How to change pin on android? I have the Blackview BV8000 Pro.

Today, suddenly the pin stopped working and I can not access my phone anymore.

When restarting the Phone (without a sim card), it asks for the pin twice.
The first time, it tells me it has to know the pin to boot the device;
I enter the pin and the device boots. -> pin is correct.

Then when it gets to the normal login screen, it asks again for the pin - this time it tells me the pin is wrong.

(When a simcard is in my phone, it asks first for the pin - than boots, than asks for the sim pin, confirms that, and then asks again for the pin on the logon screen- which doesnt work anymore.

What can I do to connect to my data?

The PIN is obviously the right one, since my phone can still boot with that one. And friends who know my pin can confirm that its the correct one.
(None of my friends could access my pin in the last few hours).

What can I do? (Besides hard reset it)

Try forgot password and enter your email and password that is connected as play store id they will unlock it and sends the password on your gmail as recovery or as reset it.


What is this system icon that looks like a plus inside a diamond with three curved lines extending from its right side on Samsung? My Samsung Droid Charge has an icon in my status bar that looks like a plus inside a diamond with three curved lines extending from its right side. It is the left-most icon in the right adjusted icons in the status bar of this home screen capture.

What is this icon for? Also, is there a setting where I can remove it?

According to the manual (WARNING: pdf file) for the phone (page 24), it is the GPS icon.

Screenshot:


How to stream videos from PC to TV I have a PC with videos, an android mobile device and a TV.
I would like to use my mobile in order to stream videos from my PC to the TV.

Is the a way to do it?

The best offers I found out so far are:

connect my TV to "Rikomagic MK802 mini PC", install BSPlayer on
it and control the Rikomagic from my mobile.
Jailbreak AppleTV and use "Remote for Apple TV" app

I saw many discussions around this issue but couldn't find the right solution for me.

Any suggestions?

I'd recommend giving BubbleUPnP a try. You will need a DLNA/UPnP server on your PC for that, but there are plenty of alternatives available. Then you can use BubbleUPnP as DLNA server and control point. I use it to tell my TV what video to play (TV acts as renderer then, and can be selected from within BubbleUPnP). You can also tell the TV to play media from your Android device, of course – either from BubbleUPnP (as control point), or from your TV browsing it.

Note, however, that for this to work, it has some pre-conditions:

your TV must support DLNA (and ideally act as a media renderer)
you need a DLNA/UPnP server software on your PC (if you're on Windows, I've heard Media Player should do)


Edit default applications to open KML file? This is a more general question than simply handling KML files, but this is the issue I currently have.

I was looking for an application that could not only download maps for offline use (so I can turn off roaming and avoid paying for data access while travelling), but also display a list  of user-defined applications (created on a computer with eg. Google Maps).

MapsWithMe Pro is supposed to be able to open a KML file, but when opening the attachment in Gmail, I'm not given the choice of opening it with MapsWithMe: For some reason, it opens it with MoboPlayer, which handles audio/video files and obviously complains that it doesn't support KML fils. Google didn't help.

Does someone know how to reconfigure Android (4.2.1 on Galaxy Nexus) so that I'm prompted for which application to open KML files with?

Thank you.

To my knowledge, an app has to register for that -- so it's not simply a question of configuration. You might want to try some other apps which are able to handle KML files, e.g. Locus Maps. If it registers itself for this file type, it then should appear in the selection, and you can make it the default app.

As it turned out, this was exactly what happened with Maps With Me, so that's one candidate working for KML files.


After deleting photos from my phone via computer, there are still empty placeholders in my gallery yesterday I deleted some of my photos from my HTC 10 with the help of my computer.

Later, as I browsed through my gallery, there were spots, where previously been the now deleted pictures. These spots are simply black and if I click on them, there is a loading animation, but nothing happens, and I can't delete or do any other thing with it.

edit:

I did clear the cache and reboot my phone...

and i browse the web, but didn't find anything for my problem

You can try rebuild the media library. Go to Apps in Settings, make it show system apps and locate the app Media Storage, force stop it and clear its data (not cache), then reboot and wait for 15~20 minutes for a full rescan/rebuild.


What is the difference between AMD Appzone and the original Bluestacks app player? i would like to know what is the difference between these two ? Is AMD Appzone just a launcher, or appstore, or what ? They have different UI, but is that the only difference ?

Bluestacks have entered a partnership with AMD, and released AMD AppZone which is powered by Bluestacks technology.
As one article puts it:

  Another rather fabulous step towards total cross-platform compatibility has been made this week as the AMD AppZone Player is announced with full BlueStacks power under the hood.

Here is one article on the partnership.

  BlueStacks today announced a collaboration with AMD to launch AMD AppZone, the largest collection of Android apps which can be run on PCs. Powered by BlueStacks, the AMD AppZone Player brings hundreds of thousands of Android apps to the next generation of Windows 8 based slates, laptops, tablets and AiO desktop PCs. AMD AppZone is also available for AMD’s massive global installed base of Windows 7 based PCs. The collaboration with BlueStacks with optimizations for AMD GPU and APU technology enables a superior experience through AppZone on AMD powered PCs relative to other app stores like AppUp.

 Here is another article on it and an excerpt:

  BlueStacks made quite a splash when they released their alpha x86 Android app player for Windows late last year. When AMD invested millions of dollars into the company, it was clear that they were planning on leveraging the ever-expanding Android platform to put a shot into the arm of their PC chip business. Nearly a year after the initial investment, they're ready to make good: head on over to the official site to check out the shiny new AMD App Zone.

AMD AppZone official site

Here is a link to the AMD AppZone  App for Windows (Microsoft Site)


Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100): possible with stock Google Android OS? I'm in the market for a new Smartphone. Except for iPhone's, I'm new in the field and probably have some misconceptions.

My first choice was the Google Nexus S, but I was offered a great deal on the Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100). The only issue is that I read that it came with an "enhanced" version of Android. Being familiar with PC's, I know that these enhancements are almost always bloatware: I always do a clean install of Windows to get rid of it.

My question is fairly simple: is this possible to use the stock Google Android OS on the Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100)? That was the killer feature of the Nexus S for me: coming directly from Google, easily upgradable. Would that be possible and if yes, how?

Thank you for enlightening me.

It is very unlikely that Samsung will ever release an unmodified Android firmware for the Galaxy S II. They've never released one for their Galaxy S family of phones without their TouchWiz "enhancements".

Historically the only Android devices that have run the stock OS have been the very early phones released by each manufacturer (before they'd written their own customizations) and the Google Nexus series of phones. If you stray away from that you are going to get modified firmwares, interfaces and apps.

One of the big downsides to using a phone that has extensive manufacturer customizations is that this means that they will generally be a lot slower in pushing out updated versions of the Android OS to you. Phones with manufacturer customized OS's are normally updated months after the Nexus devices, if ever. This is because the manufacturers have to do lots of work and testing to re-integrate all of their changes and customizations back into the OS every time the base OS changes. Factor in the fact that phone companies often drag their feet in certifying the updated OS's on their networks and you have a huge set of delays before the updates reach your phone.

The big upsides to a customized OS is that the manufacturer will often add a lot of features that aren't available to stock OS phones, eg Samsung's TouchWiz offered built-in wireless tethering well before it was added to the stock OS in Froyo, both HTC Sense and Samsung TouchWiz add remote phone tracking and wiping features to the phones (in most geographic regions), their media players can generally play more formats, and the interfaces often look "nicer".

Your main option for "clean" firmwares running the stock OS for non-Nexus phones is to use unofficial custom ROMs. Many of these use the stock Android interface and apps, with only minimal changes to either. See these questions for more on custom ROMs: What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc, and What is the meaning of “flashing a custom ROM”?

Also see this previous question: Android phones without custom UIs

UPDATE: Since this answer was written one things has changed. In mid-2013 Google started offering "Google Play Edition" phones for sale on the Play Store in certain regions in addition to their own Nexus line of devices. These "Google Play Edition" phones tend to be some of the more popular, higher-end GSM phones and are offered with the plain Android OS with Google Apps, and without any manufacturer or carrier modifications, just like Nexus phones. So far these phones have been getting OS updates much faster than their manufacturer modified brethren.

So far the phones available on there in "Pure Google" versions include the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, LG G Pad 8.3, Sony Z Ultra, and Motorola Moto G.

As these are generally the exact same hardware as their manufacturer branded siblings there are often fairly simple ways to apply these "clean" OSs to branded phones (but do check that you really do have the same hardware, some of these phones have variations with the same name, but different hardware in them, eg they may be available in GSM, CDMA, LTE versions with totally different radio hardware and SoC CPUs).


Is there any way to install android app without having internet? I just bought a Samsung Galaxy Mini S, but I don't have 3g or wi-fi internet - I have internet only on my computer. Is there any way to install android apps without internet, via bluetooth or using the USB cable? (I do have bluetooth on my computer).

If it's possible to install the apps than where could I download the apps? The Market doesn't let me download them to my computer.

Yes: you can connect the phone to your computer via USB, click the notification on your phone to mount the USB storage to the PC, move downloaded apps from your computer to your phone (easiest if you put them on the SD card), and browse on your phone to where you put the apps and click on them to install them.

Your phone should have a file browser, but if it doesn't I recommend Explorer.  You'll need to enable Unknown Sources in Settings -> Applications as well.  You can download apps to your PC most easily from alternative markets like GetJar.

If you have installed something like Download Crutch so that you can download any type of file, or are using a non-stock browser that will ignore Android's restriction on downloads, then you can of course just download the .apk's directly to your device and skip the PC.


How to run Android in Virtualbox on Linux? For days I try to get Android 5 or higher running inside Virtualbox on Linux (here: Mint 18.1), without success. At best, I get past the boot menu (Grub), the system switches to graphics mode, and I see the pulsating "Android": After a few seconds, disk access ceases, and the VM hangs with 100% CPU load.

I've searched the web up and down, and tried all the tricks I could find: increasing RAM to 2G, video memory to 128M, CPU count to 2. Switching the VM from "Linux (other)" to "BSD", trying 64bit and 32bit images (the 64bit images even get stuck at a black screen before the pulsating "Android" letters), the latter in 64bit and 32bit VMs, from the Android-x86 project via RemixOS to Phoenix, Android 5.1 to 7 – nothing gives.

Where's the trick?

Please don't point me to those numerous guides based on Virtualbox running on Windows. I've followed a bunch of them without luck. Nor do I want to use QEMU for that (draws in too many dependencies I don't want to install), or Genymotion etc (where I'd have to register). I'm interested in help from those who've got it running fine in Virtualbox on Linux.

I've also seen similar questions here and followed the advice from their answers:

Android x86 Marshmallow not booting on Virtualbox and VMware Workstation
adding vga=834 nomodeset xforcevesa to the kernel options just caused the hang happen even earlier. The other advices I already had followed. The .vdi taken from OSBoxes had the same issues.
other questions are either not for Virtualbox, or concerning pre-Lolliop. As the linked question above shows, the problem seems also to be present with VMWare.

How did you get it to run?

Note in between: I might soon be able to self-answer, but first need to verify and, if possible, improve: I meanwhile managed to fully boot an ISO with RemixOS, using "FreeBSD 64bit" for that 32bit image. The boot just took AGES to complete (about 15min before the pulsing "RemixOS" text got replaced by the welcome screen). It might be that's the first boot only, and after installing it to "disk" and having that running once, the next boot is faster. As soon as I find time, I'll dig deeper – and then will remove this paragraph and post an answer instead.

I was able to install Android-x86 on my Debian 9 box with no real problem.   Following are my system details, the articles I followed, commands I used and lastly the settings info of the VM itself.

System:

Chassis: desktop
Desktop Environment: Gnome 3.22.2
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 9.1 (stretch)
Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64
Architecture: x86-64
Processor: Intel Core i5-4570S CPU @ 2.90GHz × 4
Processor supports HW virtualization: yes
Processor supports PAE: yes
Processor supports long mode: yes
Processor supports nested paging: yes
Memory: 15.4 GiB   Graphics: Intel® Haswell Desktop
Disk: 1.1 TB

First I installed VirtualBox 5.1:

$ cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
$ sudo touch virtualbox.list
$ sudo nano virtualbox.list

In nano I typed:
 deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian stretch contrib

Then to save and exit nano editor:

ctrl+o
ctrl+x

Then to get keys, update repos and install VB.

$ cd ~/Keys
$ curl -O https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc
$ sudo apt-key add oracle_vbox_2016.asc
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.1

Then I set about installing Android-x86:

First I downloaded Android-x86 6.0-r3 (the third stable release of marshmallow-x86) from here. Then I followed this article: "How to Install Android in VirtualBox"
by Cameron Summerson, dated June 29th, 2017.  The only snag I ran into was for mouse support.

The suggestion here didn't work for me but it might work for someone else.

So then I tried the discussion here which instructed to turn off VM which in my case is  "Android" and try the command:

$ VBoxManage modifyvm Android --mouse ps2

After turning Android VM back on, I had mouse support.

These are the VM's settings info as retrieved by CLI command:

$ VBoxManage showvminfo Android --details

Name:            Android
Groups:          /
Guest OS:        Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (64-bit)
UUID:            a8a28a18-2d9a-4aff-872c-890d72ec9e8f
Config file:     /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Android.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Snapshots
Log folder:      /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Logs
Hardware UUID:   a8a28a18-2d9a-4aff-872c-890d72ec9e8f
Memory size:     6020MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       48MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  4
PAE:             off
Long Mode:       on
Triple Fault Reset: off
APIC:            on
X2APIC:          on
CPUID Portability Level: 0
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
BIOS APIC mode:  APIC
Time offset:     0ms
RTC:             UTC
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     off
VT-x VPID:       on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Default
Effective Paravirt. Provider: KVM
State:           running (since 2017-08-04T02:01:58.782000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration:
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend:
Storage Controller Name (0):            IDE
Storage Controller Type (0):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
Storage Controller Name (1):            SATA
Storage Controller Type (1):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      1
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
IDE (1, 0): Empty
SATA (0, 0): /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Android.vdi (UUID: a111cb34-b24f-4b38-ac32-bc33428f8b55)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027D5FAC2, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings:  MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, receive: 64)
NIC 2:           disabled
NIC 3:           disabled
NIC 4:           disabled
NIC 5:           disabled
NIC 6:           disabled
NIC 7:           disabled
NIC 8:           disabled
Pointing Device: PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1:          disabled
UART 2:          disabled
UART 3:          disabled
UART 4:          disabled
LPT 1:           disabled
LPT 2:           disabled
Audio:           enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: AC97, Codec: AD1980)
Clipboard Mode:  disabled
Drag and drop Mode: disabled
Session name:    GUI/Qt
Video mode:      1024x768x32 at 0,0 enabled
VRDE:            disabled
USB:             enabled
EHCI:            disabled
XHCI:            disabled
USB Device Filters:

Available remote USB devices:

Currently Attached USB Devices:

Bandwidth groups:
Shared folders:
Name: 'shine', Host path: '/home/shine' (machine mapping), writable
VRDE Connection:    not active
Clients so far:     0
Video capturing:    not active
Capture screens:    0
Capture file:       /home/shine/VirtualBox VMs/Android/Android.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate:       512 kbps
Capture FPS:        25
Guest:
Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB
OS type:                             Linux26_64
Additions run level:                 0
Guest Facilities:
No active facilities.


Coolpad 3622a. No USB recognition on PC I had an earlier cool pad a few years ago and it wouldn't show up either.its a metro pcs.that has been factory reset stops at the Google pre owner login. I used the keyboard work around got into phone went on web and none of the you tubes FRP were exactly helpful. It let me rename startup apk  and of course it stops at the metro logo on boot now considered adb. Called metro they don't have any info on that imei #. I was only requesting old phone number because the sim I put in it was receiving calls (and with previous workaround could dial out). But no recognition from USB?

FRP locks everything. Don't expect your device to be detected while FRP is enabled! By the way, you need to enabled USB debugging in the developer options to get ADB work which is locked as well.

So just keep trying to find a suitable method to bypass the lock on your device since Google actively patchs loop hole so none of the methods found on YouTube videos works anymore.


Hiding the content of the message while the phone is unlocked! How can I hide the message content in this "drop down menu -- I don't know what's its name". It is hidden when the phone is locked I want to hide it when the phone is unlocked as well.

You will have to completely block the notifications from showing. Or go with the app @Firelord advised on the comments.

From WhatsApp's Configuring your notifications:

  Navigate to your phone's Settings app >
  Apps & notifications > WhatsApp > App notifications . On most phones, you will have the option to:

  Block all notifications if you wish for no notifications and not even the WhatsApp icon to appear on your phone's status bar.

The above advice can be applied to any app.


htc desire z keeps restarting on its own My HTC Desire Z keeps restarting on its own continuously, how do I stop it and how can I switch on my phone now? I tried removing the battery but that didn't work.

Can anyone help?

Pull the battery, put it back in press volume down +power , it will boot into Hboot, then use volume to scroll down and select recovery, then restore a backup or flash rom again.


Run Google Chrome with flags (not from chrome://flags) There are command line flags (or "switches") that Chromium (and Chrome) accept in order to enable particular features or modify otherwise default functionality.

Chromium Command Line Switches

Run Chromium with flags

Tried Chrome 41.0.xx and Chromium 43.0.xxx shell with:

# echo "chrome <flags>" > /data/local/tmp/android-webview-command-line
# echo "chrome <flags>" > /data/local/tmp/content-shell-command-line
# echo "chrome --sync-url whatever" > /data/local/tmp/chrome-command-line

Want to add --sync-url flag to use my sync server instead of Google sync servers. chrome://flags only enable/disable flags but wont let you add new flag. Any idea how to run Chrome with flags on Android or directly add these into default profile?

You need to add the entire command into the /data/local/tmp/chrome-command-line file. For example, I usually you want to skip the "First run experience", and I do:

# echo "chrome --disable-fre" > /data/local/tmp/chrome-command-line

You probably need

# echo "chrome --sync-url whatever" > /data/local/tmp/chrome-command-line


How to evaluate generic no-name tablets? I have pretty much decided to buy a cheap Chinese generic / no-name tablet before I leave Taiwan.

This will be my first Android and my first touchscreen device of any kind. I'm buying something very cheap because right now I don't have much disposable money and don't need a serious bit of hardware. This will be more or less a toy to play with the tech.

That being said I still want to avoid the worst pieces of hardware and get the best value for my money. But of course reviews for generic devices are hard to find and sometimes they don't even seem to have brand names or model numbers.

So what should I do to evaluate an Android tablet that I physically can play with in a consumer electronics market?

Not easy to say. Android version is an obvious starting point and is much more important than with bigger names because with this cheap ones, you normally don't get any support and updates, so you will be stuck with the version that came with the tablet. Don't go below KitKat if you can afford it. Jelly Bean is the absolute minimum, never below that.

After having seen a couple of smaller tablets and related user problems, I'd say the second most important point is the memory. Cheap tablets come with smaller amounts of memory and while they usually offer a card slot, this can be very deceiving. Android only allows you to move apps between the first and second memory area (provided the app itself allows it, which is usually rare, so better not counting on it). And I saw quite a few tablets where the internal memory is already partitioned in two, the memory card coming in as third, for instance, a 8 GB tablet:

1 GB internal memory
5 GB secondary memory (usually named USB memory, even if that name is a bit misleading)
your memory card, say, 16 GB

In this setup, you can't move apps to the memory card, only to the secondary ("USB") memory. And because most of your apps will not move at all, you're practically limited to 1 GB of actual app storage that is hardly enough for the standard selection of browsers, video players, Facebook and similar stuff and the memory card won't help you, either. The problem is, the manufacturer will not tell you this, they will simply state that you have a 8 GB tablet, 6 GB available. Which is, of course, true, considering that 1 + 5 = 6 but this doesn't reveal the whole situation.

Somehow you have to make sure that it isn't partitioned this way, that you will have at least 2-4 GB of real, app-usable memory to play with. The more the better, of course. But you'll need either personal testing or at least a reliable review somewhere where they describe it precisely enough. If you can check it out in the flesh in a store, that would really help.


Serious issue of ADB auto exiting ADB always exits by itself causing (many times) almost wiping my data folder on PC instead of /data on Android.

It does this even while I'm typing commands (!) as if there is a timer that makes it exit after some time.

How to prevent this from happening?

Device details: Galaxy S2 with newest cyanogenmod nightly (based on Android 4.4.4); the clockworkmod version is 6.0.5.0 or 6.0.4.8 (If I flash Dorimanx Kernel 10.43v113)

PC details Lubuntu 14.04/14.10 amd64 version with Linux 3.16-rc3

I don't know if this is the reason for you, but I've seen the symptoms you describe caused by USB problems. There are two particular possible problems:

The cable is loose, probably at the device end. Then wiggling it slightly can cause a brief disconnection. You wouldn't normally notice this, because it only lasts for a second, but it'll terminate an adb shell session, or if you're deploying an app onto the device when it happens, it'll interrupt the transfer.

There's congestion on the USB bus. This can happen when several devices (whether that's several Android devices, or one Android device and something else such as a USB stick or webcam) are connected to the same hub. ADB is not very resilient to bus congestion, so it can disconnect while you're doing a high-bandwidth operation, such as taking a screenshot or running an adb shell command with lots of output.
Sometimes this can cause a brief disconnection, but sometimes the protocol gets into a bad state, and you can only recover by physically unplugging the device and plugging it back in again.

In either case, you can tell that this is happening because, even if the disconnection is momentary, the device shows the USB debugging notification again as if it had been fully unplugged.


WIFI not Connecting on my Samsung S Duos My home networks says Saved, Secured but when i open internet it says no internet connection

First check whether its just the Wi-Fi on your phone or the LAN on your System.

There are many possibilities with the Wi-Fi not working properly.

Either the key is not matched with the key you configured under your modem Wi-Fi password.
Signal might be weak. ( if signal<=10% then some devices Wi-Fi
connection is disabled to save power)
In-appropriate configuration of your modem due to which although the
connection might be established you might not be able to browse
thereby showing no internet connection.

For this reason Wi-Fi is termed to have very least preference because of heavy loss of Data during the transmission or disturbance.

Solution:-
If you signal is weak try to get more strength by getting near to
    you Wi-Fi or having an external hardware that could boost your
    signal strength.
If the key is not matched then you need to enter the appropriate the
password as set by you.
If the connection is not configured then you need to check your
manual and Configure the Wi-Fi settings properly and click forget on your old Wi-Fi network to re-configure the network on your device.


Gmail closes when i touch icon in blue address bar I'VE have a dgm t909s tablet android 4, when I am in the gmail app and I press the icon in the blue address bar a box pops up with ( unfortunatly gmail has stopped) and closes down the app.
Anyone got any answers please

It sounds like your tablet is missing the 'Contacts' or 'People' app (or has one customized by the manufacturer, which doesn't understand the same intents). Since every OHA-certified Android device has it, Gmail is trying to launch it without checking whether it exists, and that's what's going wrong.

If you disabled the app yourself (by clicking Disable in the app's page in Settings → Apps), then you have to re-enable it to avoid this problem.

If the Gmail app was pre-installed on your tablet, then this is a system integration error. You should complain to the manufacturers and ask them to release an update to fix the problem.

Until then, or if you installed Gmail yourself on a tablet that doesn't support it, you should be able to fix the problem if you can find and install the original Contacts or People app.


Does "trusted device" unlocking work with an encrypted device? Since Android 5.0, encrypting a device doesn't require configuring a complex alphanumeric screen lock password anymore.

Does this also work combined with with unlocking the device using a "trusted device" connected over bluetooth, or a trusted NFC tag, a.k.a. "Smart Lock"?

Yes, it does. I'm on a Nexus 6, fully encrypted, and I use multiple Smart Lock features, including Trusted devices, Trusted places, Trusted face, and On-Body detection.


A few questions about android 7 on a new phone Why does my mobile provider only show in the topbar on the lock screen? How can I get it to show on the topbar when unlocked?

Also in the drop down menu with the icons for some often used settings I see "no sim card", what is this for? I thought maybe as I can't see the provider in the topbar that there was a problem with the sim card, but I without wifi I was able to call someone.

When I look at the sim "settings->sim cards" there is a telephone number on my sim card, but it is not mine (the card was new to replace my old one). Is it ok to update this number?

Apparently, on dual SIM phones, this is normal. The provider name will only appear on the lock screen.

Also, in the quick settings menu, it is normal to see the 'no Sim' setting. It's there in case you do insert a second Sim, you'll be able to change different settings.

There is no problem with changing the phone number in Sim settings, to your current number.


Is 'SELinux enforcing' responsible? My HTC android mobile is rooted after unlocking the bootloader, but it is with S-ON. When I write some files(I mean copy and paste) inside my '/system' partition for the purpose of applying a 'Mod', it works , but whenever I make a reboot, those files vanish. Is it due to 'S-ON' or is it due to 'SELinux enforced' ? What for is 'SELinux permissive' required?

It is due to S-ON, so changes made to /system while the phone is running is not permanent, and will be reset upon a reboot of the device.  For information on SELinux in Android, review this link https://source.android.com/security/selinux/.
A brief explanation, taken from the above link:

"With SELinux, Android can better protect and confine system services,
control access to application data and system logs, reduce the effects
of malicious software, and protect users from potential flaws in code
on mobile devices."
"Permissive mode - in which permission denials are logged but not
enforced."
"Enforcing mode - in which permissions denials are both logged and
enforced."


Problem restoring my .ab backup file I know this might be duplicate but I couldn't find any relevant solution myself.

Today I tried to be adventurous and install Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus 7 and it was a failure. As a safety measure I backed up my device's data using the following command on a Windows 7 OS:

adb backup all -f ./nexus.ab -shared -apk

It took forever and created a 1.6GB file (sounds reasonable to me). But the thing is, when it was done even though the back up screen on my device was gone but the command didn't return in Windows and I had to press ctrl+c.

So I went through my adventure and in the process I had to unlock my bootloader and as a result all my data was wiped out (I read that it will happen and I was ok with it since I had already backed up my data). Once I was through with my adventure (and failed), I tried to restore my data using the following command (on the same machine as I created the back up):

adb restore ./nexus.ab

It takes for ages and after it is done, it prompts nothing (no success or failure). I can tell that it is done since the restore screen on device will be gone and the command will return in Windows. But when I turn on my device it's the same as it came out of the box. So is there any hope left? How can I make sure if my back up file is corrupted or everything is going fine? Do I need to do anything after my back up file is restored?

Try looking at the logcat output. I had a similar issue with multiple devices (all of the same manufacturer, though not yours) -- and it turned out they obviously had a bug in ADB implementation (logcat showed a parse error for the backup file).

If your situation is comparable (some ADB bug on your device's firmware), you can forget restoring that backup using ADB. Still, there are alternatives:

As you can read in the tag-wiki or our backup tag, there are other apps which can read and restore from ADB backups. Such as e.g. Titanium Backup. I'm not sure if this feature is reserved for the Pro version, but it's at least worth a try with the free one. And even if, this app is worth buying. Note, however, that your device must be rooted for this.

Copy your nexus.ab to the SDCard of your Nexus (I know it has no microSD slot, but the internal SD should do). Then use TiBu to restore from that backup file. You might not be able to restore everything (I never tried, so I'm not sure how far it goes) -- but at least your apps and their data should be able to get restored.

A second way (to be used for the remaining things) is to manually unpack the backup archive. Details can be found here:

How do you extract an App's data from a full backup made through “adb backup”?
Is there a way to look inside and modify an adb backup created file?

You might also wish to consult other questions tagged "adb+backup" for additional information.


Call Recorder Issue in HTC Devices? I am unable to record calls on my HTC device, and also there is not any app to record the calls. So I tried with the Third party apps from Play store, but then to I am just able to Listen my voice not the other person with whom I am in call with? So is this the issue with software or just with my device?

Some devices don't use the Android system to process the audio that comes from the other end in a phone call: the audio goes straight from the phone hardware to the sound hardware. On such devices, there's no way to record that audio using software on the device.

It sounds like your HTC phone is such a device.


When am trying to change my number on Sumsung Galaxy A5 it's "unknown". And I can't also make a call with the current number What do I have do to be able to change my number and also to make a call?

If you also can't make a call, it sounds like a problem with the SIM card. You should contact your carrier and ask them for help. They might need to send you a new SIM card.


TCP/IP tethering over Bluetooth I have a Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0 and I would like to browse the web over a bluetooth connection to my computer. I can connect to the computer but the browser doesn't have internet connectivity even though the computer does. Also, the Bluetooth standards indicate that this is supported.

Anyone ever have this issue?

Install Open Garden on your Android device. It interconnects devices to create peer-to-peer mesh network over Bluetooth. It supports Internet sharing, too. You will need to install its mesh client on laptop, too.


How to avoid roaming question on dual-sim calls? I have a mobile phone with a dual-sim slot and I inserted a SIM in each of them.One of the SIMs get logged in in national roaming which is ok as there is a cooperation between my native service provider and the "foreign" one.
I use a separate app (Roaming Control) to handle roaming correctly.
If now I am logged in in the foreign net and I call out to anybody I get a message, to confirm using roaming and not the secondary SIM which is in its native net:

Roaming warning
The SIM card that you are about to use is now in roaming. Would you like to continue?

I have to confirm manually which is no problem as long as I have the phone in my hands.
If I am sitting in my car and I use a voice dialer this is nasty: The call does wait for the entry of my decision but does not show the question as the display is in general turned off beforehand. Thus I have to wait for the ring tone and if it is not coming I have to take the phone in my hands (!) and confirm the roaming.
Is there a way to disable this warning?

In my Android 4.2.1, I have to set Settings → SIM Management → Roaming → Show roaming reminder → Never.

Alternatively, use adb to disable the notification for a particular SIM.

Setup ADB in PC, enable USB debugging in device, connect the device into PC, launch a shell on latter and follow these instructions:

To enable data roaming for default SIM, enter:

adb shell settings put global data_roaming 1

Changes would take effect immediately. For SIM2, change the key to data_roaming_2.

If you want to know the details about this command, enter adb shell settings. You would easily come to know what the aforesaid command would do.


Can I remove the "USB Configuration\KIES\UMS" splash-screen? Everytime that I plug my Android smartphone on my USB PC port to recharge the batteries a splash-screen popup telling me to choose between "KIES and UMS-only configuration" and I need to chose "Cancel" to make the screen extinguish it light. There is some configuration to set one of these modes and cancel this choose process?

My smartphone is a Galaxy 551 with 2.2 Froyo Android.

Thank you.

On my Galaxy S, turning on USB debug mode in Settings -> Applications -> Development turns off this notification.


Reliability of Type C vs. micro-USB vs. SD card I don't use cloud services. I just manually backup my phone using a rotation of a few SD cards I own, and when I have access to a family computer, I transfer what's in those cards to the computer, in order to "double" backup.
(Not the best approach but works fine for me.)
A few years ago (pre-type-C being the norm), I tried to depart from SD cards (just for convenience, so that I wouldn't have to remove and insert them to/from my SIM tray all the time) and gave some flash drives and external HD's (via an OTG micro-USB cable) a chance, as they're more "plug and play".
Me being careful in general with my equipment and their cables, and always mindful about properly ejecting flash/hard drives, it's safe to say I've almost never experienced corrupted files on a computer.
But that wasn't the case on my phone. I tried both flash and hard drives (even with an externally powered OTG cable) and I'd encounter some corrupted files after moving them back and forth.
So I just figured micro-USB might be unreliable for this purpose and I went back to using SD cards.
Has type C been any different? Other than transfer speed (which is not my biggest concern) is it more reliable than micro-USB?
In terms of reliability alone where does it rank between micro-USB and SD cards? Am I better off with my SD cards as it is, or type C is reliable enough, for me to quit SD cards and start using it instead?
Like I said, type C's transfer speed is less important than reliability, but it's tempting nonetheless.

USB-C has multiple advantages, however speed is usually not one of it. Unless you buy a high-end smartphone the USB-C port usually operates with USB 2.0 speed. But that is device specific, hence check it out what USB transfer speed is supported by your device.
However from my USB-C has from my perspective the following advantages:

Easier handling (easier to plug-in, reversability)
Because of the easier plug-in the chance to break the USB-port soldering is lower - broken USB-ports because of inserted too often too much force is a common problem
I am not 100% sure but I would assume that the durability of an USB-C port is higher than micro-USB when it comes to plug cycles
For USB-C- USB sticks you don't need an adapter (however considering 2. an adapter cable also has advantages compared to a large USB-C stick - the smaller the stick/plug the lower the force that can be applied orthogonally to the USB-plug (because of the leverage).

On the other had you have to consider that micro-SD card slots are usually not designed for may insert/eject cycles. Therefore I would be carefully when regularly use if for inserting an card for backup purposes. An Micro-USB or USB-C port is usually designed for way more plug cycles.
Production quality of Micro-USB plugs and connectors
I don't know if this is a problem of cheap devices only but it seems to me like the quality for Micro-USB plugs and connectors is often terrible. At the moment I have devices and cables that are all "Micro-USB" but some Micro USB connectors are so tight that not all of my cables fit (e.g. a Nokia 2.2 phone) and on other devices the standard Micro USB cables are so loose that the plug pops out if I move the device a few centimetre (not that we are talking about brand new devices, not old device that has been plugged/unplugged hundred of times, an example: TP-Link TL-WR902AC AC750 mini router). Therefore I even got to a point where I categorize my Micro USB devices and cables into three sub-categories: thin, normal and wide.
Another problem of Micro-USB pugs is that not every plug fits regarding it's length.


How to access the browser history beyond the last 7 days of the default browser? I know it's possible to view the entire browser history in other browsers. I can only see the last 7 days of my browsing history. How can I see which sites I visited beyond just the last week? Or are those getting deleted?

My phone: Android 5.0, Samsung Galaxy S5

Leaving this question up so that other people having the same issue may find help and in the case that someone knows a potentially better way to retrieve more of the browser-history.

I found something in:

/data/data/com.sec.android.app.sbrowser/files/ {1_tab123 files}


Way to prevent the noise when 2 phones together In using an app, for example Wechat, to have video chats.

Two Android phones A and B are sitting in the same room. The two users of A and B stated video chat with mobile phones C and D in another city, when two users of C and D are also sitting in the same room.

That is, phone A is calling phone C; phone B is calling phone D.

When the video chats started, because phones A and B,  C and D are close to each other, sharp noises started to appear.

What's the way to prevent this noises in the video chats?

Thank you.

This phenomenon is called audio feedback which usually occurs when the sound from the speakers reaches back into the microphone, and then gets amplified because of the speaker-mic loop.

Common and general solutions are to cut off the loop, or at least reduce the loop gain by:

Wearing earphone or headphone (isolate the speaker and the mic, prevent the feedback loop completely)
Mute the mic when not needed to speak (prevent the chance of feedback loop)
Reduce the speaker volume (reduce the volume gain)
Take some distance between the speakers (reduce the volume gain)


What do I use to update apps without an app store? I'm looking for an automatic Android app updater. I'm manually installing apps that I want using a web browser, and I do not have an app store (Google Play, Mobogenie, Aptoide, etc.) installed. I want to keep them as up to date as possible without the hassle of having a full-blown store that offers non-app downloads and porn (even "light porn") right on my device.

If anyone knows a good app-updating app, please leave an answer. Even better, if anyone knows of a clean, unobtrusive app store I can use, show me where I can find that.

If details are required, I am running Android "Lollipop" 5.1.1 on a Samsung Galaxy S5.

Google Play and other markets use pull technology to update your applications , without any market you cant update your applications automatically , so i recommend you to install Google Installer : http://d-h.st/ztjI

Then install the application and Download all Google Software's listed...


How to change the font of Whatsapp I was looking for a way to add custom emoticons to Whatsapp, and since this method simply replaces existing emoticons with new ones I thought about replacing characters from a language I won't use (for example Tangut, the language this iOS app used) with the desired emoticons

I wanted to know how to replace some (or all) of the characters of said language in Whatsapp using a changed font that could be installed on other phones as well

Just go to settings in your phone and change the font style.
It will change the font style in whatsapp but not the message font. You can also try installing other keyboards from Google play store with different font styles, emoticon and other languages.


I am being stalked with Android device manager I once had to locate my phone from my ex-boyfriend's cell phone. Now he is constantly locating my whereabouts with Android Device Manager. I have removed my device from his list of devices on his account. However, my device still shows up when I go to "find my phone". I do not have access to his cell phone or computer as he has moved 2000 miles away. I have tried everything I can think of online. Please help.

It's a really simple solution: change your Google password. This will lock him out of your Google account.

If he never had access to your Google account and he is tracking you from another Google account you are signed into on the phone, go into settings -> accounts and remove the offending account that gives him access to you phone's location.

If neither of these solutions work, you can disable the Android Device Manager for your device entirely. Go to settings -> security -> Android Device Manager -> Remotely Locate this Device / Allow remote lock and erase. This is a foolproof way of fixing the issue, but will remove your ability to use the Android Device Manager entirely and is a new setting added in Marshmallow, so you may not have it. The first 2 options, however should fix this.

As a side note, the fact that he is still tracking you with this against your will could give you legal grounds for stalking depending on where you live.

  Definitely add something about 2-step and make sure not to hook it up to phone number.

This is definetly something to be added, and I'll start out by explaining what it is since while it is thrown around as commonplace today, not many people really understand what it is. 2 factor authentification adds a second layer to the sign in process that makes it significantly harder to log in if you are not the account's holder. After entering the correct password, the application sends a message to the account holder with a second one time use code to log in. This code prevents others from logging in as you. However, this isn't terribly secure as the usual route of sending the message is with a text which can be easily intercepted. Instead, use Google Authenticator, which stores the second code in your phone. I won't go into the specific of why this is more secure. Just know that it is. It's an app you can download that will guide you through the process of setting it up. The second code will always be inside that app. When you need to sign in to a computer for the first time, it will ask for the second code. Open the app and type in the second code the phone is currently listing. Note that it changes every 20 seconds, so if you don't have enough time to type it in and hit enter, wait for the timer to reset.


Moto X rooting - ROM doesn't boot, but have Safestrap I'm in a curious position. I don't have a working ROM on my Moto X, but I can boot into Safestrap, and from there fastboot. If I could get a ROM onto the device I could flash it with Safestrap, but I can't find a way of doing that.

The 'adb sideload' feature of Safestrap/TWRP runs, but the only safestrap-able ROM I have is 4.4.2, and my device lacks the kernel. I tried sideloading the stock 4.2.2, but that simply fails without installing, once loaded on the device.

Fastboot will recognize the device, but trying to flash anything, or do 'fastboot boot', gives 'permission denied' or 'command restricted'.

I can execute commands on the device from Safestrap, so in theory I have a working if crippled Linux OS running. I just can't seem to get files on it. Any help?

From the OP:

OK, managed to solve this. Can't answer my own question for 8 hours, by which time I'll forget. If a mod can mark this as answered, please do

Fastboot will allow you to install signed images, apparently, so the trick is to use one of those.

Steps to resolve:

Downloaded a copy of the relevant ROM from here.
Unzipped. I couldn't just push using fastboot update because fastboot expects ROMs to contain certain informational files (android-info.txt and android-product.txt) which the above archive lacks.
Pushed each of the files using the following commands. mfastboot is the Motorola-specific fastboot, which I found here. That archive contains versions for Linux, Mac, and Windows, which is nice. (Darwin == Mac.) I'm fairly confident you can use that in place of fastboot everywhere below. Make sure you use the right carrier code and ROM! I have Verizon (vzw).

fastboot oem fb_mode_set
fastboot flash partition gpt.bin
fastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img
fastboot flash logo logo.bin
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
mfastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
fastboot erase modemst1
fastboot erase modemst2
fastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
fastboot erase cache
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot erase customize
fastboot erase clogo
fastboot oem config carrier vzw
fastboot oem fb_mode_clear

Done! At this stage I rebooted and it was exactly as new.


Cyanogenmod 9 stuck in boot loop Let me start off by saying that I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus.

I flashed cyanogenmod 10.1 last night and was having some issues so I decided to go back to 9.  Unfortunately clockworkmod wasn't able to use my recovery data due to the new profile feature in Android 4.2.2.  So instead, I flashed CyanogenMod 9 once again.  Not when I boot it, it just stays on the blue loading screen.  I can't even get to recovery mode because when I boot in Odin I get the message "Downloading... do not turn off target"

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

You should be able to get into fastboot mode (which bypasses the download mode you are currently in) by pressing and holding the Volume Up and Down buttons while turning on the phone. This should get you into fastboot. From there, you can enter recovery by pressing volume up twice and power to confirm

Once you are in recovery, you will need to perform a Factory Reset/Data Wipe.

If your recovery somehow got hosed, you can download the recovery image from CM's wiki page and then get into fastboot mode and use fastboot to flash the recovery.

fastboot flash recovery "c:\location\to\recovery.img"


how to target Google Play Search? It is very annoying, that almost everytime I search for Apps (i.e. Go SMS, Handcent SMS, Viber, etc...)

in the results always show up i.e. "Go SMS silver theme", "Viber Smiles"....

so, the actual app i am searching for, never shows up in the top results..
what is the solution to this annoying cases..

Found the reason. this happens on the apps, that are not supported to my country, for unknown reason I have no idea. I've installed them manually from their site, by downloading APK.


Android phone taps touchscreen on its own I have an LG P690 Optimus Net. The issue I am having is that the phone often enters a state where it keeps on pressing the touchscreen's buttons by its self, and I have to press the back button several times to try and go back while it keeps opening new screens or entering text on its own.

I was wondering, is this something anyone else has experienced? How common is this defect, and has it to do with Optimus Net phones or with phones in general? Are some line of products more susceptible than others? If common then how does the problem I just described typically arise? Could accidentally dropping the phone or humidity in the air cause it for instance?

Yes. Seems there is a problem. The touchscreen takes inputs that was never made. Have a look at this http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/mobiles-tablets/122921-official-android-discussion-thread-73.html#post1836923

There are various problems of Android that LG ships on the P690. I'd suggest installing a good custom ROM, which should fix the problem if it is not a hardware issue.


How do you turn off the message indicator in Hangouts? I don't want people to know when I saw their texts. Is there a way to turn the message indicator off?

From google's site:

"Hangouts:

When chatting with someone who is using Hangouts, please keep in mind that you can't appear invisible on Hangouts.

When you set your Google Chat status to invisible, Hangouts users will see your profile picture without a green dot in their contact list, meaning that you may be idle or unavailable on your computer.

If you are signed in to Hangouts, you won’t be able to set your status to invisible."


Android phone cannot connect to internet via wireless, other devices can I recently installed a new cable modem.  After getting everything up & running, I can connect to the wireless router, and then to the internet, through laptops, desktops, and a Roku device, but I cannot access via my Android phone.  It connects to the router, but cannot get to the outside world.  If I turn off the wifi, then I can connect via my data plan, but I cannot connect via wifi.

Some details:

The phone is a Samsung Galaxy S3, and the Android OS is 4.1.2
I use Comcast for cable internet.
The (old and unchanged) wireless router is a Netgear device.  (I am not sure the model number, but I can get it if that seems pertinent.)
The new cable modem is also Netgear.  It's model CMD31T and it is DOCSIS 3.0, while the old modem was quite old and I have no idea what it's level of throughput.
I changed to the new modem because the old one was becoming "spotty" -- it would occasionally lose signal.  The new modem has so far been consistently on, and with strong signal... it's just that the phone cannot connect to it.

Well, now the phone can find the signal fine after a few days.  I did NOTHING different.  However, I had taken many steps beforehand, such as updating the firmware, PRL & Profile, restarting the phone, restarting the cable & router.  None of those actions worked, however just waiting a few days seemed to resolve it.

This is not much of an "answer", but I am keeping the question & answer so that if anyone else has troubles, maybe theirs will also be resolved by "just waiting".


If I root the device can I upgrade to Froyo without waiting for the operator's release? I have a Samsung Galaxy S and am currently waiting indefinitely for the operator to pull its finger out and release its bloated edition of Froyo.

If I root the device using the instructions here, will that enable me to ugrade to Froyo over Kies or will I have to upgrade through some other method?

Looking at your profile it looks like you're based in the UK? If so you should have no problem running the Samsung's European JPO release of the Galaxy S Froyo software that went out to unbranded UK Galaxy S's a few weeks ago. As this is an Official Samsung release there's no need to root to apply it, you just need to trick Samsung's software into installing it for you.

To start with I'll make the assumption that you have no problems running the Kies software, that it recognizes your phone when you plug it in, and that you get a "You are already running the latest release" message when you click the Firmware Upgrade link. (this is a big set of assumptions given the quality of Kies, if any of these aren't true, then you need to get Kies working properly before going further).

This post on Vodafone UK's Galaxy S forums lays out the steps Samsung Galaxy S - Froyo Update (Android 2.2) (reply 113). I'll summarise them below as Vodafone are about to upgrade their forums to new software, so I have no idea if the post will survive, or the link will still work in a week or two's time, credit to "ado28" for these instructions.

  First of all you need to go into
  regedit and do some minor alterations
  to the registry.

  Do not update Kies! If you do then I
  think this tweak won’t work! The Kies
  version I used was 1.5.0.10024_74 but
  I fooled it into thinking it was the
  latest version

  Step by step guide

  Back up everything you wish to keep, including Apps, phone numbers,
  Text messages etc because we're going
  to wipe your phone clean before we
  start!
  Go to Settings – Privacy – FACTORY DATA RESET and click. Follow the
  prompts and then let it wipe your
  phone.
  Now you have a bare naked phone again and can proceed onto the next
  step.
  Open up Kies and leave running
  Connect phone
  Open Regedit by clicking on Start – Run – then type in regedit and press
  enter
  Scroll down to Kies and look for “Localver” see pic
  Change your Localver code to 1.5.3.10103.100
  Now go to your Device DB folder and change your settings to these:

  "SoftwareRevision"="I9000XXJF3/I9000OXAJF3/I9000XXJF3/I9000XXJF3"
  "ProductCode"="GT-I9000HKDXEU"
  "HIDSWVER"="I9000XXJF3/I9000OXAJF3/I9000XXJF3/I9000XXJF3"
  "DEVCONINFO"="" Delete the writing
  in this box and leave blank.

  Now go back into Kies and click "Update firmware"

  This will now allow everyone who has
  JPA on their handset with the product
  code XEE to be replaced with JPO and
  the product code XEU which is for the
  UK. Once you have successfully updated
  then allow the phone to boot up. Once
  booted up you will now need to go back
  into your settings and change your
  product code to XEU. To do this open
  your keypad and type in *#272*YOUR
  IMEI# and now you will be back to
  having a lovely wee choice of product
  codes to enter. Choose XEU and
  install. The phone will reboot and you
  will now officially be on JPO with the
  correct product code XEU!

  Please note that by doing any update
  on your phone could cause it to brick
  itself. The guide I have written
  worked perfect for me however I can’t
  be held responsible if your phone
  bricks itself. To be safe always try
  the 3 button recovery method first
  before you update and also doing a
  factory reset first usually ensures a
  smooth installation of new firmware.

Extra note on Kies: as stated above, this doesn't work with the latest version of Kies. If you need an older version of Kies then this version should allow you to do this (according to XDA): Kies version 1.5.3.10093_82.

If you do end up uninstalling and reinstalling Kies and find that it doesn't detect your phone any more, then first thing to try is clicking the menu icon in the top-left corner of Kies and selecting the "install drivers" option.


Are there location tracking apps that would send data to my server? Are there any Android apps that would track my location (at regular intervals, like every hour) and send coordinates directly to my server, without revealing this data to any third party?

There are some solutions available on the playstore. One of them is Traccar (the link belongs to the Android client), which logs to a traccar server you can define. The server software is open source (at least that's what the app description claims), so you can use it on your own server. Written in Java, it should run on most operating systems. For more details on this, you might want to check with the Traccar website.


L90 bootloop - no emergency mode, no download mode, pc doesn't recognize Good afternoon,

I'm facing a problem on my colleague's LG L90 phone, it suddenly started to bootloop and nothing seems to solve the problem.

The only way to turn it off is to remove the battery, but as soon as you put it back (be it instantly after removing it or after any period of time) the phone turns on and starts to bootloop again, so there's no "turn it off and turn on again pressing x buttons". The bootloop lasts about 10 seconds before it restarts the process.

When I connect it to my PC with the battery nothing changes, and the PC doesn't recognize the device, as it reboots before the PC can see it. Plugging it without the battery shows a screen with an empty battery for some seconds and then it reboots, showing that screen again.

I tried to enter recovery mode, emergency mode and fastboot mode without success. Plugging the phone on the PC or placing the battery while pressing vol -, vol +, both or any with the power button simply has no effect on the phone, it just keeps bootlooping.

The phone model is LG-D410hn, and it doesn't have unlocked bootloader, root or anything similar, it has everything stock.

Does anyone know what I can do to try to save it?

I have the same device and experienced the same behavior and it turned out to be my SD card. After I removed it my phone worked fine. I never did find out what the problem with the SD card was. I inserted it into an adapter and put it in my chromebook to see if I could run some diagnostics tool on it but it even caused my chromebook to reboot!
Hope this helps.


App unavailable in my country, even though it clearly is Quick question.
How is it that my boss is able to download Pokemon go on his Samsung Galaxy S7. We both have phones tied to the company, he is sitting next to me (both in the UK), but when I attempt to download the game through google play it says it's not available in my country.

I've had it running (uninstalled now) from an unsigned APK (apkmirror) since last week. Also, the creditcard tied to my google play account is Swedish - not sure if that could make any sort of a difference...

Thanks

Download and install Hotspot Shield to your mobile via play store .Then run hotspot shield and try downloading the app.In case this method does not work you can first check where pokemon go is available and you can download the VPN for the same country and run the game.


How do I remove stocks from the stock card settings in Google Now? I have added some stocks to the stock card settings that I want to remove, how do I do that? There is no obvious way, I tried long press & swiping but those gestures do nothing.

In Android 4.4:

Open Google Now.
Press the Options button in upper right corner of the Stock Card.
Press the Right Arrow to cycle through options for the card.
When asked about "Interested in the stock UNWANTED-STOCK-NAME?", tap "NO".

In older versions:
This should do it for you:

Open Google Now

Press the menu button

Press Settings

Press Google Now

Scroll down and press Stocks

Press the stock you want to remove

Press Remove


Push notifications to my Droid on local network I am looking for either an app or a way to allow my 3 Ubuntu server's running in my house on my local network to send a notification to my Android phone when a task is done.

Every hour or so one of the 3 servers finishes what they are doing, I need for them to be able to send short text notifications to my Droid phone when it's locally on the network. Of course it's IP on my local network never changes, so that will always be the same.

Is there anything for this? And how do I get it up and running?

There are several ways to accomplish things like this:
Using Atomics to kill the chicken
You could e.g. setup one of your Ubuntu machines as a Nagios server (or any similar service). There are several clients available for Android, like e.g. aNag and uNagi Nagios client on android (the latter even has plugins for Locale/Tasker for more flexibility: Locale uNagi Notifier Plug-in and Locale uNagi Settings Plug-in, so you even can setup automatic actions on your device based on the notifications).
Plenty more of similar solutions available, e.g. with Cacti...
The simplicistic approach
At the end of your scripts, you could place a line to have them send you a mail to e.g. your GMail address. This can e.g. be done using the mailx command:
mailx -s "[WooFoo] script finished" johndoe@example.com

(of course, replace johndoe@example.com with your real address). As soon as that mail arrives, GMail (or any other mail client you use on your Android device) would trigger a notification.
Enhancing the simple approach
Tasker can react on incoming mail for the GMail app or K-9 Mail. That's why I put the [WooFoo] in front of the subject: replace that by any specific keyword which should trigger your Tasker action. Tasker then can "eat" the mail (so it doesn't stick in your account for manual clean-up) and perform a desired action: play a specific tune, vibrate your phone using a specific pattern, generate a pop-up message, even execute specific JavaScript code (see the Actions section of the Tasker UserGuide for additional ideas).


Is apkmirror.com safe? Is it safe to download and install Google Play from apkmirror.com? How can I check this is a safe download?

Backstory:

I had to factory reset my original Samsung Galaxy Tab as it refused to start up. After the reset, I haven't been able to update Google Play. Every time I try, it crashes with '(process com.android.vending) has stopped working'.

I've seen multiple references to the site, but nothing official from Google.

Apkmirror.com is run by the same people behind AndroidPolice.com, one of the biggest Android news websites. All uploads are manually vetted and approved, and only free apps are allowed so you won't find any 'cracked' apks or 'warez'.

As you already have the Play Store installed, only an apk signed with the same key as the currently installed version will be able to upgrade the app so this is an extra verification of the apk you download. Therefore, if you download the app from Apkmirror.com you should be safe.

Personally, this one of the only sites I would trust to download apks from.


I want to update my Micromax A87 Android 2.3 Gingerbread to Android 4. ICS Please tell me step by step how can i install Android 4 ICS to my Android 2.3 Gingerbread, I am new to Android but i can do this, if some one help.

I am afraid, it might not be possible.

First of all, the ideal requirement for ICS to run on any phone is Dual Core processor, and your phone does not have good processor.

Secondly the ram, your phone has only 256MB of RAM wherein for ICS to work smoothly, it requires atleast 512MB RAM.


How can I change the default Google Drive PDF viewer on Android? I've been used to downloading PDFs on my phone and have them directly saved on my downloads folder. But just recently, whenever I download PDFs, Google Drive viewer shows up. I know there's a download option on Google Drive viewer. But when I open the file, it prompts that there's no app that can read it. I have Acrobat and Drive that I used to read PDFs with.

I think from some of the research I did, the update for Google Drive makes it the default for opening PDFs. I checked the defaults, it did not have one. I just uninstalled the update for Google Drive as a temporary solution.

I think I changed the defaults by accident (I did not assign one before). How do I change that, if ever?

My phone's a Samsung S5. I'm using Chrome for it.

I had the same problem using Firefox on Android - totally maddening - but fixed it.

After installing Google Drive all my links to pdfs would open with Google Drive PDF Viewer.

I fixed it by, in Firefox, going to about:config in the location bar, then finding "browser.download.preferred.application/pdf" and doing a Reset there.

The next time I clicked on a link to a pdf I got the choice to Download, or use Google Drive PDF Viewer.

Shouldn't it be there in Chrome, under the hood somewhere ?

Btw, that "browser.download.preferred.application/pdf" in Firefox only seems to show up after a choice has been made, in this case, forced by the install of Google Drive. Seems redolent of the old browsers wars.


Apps crash when tryin to go online, /data/data/hotplug/cmd is missing All of the sudden, some of my apps (not all of them) have started crashing and crashing the entire OS when trying to go online. The logcat shows:
E (675) could not open '/data/data/hotplug/cmd' file is missing

This happens with facebook messenger, Gett, facebook itself ( who doesnt crash but cant go online), and more. Browser, whatsapp and others arent affected.

Another issue started at approximatly the same time, where my wifi switch widget refuses to go offline. Turning wifi off through the settings shows to be ok, but the outside widgets stays on, and suddenly finds new networks and the wifi goes live again by itself.

Any ideas or other information I can provide?

Cheers

BTW a rooted thl 4000, but there was a long time since I rooted.

In respect to your first question try changing your CPU governor with No-frills CPU Control app.
Change it to performance for higher performance. Just be careful as you could cause harm to your phone if you play around too much.


pdf reader which has zoom and width locking? I have both Adobe Reader and EZPDF. Are are both lacking. I want to lock the width and zoom and everything once I have a pdf open to my preferred settings. I just want to page up or down when sliding/swiping.

In ezpdf the settings menu keeps popping up irregularly when I slide. Sometimes it zoomed in or out. I see the words 'ln' or 'sf' overlaying the pdf and I don't know what they mean. Some I am locked in a page. I can't on the next or previous page.

In adobe Reader I can't zoom in to will the width of the page. It has minimal settings.

Is there a pdf reader that displays the text to the full width of the screen and locks everything so it doesn't do erratic stuff?

ezPDF has an option to remove this overlay: Bring up the popupmenu, tick Settings. In the Link section there is a checkbox marked "Indicate Link". Uncheck and the Ln overlay is gone.

Version 1.9.5.3


Do Google Talk and Play Store still require background sync on Ice Cream Sandwich? When I used Android versions up to 2.x, some apps like Google Talk and Android Market (now Play Store) required background synchronization to be activated via Settings -> Account and synchronization -> Background data. I recently upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich and noticed that both Google Talk and Play Store now work also when that setting is switched off.

Do such apps still require background synchronization, possibly in a way that is no longer controlled by a user-accessible setting?

Yes, background data is always enabled since Ice Cream Sandwich. See the note in the documentation for android.net.ConnectivityManager.getBackgroundDataSetting():

  As of ICE_CREAM_SANDWICH, availability of background data depends on several combined factors, and this method will always return true. Instead, when background data is unavailable, getActiveNetworkInfo() will now appear disconnected.

Vending (the internal name for the Android Market, in fact com.android.vending) uses C2DM to receive install requests (take a look at its application manifest; even on ICS, it still has c2dm receivers). AFAIK, C2DM only works when background data is available.

Some time ago, I read a blog post somewhere (which unfortunately I am not finding right now) explaining how the Android Market (the post was from before it was renamed) worked. IIRC, even when you asked to install an application directly on your device (instead of indirectly via the https://market.android.com/ web site), all it did was to send a request to the Google servers, which then sent your device (via C2DM) an install request. This explains why Vending needs background data—it cannot do anything without being able to receive requests via C2DM from the Google servers.

I do not know about Google Talk, but from what I have heard, it has used C2DM since before C2DM was available to the public. Again, this would explain why it needs background data to work.

AFAIK, background sync is completely separate from background data, other than the fact that obviously it cannot sync in the background if background data is disabled, and the fact that you could change it from within the sync screen in the settings application.


Unable to install Express (of Node.js) in Android Termux using sdcard0 as directory I'm unable to install Express in Android Termux. I have the latest Node.js installed.
It is working perfectly when I use Private storage, but I'm using cd /storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/ and getting a permission denied error. I saw the word symlink repeatedly in the terminal's error message.
Here's what I saw after commanding npm install express --save:
$ npm install express --save
npm WARN test-lab@1.0.0 No description
npm WARN test-lab@1.0.0 No repository field.

npm ERR! path ../mime/cli.js
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! syscall symlink
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../mime/cli.js' -> '/storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/3/node_modules/.bin/mime'
npm ERR!  { Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../mime/cli.js' -> '/storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/3/node_modules/.bin/mime'
npm ERR!   cause:
npm ERR!    { Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../mime/cli.js' -> '/storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/3/node_modules/.bin/mime'
npm ERR!      errno: -13,
npm ERR!      code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR!      syscall: 'symlink',
npm ERR!      path: '../mime/cli.js',
npm ERR!      dest: '/storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/3/node_modules/.bin/mime' },
npm ERR!   stack: 'Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink \'../mime/cli.js\' -> \'/storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/3/node_modules/.bin/mime\'',
npm ERR!   errno: -13,
npm ERR!   code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR!   syscall: 'symlink',
npm ERR!   path: '../mime/cli.js',
npm ERR!   dest: '/storage/sdcard0/NodeJS/Test/3/node_modules/.bin/mime',
npm ERR!   parent: 'test-lab' }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /data/data/com.termux/files/home/.npm/_logs/2018-05-29T13_09_20_748Z-debug.log

Is it really possible to install Express while current storage is something like /storage/sdcard0/...?

Unfortunately, the answer is No, not even with root.

Android uses FUSE (Filesystem in USErspace), which has symbolic links disabled. Since Node needs to setup symlinks, it's impossible to install it onto the SD card (or whatever internal storage where you store your photos, downloads, etc.). You can only install it into Termux's directory, which is /data/data/com.termux/files.


How To File Sharing From PC To Remix OS on VM-ware Player? I have a problem, I have installed my Remix OS on my VM-ware Player and I would like to transfer file between PC and Remix OS.

how do file sharing between my PC and my Remix OS? Because it cannot just simply copy and paste. Please help me out. Thanks.

Have you tried to set up one or more shared folders for a virtual machine, be sure the virtual machine is open in Workstation and click its tab to make it the active virtual machine. Choose VM > Settings > Options and click Shared folders.

You can add one or more directories to the list. Those directories may be on the host computer or they may be network directories accessible from the host computer. All the files copied to that folder will be accessible in both guest (remixOS) and host (Windows) machines

Credits

Shared folders setup


Android SVG and VML support Can the Android browser view SVG images in web pages? Can it view VML? Do 3rd party browsers (e.g. Opera) have this ability? If the default or 3rd party browsers don't support it, do they plan on doing so in a later version?

Currently, I've only seen two browsers on the Android platform that display SVG.

The Opera Mini browser displays static SVG. It seems to run scripting for a very short period of time, but does not run it continuously. It also does not appear to run SMIL animations.

The Fennec (Firefox Mobile) beta browser also displays static SVG, as well as running scripting. It's still in beta and relatively huge. It doesn't run all of my example scripts successfully, but it does run some. I can not test SMIL animations, because I removed it to free up a large amount of space on my phone.


How is filing a contact under "Phone (Google)" different from the others? I thought managing contacts in Android would be the easiest of tasks, but I have found myself in doubt now that I have an Android phone running Android OS 2.3.6 (Gingerbread).

If I file a contact under "Phone", I can search it and group it, but it is not synced to Google.

If I file a contact under "Google", its synced but it is not groupable (from the phone) and sometimes searches skip it (depends on whether it is in Google+ Circles or filed under "My Contacts").

How is filing a contact under "Phone (Google)" different from the others?

Adding a Contact under Google lets you sync it with your Google account. I'm also able to add a group to a Contact, which is also synced with the Google account.

However, I'm no longer using the stock Contact app. Instead, I'm using TouchPal Contacts, which allows me to hide contacts without a phone number, something the stock app doesn't have.


What does the error message "Light old sensor_state 0, new sensor_state : 128 en : 1" in logcat mean? I have my Galaxy S4 connected with my PC and ran the "Building My First App" tutorial from http://developer.android.com/ . There were no problems, but I noticed many messages about the LightSensor in the LogCat view in Eclipse, like these:

09-17 17:41:24.781: E/LightSensor(736): Light old sensor_state 0, new sensor_state : 128 en : 1
09-17 17:41:25.152: E/LightSensor(736): Light old sensor_state 128, new sensor_state : 0 en : 0

I found several occurrences of the string "Light old sensor_state 0..." on the web. So others get this type of messages, too (where a phone was mentioned it seemed also to be a Galaxy S4). But the posts/questions/answers were always about something else. It looks as if everybody ignores this kind of messages as noise.

I played around a bit and noticed this: As long as the phone is active those messages do not appear. But when I switch it off, the messages appear about every 10s. Does anybody know what they mean?

They're nothing to do with your app, and they're not really errors. As you might have guessed, they're just reporting changes in the light sensor state. (That's the sensor that controls the screen brightness.)

Samsung ROMs are particularly known for having very 'noisy' log output, owing to Samsung being a little slapdash about software integration. In contrast, Nexus devices tend to have very clean logs, because Google engineers are aggressive about disabling logging when code is committed. You can filter the log messages in Eclipse (or when you use adb logcat on the command-line).


Mobile Network Problem I am facing mobile network issue in my office only. When I enter in my office my mobile signal problem arises, Is it due to the router or some other electronic devices? And when I go out from my office I again got signal into my mobile what exactly the issue is. I am not getting.

If I understand correctly, you are facing signal loss when inside a building?

If so then that is normal. Indoor areas suffer from lower signal reception due to the having to pass through the walls. Whilst modern signal transmitters and phones are usually only marginally affected, all sorts of factors can affect this including how "deep" into a building you are, distance from transmitter, building materials etc.

If you are only facing this issue inside a particular room then perhaps the room is specially screened? You may also be in a signal dead-spot where you just have little signal.

Whilst WiFi and other common wireless systems are on frequencies that should not interfere with your phone signal, you may have some specialist kit in your office however this is very unlikely.

If you'd like to track your signal strength as you move between locations you can use the phone status option in settings.


Merging duplicate contact entries from multiple sources I have multiple copies of the same contacts on my phone, from the Google account associated, and phone contacts etc.

Eg., for a single contact I might have:

2 copies on the phone
1 copy on my Google account (synced)
another copy in some other location

This happened on my HTC Wildfire a year ago and now I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S2.

Is there a way I can merge all related contacts and delete the other extra copies? It'd be helpful if I could do this from my PC.

Remember: when creating a contact, you can decide where to store it. Usually, there are at least 3 choices: Google, SIM, phone.

If I read your question correctly, it looks like you have a copy in each of these places. In this case, Tirath's suggestion doesn't work, as GMail will only see what's sync'd there (and phone + SIM don't get sync'd). You then might want to take a look at apps like Contact Remover (to ease deletion of the duplicates), or Contact Remover Plus which also offers to merge or move them.


Wi-Fi passwords are forgotten My nexus 4 is not storing new Wi-Fi passwords. Each time I want to connect to a previous connected Wi-Fi I have to re-enter the password.

I found that in Settings > Backup & Restore everything is checked but Backup account - No account is currently storing backed up data is in gray and i can't do anything about it.
In Settings > accounts > google i have everything sync but Movies & TV and photos.

I'm running kit Kat, not rooted.
Any help will be appreciated

Try deleting (forgetting) the wireless connection first.  Sometimes security information (WPA/WPA2) related to the connection is cached and is no longer relevant.  When the security information doesn't match, the connection can be shaky.

If this is a pervasive issue (all wireless connections) delete (forget) all wireless connections, and open the app in app manager and delete all cached data.


How do I show my Android device screen on my PC with no lag (at 30fps) Device: Galaxy Note 3 N900W8

I need a solution that would let me show my phones screen on my PC at a high framerate. I tried VNC. It could not find a display method. I tried some random apps that work with USB debugging. No dice. Any suggestions. HDMI is not a option because then I would need to purchase a capture card and a HDMI adapter for my phone.

You mentioned that video capture is your goal but does that mean that it has to be live on your PC? If what you're looking to do is get a capture of your phone's screen so that you can post it to YouTube or something, consider trying to capture locally on the device then transferring that video file to your computer for processing and upload. This might give you better results than trying to "cast" your phone's screen to your PC live and then capture it there.

If your Note 3 has been upgraded to Android 4.4.x Kitkat you can use adb's built-in screenrecord utility. Full documentation is available from Google Android Developer Support. Here are the basics:

  To use the screenrecord from the command line, type the following:

  adb shell screenrecord /sdcard/demo.mp4

  Stop the screen recording by
  pressing Ctrl-C, otherwise the recording stops automatically at three
  minutes or the time limit set by --time-limit.

Google also outlines the following limitations:

  Some devices may not be able to record at their native display    resolution. If you encounter problems with screen recording, try
  using a lower screen resolution.
  Rotation of the screen during    recording is not supported. If the screen does rotate during    recording, some of the screen is cut off
  in the recording.
  Audio is not recorded with the video file.


Custom Boot animation slows, freezes and crashes phone I've created a custom boot animation:

Create animation with Blender, render all the frames 1080 x 1920, PNG.
Convert them to JPG.
Store frame 0 to 123 to folder part0, store frame 124 to folder part1.
Create desc.txt with content (every line ends with <LF>):

1080 1920 24
p 1 0 part0
p 0 0 part1

Store all that into bootanimation.zip (mode: Store), almost 10 MB.
Copy it onto the SD card and copy it to /system/media/ with TWRP.

When I reboot the phone, it displays the animation okay, but then slows down (still during the first loop), halts, and reboots after a few seconds.

Is there anything I've done wrong? The phone is a Fairphone 2, running Fairphone Open with the newest TWRP and encrypted data partition.

For me, the solution was to shrink the frames by half (540*960) but leaving the description text as it was – it seems that it just was too much data.


Cannot access hidden files on Nexus 5 after root I'm making some apps for android and wanted to change files in the data/data/com.myapp/ folder, so I decided to root my Nexus 5.

This did the opposite of what I wanted. I used to be able to VIEW hidden files, but not modify them. Now, after root I cannot see anything but default folders (DCIM, Download, Music...) on my phone in windows explorer.

Windows explorer file options is set to see all files
I think this may be a USB driver issue, but have tried all the drivers in the sdk folder
I do not want to use ADB commands to manage files, i do not think this is necessary

I'd be grateful for any help with this. I've looked at other posts and forums and cannot find anything similar to this.

I used ADB to give myself access to data/data/my.app.dir as well as the folders and files therein, then to pull them to my computer.

For some reason I could not pull files directly from their location (even with the ABD shell closed), so copied them to a the phone's emulated storage and pull them from there.

I wrote a simple batch script to easily pull the files I wanted:

@echo off
echo Database transfer progress:
adb shell su -c "chmod 777 /data"
adb shell su -c "chmod 777 /data/data"
adb shell su -c "chmod 777 /data/data/my.app.dir"
adb shell su -c "chmod 777 /data/data/my.app.dir/databases"
adb shell su -c "chmod 777 /data/data/my.app.dir/databases/MyDatabase"
adb shell su -c "cp /data/data/my.app.dir/databases/MyDatabase /sdcard/Download"
adb pull /sdcard/Download/MyDatabase C:\Temp
adb shell su -c "rm /sdcard/Download/MyDatabase"
echo[
REM - pause and check for errors
pause

I don't care about reverting permissions on this device, but rebooting the phone seems to reset them.


What's the easiest way to sync music to my phone? I'm now on CM13 (Android 6) and rsyncing in will not work due to permission errors (and the sudo command doesn't exist) So I ask you, are there any programs to sync my music across? I don't want to use services that require me to upload it and then download it again due to bandwidth and speed issues.

I have also tried adb-sync but it just errors out (as is expected with adb!).

You could use Bittorrent Sync to copy the music folder on your computer to your phone. The whole thing will complete on your local network (as long as you don't leave it!). I recommend Bittorrent Sync assuming your local network's speed isn't an issue.


Galaxy S4 download stops when screen is off I'm having this problem with my Samsung Galaxy S4.

When ever I download something from the Internet and turn off the screen the download fails as soon as I turn it back on.

I have tried other browsers like Chrome and Dolphin Browser but all stops downloading when the screen turns off/ times out.

It downloads perfectly when the screen is on all throughout the download.

This is a bit of a problem when downloading something big. I am using only 3G.

Because you have enabled the
Restrict Background Data

Under Settings>Data Usage>[menu]>Restrict back. Data

Uncheck that option

As, that option stops all background (when screen is off/slept) data transfer. Making every apps or system apps unable to do data transfers using internet.


How to keep a service from closing? I am using the latest stock ROM for my phone (SGS3, Vodafone variant, although rooted) and I have installed a GPS live tracking program that stays on the taskbar as a service all the time (and that's the way I want it to).

When I load up some RAM-hungry games that I've installed, sometimes that service dies (along with other processes that I don't care about) because Android tries to free up memory automatically (I have no task killer installed).

Is there a way to make that service having higher priority, so it won't get scooped along the other things that Android's garbage collector trashes when I open my favorite enormous apps?

Thanks in advance!

Try Auto Memory Manager and set your minfree values on the secondary server lower so it has lower chances killing off services. You can also increase the OOM priority of the service to 0 (lower values means less chance of being killed), also part of app.


Where can I get more information on the sm tool (command) used in the Terminal I have seen the sm tool used a few places for example here.

The way I understand it, it is a storage management tool but I haven't been successful in finding any more info about it.

Where can I find more information on this tool?

The sm tool is not an Android tool, it's a linux shell command.  Android devices have some shell commands located in /system/bin - the variety of these usually vary by version, OEM, and platform.

You can issue this adb command to see what tools are available:

adb shell ls system/bin

You can ask for help on each tool - for example, with sm:

$ adb shell sm -help
usage: sm list-disks [adoptable]
       sm list-volumes [public|private|emulated|all]
       sm has-adoptable
       sm get-primary-storage-uuid
       sm set-force-adoptable [true|false]
       sm set-virtual-disk [true|false]

       sm partition DISK [public|private|mixed] [ratio]
       sm mount VOLUME
       sm unmount VOLUME
       sm format VOLUME
       sm benchmark VOLUME
       sm fstrim

       sm forget [UUID|all]

       sm set-emulate-fbe [true|false]


Apps showing up as blank white screens in recent apps list when in landscape orientation I've noticed some odd behavior on the recent apps screen on Android that I can't find an explanation for anywhere. When I open apps on a phone while in landscape view and switch to the recent apps screen all I see is a white square for that app, no preview thumbnail.

This is how it looks on a OnePlus 6 when I open Chrome in portrait mode and open the recent apps screen

But when I open Chrome while in landscape and then go to the recent apps screen I get this

And similar behavior on a Pixel 3:

Opening Chrome in portrait and switching to recent apps

Opening Chrome in landscape and switching to recent apps

If I give the Pixel 3 some time it will eventually generate a thumbnail for the landscape app though about half the time it looks squished like this and the other half it isn't up to date with what was actually being shown on the screen.

My question is why does Android seem to struggle with generating landscape preview thumbnails for the recent apps screen? Has anyone else experienced this behavior or know of a fix for it?

As an Android developer, the only thing I can be sure of is that configuration changes force the activity to be restarted. This includes screen orientation (portrait, landscape), so Chrome has to be destroyed and recreated, returning a blank/stale landscape content instead.
From Android Developers - Handle configuration changes

Handle configuration changes
Some device configurations can change during runtime (such as screen orientation, keyboard availability, and when the user enables multi-window mode). When such a change occurs, Android restarts the running Activity ( onDestroy() is called, followed by onCreate()). The restart behavior is designed to help your application adapt to new configurations by automatically reloading your application with alternative resources that match the new device configuration.
To properly handle a restart, it is important that your activity restores its previous state. [...]

(Also, list of configuration changes)
I cannot reproduce this issue on my device*, but from the screenshots, the recent list is always shown in portrait mode, so there is a change from landscape to portrait between triggering the "recent apps list" event and showing it. I'm not sure about the order of the events for screen rotated, app destroyed, and app recreated, but most possibly it is destroyed-rotated-recreated, thus the app is not ready yet to re-render the activity (since an activity also cannot run while on the background), returning a blank white screen or use its previous state (the stale landscape content) instead.
The "fix" ― if it is possible ― is to allow showing "recent apps list" in landscape mode.

*The reason I cannot reproduce this issue is that my device allows showing "recent apps list" in landscape mode, so the thumbnail is shown correctly. However, when I rotate to portrait while on the list, the thumbnail will be shown squished as the screenshot.
Also, the restart may be observed more easily by rotating the screen while Chrome is active: after the rotation, Chrome will re-render the content to current available space.
Lastly, I do not know why the recent apps list is forced on portrait mode, but that is out of the question's scope.


Mute all notification sound except Call Message and WhatsApp to be on Vibration Mode I have a brand new Galaxy S10. I would like to keep the phone in mute mode but want the phone to vibrate if there is any Call, SMS or any WhatsApp notification.

How to do this? I do not wish to root the phone as of now.

I believe the easiest way to accomplish this is through do not disturb mode with custom exceptions.

Allowing calls and text messages through do not disturb mode is easy. Simply set "Calls from" and "Messages from" to "All" on the "allow exceptions" menu under the do no disturb settings.

For other apps, such as Whatsapp, you can do the following:

Enable do not disturb mode.
Go to Settings > Notifications.
Select the app you would like to modify.
Select the type of notification you would like to exclude from do not disturb mode, such as message notifications.
Enable the "Ignore Do not disturb" switch.
Back out of this screen and repeat steps 3-5 until your notifications are configured as you desire.


Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100): Problems with Wifi signal, bad reception, breaking connection I recently bought an Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100), and I am pretty pleased with it. It is by far the best phone I ever owned.

The only downside I have is that it has a really poor wifi signal. It gets almost half of the bars my old HTC HD2 got. This is not a big problem, I am not always far away from my router anyways.

The really annoying part is that is stops working after a few minutes. I am just browsing, and then suddenly the connection stops. I then need to switch off wifi, and back on the get the connection going again.

The signal is already on 'never sleep', so that is not the problem. And I do not have this problem with the HTC HD2, so it's not my router either, its just the phone.

Anyone know a fix for this, I have been looking on the net, a lot of people have this problem, but I failed in finding a good solution.

Really bad downside for such a great phone.

----- EDIT -------------

I also read an article about it maybe being the router. I downloaded a program called Wifi-Analizer. It said the channel had a poor signal, so I changed the wifi channel to 13. I also changed the settings to use N only, before it was B + G + N.

This helped a little bit at first, it does not break so often anymore, but the signal does break every few hours.

this looks like a problem with your phone, because I know many S2 owners who have not had this problem. It is better you get the phone to your dealer and have it repaired or just try a factory reset, you might have installed an app that messed with the system files. All this is assuming your router is fine!


Burn .IMG to another MicroSD Card without root Long story, I have a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and the only device I own that can write a Raspbian image to MicroSD is my Android phone. I have copied the image from my laptop to my MicroSD, but I am puzzled as to how I can write the IMG to the MicroSD, as rooting will void my warranty. MicroSD is necessary since the Raspberry Pi will not boot from USB.

Copy the IMG file to the internal storage
Download EtchDroid [NO ROOT] - Write ISOs and DMGs to USB from Play Store
Select raw image or ISO (do these steps after the SD card has been plugged in)
Select the IMG file and the SD card
Wait until it completes the progress (it is possible to check the progress in the taskbar/notification)
Done