ssh: HOME variable issue I'm in Cyanogenmod 13 and I'm having troubles getting ssh working properly.

Server:
With AuthorizedKeysFile commented in the sshd_config file, I get a weird path in logcat:

Could not open authorized keys '//.ssh/authorized_keys': No such file or directory

I set AuthorizedKeysFile and the server seems to work with no more problems.

Still I cannot get the client working:

root@i9300:/ # ssh 192.168.0.20
Could not create directory '/.ssh'.
The authenticity of host '192.168.0.20 (192.168.0.20)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Failed to add the host to the list of known hosts (/.ssh/known_hosts).
Permission denied (publickey).

As you can see ssh is trying to create the directory /, and we all know that it is not possible.
All of this led me to the conclusion that there might be something wrong with the environment variable HOME.

Another piece of information:

root@i9300:/ # echo $HOME
/data
root@i9300:/ # su shell
shell@i9300:/ $ echo $HOME
/

Many thanks in advance for your help!

Here is a solid workaround which requires a bit of work if you are not accustomed with the subject:
Edit BOOT partition.

In the BOOT partition (boot.img) are stored all the files that will be loaded in / at boot.
I added a symlink in it:

.ssh -> /data/.ssh

Here are two very helpful tutorials that will get you going:
HOWTO: Unpack, Edit, and Repack Boot Images
Android boot.img manipulation

a little hint:
Do edit the ramdisk in your Android device.
I spent three days in frustration trying to do so in my pc, I guess is a matter of "endianness".


Can someone identify this icon (looks like a ear) in the notification bar? (Asking this question for a friend)

What is the icon to the left of the GPS icon in the notification bar? The one that looks like an ear?

It's supposed to represent a hearing aid, and it means that Hearing Aid Compatibility is enabled.

It should go away if you go into the call settings and disable the hearing aid option. It'll either be something like Settings->Calls or pressing the Menu button on the dialer to get into the call settings (I think it varies some).

Supporting source, second source


Error installing CyanogenMod: Unsupported bootloader I am trying to install CyanogenMod 12 on my Moto G 4G XT1040 Peregrine by following this guide from the Cyanogen Wiki.

I have:

Unlocked my bootloader
Installed a custom compatible recovery (TWRP v2.8.7.0)
Downloaded the nightly into a SD card

When I try to install the custom ROM using the recovery, I get the following error:

  This package supports bootloader(s) 0x411A; this device has bootloader
  0x4113.

If I try to use the official Cyanogen recovery present in the image page, I get a similar error message containing the same line above.

I found this tool for upgrading the bootloader, but it's a very unofficial tool and I'm afraid to install a random bootloader found on some forum; I don't know what kind of malicious consequences it could have in terms of security.

Looks like the bootloader can be upgraded using this post and tool from XDA:  Bootloader Upgrader Tool [Falcon] [Peregrine] [41.18] [41.19] [41.1A]


How to troubleshoot a regularly crashing Google Play? I'm using a Lineage OS custom ROM on a Xiaomi Redmi 4A. I can't remember when it started, but quite often, I see a message telling me that "Google Play has stopped working".

This can happen on the launcher screen, or while using an app. I have seen it happen in all apps I use regularly. It happened around 6 times while I was writing this post, but the frequency varies.

I have installed a Logcat Reader application, and captured the log after a crash. This is what I think is the relevant part:

[07-24 15:26:38.492 2654:2699 F/libc]
invalid address or address of corrupt block 0x78 passed to dlfree

[07-24 15:26:38.492 2654:2699 F/libc]
Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 2, fault addr 0xdeadbaad in tid 2699 (bgExecutor #2)

[07-24 15:26:38.602 708:708 F/DEBUG]
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

[07-24 15:26:38.602 708:708 F/DEBUG]
LineageOS Version: '13.0-20170307-UNOFFICIAL-rolex'

[07-24 15:26:38.603 708:708 F/DEBUG]
Build fingerprint: 'Xiaomi/lineage_rolex/rolex:6.0.1/MOB31K/fc38c175e6:userdebug/test-keys'

[07-24 15:26:38.603 708:708 F/DEBUG]
Revision: '0'

[07-24 15:26:38.603 708:708 F/DEBUG]
ABI: 'arm'

[07-24 15:26:38.603 708:708 F/DEBUG]
pid: 2654, tid: 2699, name: bgExecutor #2  >>> com.android.vending <<<

[07-24 15:26:38.603 708:708 F/DEBUG]
signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 2 (SEGV_ACCERR), fault addr 0xdeadbaad

[07-24 15:26:38.650 708:708 F/DEBUG]
Abort message: 'invalid address or address of corrupt block 0x78 passed to dlfree'

[07-24 15:26:38.650 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    r0 00000000  r1 00000000  r2 00000000  r3 00000002

[07-24 15:26:38.651 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    r4 00000078  r5 deadbaad  r6 f7073f38  r7 ab33a000

[07-24 15:26:38.651 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    r8 00000080  r9 dccd2afc  sl f6fd58db  fp f6fd58e4

[07-24 15:26:38.651 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    ip f706e5d8  sp dccd29e8  lr f703fc6d  pc f703fc6c  cpsr 600f0030

[07-24 15:26:38.658 708:708 F/DEBUG]

backtrace:

[07-24 15:26:38.658 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #00 pc 00030c6c  /system/lib/libc.so (dlfree+1287)

[07-24 15:26:38.658 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #01 pc 000157cd  /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (_ZN7android13ResStringPool6uninitEv+38)

[07-24 15:26:38.658 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #02 pc 0001651d  /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (_ZN7android10ResXMLTree6uninitEv+14)

[07-24 15:26:38.659 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #03 pc 0001653b  /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (_ZN7android10ResXMLTreeD1Ev+4)

[07-24 15:26:38.659 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #04 pc 00013267  /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (_ZN7android12AssetManager10getPkgNameEPKc+258)

[07-24 15:26:38.659 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #05 pc 000132c3  /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (_ZN7android12AssetManager18getBasePackageNameEj+62)

[07-24 15:26:38.659 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #06 pc 0008894b  /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so

[07-24 15:26:38.659 708:708 F/DEBUG]
    #07 pc 726cc6e1  /data/dalvik-cache/arm/system@framework@boot.oat (offset 0x1f93000)

[07-24 15:26:39.752 708:708 F/DEBUG]

Tombstone written to: /data/tombstones/tombstone_06

[07-24 15:26:39.752 708:708 E/DEBUG]
AM write failed: Broken pipe

I have tried to wipe the dalvik cache partition, as well as reinstalling Google Play from opengapps.org. Neither fixed the problem.

What should I do to work towards fixing this?

When installing Open GApps on Lineage OS, it must be flashed together with the Rom. Installing GApps after flashing the rom and booting the phone cause crashes. If you want to use Open GApps with Lineage OS, download both and place them in the memory and first flash the rom zip file. Without exiting the rom flash GApps zip and boot the phone. At the firts boot, you will be asked to configure your google logins and then GApps can be used.

Read installation instructions on LineageOS wiki


I uninstalled all apps on LG E440 using Es file explorer I uninstalled all apps on on rooted LG E440 using Es file explorer.
then phone can not boot . it restarts within a second .
I need help.
Android 4.1.2

Hope you have backed up all your contacts and docs. Then follow these steps to hard reset your phone:

Step 1: Press and hold the Camera button + Volume Down Key+ Power button.

Step 2: When the LG Logo appears on the screen, release Power key holding volume down+camera key.

This shall do the job for you.


How to open links directly in Firefox full browser? In some apps (Google News, Read - Simple RSS Reader) when I tap on a link, it won't directly open in Firefox but in a simplistic viewer, supposedly also by Firefox. From there I only have two choices, close the viewer (which brings me back into the app) or open the actual Firefox browser. The problem is that all plugins are disabled in this viewer, so I always need two taps to open a link from those apps. How can I disable this viewer?

I have Firefox 68.3.0 installed, but the problem has existed for a long time.

Some app developers prefer to keep user within the app as much as possible, even when visiting external links. WebView embeds external web content seamlessly in an app activity so that it looks a part of it. However large contents like complete webpages which cannot fit inside app layout require a minimal browser to show them. Some apps have their own in-app browsers. A relatively recent addition is the ability of standalone browsers (including Chrome and Firefox) to show Custom Tabs inside other apps the same way an in-app browser looks.

When you tap a link, app may fire an explicit intent.action.VIEW to web browser or an implicit intent with URL as data. In latter case if there are more than one apps which can handle the given scheme in URL (e.g. https://) and a default app isn't selected already, system activity resolver (com.android.internal.app.ResolverActivity) shows Open With dialogue (with help from package manager which shows last selected app on top (see more details in this answer):

Then an explicit intent is forwarded to user selected app. So here if you select a browser (or other app) which doesn't provide Custom Tabs functionality, full browser is launched. But if the intent is a CustomTabsIntent (with EXTRAs) and the selected app (e.g. browser) supports Custom Tabs, the URL is opened within the calling app. Browser may start a CustomTabsService in background to receive intents with ACTION_CUSTOM_TABS_CONNECTION:

~$ dumpsys package | grep CustomTabsService
      android.support.customtabs.action.CustomTabsService:
        b5a09c8 org.mozilla.firefox/org.mozilla.gecko.customtabs.GeckoCustomTabsService

Firefox, at least, provides an option in settings to disable Custom Tabs:

Similarly some apps can provide a configuration option to open links externally, disabling in-app browser and/or custom tabs. Or you can customize the custom tabs behavior using third party apps like Lynket - an open source project (I have no affiliation). Theoretically the same approach can be used to disable custom tabs by selecting such app when "Open with" dialog is shown.


How to hide audio, video or images at gallery? Is there anything to be done if I don't want particular folder containing audio, video or images being displayed at gallery or any audio application ?

Actually I am facing problems since my audio books are also being listed at all songs playlist of music players.

Any suggestions ?

You find a possible solution in many posts around here -- if you know what to look for, that is...

Responsible for files turning up in the gallery etc. is the media-scanner, so you have to keep that one from processing the directories you want to ommit. The usual approach for this is placing a file named .nomedia (note the starting dot) into all directories you want to exclude (in your case, the ones containing your audio books). Simply put, this tells the media-scanner: "No media here, just skip this folder".


Is it ok to delete the Amazon .apk files? I have backed up all of my .apk files to my laptop. Can I delete the .apks in the Amazon venezia cache folder without detriment and be able to put them back on the sd card and reinstall from there at a later date, if I want to?

You can redownload them any time you want or just install them using a file manager, no need to put them back there.

If you backup them to your PC it's a good idea to use something like this to keep track of the various apks.


Droid Explorer only shows the "/" directory, and that's empty I have an RCA Voyager tablet (Android 6.0.1) plugged into my computer with USB debugging and everything. I launched Droid Explorer and am following this guide for rooting (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2684210 - method 1). For whatever reason, having it in recovery mode doesn't show up under Ubuntu, and all I got from Ubuntu once was a "Failed to mount Android." Anyway a comment suggested this app, but it isn't showing any files. I just freshly installed this and all of Android Studio last night, what am I doing wrong?

I had the same issue. After opening the console it showed me a message telling me I had to install busybox. After installing busybox from here the file browser worked.


How to automate actions in certain apps? I have a Note 5 running Android 7.0. I use an app to get scheduled for work. Is there any app that could automate my scheduling in the app? Getting schedule is very hard if I do it manually by updating the screen manually for 30 minutes at least. I checked Automate and MacroDroid but could not find any actions that would control third party apps. If no app is available, is there examples of a Java code to see how controlling on Android works. I could modify the code for my use case. Thanks!

By default regular Apps can't control other apps.

There are two exceptions:

If the app is a system app (signed with the same cryptographic key that was used to sign the OS itself)
An app can request access to the "accessibility services". Using this service  an app can interact with other apps.

Note that Google is currently (mid 2018) restricting the accessibility service usage. Only apps that use it for legitimate purposes are allowed (helping disabled people to use an Android phone. As you can imagine controlling third party apps is not a legitimate purpose for Google's perspective.


cannot mount sdext for link2sd? I have a huawei u8160 running Cyanogenmod 7.2.

when I restart my phone I have to remount the sdext myself using terminal emulator.

su
mount -t ext2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data/sdext2

but now it returns :

mount : mounting /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 on /data/sdext2 failed : invalid argument

so I want to know how can I mount it again?

I've found it out,

the ext2 partition magically turned into ext3 without formatting I don't know how but it happened,

Formatted my ext3 partition into ext2 again and it worked,I couldn't find anyway to bring lost data back.


Can the Play Store (in /system/priv-app/) be reinstalled with a newer version? Tapping on the build number in the Play Store doesn't really update it anymore on my device; I have no idea why.
I've been trying to sideload the apk which just installs the newer version into /data/app/ but after several reboots i still don't see the newer version.

So yes, is it possible that I just delete the one from the /system/priv-app/ and push the newer version in it?

Strangely, other Google apps that didn't come preinstalled just fails to install through the rom's old Play Store (version 5.5.12)and just comes up with a "-504" error. The same happens when trying to update preinstalled ones.

My phone is on stock Android 5.0 from the manufacturer rooted with SuperSU 2.82.

Yes and No, it depends on the version of thd play store and the Google play services, both usually work together and can not work with the wrong version, so try to replace both apps...

You should use OGapps ( Open Google Apps ) , it's designed for custom ROMs.

You might have problems with the version designed only for DATA installations, and may need an alternative app from another custom ROM that is the same version.


How to trigger task when Play/Pause button is pressed on Podcast Addict widget or notification? I would like to trigger a task when the Play/Pause button is pressed on the Podcast Addict widget or notification on lock screen.

I've tried using Receive Intent but that's not working (possibly because the intent itself isn't broadcast).

You can't do it this way. Buttons on widgets are signalled via intents, that's true, but the intent is delivered only to the app that owns the widget - in this case, Podcast Addict.

Instead, you should create a button widget through Tasker, and have it trigger a profile which does the other stuff you want and sends the same intent to Podcast Addict that its own widget would send.


Does the Samsung Galaxy S Plus support moving applications to the SD card? On my Samsung Galaxy S phone, I cannot move applications to the SD card. It seems to be some configuration file error which you can only solve when rooting the phone.

Does anyone know if this has been fixed in it's successor, the Samsung Galaxy S Plus?

Model Number: GT-I9000
Firmware : 2.3.3
Baseband version: I9000XXJVO
Kernel version:  2.6.35.7
Build number: GINGERGREAD.XWJVH

What is the version of your OS in S1? If you are at least on Froyo, that should be doable for some applications. Note that not all can be moved to SD.

If you are on Eclair I believe you can't do this.

S Plus is on Gingerbread so it should work fine.


Error in updating google play store My problem is similar to that posted by Daniel.

Trying to update after i have uninstalled it to factory version. Tried updating, it downloads and gives an error at the time of update. It gives an error code as 924 asking me to troubleshoot. Please help.

According to AndroidPIT, this error usually occurs when trying to download larger applications. The app downloads, but the error message is displayed, saying the installation was unsuccessful do to an error.

As solution, the mentioned post suggests to head to Settings › All › Google Play Store › Uninstall updates. Once you've done this, try downloading the problem app again.

There's also a Youtube video on this issue.

Another article holds two more approaches:

simply restarting the device can already solve the issue
if not, do the same as described above
if still not, at the place described above clear cache and, if that doesn't help, delete data of the playstore app

More advice might be found by a simple Google search :)


WiFi icon stays orange when using proxy I recently setup a proxy within my home. All my machines and devices (PC and android)can connect to the internet through the proxy. I'm using my tablet now to do so.

The one issue I've seen is that the WiFi icon stays orange (I'm on kitkat, so it would be the same as white people on an earlier version). This seems to affect other apps that asks the OS if there is a connection before even trying.

Is there any documentation around using a proxy that could explain this? Is it a known issue? Is it likely I miss configured something?

This was my mistake. I had the proxy server configured incorrectly. Packet forwarding was not turned on so no traffic other than the intercepted port 80 and 443 traffic could reach the internet. Since Google uses ports in the 5000s to determine connectivity and those ports were essentially blocked no internet connectivity could be determined.


How to bookmark an automatically redirecting link on the Android? I am on page_1. There is a link_1 to page_2 that redirects to a random URL page_x. I cannot go to page_2 because I will not see its URL in the address bar (it redirects to page_x)

I want to bookmark link_1. On a non-mobile browser, I would right click link_1 and bookmark it.

I am using the pre-installed "Internet" browser that comes with the Android. How do I bookmark link_1 on Android?

I'm not sure I entirely understood the scenario you're describing, but a similar function to right-click->bookmark on Android would be to do a long press on the link, then choose Bookmark link. This should bookmark the link as it exists on the page, regardless of where it eventually sends you.


Convert signal strength to dbm I've got this app which shows network signal strength as a positive integer value btw 5 and 35. Another app uses negative integers like -99dbm.

Is there a way to convert the positive values (unit unknown) to dbm?

dBm = (2 × ASU) - 113
ASU in the range of 0-31 and 99 (for not known or not
detectable).


Delete VIBER account from one number forever Can you help me how should I delete my VIBER account from number +38xxxxxxxxxx because I cannot use two VIBER accounts at same mobile with two SIM cards?

I'm guessing you want to deactivate the account associated with the number so do this:
1.Open Viber.
2.Enter the More Options menu.
3.Select Settings.
4.Select Privacy .
5.Select Deactivate Account.


What is the best way to provide feedback to an app's developers and request a feature? Following on from an earlier question that I posed on how to free up space on my Android phone it became clear that a key issue is to request that more developers allow their applications to be moved to the SD card.

What is the best way to let the developers of my favourite apps know of this request?

I considered giving them a low rating in the market and writing in the comment that I would give them 5 stars if they included the "Move to SD card" option. However since I really like the applications and want them to be widely adopted to encourage further development on them I don't really want to turn away potential new users by giving a low rating.

If you want to provide feedback and/or do have a feature request that you want to have answered it would be best to write an eMail provided in the Android Market.
It's located below the description and images of the app.

Also you could check out the website if the developer does have a bugtracker and/or forum (which is often the case).


Disable wifi signin popup? When I connect to a hotspot that requires signin, I don't want a popup that fills the entire screen. A simple notification would suffice.

Can this popup be disabled on Android 8?

Samsung Galaxy S9+

Short answer: it's not possible because this popup come from the SystemUI or from the Framework apk.
It's not come from a file that contain a setting, it's a JAVA runtime code.

Some customs ROMs could integrate it (not sure), but it's not the case of Android stock.


Bluestack - Can't login to game as keyboard doesn't show In BlueStacks I'm trying to login to 8 Ball Pool (by Miniclip) but there's no way to type. The android keyboard doesn't show and my pc keyboard is not working at that point of the login.

How can I log into this game?

In BlueStacks Settings, go to IME settings then click OnScreen Keyboard. Go back to 8 Ball Pool (Or any Miniclip game) and when you click Email or Password to log in the OnScreen Keyboard will now show. This worked for me.


My Camera on my android tablet isn't letting me take any pictures. help? The camera on my Android tablet doesn't let me take any pictures. It says Insert an SD card before using the camera.

I didnt need an SD card before. I put an SD card in and it still says the same thing!

Is there a solution to my problem that would help? I already tried the solution proposed in Sophix tablet will not work without an SD card, but it didn't solve my problem.

Same problem here, but I use AVG free antivirus privacy options to wipe out (format) my sd card, then restart my tablet. Problem solved (can take pictures again)


how to fix resource error in android while installing a game Android: 4.3 Jellybean

Whenever I install a game with an obb file in memory card, it says download failed because the resources could not be found, but that doesn't happen when I copy the obb file to internal memory.

When i first installed the games, everything was fine. But one day, I accidentally formatted my SD card and some files in internal memory. Then, the problem started. I can't install in my SD card.

Also, it doesn't matter if I'm online or offline. It still shows resource error.

It happen maybe because the app was programmed to use the internal sd card rather than the external sd card

So my suggestion would be to use the internal location or use apps like app2sd to link a obb to the external sd card


CWM or TWRP not supported? I'm trying to install CWM or TWRP for my D801 LG G2 and they both say "device not supported". TWRP doesn't give me any other options, but CWM shows D802 is supported. Can I install that or will it brick my phone?

Also, can I install CM11 with CWM or is that a TWRP only type of thing?

Thanks!

The "device not supported" message means that you probably downloaded the recovery image for a different device (AT&T's LG G2 "d802", or International LG G2 "d800".)  You can override this check, but it's not recommended, as the devices might be different enough that you could cause irreparable damage to it (a.k.a. "bricking".)

The most current TWRP for T-Mobile's LG G2 (d801) is located here.  I could not find an official ClockworkMod recovery for the d801, but you may want to search appropriate sections on XDA-Developers forums for unofficial builds that are compatible with your phone.  Another recovery image according to CM's installation wiki can be downloaded from here, but must be flashed with loki_flash tool, as described in the installation instructions.


How to connect to multiple hosts through SSH, with the "same ip", with "Better Terminal Emulator Pro"? I'm trying to set up SSH connections to my home network. The application I'm using is Better Terminal Emulator Pro. But it only allows me to connect to one host with the same IP address(the external IP), it doesn't understand that it's a different port.

I created 3 shortcuts for the SHH sessions, but only one works.

The network is a LAN behind a router. I need to connect to multiple hosts on this network.

I can do this with another terminal, don't remember which one. But I like Better Terminal Emulator Pro so, any ideas?

Well, generally most of the SSH clients I have used work fine (e.g. JuiceSSH / SSH droid) so I would really recommend changing.

If you are really determined to do this then you could use a separate ssh program in a terminal (not sure if this will work) or you could try setting up multiple IP addresses on the linux laptop.

Let's say you have an IP address like 192.168.0.7/24

Then (if you own the network or have permission to use the other addresses) you could login as root and do

ip address add 192.168.0.8/24 dev eth0

then you will be able to login to the same laptop on a different address.  You'll find plenty of tutorials on the web for setting up IP addresses on Linux so I won't go into the full details.

I should probably also mention solutions such as the linux programs screen and dtach which allow you to have multiple shell sessions on one terminal.  Those are probably in many ways better for you.


Possible Soft-Brick Fix for my Galaxy S4 So, prior to my stupidity, I made a system.img dump via dd

However, after my stupidity (tried flashing some lib files....), I am now stuck with only stock recovery mode, or download mode.

How can I flash back my system.img?    I tried in download mode with heimdall... but it fails with

root@o7thDev:/media/MediaTwo/MyRom# heimdall flash --verbose --no-reboot --SYSTEM system.img
Heimdall v1.4.0

Copyright (c) 2010-2013, Benjamin Dobell, Glass Echidna
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/

This software is provided free of charge. Copying and redistribution is
encouraged.

If you appreciate this software and you would like to support future
development please consider donating:
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/donate/

Initialising connection...
Detecting device...
  Manufacturer: "Sasmsung"
       Product: "MSM8960"

        length: 18
  device class: 2
           S/N: 0
       VID:PID: 04E8:685D
     bcdDevice: 0100
   iMan:iProd:iSer: 1:2:0
      nb confs: 1

interface[0].altsetting[0]: num endpoints = 1
Class.SubClass.Protocol: 02.02.01
   endpoint[0].address: 82
       max packet size: 0010
      polling interval: 09

interface[1].altsetting[0]: num endpoints = 2
Class.SubClass.Protocol: 0A.00.00
   endpoint[0].address: 81
       max packet size: 0200
      polling interval: 00
   endpoint[1].address: 01
       max packet size: 0200
      polling interval: 00
Claiming interface...
Attempt failed. Detaching driver...
Claiming interface again...
Setting up interface...

Initialising protocol...
WARNING: Control transfer #1 failed. Result: -9
WARNING: Control transfer #2 failed. Result: -9
WARNING: Control transfer #3 failed. Result: -9
WARNING: Control transfer #4 failed. Result: -9
WARNING: Control transfer #5 failed. Result: -9
WARNING: Control transfer #6 failed. Result: -9
ERROR: Failed to receive handshake response. Retrying...
Protocol initialisation successful.

Beginning session...

Some devices may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!

Session begun.

Downloading device's PIT file...
PIT file download successful.

Uploading SYSTEM
0%
1%
ERROR: Failed to unpack received packet.

ERROR: Failed to confirm end of file transfer sequence!
ERROR: SYSTEM upload failed!

Ending session...
Releasing device interface...
Re-attaching kernel driver...

so I tried creating an update.zip that I could sideload flash in stock recovery, but that fails as well with

E: footer is wrong
E: signature verification failed

If I could get into adb shell, I'd be set... all I'd have to do is dd the system.img back (been there done that in SafeStrap), but when I try adb shell in stock recovery I just get "error: device not found", and in sideload mode, I get

error: closed

Please help? :crying:

Try disabling verification, via safestrap, and try both methods + Sideload again.

I should ask, why heimdall and safestrap? Use Clockworkmod recovery instead of safestrap and ODIN over heimdall. Yes, they require you to get your stuff online beforehand, but clockworkmod has got me out of a lot of soft-bricks

If I was boring, everyone I know would not bother with me :(


How to remove HTC Sync calendar entries? I made the mistake of sync'ing my PC with my HTC Desire and now my calendar has lots of double entries; From Exchange and from HTC Sync (Outlook)... Any wy to remove all traces of the HTC Sync entries?

These are the steps I took on my HTC Desire running Android version 2.2 to delete all calendar data, and in turn the PC Sync calendar:

On the phone, open Settings > Applications > Manage Applications
Click the “All” tab at the top of the screen
Scroll down and tap the Calendar Storage application
Tap the “Clear data” button, and confirm you’d like to proceed.

Now all the calendar data is gone from the phone, running your sync processes again to populate only the calendars you want on your phone.


Why does SSH Server (Ice Cold Apps) with a command fail? I wish to ssh into my rooted Android Samsung Galaxy S4 v4.4.2 phone and run a command.  I have SSH Server installed.  If I just SSH, it works fine:

bash-3.2$ ssh -p 35151 10.1.10.22
u0_a253@jfotevzx:/ $ pwd
/

But, if I pass a command to execute to ssh it fails:

bash-3.2$ ssh -p 35151 10.1.10.22 pwd
exec request failed on channel 0

What does exec request failed on channel 0 mean? How can I get the SSH Server from Ice Cold Apps to work with a command to execute?  Is there a different ssh android app that I could use instead that would work?

I found a forum post that indicates that the Ice Cold ssh has a deficiency that causes this issue.  By switching to SSH Droid, I was able to resolve the issue.


Can I prevent home screen shortcuts from getting deleted or moved around? I had recently gifted my Mom a Nexus 7, with a hope that she will like to read books. She is old with poor eye sight and can't read English that great. I find her eager to learn and she had made a good progress in reading few books. Since she is not used to these gadgets, I am trying to keep settings in  her tablet constant. Recently I observed that the shortcut in home screen for PDF reader disappeared and resulting in discontinued  reading till my arrival. The frequency of this sort of interruption has increased now a days. Rather than finding how the shortcut is being deleted, I think preventing changes to home screen is sensible.

Hence, I would like to know about any means to keep the icons or shortcuts in  home screen  and in launcher  constant, immune to long press and drag and drop operations.

Device info: Nexus 7, running stock 4.2.1, unrooted, but willing to root if required.

There's no built-in functionality for this, but there are a handful of third-party launchers that support locking the desktop. Off the top of my head, I know that both Apex Launcher and ADW.Launcher do.

For Apex, simply double tap on an empty space on the home screen and then select "Lock Desktop" to prevent icons from being added or removed.

On ADW.Launcher you should be find a "Lock Desktop" option in the settings, which you can access from the overflow menu in the top right of the app drawer (Apex also has a settings menu there).

Other launchers that have the “Lock Desktop” option:

Holo Launcher and Holo Launcher HD
Lightning Launcher


How can I use my Android 5.1 phone as an external USB Speaker? I have a rooted android 5.1 phone and a Acer Apsire 7520 running windows Xp. Can I use the phone as a USB speaker. The laptop doesn't have an audio out or speaker (doesn't work). It does have WiFi and USB connection. But I prefer using USB instead of WiFi.

This android app should actually do this for you seeing that you have WiFi. Soundwire Install the windows program downloadable from their website run it and set what audio you want to output to your phone you'll be assigned a server address. Input this into your app on your phone and your golden.


I can't downgrade webview nor update it because I'm locked out of play store. What can I do? My mom's phone (yes, I know what you're thinking :-) suffered from the webview update glitch yesterday.
She thought that for whatever reasons it might have something to do with her credentials, so she set a new password from another device.
I know about the fix for that glitch, but can't do much about it using the recommended methods because now she's locked out of her Google account on her phone. Obviously, trying to update her credentials on her phone must bring webview which doesn't work.
It does sound like some kind of catch 22 that my very limited knowledge can't help me getting out of.
Any help would greatly appreciated, thanks for your attention.

I've just done what @Robert wisely advised me to do which is to use an APK app to install the newest copy of Chrome to my mom's phone and thus benefit from the bug free version of webview to update her credentials and regain control of her phone. That's worked a treat.
Thanks Robert :-)


Can you execute sqlite3 outside xbin directory? When sqlite3 is installed you can execute the binary e.g. via a terminal emulator.

If sqlite3 is not installed per default and you do not want to root the phone to install it, is there any possibility to use the binary outside the xbin directory?

If you've got the binary available, you could upload it to your device and use it from there. Note, however, that this won't work from SDCards – but the following approach should do without rooting:

adb push sqlite /data/local/sqlite
adb shell "chmod 0755 /data/local/sqlite"

Then you can always invoke it using the full path, e.g. /data/local/sqlite somedatabase.db, from within a terminal app or adb shell session.


Tasker - turn off wifi IF there's no internet connection i can't figure it out how to do this and all other tutorials are outdated and i have not some options they do (like a check box next to the time to set variable). so please don't mark this question as duplicate.

with that said; i have a profile which turn WiFi on when i unlock my phone. i want that to also ping Google DNS and if it get time out turn WiFi off if not keep the wifi connected.

You can create a task to ping Google DNS as follows:

Task → Code  → Run Shell

Command: ping -c 2 8.8.8.8 [Store Output In: %stdout] [Continue Task After Error: checked]

  If %stdout ~ 100% packet loss

  google servers unreachable

  Else

  connectivity established

  End If

Add this to your main task with either keeps wi-fi conection or switches it off.

Credits

Run shell 'ping' with tasker


How to remove Android stock movie player as preferred default app for movies? Using ASTRO File Manager, I've set Movies (stock Android app) to play my videos. Now I want to remove this association, but I simply can't find a way to do it.

Looking into applications didn't help (The Movies app doesn't show at all, I think it's part of the Gallery app, but the gallery app isn't set as default). I've tried downloading an app from market called DefaultApp Reset but it didn't help either: Movies was not there.

Any hints?

Normally you would do this from Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications.  Find the app in the list, click it, and choose Clear Defaults.


Can't uninstall apps from homescreen Android 8.0 after settings sync I recently bought a Galaxy S9+ This would allow me to uninstall apps from the homescreen. If I did a press and hold on the app an uninstall option would pop up on the menu.

I just did a data sync which syncs settings from my old galaxy s7 edge running android 7. Now when I press and hold on an app in the homescreen a message comes up that says "Remove from Home" instead of uninstall.

How do I get the uninstall option back? I can't find anything in the settings that would change this.

I figured it out. The old migrated app shortcuts have this issue. When I deleted the old shortcuts and simply remade the shortcuts again the uninstall option returned


How to block apps on tablet from accessing the Internet while on tethering I use my WiFi-only tablet for turn-by-turn navigation.  I either use wifi hotspot tethering or bluetooth tethering through my phone's data plan.  (Or USB tethering once I get a Y charging cable.)

My problem is that my tablet apps run their background updates and syncs while I am tethered, consuming my limited data plan.  The worst culprit is Google account autosync.

While most apps nowadays are wifi/3G-friendly, that is, they have a setting to do heavy downloads only on WiFi, they do not differentiate broadband wifi or my phone's wifi hotspot.  The Play Store app on my tablet would particularly update large apps in the background while I am driving!

In Android 4.2 and later, you can tell Android which Wi-Fi networks are mobile hotspots. In the device Settings, go to the Data usage page, then open the overflow menu (the three dots in the top-right) and click Mobile hotspots. It shows a list of Wi-Fi networks known to the device: tick any that are mobile hotspots.

Then, when you're on a network that's ticked on that list, Android will tell apps that the device is on 3G. Any "Wi-Fi only" update settings in apps or in the OS will act accordingly.

In addition, if the mobile hotspot is an Android phone running 4.3 or later, the hotspot will communicate this to the tablet, so it will automatically treat that Wi-Fi network as a mobile hotspot, without any user intervention.

For earlier Android versions, certain apps (such as my app Showr) have similar settings to the Android 4.2 mobile hotspots page, allowing you to treat a Wi-Fi network as 3G within that app. This is less useful than the Android-wide setting, because not every app supports it, and you need to set it for each app individually, but it works just as well if you can't update to 4.2.


Does adb backup store all applications? On my non-rooted phone first I did adb backup -all -apk -obb -f lenovo.ab and bit later adb restore lenovo.ab (both commands had no errors). Surprisingly I did not find quite a lot of apps after the restore. There are two options: these apps were not stored in the backup file in the first command or they were not restored in the second. To check the first option, I made a tar file from backup with
dd if=lenovo.ab bs=24 skip=1 | openssl zlib -d > lenovo.tar (advice taken from Is there a way to look inside and modify an adb backup created file?) and did not find the missing apps there. So adb did not store them.

The question is why? Probably many of the missing apps (or even all of them) were not updated for a long time. Can this be the reason to discard the app from backup?

# adb shell bu -h
 backup [-f FILE] [-apk|-noapk] [-obb|-noobb] [-shared|-noshared] [-all]
        [-system|-nosystem] [-keyvalue|-nokeyvalue] [PACKAGE...]
     write an archive of the device's data to FILE [default=backup.adb]
     package list optional if -all/-shared are supplied
     -apk/-noapk: do/don't back up .apk files (default -noapk)
     -obb/-noobb: do/don't back up .obb files (default -noobb)
     -shared|-noshared: do/don't back up shared storage (default -noshared)
     -all: back up all installed applications
     -system|-nosystem: include system apps in -all (default -system)
     -keyvalue|-nokeyvalue: include apps that perform key/value backups.
         (default -nokeyvalue)
 restore FILE             restore device contents from FILE

There are two important things to consider when backing up apps through adb. First, all those apps whose developers do not want it to be backed up are never backed by adb. This is done by declaring a flag (allowbackup) in app's manifest. Second, even if a developer wants their app to be backed up, they can decide on either full backup (fullbackuponly) or only the key/value pairs backup. This is again done through app's manifest.

In your case, only the apps with allowbackup=true and fullbackuponly=true were backed up. Installation age or last revision's age of an app has no bearing on adb backup.

If you are curious to know which apps couldn't be backed up, I suggest you try an app from user Izzy's extensive app inspection list. As of now, I'm not aware of any app which can sort and show the apps based on those backup attributes.


How to reinstall google play store app in jellybean? I have telus samsung galaxy s2x with android jellybean 4.1.2 (non rooted).

When going on play store I got an error about authentication needed. So I did uninstall updates from application manager (as described in this answer). Now the play store app got replaced with com.android.vending, which is like the old "market" app.

That app seems to crash frequently. How can I restore the new play store app again?

Android Police has all the apks. Here's the lastest one.


On a Nexus S, how do I activate the front facing camera in a Fring video call? video calling in Fring is working but the video is only showing the rear-facing camera, how do activate the front-facing camera?

From the Fring for Android user manual, do this after starting a video chat:

  To switch camera, press the switch button on the left side.

If it doesn't work on the Nexus S, it's probably because they haven't had time to fix it since yesterday.  You can report a bug on their forum.


Google play store now forcing adware on my android I was being swamped by google play store adware, redirecting my phone to the google play store and various downloads.  It happened any time I activated anything on my phone...  opened a folder.. redirected to google play store.  Recieved a phone call; sometimes I could not clear all the redirects to different apps, usually games or phone tools, until the caller hung up.   Open messages, get redirected, etc.  Cleared the cache and everthing, and it was all good until I accepted the terms and conditions for the google play store, then they were all back.

BAD ANDROID!!

How can I continue to use the Google play store, yet not be harassed all the time to download and install this and that app? It's so difficult to clear the layers of google play store offers that its actually acting like malware.

Please help.

Ren421

It seems that you have some kind of malware on your phone. Google Play doesn't acts like this.

You should try a factory reset and see if this solves your problem.

By the way, this will ERASE ALL YOUR DATA like photos, sms...and apps data so you'll have to log in again on every app.

Hope it helps!


Install Lineage on P3110 with Replicant I installed Replicant on my P3110 only to discover the wifi is not supported. So now I want to install Lineage instead.

Apparently Lineage is no longer officially support by Lineage, but I have been able to find lineage-14.1_espressowifi-7.1.2-20180131-1818.zip

If I use Replicant's bootloader and try to do adb sideload lineage-14.1_espressowifi-7.1.2-20180131-1818.zip the sideload completes, but fails on the device with E: failed to verify whole-file signature.

I am thinking that I may have to install espresso-common_TWRP_3.2.2-0.img but I have found no way to do that from the Replicant bootloader.

I am thinking that I may have to install espresso-common_TWRP_3.2.2-0.img but I have found no way to do that from the Replicant bootloader.

I think you are correct, I don't think you can flash a new bootloader with the Replicant bootloader, only update it.

You will have to flash with a computer:

Plug your device into a computer
Put your device into downloading mode
Flash TWRP for your device

And then use TWRP to flash the LineageOS ROM for your device.


How to have many langages or none in Andoid default Spell check and autocompletion? I type many languages. To have one language, is more problematic because of auto completion.

Swiftkey is a good option again in Android 7.


How do I get a hacker out of my phone? The other day my phone number was added to my Google account, data was turned on and off. Different things have been happening. I have a LG V35 and it has an LG VPN section and when I check the log. It shows background scripts or whatever being run in my phone. I do not have a VPN. I tried resetting my phone to factory and it didn't work. Please someone help me get this person out of my phone. The other day it said it got one profile.

Look through your installed app (in settings). Is there some new weird app you have never seen before and not installed yourself which is labeled as "System-App"? Yes? Your are screwed. Only way to get rid of it is to re-flash the whole ROM. Well you could also root your phone and use one of countless apps/modules to remove System-Apps. But God knows what the virus will do when it gets root access.
I have seen this years ago on a Huawei Mate 1. The app was turning on WiFi and Data permanently to load ads and malware. Factory reset did nothing. Clean flash of a new ROM was the only way.


How can you restore the default icons after installing a home replacement like Open Home 6 I have installed Open Home 6 as a home replacement on my Archos 101 apad.

Is there a way to revert to the default icons for gmail / market / contacts and the like ?

Are icon sets a system wide setting ? Or are those sets specific to the software application which displays them.

AFAIK, OpenHome icons are specific to OpenHome. If you switched to another home scren app, the icons would revert to the default icons. If you want to keep OpenHome but not their icons, you would need to replace the icons through OpenHome.


Why am I not getting CM12s OTA for the OnePlus One? I am not getting CM12s OTA for the OnePlus One. Although I hit system update a bunch of times.

Thanks for your help.

For some reason OTA updates for CM12 from 11 have not been working. So manually go into the recovery and install. After you have CM12 you will get OTA updates.


Nexus 7 won't boot after being powered down...unless plugged in I have powered down my new Nexus on a couple of occasions now, but it will not boot up subsequently UNLESS it is plugged into the charger. Is this by design? I've also had it go into this unresponsive state after being charged overnight; in that case, I turned the charger off and on again and it was OK.

Anyone had this happen to them? Do I have a faulty unit?

I just double-checked mine, and it boots fine without the charger (battery at 64%).  I suspect your unit is faulty.


Cannot Restore Data for Signal Messenger 4.16 with Titanium Backup I have backed up and restored Signal with Titanium for years without any incident, up until now. The other day I was encountering a boot loop playing around with an Xposed module. I did a re-flash of the ROM to regain access and then backed up my data with Titanium as usual. After a full wipe and re-flash all data was restored correctly (even for system apps), except Signal which force-closes instantly every time I open it. I've read about false UID re-assignments and tried the Fix Permissions app without any result.

Fellow member @Josh experienced the same issue and attributed it to changes in the most recent Signal version 4.16 which pointed me into the right direction to find a workaround. I installed version 4.15.5 from here and then restored data only from Titanium. Now Signal will start normally again, but my messages from about the last 2 weeks are missing. Of course this can only be
 considered a temporary solution. I wonder what can cause this kind of behavior in Titanium, and if there are any similar backup solutions available that do work with Signal.

Update: At last, the stable released yesterday (4.17.5) has finally gotten the long-awaited backup option:

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360001890291-Restoring-messages-on-Signal-Android

For rooted users, it would still be easier to backup and restore all apps in one batch after a ROM switch. Unfortunately, the upgrade from 4.15.5 caused Signal to crash instantly upon opening. All I could do was downgrade and export a plaintext backup which means I have now lost all media and group messages. Note that when you import the plaintext backup, you might need to use an earlier version. I couldn't restore with 4.17.5 since the app would always crash (10+ MB file). Only after going back to 4.15.5 the plaintext import was successful. Upgrading afterward went without problems.

I side-stepped the issue:

Turn on backups on old phone (the seem to happen daily)
When restoring, place the .backup file in the sdcard root diretory. Putting it under sdcard/Signal/backups will have the file NOT be read, and no error message given, either.

The 2nd point took me hours to work out.


tablet won't recognize usb keyboard Azpen tablet android 4.2.2 won't recognize my usb keyboard. I downloaded external keyboard and a usb host controller and it doesn't work. I connected it to my pc and the keyboard works just fine. Any suggestions?

If you mean the Azpen A727 tablet, I just got one of them for $20 through a Micro Center promotion.  The device FAQ states it can't use an external keyboard.

One thing you can try is turning on USB debug mode.  To do so, invoke the Settings app, scroll down to and tap About Tablet.  At the bottom of the About Tablet display, tap Build Number multiple times.  You'll see a message indicating progress, and at the end you'll be told you are a developer.  Once successful, there will be a {} Developer Options menu entry added to the System section of the Settings app, and you can turn on USB debugging from there.

It may also be possible to enable this if you root the device.  I found instructions for doing so at http://zepinventory.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/how-to-root-azpen-a727-tablet/  (It's Windows only.)  I haven't been able to make it work yet, but that's likely because I was trying it from an XP box, and will try again from the SO's Win7 laptop.

It's also possible that USB host mode is simply not present.  The Azpen docs say communication is one way - you can connect the tablet to a PC and get stuff from the tablet to the PC, but not vice versa.  When I connect it to the PC here, the PC sees two removable drives, but neither can be accessed as it doesn't think there is media in the drives.

I'd like to use it with an external keyboard, but I'll live if I can't.  What it does now is more than worth what I paid for it.

Update: Rooting the device removed the restriction.  Once rooted, the device recognized my Logitech Portable keyboard, and a Logitech entry appeared in Settings allowing me to select the preferred keyboard layout. I found a guide to rooting that I followed here: http://zepinventory.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/how-to-root-azpen-a727-tablet/


Firefox for Android: Download a video file I've got Firefox running on the Nexus 10, and I'm trying to download a video from a URL. When I tap on the video link, it starts trying to play in the browser, instead of downloading the file. How can I download the file?

Long-pressing on the URL does not provide a download or "save" option.

As of December 2012, I don't see any way to get something like "Save link as" option in Firefox for Android. However, in some cases clicking on a video link automatically starts downloading the video, but in most cases it starts playing them. Best you can do is to request Firefox to add this feature. Meanwhile, you can try an alternative browser that has this feature for your video downloads.


How to run `chmod` command on boot on Android 10? I have an Android 10 device whose bootloader is unlocked. I have downloaded its firmware, modified it and get the adb shell rooted in recovery. Following are the steps for it:

Download AIK
Extract recovery.img and modified ramdisk/default.prop as follows:

 ro.secure=0
 ro.adb.secure=0
 security.perf_harden=0
 ro.debuggable=1
 persist.sys.usb.config=adb,mtp

Replace split_img/recovery.img-zImage with permissive kernel(built from kernel sources)
Repack it and flash it on the device.
Reboot to recovery and run adb shell. It will be rooted.

I want to add simple chmod 666 /dev/diag command and I have mounted system with stock recovery mount system option and then tried to do following:

Write chmod command at the end of init.rc.
Tried creating new rc scripts under /system/etc/init/ folder. New rc script has just chmod command written in it.
Tried appending(e.g. echo "chmod 666 /dev/diag" >> /system/etc/init/cameraserver.rc) chmod command in other rc files in /system/etc/init/ folder.

All were not able to change the required permissions. init.rc changes lost after reboot. Other files/changes persist after reboot but doesn't change the permission of diag port.

OTOH, I was able to make a system app with changes in /system/app/ folder.

Is there anything else that I can try to run the chmod command after phone boots?

echo "chmod 666 /dev/diag" >> /system/etc/init/cameraserver.rc won't work. You need to provide an init trigger as well. For instance:

~# echo "on boot" >/etc/init/dev_diag_chmod.rc
~# echo "    chmod 666 /dev/diag" >>/etc/init/dev_diag_chmod.rc
~# chown 0.0 /etc/init/dev_diag_chmod.rc
~# chmod 0644 /etc/init/dev_diag_chmod.rc
~# chcon u:object_r:system_file:s0 /etc/init/dev_diag_chmod.rc

But even simple approach is to edit the ueventd.rc file (which is read and executed by Android's device manager) provided by vendor (since /dev/diag is a hardware specific interface) which creates the device node. Replace the relevant statement inside that file to set whatever permission mode, owner and group you want. E.g. you can replace:

/dev/diag    0660    system    system

With:

/dev/diag    0666    system    system


Huawei phone- apps downloaded and visible under settings but can't open I have a new Huawei phone purchased in Australia, and I have successfully downloaded apps, which appear under app settings, but there are no shortcuts for the apps nor an option to open them. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

I'm not sure, but I think that Huawei's launcher is kinda different than others, and I think that it doesn't have app drawer, but the app shortcuts get added directly to the homescreen.

So, to take the launcher factor out, try downloading different launcher like Nova, Apex, Epic launcher, or something like that, and try the app to see if your applications show in the app drawer. In case they don't show up there either, your problem is not in the launcher itself, but something else.


AppBrain offers to update app that marketplace does not The Appbrain app is offering to update my Maps, Street View and Facebook app. In the Android Marketplace, I can't see any option to update (though I have never updated an app before so I don't know how the update would appear). I am wondering if this difference has something to do with HTC customisations. Should I allow Appbrain to update these applications or not?

Were these pre-installed apps? You won't get market update notificatins for apps that are pre-installed, you have to go to the market and manually install any newer versions of the app and then you'll get future updates via the market.

The same thing happened with my Droid.  I heard about an update for Facebook (which came on my phone), but never saw an update in the market until I searched for it and manually installed the app.


Whats the use case of proximity sensor? Can anyone explain to me what is the purpose of the proximity sensor, on my phone. What if my phone's proximity sensor stops working or gets damaged. What problems will I face?

PS: I am just curious to know.

The proximity sensor on most smart-phones with touchscreen exists to disable accidental touch events. The most common scenario is the ear coming in contact with the screen and generating touch events, while on a call.


Run PHP MySQL web application on Android I want to run a PHP MySQL web application on an Android device. The device is not rooted.

Is there any way? If there isn't, can the device connect to a PC's localhost offline?

There are few apps on play store

Following are the two i have tried and works as expected

KickWeb Server
Server for PHP


Windows 10 Fastboot Driver My Sony Z3 Compact is currently unusable and I would like to flash the Marshmallow version of FXP.

Unfortunately it seems like I can't find any fastboot (or as device manager calls it: S1Boot Fastboot) driver for Windows 10.

Am I looking somewhere wrong or is there simply no fastboot driver out there for Windows 10 yet?

Regards

By looking at the inf file, you can find that it tells to use the WinUSB driver. So there is a better solution than disabling driver signature enforcement, you can use the tool Zadig (http://zadig.akeo.ie/). This tools create a self-signed inf for this specific device, using ephemeral keys, added to the trusted certificate store (for this only device / inf), removing the need to disable signature check.

So you can do this :

Download the tool, start it.
Select the "S1Boot fastboot" device
Select the WinUSB Driver
Click Install

And then fastboot devices list your device.


How can I access my Samsung Galaxy S5's modem with QXDM? I rooted my samsung sg-G900H. When I connect it to my PC and look for a COM port, there is no COM port, so I can't connect to it with Qualcomm eXtensible Diagnostic Manager (QXDM). How can I enable serial port access to the modem and connect to it with QXDM?

This thread on the XDA forum describes it.

Here is a short code to get the phone to show debug mode:  *#197328640#


What does purple colour mean in GPU rendering profiling? In this video you can see lags in the Easter egg in Android Lollipop on Nexus 5

What does purple colour mean?

Purple is "prepare"

It has been added in Lollipop, so now we get:
draw (blue), prepare (purple), process (red), execute (yellow)

If you do adb shell dumpsys gfxinfo, the table for each app now has 4 columns (with prepare added between draw and process)

I have yet to find any documentation on this yet :)


Tasker: Switch Data Network for Different Apps I'm planning to switch the data network to 3G for certain apps. And once I've exited the apps, I want to wait for 30 seconds before it switches to 2G again if no other 3G apps are opened within that 30 seconds.

How do I use the "If - Else" tasks to accomplish this?

Thank you.

You do not need to use "if-else" in this.

Instruction for Tasker

Create a new Profile with Context as Applications
Choose your apps in which you prefer to have 3G
Create a new Task.
Add action: Mobile Data = 3G
Press back see Profile tab again.
Long Press Task (Mobile Data 2G/3G). A pop-up will come.
Select Add Exit Task
Under it, add the following actions:

Wait 30 seconds
Mobile Data : 2G


Can I receive / send SMS of cellphone number with a tablet using a dongle? Can I receive / send SMS of cellphone number with an Android tablet using a dongle? Any SMS application for the Android tablet?

Very probably not.

Reason: While (some?) USB dongles do support sending/receiving SMS, Android doesn't have a means to make use of it as is. 3rd party SMS apps rely on the Android API, but your device's firmware is very probably not built to expose 3G dongle's SMS capabilities via that API.


How feasible is it to use Google Voice for all calls and texts? I'm considering getting an Android phone, and one thing that I'd like to do is drop my texting plan, and do all texting over wifi/data using Google Voice. If I do this, I need the following things to be true:

It must be easy to send texts over Google Voice.
It must be easy to receive texts (and notifications of new texts) over Google Voice, without them actually coming to me by SMS (so I don't get charged for them).
It must be easy to place calls using my Google Voice number (it doesn't have to be VOIP, but the person I'm calling has to see the call as originating from the Google Voice number, so that I don't have to get them two numbers).
It must be easy to receive calls using my Google Voice number (again, I only want to give out one number).

Are all these things possible with Android?

Yes!

I use Google Voice for texting.  It's great.  Notifications are reliable, there have been no delays in receiving messages (or others receiving mine), and of course you can access it from your computer as well.  Super handy, and no SMS charge.

As for voice calls, I also used to use it for that.  The app manages everything nicely for outgoing calls -- you can set it to make every call "from" (show up as) your Google Voice number.  And you can set it up to forward all calls to it to your "real" number -- so no one needs to know it except Google and you can give everyone your GVoice number.  Plus, every call to the U.S. and Canada only uses your local minutes (or charges you a local rate if you don't have a plan).

Note: You can't receive texts from services such as Facebook that actually email you via [yournumber]@[yourcarrier].com or something similar, you cannot text short codes such as FBOOK (32665), and you can't send MMS messages (but that's what email's for amirite?).


HTC Droid Incredible cannot load text message My phone, HTC Droid Incredible, was working perfectly fine. Then it just stopped letting me open up my text message threads. All it does is say loading and I left it for about 10 minutes and still nothing.

Everything else on my phone works. I've restarted it four times and it's still not working.

Any suggestion?

You could try backing up your messages with something like SMS Backup & Restore and then wiping the Messaging apps data and cache.


How to hide / show the pull out drawer that is pre-loaded on some Samsung devices Some newer Samsung devices have a pull out tab that stores some of the commonly used applications. I have accidentally enabled and disabled it a number of times, but I don't know how. I don't see anything related to it in device settings or any of the installed apps that would control it.

How do you hide / show this pull out bar?

 (Click on the image for larger version)

You can enable/disable this pull out bar by long pressing the back button.


contacts do not sync and get overriden/deleted When I use the built-in contact app with either a outlook.com or a office365 account on the phone created contacts get deleted after some time and they don't sync to the web.

What have I done:

delete and add account
factory reset

Similiar to https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/contacts-keep-deleating.484478/ except that I already save to another account.

I was unable to stop the outlook App overriding/deleting created contacts. But syncing contacts via gmail, but using the Outlook App for everything else seems to work.

Disable Contact syncing for all accounts added to the Outlook App in the system settings.
Add all accounts to as an exchange account to the google App (In Account settings, there should be an 'Exchange' option. Disable all syncing but contact sycning.

For outlook.com accounts you will need to manually select 'Exchange' in the next step, even after selecting Exchange Account in Account Settings (else it defaults to IMAP).


ADW lock code forgotten Using ADWLauncher, you can lock the desktop. Extremely useful, till the password is forgotten.

I have a Nexus 4. Any solution to crack the password?

Consider using Sqlite browser:

If you can get to the phone's internal storage from your PC, try finding the. Sql files.with the code stored. Well, provided its a numeric code; if its a swipe patter, you're s.o.l. and have to do a reset of the phone.


Is it possible to continue upgrading an Android device if the OEM stops supporting it? Suppose the OEM loses interest in my device; can I still install the stock distro updates when issued by Google? Are there issues with device drivers if I go this route?

Once a manufacturer abandons supporting the device, your only choice is rooting it, unlocking its bootloader (if possible) and installing custom ROMs.

Google only releases the Android source code into AOSP (Android Open Source Project,) and has no say whether or not the manufacturer or carrier will update a given device.  The only exception is the Nexus line of phones that are supported by Google directly.  As it stands, AOSP cannot be built for any non-Google device without major work.  Even though manufacturers and carriers are required to provide the source code, it is true only for the part of the OS.  They don't have to (and rarely do) provide sources for the proprietary drivers, which are necessary to build a completely working Android version for a given device.  The community developers usually use the drivers from older OS versions, which greatly limits the upgrade potential.  The drivers sometimes are reverse-engineered which gives a greater flexibility to developers.

There also is an issue of locked down bootloaders on most new Android phones and tablets, which limits the extent of the changes a custom ROM can bring.  Most manufacturers and carriers lock bootloaders to prevent people from "bricking" their devices.  There are ways to unlock/bypass such locks for many devices though.

Bottom line is that if you are looking for a device that will be supported the longest - your best choice is a Nexus line.  Otherwise, I suggest looking at various online forums (xda-developers or rootzwiki, for example) to see if there is enough interest in your device from community developers to produce custom ROMs for it.


ADB Device Unauthorized [Android 6.0.1 Nexus 6P] I've literally tried everything it seems like. There was an another unanswered post on here asking something similar but obviously it didn't help since no one had answered.
RSA Fingerprint Dialog is not displaying - regardless of what I do
My phone used to display the RSA fingerprint dialog after selecting USB Debugging under developers settings. Now it doesn't. I'm very frustrated as I've only purchased this phone for the sole purpose of installing Kali nethunter on it.
I had the phone rooted before and installed the wrong rom for kali nethunter so I flashed the stock ROM back on to it and all is well and working except USB Debugging. I'm about to throw my phone away at this point... I've tried everything it seems:
Past, Frustrating Attempts

Try a different cable
Switch phone to PTP and MTP mode
Switch USB debugging on and off
Install and uninstall universal driver and google drivers
try different usb port
ADB kill-server / ADB start-server (Device still unauthorized under ADB Devices)
Install SDK manager and update ADB / Fastboot
Try a differnet OS (Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Kali Linux)
Factory Reset
Delete RSA Keys under 'C:.android'

All of these did not work.
My phone as it sits is unrooted (because I can't put it in USB Debugging mode) 6.0.1 marshmallow and TWRP installed as custom recovery.

You can reset the list of authorized devices by doing:

  Developer Options
  Under Debug Group select "Revoke USB Debug Authorization" (I'm translating from italian but should be something similar)
  Unplug your phone and go to your launcher
  Plug the cable to pc
  Check when you connect the cable that Data transfer is enabled (from the notification that appears)

Hope this can fix the issue


What does "Drawing over other apps" mean? I installed a GIF app from Play Store, and they want permission to do this. I don't even understand what drawing over other apps means.

Is it the floating hearts in a GIF in a private message in Messenger? I'm confused.

The technical name of this permission is SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW:

  Allows an application to open windows using the type TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT, shown on top of all other applications.
  This permission allows an app to show a "popup" window above all other apps, even if the app is not in the foreground. A malicious developer/advertiser could use it to show very obnoxious advertising. Almost no apps should require this permission unless they are part of the Android operating system. An example of a system alert would be the alert you are shown when your phone or tablet is out of battery and is about to shut down.

As GiantTree already pointed out, this is also used by "screen overlay apps" such as screen filters. A malicious app could e.g. use it to trick you to do things you'd otherwise wouldn't do, for example overlaying buttons with different text (or replacing the question text with something different) so you press "yes" on a screen you wanted to press "no" (so-called "Tap-Jacking") – which is why (at least with Android 6) people often get the warning "screen overlay detected". See e.g.:

“Screen overlay detected” dialog?
Screen overlay detected, what is the problem?


How can I make 1Password for Android log in with the built in browser? I have a Droid X and have just installed 1Password. I like that I can take my passwords with em and log into websites via the phone, but it seems to only use the 1Password built in browser, which does not zoom very well and is kind of buggy.

Is it possible to log into sites with the built in browser or is this just a limitation of the 1Password software? If so it's an annoying shortcoming.

All the screenshots of this software show it using a PIN code, but since I synced it with Dropbox it's asking me to put in the same long password that I use on the computer. Is that normal or can I use a shorter pin code on the phone?

The stock browser has no plug-in functionality. Until it's added you will likely never see 1password/lastpass integration in the stock browser.

Speaking of the lastpass: It's similar to 1password and uses dolphin's plug-in system very well.


How to debug a battery issue? I have HTC Sensation 4G. I have a very peculiar issue with the battery. I've been using the phone for just over one year now. There are some periods (about 7 to 15 days) when battery performance is absolutely fine.

But then after certain days of good performance battery starts behaving weirdly: Phone gets switched off even at over 60% battery. Restarting it shows about 5% battery, again switches off, restart shows around 20% etc.

So I guessed there is some calibration issue. Taking out the battery at the time of this erratic behavior makes it work fine for a little while (half an hour to a couple of hours) then again the stupidity starts. I have tried draining the battery to 0% and then a full charge, tried various usage models (not using wifi, disabling animations to reduce usage etc.) nothing seems to work.

I can't properly debug this issue properly as connecting to computer starts charging and when its charging there are no such issues. This is REALLY frustrating, Any one has any idea how to debug it?

(I have come to know that certain batch of HTC sensation has this issue, not everyone has experienced similar problems but there are people and no one has been able to point me in the right direction)

I have diagnosed several battery related anomalies with a combination of two apps: one called Diagnosis and the other GSam Battery Monitor Pro.  GSam isn't as robust but it offers a greater filtering options to sort the culprits by CPU usage, power usage, memory usage....  In every case it turned out to be a problem with an app or a setting or my current ROM but those apps helped me track down the problem.

You may also want to check your device's logs for clues.  You can use aLogrec to record your logcat, then note the time of a spontaneous shutdown then check the log to see what events lead up to it.  I can barely understand what is contained in my logcat but this forum post may help you.


Galaxy S4 filtering incoming connections I am trying to run an ftp server app on my galaxy s4 (tmobile) and it starts ok, binds to the wifi address and port 8021, but then I can't connect to it. I tried pinging my internal ip address as well and it's not responding. I also tried running nmap on it and it says All 1000 scanned ports on 192.168.1.102 are filtered. I haven't been able to find any settings or anything - any idea what could be blocking the ports? I have checked the IP both via a ip info sort of app, as well as through my router's connected devices page. Any ideas?

Update: I just tried a different FTP app just to make sure and same thing.

Update: Here's my nmap output:

$ nmap 192.168.1.102 -Pn -p 8021

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-06-08 17:21 EDT
Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.102
Host is up.
PORT     STATE    SERVICE
8021/tcp filtered ftp-proxy

$ nmap 192.168.1.102 -Pn

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-06-08 17:23 EDT
Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.102
Host is up (0.066s latency).
All 1000 scanned ports on 192.168.1.102 are filtered

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 14.77 seco

I am trying to connect to the phone from my windows box via filezilla and running the nmap from my raspberry pi, again on the same wifi network.

I also checked the router's connected devices and the IP address there matches what the phone shows.

Thanks!

This turned out to be a problem with my router - earlier today I also noticed that I couldn't connect to my printer either - it seems like the router had gotten in a weird AP isolation mode or something like that somehow - I rebooted it and I can connect to the S4 as expected now.


Samsung Fascinate - Custom recovery without USB I have a Samsung Fascinate that has a faulty USB connection. No computer / cable connection will recognize that there is a USB connection, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and using ADB and "lsusb".

But the phone is rooted. Plain and simple, is there ANY way to flash a custom recovery without USB?

I get this when I try to flash Clockworkmod through the app or apply update.zip:

--Install from package...
Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifying update package...
E: failed to verify whole-file signature
E: signature verification failed
Installation aborted

Recovery SD

So I found a pretty good tutorial that shows you how to make a bootable CWM recovery. It was written for the Nook Color, but I'll help you through it.

Source: http://androidforums.com/nookcolor-all-things-root/327798-guide-how-make-bootable-cwm-clockworkmod-twrp-bootable-sd-card-06-04-2013-a.html

You need an SD card obviously, the guide says 1 GB is good enough. To be honest I'm not even sure if you can buy a 1 GB SD card at a store anymore (you can most defiantly get them online but don't waste your money). Just go to the store and pick out the cheapest 4 or 8 GB SD card, they are pretty cheap these days. You can get them online if you want to save a couple bucks but I don't think it's worth the wait.
Download a bootable image file. This is what your Android device is actually going to boot up onto. Make sure you find one that matches your device.
You need software to burn an image to an SD card. If you have Mac OSX or Ubuntu you are in luck because those systems come with software to write images. If you are a Windows user, you can just download some software. If you don't know how to do this, just check the tutorial, their instructions are pretty good.

If you did all of the steps correctly, you should be able to plug the SD card into the device and it should boot from SD automatically.

adb over wifi

I'm not sure if this will help you, but maybe it will if you couldn't get the Recovery SD card working. You can use adb over wifi to talk to your Android device.

Here is a guide to get you connected to adb over wifi:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1685736

from there you can push a custom ROM to install over your current one (which could restore your USB connectivity).


Can you use somebody else's `/efs` folder? So, assume that there are two Galaxy S3 phones (i9300)s. One of em has a "No Service", "Baseband Unknown" problem while the other works like a charm. Both of them are rooted and flashed with custom ROMs.  (CM11 and CM12).

So, if the phone with proper /efs makes a nandroid backup of /efs and then that backup is restored in the phone having issues, then this should technically work.

Question is, will it?

No, this won't work, because there is cant be two phones with same IMEI codes and every single phone probably has special modem codes so efs from one phone won't work in other phone


SIM settings icon always on notification bar I bought an imported HTC Desire about 6 months ago and put my New Zealand Vodafone SIM in it. When I start up the phone, there's nothing in the noticication bar as you'd expect. Then, after a call is made or data connection initiates, an icon appears that looks like a SIM card with a cog next to it. I assume it's something to do with SIM settings. When I drag the notification bar down and click on it, nothing happens.

It's not a big deal, but I'd like to get rid of it if I can!

Don't know if it matters, but since I upgraded to Gingerbread, most of the icons in the notification bar are grey rather than white, but this one has remained white.

The phone is running the official HTC Desire Gingerbread upgrade - Android 2.3.3.

Update: Photos of the icon:

That is the SD card icon not the sim card icon.

Perhaps your phone does not recognise the SD card, or the card needs reformatting to be used with the phone.

Or you don't have an SD card inserted.

EDIT

After further research:

That icon is called "stat_notify_sim_toolkit." It is used in just two places, both methods inside com.android.server.MountService:

notifyMediaUnmounted()
notifyMeadiaChecking()

Tracing these methods backwards, I see that the MountService calls them when either:

1) a volume is detected as not mounted
2) it is checking to see if a volume is mounted

Num. 2 should only take a few seconds at longest.

So, "something" is not mounted properly, though I cannot guarantee that is the SIM that is having a problem.

You should remove and re-insert all plugable items (SIM, SD).

Another option recommends:

  settings > applications > manage applications > SIM Toolkit > Select Force Stop button

If this removed the icon 'temporarily' at least it confirms it's a SIM problem and not SD.

EDIT 2

Someone has a recommended solution for NON-ROOTED phone's here:
(I cannot verify this method as I haven't tested it)

SimCard Notification Icon Fix

For rooted phones simply use Titanium Backup and FREEZE the app: Sim Toolkit


Why do games keep crashing on my phone? I have Samsung Galaxy Ace. I'm installing apps from Google Play or just download them on my PC and then transfere them with Bluetooth. Now my problem is that some games crash or be white on some spots, for example there is main menu and play, and thay play is a just white square and it starts the app so it is just a graphical bug. But game like Blood Zombies HD just keeps crashing with report/force close. I have lot of free memory on my phone and on SD card and my phone had needed requierements and no backround apps running. And like a half of games on Google Play have same force close/report thing. So please answere me to fix this problem

I'm sorry to say this, but the Samsung Galaxy ace has a lower end processor as well as a small amount of ram. Although your device meets the requirements, its specifications don't allow it to run well. Games like blood zombies HD require higher performing devices with a satisfactory GPU. Your phone cannot handle games like these.


Why is the bURLy app no longer visible in the Play Store? Dan Hulme posted a (deleted) answer on How do I stop Play Store from randomly opening when I'm in other apps?, mentioning an app called bURLY.

  I made an app bURLy which lets you control what your phone does when an app tries to open a web link, such as to a Play Store app page. Even when other apps (such as the Play Store app) can open the link directly, it lets you preview what link will open, and create rules. You can make a rule to automatically ignore links to apps on Google Play, except when you allow it first.

However, it is no longer visible on the Play Store. Why?

After a career change a few years ago I stopped updating these apps. When GDPR came in, Google required all app developers to update their apps' privacy policies to show GDPR compliance, even if the apps weren't collecting any personal data etc. Because I didn't update the apps' privacy policy, Google removed them from the Play Store. Because I wasn't logging into my developer account and keeping track, I didn't find out until months afterwards.

If I get around to it I might dig out the source code and publish it somewhere, so any interested party is able to update the apps and maybe to keep developing them.

Thanks for your interest! If people had been that interested at the time I might have been able to keep developing bURLy and other apps.


How can I hide the night time hours in Samsung's "S planner" calendar? I am using the "S planner" calendar on Samsung galaxy note 2 (Android 4.4.2).
I never make appointments between 12am and 6am and I want to hide these hours from the view. i.e.

Apparently the same thing can be done in gmail

Today I achieved this by accident - then it restored itself to the default view, now I'm wondering - how can I do it again?

I worked it out - you just double tap in the area where the unused hours are and the view automatically adjusts!

(Click an image to enlarge it)

 →


My Google Now App does not speak I tried out the Google Now feature that comes with Jelly Bean and it's not working as I expected. It answers my questions as a search result but does not show the exact result as a card nor does it speak to me.

I am using a Galaxy Nexus and 4.1.1 Jelly Bean. I checked the audio volume and I enabled Google Now. How can I get it to speak results to me?

I had same problem, but after updating it works well. Just update Google Search in the Google Play Store.


Android 4.4.3 update, dialer add 2 second pause - what is it? THe new dialer for android 4.4.3 has an option for "add 2 second pause" and "add wait". What do these options do?

I'll add a screenshot soon.

It adds a delay to the buttons you dial when it is dialing. It is for interactive request on the phone (E.g. Press 1 to speak to RossC)

Here's an example that might explain it:

Say you do the following to top up your phone credit:

  Dial 1741

  Select option 1 for top up

  Select Option 2 for enter code

  Enter 20 digit code (XXXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXX)

You could simply dial:

1741 <ADD 2 SECOND PAUSE> 1 <ADD 2 SECOND PAUSE> 2 <ADD 2 SECOND PAUSE> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  and it will all process. It literally adds a pause of 2 seconds to the buttons it dials!

My ancient Nokia phone used to have a 'P' for this above the # key. So you would have had 1741 P 1 p 2 etc on it. Very convenient for something you regularly call.


What's the difference between free and premium version of Aldiko Book Reader? When it comes to epub format ebooks reading, Aldiko Book Reader is the best Android app on Earth and nobody will oppose it, as I think. I have been using it for 5 months and really satisfied. Now, I am thinking about purchasing its premium version in hope to get more useful features. But, I am unable to find what I'll get new with premium version. Its page on Play Store doesn't have anything about "Premium Exclusive Features". Please, help if you've used premium version.

Answer is in their FAQ:

  The free version is advertisement supported while the premium version
  is not. Both the free and premium versions have the same set of
  features at this point except the premium version will get faster
  updates.


3x4 keypad only types numbers even when in the letter mode is shown I hope anybody can help me out. Any tips would be very much appreciated!

I changed the keyboard input mode from qwerty to 3x4, as I can't manage the small buttons of qwerty. I realize the 3x4 has a letter mode, a number mode and a symbols mode. I can see the alphabet characters on-screen, but pressing them produces numbers.

This is me typing 'hello' on the keypad, once with XT9 on and again with it off.

To get 'h' I would tap the ghi button twice, but it yields '44' instead.

I checked there is a language selected for predictive text. I really want to get this working without installing a third-party keyboard, as I did that before and the nature of my device's low internal memory really makes it difficult.

Running Android 2.3.6, Cyanogenmod Revolution Light build

Where you were enter web or app, what ever use this type of keyboard exclusively just to let you write only number code or phone number. If you will enter other app (writing box) and try to write using the keyboard 3x4 you will be able to write alphabetic characters.


What do "root," "flash," and "ROM" mean? Possible Duplicate:
  What is the meaning of “flashing a custom ROM”?

I have been looking for some good explanations of some words that have been frequently used the android developer communities like the XDA forums.

Some words I've seen but do not understand are:

root - (as far as I know it's the way of getting the super user access)

flash - don't know what this is

ROM - don't know either

I need a more descriptive explanation about these words and the related tools, mechanisms, etc.

Looking around the site will give you lots of answers.

Rooting:

What does "to root a phone" mean?
How do I root my Android device?

ROMs and Flashing:

What is the meaning of "flashing a custom ROM"?
Does flashing a custom ROM require root access?
Does rooting require a custom ROM?


Can I update my Saudi Arabian Samsung Galaxy S2 to the latest Android version over the air in India? I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 I9100 which my cousin bought for me in Saudi Arabia. It is running on Android 2.3 ginger bread. Will I get firmware updates for this phone in India over the air (OTA)?

OTA update will depend on the CSC of your phone. CSC is Country Sales Code; it tells you which region your phone can be used in and which networks it will work with.

If you are in India (and your phone is connected to an India network), and your phone has CSC for Saudi Arabia, you will not be able to get OTA updates. What you can do is flash a stock ROM for India on your phone using Odin. After you do this, you will be able to get future OTA updates.  WARNING: Changing ROM might require a wipe of your phone.

Some ROMS have Multi-CSC that might support the region you are in. In this case, you don't need to flash a new ROM. You can just change it with the "Samsung Galaxy S / S2 / S3 CFC" app in Google Play. WARNING: Changing CSCs will wipe your phone.

The CSC code for India is ODD.


Why does VLC show deleted files? I have the VLC app in my ASUS phone and when I search via the subtitles-option in the downloads section, it shows files that have been deleted.

I downloaded apps to see if they exist and searched the phone files via PC also.

These files are deleted, so how can it still keep them or track them?

I deleted and reinstalled vlc and problem persists

Actually what you see is "Downloads History", not "Downloads Directory".

So the item will remains even though the actual file has been moved/deleted.

Same concept like web browser downloads history, the history item will not remove even though the actual file has been deleted in file explorer. For example, Firefox Downloads history, you need to explicitly click "Remove From History":

The difference of Android is it's system wide and cross apps. New to users who come from PC background.

[UPDATE WARNING] The 2nd difference of Android from PC is it will delete the actual file if you delete it in "Download history". This different make user confuse and make me confident to said it's really an android design bug.

Now you get the idea, you can remove this download history with the following steps:

Go to App drawer icon (bottom six dots) -> Downloads icon:

1.2 Or if you can't find Downloads icon, you can go to Settings -> Device -> Storage -> Downloads:

Then you will see the Downloads History page:

Long press one item, then you can highlight more items, and click trash icon to delete:

The users(I'm one of them) who have the same question like you is because they always click "File Manager" icon as file explorer(Or plug USB to open the file in PC) and unrealized the Downloads icon is Downloads History, not sync from "File Manager". I personally think this is a design bug because of easy to confuse.

p/s: Not only vlc, if you visits Settings -> Wi-Fi -> upper right option menu -> Advanced -> Install certificates -> left side navigation drawer -> Downloads, you will see the same thing.


How to determine which app is creating a notification I am running Android 2.2 on HTC Legend. I have a LOT of applications installed on it.

Today, after I changed my mobile operator, a notification appeared in the top bar. When I click on it, it says that my connection to Google is wrong and asks for the password.

However, since this is a dialog overlay, I have no mean to know if it is an application that I can trust (like a native one), or some sort of scam.

Any idea on how to identify from which app/service this message comes from?

This method does not work on Android 2.2.

Tested on Kitkat Android 4.4.2

Long press the notification and select App info.
It will take you to the settings app and show the details of the app the notification comes from.

on Lollipop

A long press shows you the name of the application instead of the notification.


Create custom profile for audio / configuration I've just bought a Samsung Galaxy I5510 with Android 2.2. I haven't seen anywhere (so I assume it is not possible) some profile management. i.e. "Reunion" (Notifications maybe without any alert and calls and messages vibrate), or "Sleeping" (Notifications and messages without any alert and calls with sound and vibration), and so on.

I've a few default profile: sound (in)active, plane mode and driving mode (the one which "speaks to you"). But I'd really like to can create my custom profiles as described above.

In the title I put " / configuration" because it would be awesome that the profile also let me to set up each app. I.e. different configuration on the same application based on which is the active profile.

So here are my questions:

Is that functionality already in my phone and I am missing something?
If not, is there any app with this functionality? (If it is free, better, if it is not free I'd like to hear about it anyway).
If not, is this possible to be done by an app? (Because I may be interested in developing such app if it doesn't exists). Any advice? (I'd never developed anything for android).

Thanks!

Try Tasker!
It does this and much much more :)

Developer website:
http://tasker.dinglisch.net/

Android market:
https://market.android.com/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm

If the learning curve is a little steep for you I'd suggest "Setting Profile" even if less powerful than tasker.
Also "Locale" could be of help.
I think you need to combine more apps to achieve your result or just use Tasker as I've suggested :)


How to access internet on my  HTC Desire from my pc with USB? Possible Duplicate:
  How to set up reverse tethering over USB?

Is there any way for enjoying internet on my android device without having WiFi or any thing else except USB.
Actually I have an internet connection on my PC. I am wondering if there is a way to share it from my PC for my Android phone. It is opposite of the normal "tethering" direction.

Try with:
http://www.junefabrics.com/android/

If you have a rooted device maybe this would be a better option:
http://blog.mycila.com/2010/06/reverse-usb-tethering-with-android-22.html


TWRP Not installing GApps I am trying to install Cyanogenmod 12.1 on my Samsung Galaxy S3 (SPH-710).
I Have been able to install the ROM but not the Gapps. Does anyone know a fix? I have used almost every Gapps version made for Android 5.1.

Sorry. I installed the wrong version of TWRP. I installed the first version on the list. Later found out that the first one is not the latest version... Sorry.


Protector for camera lens window on HTC Desire Z? (protect from scratches) Given that this phone provides no protection against scratches on the window for the camera lens, unlike for example, the Nokia N82 (great cameraphone which I also own), are there any adhesive transparent protectors that can be placed over this window but which would not affect image quality?

I've bought the screen and body protector from zagg.com by recommendation and am pleased with that but this offers no protector for the camera itself. (see: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2935/best-screen-protector-htc-desire-z )

I would think that protecting the camera lens window on this phone (and many others) would be more of a priority as this is actually functionality of the phone that needs to be protected - i.e. clear photos and video, rather than cosmetic - which most screen protectors do a good job of but fall short on the camera protection, it seems.

I can understand your concern, but I've also never seen a film that specifically covers the camera lens window. I haven't used a Zagg, but other screen films I've purchased in the past included the excess film on the card - if the Zagg included this you could possibly cut your own square or circle to cover the lens window. Otherwise I'd suggest checking your retailer of choice for another inexpensive film that you can use to cut your own window from.

In the past I've purchased screen protectors on clearance from places like Staples, Walmart, etc for obsolete devices so I could cut them to protect camera screens, etc.


Lock screen won't reset to swipe from numeric My Galaxy Note 3 won't go back to swipe to unlock the home screen after I set it to a numeric code. I see a note on the screen that says "Android device administrator has turned off the...." or something to that effect.

How can I remove my numeric lock and go back to using a swipe to unlock? Would unlocking or rooting help at all?

There are a number of reasons why you may not be able to downgrade to a swipe-unlock.

Exchange Email

If you have an Exchange email account set up, many times the Exchange admins won't let you connect unless your phone agrees to certain security precautions, such as setting up an unlock code.

Solution: Remove the account, or install an Email app that lies to the Exchange server, saying it is compliant when it really isn't.

Device Administrator

Check in Settings->Security->Device Administrators to see if there are any active apps listed. One or more may be requiring an unlock code.

Solution: Uncheck the apps listed. Note that those apps may no longer function properly.

Device Encryption

Not applicable in your specific situation, but enabling Device Encryption will also prevent you from removing a screen lock.


Adopted external sd card as internal storage - but storage space is not available On my Xperia XZs with Android 8.0 I formatted the external SD card to be used as internal or adoptable storage. I had to use ADB to get this working. The system sees the storage, but I can't use it.

Total Commander only sees the internal memory, which is 20GB of 32GB internal memory. The 128GB external SD shows up as 256GB of which half is used.

How can I get the SD card showing up as internal storage?

First of all, open SD card from screen displayed on screenshot in your question, than tap and hold recents button in nav bar or tap 3 dot menu if it's displayed, you will get various options one of them is migrate data tap on that and it should be fine.
Now because total commander see only one storage it is good, it is same case on my phone, and it works fine. Also adopted storage doesn't appear as internal storage it stays under same name and as external storage, but thing is that you can open app options in app manger in settings and choose to move to external storage in that case app will end up on adopted SD card.
When did you adopted SD card because it's already half full and as you said it didn't work as intended, when SD card is formatted as adoptable all data from SD card should be deleted.
Since it's showing 256 instead of 128 you should repeat process of adopting since something went wrong.


Galaxy S4 Mini: Why is there no "creation mode." when sending MMS (problem sending .png images) I can send .jpeg images via MMS but when I download an image it saves as a .png. When I send a MMS it says "media type not supported."

I read that the fix to this is going to settings > menu > creation mode and set it to warning / free. But for the S4 Mini there is no creation mode.

Can someone give me another fix or tell me where creation mode is? Thanks.

You can find creation mode in S4 mini by following this sequence:

open messaging.
press to the left of home button to open message setting options, and select settings at the bottom of the list.
scroll down to mms settings - creation mode is there, it has 'restricted' 'warning' and 'free'.

As far as i can determine, your downloads or screenshots which are saved as  .png will still be .png, and therefore other devices may be unable to open or view those files, but you can at least send them. I'm going to send to another Galaxy device to see if it can view them, worth experimenting.


Delete individual cookie on andriod phone? I have an android phone (Samsung s3 mini). Can I delete an individual cookie?

I can see how to delete all cookies, but this isn't what I need to do.

The cookies form the default android browser are stored in /data/data/com.android.browser/databases/webview.db. The problem is that other applications, for security reasons, do not have access to this file.

Since the Browser application hasn't implement this functionality, it is not possible.


K-9 Mail: Search in Message I use K-9 Mail for Android. Recently I tried to search for text in a (rather long) email, but could not find any possibility to do so. Long-pressing the menu button results in a search field, which returns a list of messages containing the search phrase.

I would like to search for text inside of one particular message. Any suggestions on how to do that with K-9 Mail?

After an Update of K-9 Mail I tried again to find it and succeeded (don't know whether this worked in a version prior to the new one).

This is how you search in K-9 Mail inside a message: In the respective message

select any text;
in the upcoming menu (copy, past, select all), select the document with a magnifying glass on it;
now the text you selected is used for an in-message search;
edit the search box and enter your search string.