installing unsigned updates (flashable zips).

Factory reset is a wipe of your user data and cache partitions. It does not affect other partitions, and can be done via stock recovery.

Flashing a ROM can be done in two ways: fastboot or some flash tool for stock ROMs, and for custom ones, by flashing a ROM zip through a custom recovery. For the installation of a custom ROM, not one of its updates, these partitions should be wiped: system, data, cache (app data cache), and dalvik cache (app code cache). Further information depends on the particular variant of the device you are on.


How can I test my ePub files in Android emulator? I have installed the Android emulator and everything is going fine. But I don't know how to test my ePub in it. This is actually the main reason I installed Android emulator and SDK, to test out my ePub's.

Target Name: Android 1.4
Platform: 4.1
API Level: 16

Thanks in advance!

Install different ebook readers like Aldiko / Moon+ Reader etc and see whether your ePub displays as intended.


How to root Xperia P device How do I get root access for my Xperia P device runing Jelly Bean(4.1)?

Is it required to unlock bootloader before trying to root the phone?

Okay here is how to root  without unlocking bootloader for XP Jellybean. This is confirmed working and do it in your own risk.

Note:
Charge your phone to 100% before doing this and back up contact,message and any other installed app.

Download and install Flashtool (If you dont know how to flash using flashtool follow this tutorial
Download Sony Xperia P_6.1.1.B.1.75_Generic World from here
Put the ftf file inside the firmware folder of flashtool
Turn Usb Debugging on in your phone
Shut down your Xperia P
Press the lightning icon inside flashtool
Select FLASHMODE (NOT FASTBOOT)
Choose the Sony Xperia P_6.1.1.B.1.75_Generic World ftf file for XP
When flashtool ask you to connect your device, insert USB cable first in your phone then hold Volume Down Button and insert the other end of USB in your PC
Wait till it finish
Disconnect your phone and power on. You are back in ICS
Flash 0.559 kernel via flashtool
Remove the phone from PC, reboot the phone
Connect the phone to PC
Open flashtool hit the root button
When you see "waiting for restore to finish" open your phone and run Backup&Restore app and restore RootMe.tar file.
Wait until Flashtool do the rest of work
When u r done flash .75 kernel via flashtool reboot the phone
Download CWM
Extract the folder
Connect your phone to the pc with USB debugging
Click on install.bat
Download JB KERNEL and PRE ROOTED JB
Put it on your SD card
Well Now shut down you Xperia P
Turn it on
Enter CWM Recovery by pressing volume down (dont hold the volume button put press repeatedly move up and down using volume button select using power button)
Mount System
Mount Data
Mount Cache
Flash the JB Kernel Zip
Again Mount System
Mount Data
Mount Cache
Flash the JB_prerooted_6.2.A.0.400.zip
Do Not Reboot !!
Wipe Data/Factory Reset
Reboot !!

It take some minutes, But just wait with patience

For the 1st time you may get FC from Thememanager and Timescape

Enjoy Rooted JB !!!

Source: XDA


Why can't Windows detect phones, even when the USB driver is installed? After reinstalling Windows, both two of my Samsung phones cannot be recognized by the OS. In Device Manager it shows this:

I tried to install:

Samsung USB Driver for Windows
Android Studio and SDK
Samsung Smart Switch

And activated USB Debugging mode, but none of this still work.
Despite of that Odin can still detect it:

Using adb devices -l yields this result:
List of devices attached
420039c4de446300       device product:j1x3gxx model:SM_J120H device:j1x3g

or
List of devices attached
504bc61e               device product:j2y18ltedx model:SM_J250F device:j2y18lte

Do you know why?

Often you first have to install the driver and then connect the device. If you do it the other way around the driver will not be applied correctly. Delete the shown MTP entry and disconnect + reconnect your phone. Also run Windows update with enabled "updates for all Microsoft products".
Regarding adb your new PC is unknown to the device (because the stored adb RSA key has been lost because of the new installation) and therefore it denies adb access (device unauthorized).
You first have to unlock the device (enter pin/password/pattern) and then accept the dialog that asks you if your device is allowed to connect via adb.
And that Odin works at the same time is because Odin uses different drivers. From the perspective of your computer you have 3 USB devices, one for MTP, one for adb and one for Odin. Check it out by selecting the MTP device and then changing the device manager "View" -> "Devices by connection".
You will see al the USB device endpoints from your device.


How can I restore the display of the battery status on the lockscreen? I have a Samsung Galaxy Fit - GT S5670 model. When I charge the battery, there used be a percentage on the pattern screen. Somehow it is not showing now. All it is showing the word "Charging" but no numbers. Any ideas how can I get back the percentage status?

I have noticed that when I connect my phone with high voltage socket for charging it always shows charging percentage, but when I use a low voltage socket(using extension box, spike or similar things) it shows only "charging".


My Pixel C tablet doesn't respond to the unlock pattern and the recommend action to debrick it doesn't work I have had this Pixel C for about 3 years, possibly more.
Two days ago it stopped responding to the unlock pattern.  This seems to be a fairly irregular thing on Google devices and never fixed.  The recommended course of action is to do a factory reset.
However when I start the device with volume down and power the only options I see are:

Restart this device

Does as expected.

Switch to fastboot mode

Goes to a screen stating "Waiting for fastboot command...."

Reboot in Android Recovery

Reboots and shows the dead android with "No command" below it.

Turn off this device

Does as expected

Switch to USB recovery

Shows a page stating "For more information on USB recovery, please visit: g.co/c-recovery.  That page tells you to open up Settings - I can't unlock the device so I can't do that. If I could unlock the device I wouldn't need to do this!

The additional information is:
PRODUCT NAME: GOOGLE Smaug
HW VERSION: 5
BOOTLOADER VERSION: Google_Smaug.7900.139.0
LOCK STATE: Locked
How do I debrick my tablet?

Just in case anyone else comes this way searching for an answer, I did get one on the XDA forums.
The solution is to start the device with volume down and power pressed.  This brings you to the menu I described in my original post.
Select the Reboot in Android recovery option.  Once you get the dead android logo hold power then press and release volume up, then release power.
That will bring up another menu which allows you to do a factory reset.
Once that is done you can restore your tablet.


Can't use Google Play app from Restricted Guest Account I made a restricted guest account for others to use my device (Android 4.4.4. with CyanogenMod 11) and I am unallowed to give the account access to the Play Store. If I try and use the Play Store from the guest account it just says, "You have no permission." I can't find any way of allowing permission, as, from the settings for the guest account, the Play Store is not listed.

How can I allow the restricted account access to launch and use the Play Store app?

From this Google Product Forums Post:

  "it is not possible to be able to grant access to the Play Store. You are however
  able to grant access to the different Play apps like Books, Movies and Music.
  They will have access to the content you have."

So I'm sorry, but this is a product limitation. After all, why would you want a restricted user to be able to install apps? That sounds a bit purpose-defeating.


Can I easily redownload all my apps if I get a new phone? I am considering buying a new phone. Is there a way to easily redownload all of my apps onto the new phone without having to search for each one individually?

Yes you can.  There are a number of utilities around to do backup and restore, as well as other options.

I recently moved from the HTC Magic to the Desire HD.  The way I did it was to use a free AppBrain account.  This has a few advantages, in my opinion:

You can search for, read about and
tag for installation, applications,
on your computer, with a larger
screen/keyboard etc.
You can organise
apps into groups if you have multiple
android devices.
You can share your
apps with other people.

You can check out appbrain at http://www.appbrain.com/
If you just want straight backup and restore, Titanium backup, as mentioned by others, is a good choice. ( http://www.matrixrewriter.com/android/ )

You can also find both of them in the Android Market.


Google Sync - Accidentally synced work contacts Recently bought a new Android phone after switching from iOS. Moved my iCloud contacts into Google contacts and then added my personal and work Google account to my Android phone.

My Android phone is now showing 1000's of contacts because my work contacts have synced by mistake (only need the personal contacts on my phone). So I've disabled sync from my work account but all the contacts are still on my phone?

How do I 'reset' my phones contacts (and other sync info such as Calendars) so that it only shows and syncs with my personal google account?

I don't believe you can do this from your phone, but you can actually restore your phone's contacts to a specific day/time. Here's how you do it in Google Contacts Preview: