Music just won't play loud enough on Samsung Galaxy S4 i9500

This might actually not be a problem caused by the operating system but rather by how much voltage the device can output into the headphones.
So, your Macbook is more likely to have a more powerful audio output than your S4.
The key word here is impedance. I assume the headphones you mentioned have a impedance too high for mobile devices, such as the S4.


Meaning of numbers in files WHATSAPP VOICE NOTES?

Short answer

On your PC ( or mobile ) do a wildcard search for PTT-20150218*.opus to get a list of all voice notes of
18 February 2015

Folder numbering is YYYYWW where YYYY is the year and WW is the week number of year - 201726 is the folder for voice notes created in the current week (at the time of writing )

Long answer

As per  How to get specific whatsApp voice note from your mobile which says

  Whatsapp creates folders and names them as week numbers of the year. So folder number 201612 (in the example above) means that what ever voice notes I've sent or received  between 21st March 2016 to 27th March, should be saved in that folder

(Emphasis Supplied)

In this example, week 12 of that year covers 21sr to 27th March

So, you would need to calculate from calendar the week of year your date falls in and see the corresponding folder, which happens to be 201508 (please double check the week number of year - I did it in a hurry )

Edit: I just created few voice notes and the logic given above is correct.

Folder numbering is YYYYWW where YYYY is the year and WW is the week number of year - 201726 ( path /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Voice Notes/201726 )
Within the folder, files are arranged in PTT-YYYYMMDD-WA000X.opus, where X  increases as created


Xiaomi M8SE Fastboot loop when trying to install TWRP

The solution to get out of the fastboot loop was to fresh install the developer MIUI with the MI Flash tool and then sign into the MI Account when setting up the phone. This is essential and the only way to install TWRP. I am guessing it has to verify that the bootloader is unlocked with the Mi account first.


How to delete SuperSu and changes it made

If you installed "SuperSu.zip" using TWRP Flashing, then you can also uninstall it by flashing the uninstall.zip


One purchased app stuck at "Starting download..." but others download fine

I am not sure why this happened... I suspect it was due to my open issue with the Android Market team... however I suddenly got an email that my order for this app had been canceled:

  Hello JOSHUA,

  Your order has been canceled and you have not been charged.

  Reason: Other (describe below)

  Comments: We could not complete your order in a timely fashion. Your
  order has been automatically canceled. Please retry your purchase.

I was then able to purchase and pay for the app again, and this time, it downloaded!


How to push gapps via adb to a rooted device

I have not really tried this, but a possible approach would be following the steps a custom recovery would perform when installing ("flashing") the .zip file – which can be found in META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script (after extracting the archive). For the Kitkat GApps archive, this looks like:

ui_print("Installing files...");
run_program("/sbin/busybox", "mount", "/system");
show_progress(1, 15);
delete("/system/app/Provision.apk","/system/app/QuickSearchBox.apk","/system/app/priv-app/SetupWizard.apk","/system/app/priv-app/Velvet.apk","/system/app/Vending.apk","/system/app
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");
set_perm(0, 0, 0755, "/system/addon.d/70-gapps.sh");
package_extract_dir("optional", "/tmp");
package_extract_file("install-optional.sh", "/tmp/install-optional.sh");
set_perm(0, 0, 0777, "/tmp/install-optional.sh");
run_program("/tmp/install-optional.sh", "");
show_progress(1, 15);
ui_print("Cleaning up and setting metadata...");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/addon.d", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0755, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/app", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0644, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/priv-app", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0644, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/etc/permissions", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0755, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/etc/preferred-apps", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0755, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata("/system/etc/g.prop", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "mode", 0755, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/framework", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0644, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/lib", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0644, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/usr/srec/en-US", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0644, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
set_metadata_recursive("/system/vendor/pittpatt", "uid", 0, "gid", 0, "dmode", 0755, "fmode", 0644, "capabilities", 0x0, "selabel", "u:object_r:system_file:s0");
run_program("/sbin/busybox", "umount", "/system");
ui_print("Installation complete!");

We of course can skip the comments/debug-output, and thus essentially end up with these steps. I assume you've unpacked the .zip file's contents somewhere on your device, and are sitting in a shell (terminal or adb shell) with root permissions (su) to start with:

mount -o remount,rw /system (line 2)
if the files listed in line 4 exist: rm -f <file> for each of them
copy all contents of the .zip file's system/ directory to /system (line 5)
chmod 0755 /system/addon.d/70-gapps.sh (line 6)
( apply the previous 2 steps on lines 7-9 )
sh /tmp/install-optional.sh (line 10)

Now it gets a little more difficult (for beginners) interpreting the set_metadata_recursive commands. I'll explain this on the first one (line 13):

/system/addon.d must be owned by uid 0 and gid 0, file permissions should be 0755 (dmode is directory mode, fmode file mode), SELinux attributes are u:object_r:system_file:s0. You might have noticed I've skipped two columns: I have no idea what the "capabilities", 0x0 stands for, so I cannot explain it (if anyone does, please comment). So let's do that:

chown -R root:root /system/addon.d   # -R is recursive, root is user/group id 0
chmod -R 755 /system/addon.d         # as dmode and fmode are the same, we can do that
# at this place missing: SELinux properties. I've never dealt with those

If like in line 14 fmode and dmode are different, you'll have to take care for that as well. Apply dmode as above, and follow it by a find <dir> -type f -print0 | xargs chmod <mode>, replacing <dir> by the first argument of set_metadata_recursive, and <mode> by the corresponding fmode.

Finally, remount /system read-only again: mount -o remount,ro /system – or simply reboot (you'll have to anyway), which takes care for that as well.

I have skipped the SELinux stuff due to missing knowledge. It will most likely work without – but might be good to do for additional security :)


Disabling Samsung Calendar on Galaxy S4 mini

The best solution is,

  Goto -> Settings -> Apps/Application manager -> Find Calendar

and then do Show Notification to Disable or tap for disable.

and also after find the Calendar in Apps, you can disable it or Clear cache or anything you want.

hope this helps.


How do I sync only "My Contacts" from Google on Samsung Galaxy S?

Contacts | Menu | Display Options | Choose contacts to display (account)

Make sure only "System Group: My Contacts" is checked. Or whichever groups you actually want to see. (More specifically, make sure "All other contacts" is not checked.)


First, for reinstalling you'll need a ROM specifically matching your device (there's no such thing as a "generic installer" for Android, see e.g. Can I install a ROM made for a different device and Why are there not generic phone OS installers?)

Second, for a "clean start", it is possible to "wipe" all mentioned partitions – but usually not with the stock features of Android devices. You will need a custom recovery such as twrp or clockworkmod-recovery, where you can explicitly select which partitions to "wipe" (including /system).

Note: As therealjayvi correctly pointed out, those "wipes" wont really destroy all data (forensic experts will still be able to recover) – but I guess you won't need that anyway: as soon as you install the "fresh Android" (i.e. flash the ROM), most of the data will be overwritten anyway. And if you're really concerned about remaining data blocks being recoverable by experts: encrypt your device before wiping. That's safer than the dd approach (in terms of not accidentally destroying things).


I had the exact same issue you did, and after finding nothing about it online, became panicked that there was a defect with my phone.

Instead, I realized that the version of ADB I had installed on my computer was out of date. I downloaded a newer version from Google and tried the process again. It worked fine and I was able to restore my phone.


In most android devices this insufficient storage issue is to do with Log files being dumped in the /data/log folder. The log files appear to be the logdump for the gsm radio, and can take up a lot of space over time (Gigabytes even).

Most phones without root have a workaround to delete the logs by dialing *#9900# from the phones dial pad. If your phone supports this then the moment you finish entering the 2nd hash, a menu will open up (point is: if it doesnt support nothing happens; pressing the call button wont help). In the menu that opens, select "delete dumpstate/logcat". That will free up all the space occupied by those logs.

Do let me know if any of you with a A116 is lucky to have this workaround. I have an A116 with the same problem, and am not able to find a solution.


How can I adjust my screen's color temperature?

There are a fair few blue light filter apps on the Play Store that may suit your needs. The exact features will vary, but they all fit the general scheme of allowing you to adjust the color temperature of your screen.

Additionally, if your device is rooted, you can actually use f.lux nowadays.


Why are some contacts shown several times?

if your contacts are shown from different accounts (google & non-google accounts), just disable one of the accounts to hide multiple contacts.
If you have duplicate contacts on your Google account, simply go to Google Contacts website via desktop, and choose option "merge (or delete, I can't remember) multiple contacts". Sync your phone contacts and you're done.


Download a file manager from Google play. Open app and navigate to where your photos are stored. Make new folders and move photos in to them. I wood look at this list provided by Izzy https://android.izzysoft.de/applists/category/named/file_fileman


What range of tcp buffer size do you suggest for slow and fast networks?

Bufferbloat only becomes a problem when the link (i.e. your edge/gprs connection) is congested. If it's not congested, you may just have very poor cellular reception.

If bufferbloat is really the reason you will be unable to do anything locally (because the problem is very probably the largish buffer size on the cellular network equipment).

A few pointers:

try to avaid parallel traffic when using WhatsApp
try to switch off Image loading in WhatsApp (not sure if this is possible as I don't use WA)
(root required) use an outbound app firewall to avoid unnecessary traffic (e.g. AFWall+)
(root required): use an adblocker to avoid unnecessary traffic (e.g. AdAway)


Not all apps are device dependent, but many are. One particular example is, indeed, the camera app, which is often dependent on OS revision, the actual hardware, and the framework the OEM is using (such as Touchwiz on a Samsung device). Many are reliant on the version of Android, although typically this only impacts using on an older version, up to a point.

As well, apps can be either developed separately or part of the system. Just depends on how the manufacturer wants to handle it. But they'll typically, these days, update them separately which then replaces the system app (really it just covers up the old version which remains), so the answer tends to be "a little of both." But if it's something made by the device manufacturer, they WILL lock it to their devices.

However your particular example, of the Gallery app from Jelly Bean, would probably at least partially function on a newer OS. That's based in AOSP, so not device-dependent. Only possible issue is whether it has any conflicts with newer apps on a newer OS.


You can utilize an app like Tasker for this. Tasker is an automation tool, which executes configured tasks on configured associated events, which can be time-based, location-based, state-based, and event-based. So you can trigger the execution of a certain task at a given time, or when you reach a certain location, when an SMS arrives (event), a specific person calls you (event), or -- now it comes -- a certain app is running in foreground (state).

So basically, to get back to your question, you could advise Tasker: "When I'm running Spotify in the foreground, adjust ringer volume to maximum."

As a side-effect, you could also do things like "When I run maps, activate GPS"; "When I reach the office, adjust ringer, notification, etc" (to not annoy your co-workers -- does a great job for me); "When I come home, activate Wifi", and much more. Oh, even such easy things like "When I place my phone face-down: SHUT UP! All volumes to Zero! DO NOT DISTURB!" :-)

So to sum up, it's the final swiss army knife for Android...


Download a file without SD card on android 2.3.4

Well, you could use a long method. But it works.

Step one: download Aptoide here

Step two: Install it. Obligatory warnings will pop up, just tick the Box "unknown sources" in settings > security.

Step three: Search for ES file explorer, and install that too.

Step four: Find your GApps link, and copy it

Step five: add that link as a bookmark in ES file explorer

Step Six: open link, and download GApps using ES file explorer.

If This throws up the need for an SD card, use the settings in ES file explorer to fine tune it to internal storage.

Step Seven- Flash your GApps package (you have root, so I assume you know how that works.)

Step Eight: Profit! Oh and clear your cache and Davlik, and reboot.


Most secure peer-to-peer exchange of public keys?

Public Keys are PUBLIC: they are meant to be shared. So, I think it wouldn't matter how you transfer those keys. What is more important is how strong those keys are encrypted, so they aren't easily hacked or bypassed.

You might also want to check on these two questions:

Strong encryption for base64 encoded public key in Android
how to secure Android Market public key


What is the difference between Superuser from ChainsDD and Superuser from ClockworkMod?

On this question, you might want to check an article on GetAndroidStuff called Superuser vs SuperSU. Quoting:

  SuperSU improves everything about Superuser and adds more options. The free version offers faster notifications, there is possibility of disabling them for each app and a new interface, attractive and easy to handle. In addition, according to developer claims by using SuperSU you’ll enjoy higher speed from the apps that require root rights, especially on Android 4.0+. The paid version called SuperSU Pro provides the opportunity to keep root rights after a system update, which usually cancels these rights. Although the method is not guaranteed the option is very useful. We have password protection and advanced log configuration settings for each application.

You might also want to read SuperSU Brings Better SuperUser Root Permission Management to Android. Quoting from that article:

  SuperSU is basically SuperUser on steroids. According to the developer, it “allows for advanced management of Superuser access rights for all the apps on your device that need root.”.

ChainsDD versus ClockworkMod

As I initially missed you were not asking about SuperSU, but ChainsDD versus ClockworkMod: Let's take a look at AndroidPolice:

Koush's SuperUser is free and Open Source
Sources are available at Github
it supports JellyBeans (4.2+) MultiUser (SuperSU does this as well)
it will never have a pais version, which would go against the whole open-source principle
like SuperSU, it makes use of the new android.permission.ACCESS_SUPERUSER permission (already used by several root-apps)
PIN Protection
Request Timeout
Customize notifications
x86 and ARM support
tablet optimized (Koush speaks of "tablet mode", so no fear it wouldn't do on a phone :)

Read more in the linked post at AndroidPolice.


Google Music 'Unknown Artist' only in Android App

Ok, I fixed it!

The problem was apparently the version of the Flac files. The bad files had version 1.1.1, the good ones had 1.2.1. So I used Foobar the convert the bad files to version 1.2.1, replaced the bad files on the SD card and then their artist showed correctly!


How to open gmail links in gmail app or browser?

As of 05 Oct 18, and as far as I am aware, there is no way to do so. The Desktop web interface, mobile interface, and Mobile Application use different unique IDs and links for the messages.

For instance, using the desktop interface, you get the main/u/#/ links. On mobile web, you get mail/mu/mp/###/ links. There is no way to correspond the two.

Further more, the UUIDs are different for the interfaces. On mobile, you get a ~16 alpha-numeric ID. On desktop it is ~35 alpha-numeric.

Maybe there is a method that the mobile web interface uses to shorten the length of the desktop IDs, but I can only speculate as to what it is.

But none of that would matter, because you would have to feed the link into a program or script to convert the link to/from what ever.

This does not even cover the use of multiple accounts, which have there own number in the links for desktop and mobile web interface.

That being said

There is a sort of workaround that you might could try. It requires a bit more work than copy-paste of a link, and it does not get you the desired outcome, but it is close.

Taken from a Web Applications Answer, you can modify your link to be a search result instead.

Follow his workaround steps. Getting the original message ID.

Your mobile link should look something like this:

https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/###/#tl/search/rfcmsgid%3A<MESSAGE.ID>

And the desktop link:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/#/#search/rfc822msgid%3A<MESSAGE.ID>

It adds to the number of items you will have listed in your notes, but it should get the job 85% done.


Apps won't install (silently fail after 100% downloaded)

Someone already solved this without rooting the phone by uninstalling updates for Google Play Store app: Go to Settings → Applications → All (tab), scroll down and tap "Google Play Store", then "Uninstall updates".

Source: SamsungGalaxyForums


What is the difference between these sound icons in the notification bar?

The one on the left signifies "ring and vibrate" mode, the one on the right is "ring mode". If you choose the first your phone will vibrate as well as ring for an incoming call. If you choose the second, it will ring only.

I'm not sure if this is documented anywhere, but you can match up the icons with their respective .png files in the CM source as a confirmation of this. It's somewhat hard to see in a browser since they're white icons, but nonetheless:

ic_qs_ring_vibrate_on.png
ic_qs_ring_on.png

The name is intending to convey (for example, using the second icon) icon quicksettings ring on.


GAOSP is your only option. It's in beta 3, so it's a pretty sure bet.


IP Address of desktop computer USB tethered to phone

The easiest way to see the public IP of a device is by a Google search. If that IP still doesn't let you connect from an outside source, check the following:

Make sure your firewall isn't blocking the connection. You can temporarily disable it to troubleshoot this.
Make sure your computer has services/ports/servers open that you can connect to.


"Unknonwn Artist" only on Google Music with corred ID3 tags

Bit late, but maybe I can help someone else who finds this.

I also had this apparent problem and in my case it seemed to be related to album art. I managed to fix the relevant files by re-saving the album art in GIMP (without changing it) and embedding it back into the MP3 file. I had to do this for four files in my library (all of which used jpeg for the album art).

Files with these particular images embedded in them seemed to completely break ID3v2 parsing. Could also be a file size thing, more testing required. Here is one image that gave me some trouble.

The music apps could however, read an ID3v1 tag if it was present, regardless of the image.

This was a problem across the built in Xperia music app and Google Play Music (I'm guessing they use the Android API to enumerate music?), however Poweramp and Rocket Player didn't seem to care, nor did anything on my desktop.

Hope this is of help to someone.

Cheers.


App saves to SD card, phone has no SD card slot!

Yes, Rob is right. Android is very well designed. You have a SD card that is the memory of your device. If you'd have a SD Slot then you'd have 2 SD Cards. Why this happens? Because it's assumed that Android needs a place where to save pictures, savegames, etc and it has a special partition for each: SD (yes, it's emulated), applications, system files, etc.

This is why when you do a full reset on the device those files are not deleted! Because it's not necessary! Only system files and folders are touched in those cases.


this service will running in background to show any updates is available for your phone.


turn it off and then, when you are turning it on press power + q in same time.


Enter the main device Settings, and from the My device page, choose Lock screen. Click on the Screen lock item to see the list of screen lock methods, and change it to whichever type you like (perhaps Swipe or None). You'll have to enter the existing password (or PIN) to make the change.

If you're using your phone to connect to a corporate Exchange server, or similar, then a security policy on the device might force you to have a password (or possibly a PIN, depending on the policy). In that case, you'll have to speak to your network administrator to get the policy removed before you can remove the password.


Here's what you have to do:

Go into the Gallery
Long click on a photo, choose "Share" and then choose "Picasa"
On the "upload photo" screen add a new album, then upload the photo (it doesn't matter what album, you just need to add one to create a new folder in Picasa.  This is the trick to linking your phone and your Picasa Web Albums).
After it's done uploading (check on the web to make sure it worked) from the home screen hit the menu button and go to Settings > Accounts & Sync > Click on your gmail address that is associated with Picasa.  Now you should see "Sync Picasa Web Albums" in the menu.

If that doesn't work.  Try restarting after that process, and then if that still doesn't work... :o(


Will wipe request from Android Device Manager affect replacement device?

Short answer

No.

Some background

As you can have multiple devices associated with the same account (even if they're all of the same brand and model) and still target them separately, there must be an identifier. Logical conclusion is that identifier being the GSF1 android_id. When you register your "replacement", a new android_id will be created for your specific installation2, and stored with the device's configuration. This serves as device identifier for all related operations/interactions between your device and Google services, e.g. for GCM3 and Google Play (apps).

Hence I'd say it's safe to assume the same is used by ADM4, as it's part of Google Services as well. So as long as you don't restore a full backup of your old device, but register e.g. via the setup assistant, your replacement will get a new android_id and thus not receive the "wipe request" addressed at a different android_id.

Another proof to that I've just found on Reddit: Someone had setup multiple devices using the same Nandroid backup taken from a fully configured device, and hence with the same android_id. Result was ADM seeing them all as one device, always "communicating" with the last-used device.5 The issue was solved by resetting the ID.

References for further investigation

XDA: What is the Android Device-ID?
SO: GSF ID KEY (google service framework id) as Android device unique identifier
Reddit: Multiple devices with the same android ID

1: Google Services Framework
2: This is done whenever you register a device, i.e. associate it with your Google account
3: Google Cloud Messaging, e.g. used in the SE app to notify you that you've been mentioned or got an answer to your questions
4: Android Device Manager
5: Quote: it seems like the last device booted is recognized online, the other one isn't


Turning OFF your screen via widget is possible (and several widgets are available for that). But turning ON the screen cannot work that way, as to access the widget, it must already be turned on. Of course you could use a lockscreen permitting widgets (like C Locker Pro).

An alternative is using tasker, and defining a corresponding profile:

Condition: Headphone plugged
Task: Disable keyguard

This is the most convenient way, as you only had to turn on/off the screen via the power button. And apart from that, you get yourself a powerful companion for your device – just check the tasker tag-wiki and other questions using the tasker tag :)


Does CyanogenMod 7.2 kernel support swap memory?

The cyanogenmod team feels that swap doesn't serve it's purpose on an Android device:

  This question is hotly debated, but you almost definitely do not need swap or compcache...

You can read all about it at the Swap and Compcache - CyanogenMod Wiki!

To answer you question directly, by default the swap and Compcache schemes are disabled, but if you still feel the need to use them, above link provides you with a how-to.

So, yes, the CyanogenMod 7.2 supports swap and its usage needs to be activated.

The swap and Compcache schemes usage depends on the device and its support for it.

As a side note, the CyanogenMod 7.x is Gingerbread-based not Froyo, as can be read here:

  After 3 rounds of release candidates, and squashing a few more bugs in the stabilization branch of CyanogenMod 7, the newest stable iteration of the Gingerbread-based CM7 is now being released.


Automatically modify bluetooth settings when launching an app

Depending on Bluetooth device, routing audio through it may only be possible using SCO. Try automating it with Automate (free), it has an Bluetooth SCO set state block.


Whatsapp Backups are stored in your google Drive account, but you cannot download/read those files as they are encrypted. From google Drive, you can only delete them (as shown in picture) or remove them from GDrive account.

Even if you're logged with the Google account where the backup is stored, you cannot restore it if you are not using the same phone number that was used to create the backup. (more info here)

I think the best way to find a solution is contact the Whatsapp support directly. There is no way to download your backup from gdrive right now.


Do I need to flash a rooted kernel to root, or is it enough to flash a custom recovery?

For rooting your phone I found this nice guide (5/29/2015) with links to all necessary files. In the guide they are using TWRP 2.8.5, but since 2.8.6 is out it should work as well. If it doesn't work, just flash the version in the guide. SuperSU 2.46 is being used in the guide. Also remember that Android M (MPZ44Q) is only a developer preview, so it isn't a fully implemented release.

As far your kernel, NO you don't need a custom kernel. Only with a custom ROM, would that be necessary.

Make sure your bootloader is unlocked

fastboot oem unlock

glossary (urban-ish)

Root/rooting - gaining administrative control
Recovery - aids in administration, plus backups, sideloads , and etc.
Kernel - tells the hardware what to do, custom kernels allow changing variables
Boot image - preps the system for the ROM
ROM - the devices operating system

remember

1. Perform a backup

2. Unlocking boot loader will ERASE/WIPE/DELETE everything

3. YOU assume all responsibility in rooting your Nexus


What Google Talk compatible iOS apps can I recommend to my friends?

Apple iOS
No official native solution by Google (except for the safari web-app with a subpar user experience)
Beware: All 3rd party providers seem to need your friend's plain google password to be able to offer push support (not just their app)! All have some sort of session timeout for push notifications (when the app is in background): Needs a relogin after that timeout (eww!).
3rd party apps I found:

IM+ Pro, free, ad supported, push with unknown session timeout
IM+, 9.99$, no ads and longer push session timeouts as above. Good reviews.
BeejiveIM for GTalk: free, push session timeout up to 7 days, no voice/video
Chat for Google Talk Pro: 0.99$, push with unknown session timeout, noticed bad reviews in Germany, good in US though

Windows Phone
todo
BlackBerry
has good support, download here
Symbian
todo
Bada
todo
Send me your findings, I'll happily include them here.


EDIT: Looks like this is coming, according to Google employee Colin Gibbs, on this Google Mobile Support forum thread:

  Thanks for being patient while we work
  on this feature.  When we launched
  Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), we added
  support to Google Talk for multiple
  accounts.  We're currently working on
  bringing the feature to phones as
  well.

So it looks like it should work on a Honeycomb tablet, and they may be backporting it to Gingerbread phones (video chat over GTalk has just been enabled for 2.3.4, so they're definitely porting Honeycomb Talk's features back to phones).

Original Answer:
Not a great solution, doesn't do all the alerting and notifications in a way that's integrated with the Android OS, but the only way to do this currently seems to be to use the built-in GTalk client for one account, and access the other via the web page.

For a standard GTalk account use this URL to sign into the mobile webpage:
http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m

For a Google Apps Gtalk account use this URL to sign into the mobile webpage:
https://hostedtalkgadget.google.com/a/YOUR_DOMAIN_HERE.COM/talkgadget/m

Or use a second IM client for the second GTalk account, as suggested by Matthew Read.


How do I disable regular Android notifications from Google asking to verify my phone number?

The app is Google Play Services. Disable notifications in Settings > Apps


How can I know what type of encryption is used by my mobile phone?

Try the service menu if your phone supports it: dial *#*#7378423#*#* (*#*#service#*#*).


Can you setup android gmail to play a sound when an email from a certain email address comes in?

Somewhat depends on what your work email server looks like, but I have a Gmail account, two Hotmail accounts, and an MS Exchange account on my Droid and there is an option within each Accounts settings to turn on/off "Email notifications" and to choose which ringtone is used for that notification.  So, by that token, you could have your Gmail emails sound off with the default notification and have your work email play any crazy sound you like.  Does that help or am I misunderstanding your question?


Is it OK to swap batteries while phone is connected to wall charger?

It's device dependent, if the manufacturer can fit in the circuitry to use the wall charger without the battery then yes you'd be able to do that. Most laptops can run without batteries, I doubt many smartphone does though; phones are primarily designed to be used while on the go, while laptops are more likely to be plugged in.

A safe test is to shutdown the phone normally, plug the phone into charger, and pull out the battery, then try booting up the phone with only wall charger. If you can boot up, then it's 90% likely that you'll be able to pull out the battery while it's running without causing a reboot.

  Is it safe to swap the battery without shutting down?

If the phone doesn't have the appropriate circuitry, it will be no less safe than just unplugging the battery. There is no moving parts in a mobile phone and all modern hardware are designed such that complete loss of power will just reinitialize the hardware as if it's just booting up. Therefore the only possible damage you can do is to the file system.

Modern journalled file systems are designed to be able to withstand power loss. If you're using journaled filesystem, e.g. ext3 or ext4, then your data should be safe; if using unjournalled filesystem, e.g. FAT or ext2, then there is a small chance of file system corruption.


This is possible on rooted devices with Android 4.0.3 or later.  It requires installation of Xposed framework and a module called "Buttered Toast".  This module appends the name of the app to the text of the toast message.

Download and side-load the latest version of Xposed module installer from here.
Open the Xposed Installer app, tap on "Framework", and tap on "Install/Update" button.  This copies all the necessary libraries and scripts to the /system partition.
Reboot your device.
Once the device boots back up, open the Xposed Installer app, tap on "Download", tap the search button (looks like a magnifying glass) on top-right, and type in "buttered toast" (without quotes).
The module should be listed under the "Not Installed" section. Tap on the "Buttered Toast" module, tap on the "Versions" tab, tap the Download button.  This downloads the module.
Once the module downloads, it will attempt to install itself.  Tap the "Install" button on the presented dialog, and then tap the "Done" button to get back to Xposed Installer app.
Go back to Xposed Installer's main screen, and tap on "Modules".  Tap the empty check-mark next to the "ButteretToast" module to activate it.
Close the Xposed Installer app and reboot your device.

Once the device boots up again, all the toasts will have their corresponding app's name added in the beginning.  You may also want to install a similar "Burnt Toast" module (repeat steps 4 through 8 for this module,) which also adds the app's icon into every toast.


Adoptable storage and nandroid backup - All apps included?

I can confirm that TWRP -- the latest version as of writing, at least -- recognizes, decrypts, backs up, and restores the contents of adoptable storage correctly. Note, though, that just as it ignores /data/media/, it also ignores /external_sd/media/, so be sure to backup that folder manually.


Does the Samsung Galaxy S II come with an unlocked bootloader?

XDA has reported that the bootloader is unlocked, and custom kernels have successfully been flashed to the SGSII.


Why do some bookmark icons have a red background in Firefox?

It's a small cosmetic feature of Firefox: dominant color as favicon background.

To put it simply, Firefox will try to calculate the dominant color of an icon, and apply it as the background. Here is the screenshot of the feature while it's WIP (might not apply to current version).

Image credit to Margaret Leibovic

As for the reason why some of the icons have it or not, it might be probably a bug on Firefox.

Further reading: Dominant Favicon Color, Revisited on Android - Margaret Leibovic


Have you put any custom rom's on your phone?

Could be a bad one which is causing this

Either way your best option is to download stock rom for your device and flash it over via Odin


How to change google account without wiping?

That is correct, you can't change the primary account without a wipe.

However, you can use Titanium Backup to back up your apps and settings so that putting your phone's environment back together after is a snap.


Is there a Palm OS-style launcher (placing apps in categories)?

Well, perhaps the launcher from the miui rom will do what you need- it supports folders, there is no app drawer, and you can pinch to zoom out and quickly change home screens. Most other 3rd party launchers (adw, launcher pro, my personal favorite go launcher ex) do the same things but keep the app drawer.


Ways to remove android device encryption

I did manage to turn my device back to an unencrypted state. If you do a device backup via the adb backup command you get a nice .ab file. There exists at least DroidExplorer that can convert these backups into .tar files:
How do you extract an App's data from a full backup made through "adb backup"?

I'm not realy sure why there are some apps that did not get backed up but I think this migth have to do with the market license stuff. Only some bougth apps were not backed up. If you want to make sure that all your important apps got backet up use DroidExplorer to check it out.

Then you have to perform a factory reset in order to get it back in an unencrypted state. Now you can eigther use adb restore or Titanium Backup(which also allows to only restore some data) to restore the backup.

Even if this is an answer to my question i will not mark it as one for now since I'm still convinced that you could also load a custom software via fastboot to encrypt the data partition without a factory wipe.

I also found a tecnical description from google: http://source.android.com/devices/tech/encryption/android_crypto_implementation.html


You can go to the Play Store and click My Apps and then All


Sounds like a bad battery, use logcat or a battery monitor and see what happens when it shutdown.

I had a device that would do the same but it would last 2 hours instead and under load would go about 5 mins :p
A new battery sorted it out in the end. But if you can get a new phone as once the battery starts to go the other compentnets will fail as well. If you cannot afford to do by a new phone at least backup on TB on a EXTERNAL SDCARD. so if worse comes to worst you have all the data for all your apps.


How to disable Verizon backup assistant?

Can you uninstall the application?  Or is it one of those pre-installed apps?

If it's preinstalled, you'll have to get root access to remove it completely, see here.

However, removing it can potentially cause a brick if you factory reset your phone.

EDIT: It looks like there are no easy ways to disable this app.  You have two choices:

Factory wipe. During setup process, do NOT enable the backup assistant.
Do some trickery using this method mentioned in this post (quoted below).  It does not require a Factory wipe.

  1) Be sure to have all your contacts backed up to your Gmail account. Check
  online before proceeding to step 2.

  2) Log into your My Verizon account.
  Go to the contacts tab, sort by list
  view and select all contacts. Delete
  the entire list. There's a deleted
  contacts tab as well. Select that and
  delete anything that's in there.

  3) Go into your Incredible settings
  tab, select applications, manage
  applications. Do not sort or filter,
  allow list to populate. Select Sync
  Service, (icon resembles backup
  assistant icon) select clear data.

  4) Also in manage applications scroll
  down to backup assistant, select clear
  data. This should do it.

  5) To verify backup assistant is now
  disabled, select settings, accounts
  and sync, then under manage accounts,
  select backup assistant. You should be
  looking at a license agreement screen.


Go Settings/Apps/Twitter

Uncheck "Show Notifications" under the "Force Stop" button.


I bought an Anchor tabled last week , and using my Google account, was able to download the application I bought on my Samsung Galaxy S phone, without any problems.

So I think, from my experience, you can download the same software again, as long as it's coupled with the same Google account.


check your AndroidManifest.xml and see if you have below prezented:

    <supports-screens
        android:anyDensity="true"
        android:largeScreens="true"
        android:normalScreens="true"
        android:smallScreens="true" >
    </supports-screens>

There is no button for tablets :) you have to make it available for that type of screen.
Hope this helps.


Is it possible to unload built-in kernel module?

No. Built-in drivers aren't modules, they are built-in (hence the name). If it's not showing in lsmod, you can't get rid of it short of building a new kernel.


Where I can find factory home screen layout file?

Izzy opined it correctly here that the only sensible place for having factory home screen layout is the launcher's APK itself.

Since I don't own a Lenovo device let alone your specific model I  used my MTK device running stock 4.2.1 as the testing ground. It has stock launcher (com.android.launcher).

About that thing called factory home screen layout -- a launcher usually has one or more databases inside its /data/data/.. directory, and one of that database has a table named favorites (name could differ among launchers but the idea is same). (See my answer for How can I manage “desktop” icons to know what I'm talking about.)

The default setting that you see is nothing but code in the APK creating  database(s) from scratch and populating the favorites table with hard-coded entries (like "Contacts", "Phone", "Messages", "Chrome" at the dock).

E.g. See this code snippet from the source code of com.android.launcher:

The code is available here. If you look closely at few lines above the line 262, you would see that the code is creating a new database with proper schema and then populating the database with favorites table which is available to it.

At this point, I didn't bother digging more to know, where does this favorites table or the related content is saved, since my conclusion is drawn from custom launchers as well who also have a different but a factory layout (clearly not saved outside the APK).

I would recommend taking a look at the source code (provided that you can find it first) of your default launcher, or extract the APK and dig under res folder. I found some interesting stuff under res/xml/.

Oh, if someone wants to experiment on OP's question then I suggest you do Clear Data from Settings → Apps → All apps → <Your Launcher> since it would have the same effect as doing a factory reset (not Hard reset).


Android Screen In virtualbox Rotate 90 CCW?

There are some hotkeys listed for ICS, which hopefully still work with Kitkat:

  Rotating the screen: (to get that operate we must to have activated “Auto-rotate screen”)

  Press F12 two times in less than 2 seconds = Rotate 90º to the LEFT.
  Press F11  two times in less than 2 seconds = Rotate 90º to the RiGHT.
  Press F10 two times in less than 2 seconds = Rotate 180º.
  Press F9   two times in less than 2 seconds = Normal view 0/360º.

So I'd say try hitting F11 twice should solve your issue – after activating screen-rotation.


It's contacts.db but it's not a normal file or directory, it's a SQLite3 database in the following location which you'll need root to access:

data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db


Is it possible to see numbers I typed in previous call?

Yes you can do it by using this Number Saver App.
App description is as follows:

  Save a number while you're in a phone call, and dial it right after.

  Access during call from notification bar, or from app icon

  To pull notification bar in the call screen, press HOME first (Android limitation)

  The app has two modes for number or note:

  Save it to the clipboard (which later you can 'paste' it wherever you like)
  Save it in the internal app memory

  On both you can later access the last saved number or note and create a contact, dial or SMS.


I had the same error and did some research on it. Here is what I could find out.

This error seems to be a little mysterious as it comes and goes. I've tried many things from several forums but in the end, waiting solved the problem. It just disappeared from one day to another and I wasn't the only one experiencing this phenomena. Some even say it's a problem on the side of Google.

If you want to take action, here are the steps I could find and have tried:

Unlink your Google Account from the phone. Do so in the Account Settings
In the Application Manager, find the Play Store and delete data and caches
Relink your Google Account
If that did not help and if it is possible on your Phone: Delete the Dalvik Cache, which stores information about the apps and the structure. Do so by booting into maintenance mode -> Option 'Advanced' -> 'Delete Dalvik Cache'
While you are there, you might want to wipe the Cache Partition
I have not tried this and on an unrooted phone it might not be possible, but several people said it helped them to delete the ".android_secure"-file with a file browser though I am not sure about the consequences of this.
If all fails, wait for a couple of days (which worked for many people I've heard of including myself).

I hope this could help you.


Messages stuck in outbox of Gmail app, but only for Gmail

Have you tried re-adding your Gmail account? It is also possible that if you are on a work or school wireless network that they have blocked insecure outgoing connections, i.e. SMTP Port 25 or 587. You could check if this is the case by seeing if your outgoing mail settings are set to Port 465 with SSL.


rom manager needs to reflash after every reboot

"Fake flash"

When you boot into recovery via vol-down at power up, you get stock
When you boot into recovery using RM you get update.zip

You need to flash permanently eg via alpha rev, unrevoked or via adb. I have a desire so what I used may not work for you.


Go to the login page, tap on "Problems in signing".
Enter your primary Facebook email, Skype will send a code to your email.
Copy it, go back to the Skype app.
Tap on enter the key, paste the key in it.
There's your Skype account named facebook:your.name.
Tap on your Facebook profile, tap sign in with Facebook
Then Facebook login page will appear and enter your login info.


Avoid porn/nude recommendation in feed of android you tube app?

Open Youtube's settings, click General.
Enable "Restricted Mode".
Restart Youtube.


Only thing that I can think of is:

Go to the web interface for Google contacts, click on export (it should redirect to the older version of contacts)

In the older interface click on 'other' (or something similar) near the icon to add contacts

You will see the voice 'export'. Click on it

Choose the group 'personal contacts' (should include only the contacts from the address book of your phone)

Then choose 'format CSV for Google' as the export format

Open this file (Excel, Calc or similar will do) and use the function 'find and replace' this way:
Search for the two digit that identify the city and replace them with XX9. Pay attention to the numbers which include these two digits in other places. You may want to edit them manually and the rest with find-replace. (There may be even easier ways to do it, but I'm not very good with Excel.)

Once you are done, go back to the web interface and this time choose import and the file you edited as the file to import.

This should help.


The basic music player app should play a MIDI file, mine does. It will play back using the on-board GM voices and you can make a playlist just as you would with MP3 files.


galaxy s2 charging cable doesn't fit galaxy tab 3

It should easily go in. The ports on the two devices are the same and with same orientation of the port as well. Maybe there is something stuck inside the port on your Galaxy Tab 3. You can usually tell by the shape of the male port. The two slanted ridges on the size are an identifying feature of Micro USB A/B. B also has two little latches on the bottom. Micro USB standards A and B are compliant with each other as well but these two devices should have the exact same Micro USB B Port.


My phone occasionally tells me: "Currently unable to continue download, please try again later". What was it trying to download?

I have read in several websites that users with the Samsung Galaxy S3 are getting that exact same message when having MMSes that fail to download (probably old ones...).
If possible, delete all and repeat the steps taken to get the message. If you don't get the message, the problem is solved and in the future we all know from where it is comming.
My original comment on the question:

Further into that issue, other users of your device have reported the same message in relation to the MMSes. Do you have any MMSes on your device?


Static IP Address in Android x86 persistent after reboot?

I did it, editing the file /etc/init.sh did the trick for me.
just adding at the end :

ifconfig eth0 [IP] netmask [masque] up

It should be ran at boot.


Quadrooter refers to a set of vulnerabilities , which are explained in the question here What is QuadRooter? Are 900 million Android devices vulnerable?

These vulnerabilities may be translated into rooting techniques in due course, if security upgrades don't fix them (even if upgraded, it may not reach all devices for various reasons)

To answer your question, it may be possible, but at this point of time, nothing can be said with certainty.


How to troubleshoot this condition of recurrent restarts?

In the recovery mode, cleaned all memory. Reinstalled bootloader. No effect on the phenomenon. Finally, money back from warranty because most likely a software issue in OO itself. Two sessions with OO Tech support.


Where is the mount point/folder for a USB pen drive mounted on Marshmallow?

/mnt/media_rw/random-hex-id is the path you're looking for, where 'random-hex-id' is a folder name of format ABCD-EF01, e.g. E4E4-4394. Guess it took a random to actually be useful. You must have access to root.


How do I configure Dropbox in my Galaxy S III so that it does NOT automatically upload every photo/video I take?

Open the Dropbox app on your device
Open the overflow menu (three vertical dots) and choose "Settings"
Under "CAMERA UPLOAD" tap "Turn off Camera Upload"

If you've installed Dropbox's Carousel app, it takes over the upload of photos.

Open the Carousel app
Click the weird smiley face in the upper left; this opens the "Settings" menu
Uncheck "Backup photos & videos" (or you can log out or uninstall the app)


You may have found something you are happy with now but I have compiled a binary of unison that works on android - it is possible using the hand-waving instructions you are talking about - I used them to cross-compile the linux source within ubuntu 12.10 using the android NDK and with a few alterations to the code it is now working. Follow the instructions at https://sites.google.com/site/keigoattic/ocaml-on-android and then you will need to do a few things. There is a file called pty.c in the unison source - find the following section:

// openpty
#if defined(__linux)
#include <pty.h>
/*#define HAS_OPENPTY 1*/
#endif

and comment out define HAS_OPENPTY 1 as shown. You also need to open ubase/util.ml and edit:

let homeDir () =
  System.fspathFromString "/Your path here"

Comment out from here:

    (if (osType = `Unix) || isCygwin then
       safeGetenv "HOME"
     else if osType = `Win32 then
(*We don't want the behavior of Unison to depends on whether it is run
  from a Cygwin shell (where HOME is set) or in any other way (where
  HOME is usually not set)
       try System.getenv "HOME" (* Windows 9x with Cygwin HOME set *)
       with Not_found ->
*)
       try System.getenv "USERPROFILE" (* Windows NT/2K standard *)
       with Not_found ->
       try System.getenv "UNISON" (* Use UNISON dir if it is set *)
       with Not_found ->
       "c:/" (* Default *)
     else
       assert false (* osType can't be anything else *))

...To here!

Then you'll also have to edit Makefile.Ocaml

   CWD=$(shell pwd)
    EXEC_EXT=
    WINOBJS=
    SYSTEM=generic
    # openpty is in the libutil library
    ifneq ($(OSARCH),solaris)
      ifneq ($(OSARCH),osx)
      #  CLIBS+=-cclib -lutil
      endif
    endif
    buildexecutable::
        @echo Building for Unix
  endif
endif

And comment out #  CLIBS+=-cclib -lutil as shown.

And as far as I can remember that all worked. The other step once compiled is to mount your android system partition as writable and copy unison to the /system folder where all the rest of the shell commands are.

Hope that is helpful to someone...I lost a lot of sleep getting it compiled.


Google hosts their flagship device OTAs online, fortunately, under the codename crespo for the Nexus S.  Some searching along those line resulted in this Android Police post (affiliate links removed):

  Well, that didn't take long. Here are the instructions to [get] your Nexus S rocking ICS right now. Do not try this on the CDMA Nexus S!

  Download the OTA Package

  Rename it to update.zip
  Copy it to the root of the internal storage
  Power off the device, hold Volume Up and Power to reboot into the bootloader
  Select "recovery," then hit the power button
  Once the warning triangle appears, hold the power button and hit volume up
  Select "apply update from /sdcard" and choose the update.zip
  Once the process is finished, simply choose "reboot system now"

  Once it reboots, BAM! You've got ICS. Congratulations!

The link there is http://android.clients.google.com/packages/ota/google_crespo/VQ8PQk_V.zip.  Koush notes that this is for the T-Mobile version, the i9020T.  From dottech.org:

  There are unofficial reports that the update works for i9023 (the Super LCD version of Nexus S); and can work for i9020A (the AT&T/Telus/Koodo Nexus S) by flashing compatible radio files. If you are a brazen fellow you can attempt to update your i9023/i9020A with the T-Mobile ICS package but be warned: You might get a brick.


Android 4.1 ("Jelly Bean") has this.  I just went to the "Widgets" section, chose "Photo Gallery", and from the popup, chose "Choose an image", which gave me the chance to (you guessed it) choose an image; after cropping, that image is now just sitting there on my home screen.

Amusingly (or infuriatingly, depending on your mood), tapping the image on my home screen does not, as you might expect, bring up the larger version of it in the Gallery; instead it brings up the larger version of some other image (in my case, one that's in the same album) in the Gallery.


Sony Xperia U not working after failed update

As it is a software issue, and you have not used a custom ROM, the best thing to do would be to send it to the Sony repair centre.


How to hide the carrier name in status bar?

Phono is able to replace the carrier's name with a logo:

Phono (source: Google Play; click image to enlarge)

Take a look at above screenshot. See the T logo in the upper left, on the notification bar? That's placed by Phono. It additionally offers a bunch of widgets to show you network strength and other things, plus some shortcuts (as shown in the screenshot).

I used Phono successfully on HTC stock ROMs as well as with CyanogenMod. Though your seem to have issues with your current Beta-ROM, those might hopefully be fixed with an update, so Phono will work on that, too -- otherwise it might still help you in case you decide to switch ROMs :)


After you tap "more" you can scroll down to change more than just the volume. I didn't think there was anything else, either, at first.


mobile network problem after jellybean upgrade

Although the Sony Xperia Tipo is listed by FreeXperia as a supported device, the Tipo Dual isn't. It's not clear from the site, so it may simply be that (the unofficial port of) Cyanogenmod can't access the SIM cards in that device.


The syntax of mount command usually requires you specify the target:

mount -o remount,rw /system /system

This output could be useful for us to better understand your problem:

cat /proc/mounts

As a last resort, as you have root you can try saving raw image of system, mount it on your box and push the app there, then flash it back on your device. To save raw system image:

dd if=<block device mounted on /system> of=<output file>

If you go that way make sure you keep the original system image in case something goes wrong.


How to root / update the fake Lenovo P780W

Most Chinese fake phones can easily be rooted as they do not carry any bloatware, skins, extra bundles etc. These phones contain a near stock version of android and thus, don't cause any problems (usually) while rooting. You should be able to use cyanogenmod, it usually works very well on Chinese phones.

Best of luck.
Rahul.

PS: To be on the safe side, remember to take a backup.


According to this question/answer, the .asec files are actually dm-crypt containers which can be mounted, and contain the unencrypted .apk. The keys are stored in /data/misc/systemkeys/AppsOnSD.sks.

The mounting process depends on the tools available, but it can be as simple as running (on Linux) losetup /dev/loop0 /path/to/file && cryptSetup open --type luks -d /path/to/keyfile /dev/loop0 asecmount && mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/asecmount /your/mountpoint to mount and umount /your/mountpoint && cryptsetup close asecmount && losetup -d /dev/loop0.

You can also access the contents of the .asec file from /mnt/asec/[app-id]/ if you have it already mounted on your device.


Who can see how many people have uninstalled an app?

There is no way to see this fro the user's end.   Generally read through the comments.  People are very vocal about their opinion.  And if it has truly been uninstalled that many times, beleive me, people will say why and you will get a good indication.

And yes, a developer does get daily statistics on installs/uninstalls.


It doesn't look like there's any reliable way to unlock it without the unlock code.  You should call the carrier and ask them to help you unlock it.  Most will give you the code if you are persistent enough, and apparently you can enter it by typing *#06# on the dialer.


Do favorite Dropbox photos automatically download to my Android?

It is the same. At least in my setup (HTC Desire S). The image I favorite end up in a gallery folder with the same name as the Dropbox folder they are in.

Edit: The gallery app might play a big role in this. On some systems they are known to take quite a while to update etc.


New SD card and won't let me transfer apps

The apps can only be accessed on the device that SD card was in when apps were saved onto card.


How many people can use the same card on Google Wallet?

Here's my direct experience with something similar on a much smaller scale:

My girlfriend and I setup a joint Google account so we could share purchased apps. I added to it a card of mine that was already on my own Wallet account. The new account was IMMEDIATELY frozen and I couldn't make any purchases. After digging into it, I was told that if there's any suspicious activity, especially on a new account, including adding a card that already exists on another account, they automatically freeze it for an unspecified period of time.

In my case, about 48 hours later it unfroze.

I realize this doesn't confirm what would happen if you did this for 100+ accounts, but from experience they did react rather dramatically to it being added to only ONE additional account. I suspect I was unfrozen on goodwill as the account didn't exhibit any other suspicious behavior. The card being added over and over to dozens of accounts would likely trip higher-level oversight and lead to a problem.

One note: I've actually had good experience with Google's phone support when resolving a Wallet-related problem with the Play Store. The person I spoke to was helpful and was able to contact a higher-up for policy information, and provided me with an accurate solution. Supposedly this number is a direct line to their support. I'd recommend getting an official statement from them before making any major decisions.


Galaxy S won't boot, stuck in recovery mode

If your phone is stuck in recovery mode, you can try these steps to force it to boot to Android:

Remove the battery, wait a couple of minutes, then put the battery back in.
Turn on phone and see if it still boots into recovery mode.
If it does still boot into recovery mode, hold down "Volume Up" button and then press the Power button.
The recovery menu should appear; using the Volume buttons to move the cursor, select "Reboot system" and press the power button to select it.
If it still boots to Recovery, go into the Recovery menu again and select "Factory Reset/Wipe Data".  Your phone should be reset back to factory defaults and boot properly.

If none of this works, most likely it is a hardware issue and you'll need to get the phone itself looked at by a technician.


How to enter "carriage return" in Android Google Keep in checkbox view?

This is not possible at the moment.
Only thing I can think of is to use a clipboard app and copy-paste a soft linebreak into Google keep.


Can one make shortcuts (launchers) to Settings actions?

I think it is not possible without third party apps. At least not on stock Android. But you could check out Secure Settings. It provides access to a lot of settings.


When i factory reset my phone, does it restore my phone data and my mobile data?

No, it will clear out the whole phone memory including contacts and other data but not the SD Card data. Before doing the factory reset, first save your data from phone memory and then go with the Format Factory procedure of your phone.

Here are some best tips to make space and increase memory:

1.) Move all downloaded apps to SD storage.

2.) Remove all unwanted apps and data.

3.) Clear out the cache from the phone. For this just go to settings>>apps and select app and you will get the clear cache option. (You have to do it for all applications installed in phone memory.)


I uninstalled systemui... now phone stops working

You need to have root and ADB access, which I assume you do.

Connect phone to PC. Verify ADB access by executing adb devices in command prompt - it should show your device under "list of attached devices".
From there, do adb push /PATH/OF/BACKUP/SYSTEMUI/ON/PC /sdcard to push SystemUI to internal storage.
Execute adb shell and then su to get a root shell.
Execute mount -o remount,rw /system to remount /system for read-write access.
Execute cp /sdcard/SystemUI.apk /PATH/OF/SYSTEMUI where /PATH/OF/SYSTEMUI is where your SystemUI should be. For many recent devices it should be /system/priv-app/SystemUI.
Execute chmod 0644 /PATH/OF/SYSTEMUI/SystemUI.apk.
Reboot phone.

Do report back if you're successful or if any error pops up - do not attempt to proceed without knowing the error for sure. If you don't know how to use ADB or how to extract APK from a TiBu backup, search engines are your best friend.


How to clear Android browser's localStorage?

Try: Settings → Applications → Manage Applications → Select Browser ("All apps" tab) → Clear Data. This would delete all the data belonging to the app. Quite like a factory reset, but just for that app.

Be careful while using this. Make sure you select the correct application (Its called 'Browser' some phones and 'Internet' on some) in the All apps list.

You can accidentally delete your contacts and other important stuff if you are not careful


Themes on Android are internal to apps: they're not user-accessible things. Replacing the theme of every app on your phone entails building a new custom ROM with your changes, and may cause some apps to behave oddly or appear wrong, because they're relying on details of the Holo themes. These days, even phone manufacturers can't replace the themes of third-party apps, because the Android conformance tests verify that the Holo theme has not been modified. That's why, if you buy (say) a Samsung phone with a blue theme, only the built-in apps use that blue theme: third-party apps use the unmodified Holo theme.

Replacing the theme of an individual app is more feasible, but without the sources it requires decompiling and replacing the app's APK file, essentially making a new app. This kind of reverse-engineering may be illegal where you are, even if you don't intend to distribute your themed app; either way, your new app would not have access to the original app's data, and will fail any licensing or anti-piracy check the app performs.


From http://sknetlog.blogspot.com/2011/03/digital-certificate-installation-on.html

Save your .p12 or .cer certificate to external SD card in root
directoy.
Navigate "Home" --> "Applications" --> "Settings"
Select "Location and Security"
Under "Credential storage" have the first
item "Use secure credentials" selected / checked
Select "Install encrypted certificates from SD card" and it would pop up the name of
the certificate file found in the SD card
6 . Provide the certificate import password if any.


What's the risk of installing Cyanogen Mod on unsupported phone?

It means that in all probability it won't work. There are a lot of factors at play, but if it installs correctly there's a good chance it won't boot. Problems that could occur include:

Your hardware will likely not have proper drivers. If it shares drivers with other devices then it may work, but otherwise various parts of the hardware will simply fail to function.
The partition layout may be different, which could cause the install itself to fail if partition sizes are very different.
The kernel from another device may not run on your device's processor.
The boot image may not be configured and packaged properly for your device.

If the above all manage to be identical, then the system may boot and function, but it's generally pretty unlikely.


How to take a screenshot of an entire scrolling activity?

You can check the scrollscreenshot tool: https://github.com/PGSSoft/scrollscreenshot

It makes multiple screenshots and simulates drag events to scroll content between each screenshot, then join all images into one.

Disclaimer: I'm author of this tool, it was published by my employer. Feature requests are welcome.


As per my comments:

Have you tried, as an experiment, to change you morning alarm ring tone to something else just to see if the same ringtone plays after a call. If not than it is not related to your alarms and may help you narrow it down.

Does this only happen if you have alarms set or does this happen even with no alarms set? Have you tried deleting all your alarms? If this works maybe try adding them back one by one. Please keep us updated.


How can I track my days activities on Android (Similar to Track and Share on iPhone)?

There are many for Android, this two seem to perform the tasks mentioned by "Track and Share" (additionally, you can check the left column from Google Play Store for related apps):

Time Recording - Timesheet App

  Timesheet manager - easy to use, highly adaptive. Manage your timesheet.

  Check in & out
  Task assignment
  Daily & detailed notes
  Overview of day, week, month
  Data export & email as CSV, HTML or XML
  Integrated backup & restore

Check the Lifehacker review.

Daily Task Tracker

  Keep track of your tasks that you repeat on a daily basis.

  This app allows the user to keep track of daily tasks that are important to them. Add each task and then throughout the day or at the end of the day check off the ones that were completed.


How to turn off Nokia theme tune on startup?

Some Android phones allow going into Settings > Sound and finding a option called something along the lines of 'Startup Ringtone'.


How to synchronize my smartphone to my Google account?

Hope the following instructions help ...

Open the 'Photos' app on your device
click on the 3 horizontal lines on the top left part of the screen(just before the search field)
Access 'Settings' option from the drawn up menu panel
You have the 'Backup & Sync' option at the beginning of the list.
Select that option and setup your backup account.

You have various other options ... you might want to look into each of those and choose one's that you require and you have setup your device to automatically sync photos.

Play around and look into the various settings ... it will reveal options you never thought existed ... improves the quality of your usage to the maximum.


Yes, you are talking about Wake-on-Lan. And as far as I know, the device to be awoken this way must be plugged-in via an ethernet cable (how else? when it's turned off, so is its WiFi).

As for the network: either both devices have to be in the same network, or you have port-forwarding enabled on the router connecting the different networks (otherwise your target cannot be reached).

Now for the remaining part: How to use your Android device to trigger this? You were asking for Tasker -- and yes, that should be possible. There is a Locale Wake On LAN Plugin (and Locale plugins do work with Tasker. I cannot see that Tasker natively supports NFC -- but there's e.g. a Youtube video, so there must be a way -- hm, maybe this Locale NFC Plugin?

So now there should be everything complete, and you can start testing :)


Sony Xperia Z4 stuck at boot after upgrading to Android 6.0

Download Sony PC Companion for Windows/Mac.
Shutdown your tablet and connect it to PC in recovery mode while holding down volume up/down key. Instructions will be shown on-screen if you're not clear with my explanation.
Click on Repair my phone/tablet.
Follow on-screen instructions afterwards. It'll take sometime to download necessary files.
If everything goes right you should disconnect the device and boot it up. Remember first boot takes more or less than 5 minutes.
Support link just in case if needed --- Repair using PC Companion [detailed].


Is there a way to set the default stream in the TuneIn Radio app?

Open the app,
Go to Settings -> Playback.
Check auto restart player option.


create-user "Error: couldn't create User"

You should edit your build.prop and add the following lines:

fw.max_users=2 #in case you want a maximum of 2 users

fw.show_multiuserui=1 # to show Users menu in settings

Save and reboot. You will then be able to add users


How to create a "pipe character" with the HTC Incredible (ConnectBot)?

No worky. HTC is not calling the correct ASCII code for the "pipe" symbol. It seems there are two of them in existence. One is a straight vertical bar (|) (supposed to be ASCII #124 in base-10 and 7C in hex) and one has a small gap in the center, it is also called the broken line or the broken bar and was used in the old IBM EBCDIC character set.
The confusion is that I have seen UNIX keyboards with the broken line representing the pipe symbol. However, the broken bar is not part of the ASCII set and I have no clue what HTC used for its ASCII representation.
On second thought they must be using an ISO/IEC 8859-1 representation: the vertical bar is 7C (hex) and the broken bar is A6 (hex). There you have it.
All I can say is that my invisible wireless network has | in it and as long as I hide it, I can't link to it with my Incredible. Making it visible and joining and then making it invisible again does not work as a trick.
Annoying!


Can't connect to WiFi after spoofed MAC address

Make sure MAC filtering is disabled on your router or your spoofed address is allowed to connect to the network and try again.


Flashing 2nd gen file into 1st gen phone can completely brick your phone!


how to restrict my android wifi connect to only one access point?

By default Android will not connect to an access point unless it is in your list of "Remembered" networks.  A network is remembered automatically the first time you connect to it.  The solution is to open Settings -> Wi-Fi then select each Wi-Fi access point and click "Forget".  This will remove it from the list of "Remebered" networks.  From this point forward, Android will notify you that networks are available, but will not connect without solicitation.

If you're asking for security reasons, there is no security mechanism for white listing Wi-Fi networks.  Android has no parental controls, if that's what you're after.


If your home screen is dying like this, check your debug logs (if you have adb installed). My guess? You're running out of RAM and Android is killing the home screen process to get more RAM.

You might want to stop some services (or root & remove stupid carrier bloatware).

CyanogenMOD and some other custom Android builds will allow you to "lock" the application in RAM, but honestly that can cause as many problems as it solves.

On my older phones (HTC Dream / HTC Magic) the culprit at the time was K-9 mail.


The phone as hotspot doesn't use its own DNS

This answer could be written thanks to Irfan Latif's comments.

Is this a bug or a "feature"? It's expected behavior (see details in the first comment).

Can it be corrected without rooting the phone? Yes. I installed Virtual Hosts, created a one-line file containing 192.168.43.44 laptop and pointed the app to it. The app is really easy to turn on/off, so I can use it only when needed.


Contact your hosted Exchange provider to turn the Push off. They are enforcing it.

Another way: Turn your email notification off or set its ringtone 'Silent'. But, its inconvenient.


Closing zygote and seeing simple interface

Can i'm close zygote on my phone and see "terminal"?

No. Android is not like a GNU/Linux desktop, with TTYs open in the background behind X Windows. Killing zygote is not like killing X Windows, it's like killing init. There isn't a TTY behind it you can log into.


Carl Parker writes about it on Android Authority:
(partly reproduced here in case the original post goes down)

  For Apps Installed on the Device

  Assuming you have installed the app on your device, go to the app’s
  Google Play Store link and take note of the words after “?id=” and
  ignore the rest.
  Connect your device to the computer via USB
  cable.
  Open the command prompt on your computer and type the following
  commands:

adb remount
adb shell
su
cd /data/app/

  Type the command ls appfilename* (where “appfilename” is the app’s ID on Google Play
  Store; make sure you include the asterisk at the end).  This command
  will display the app’s complete APK filename.
  Enter the following command:

mv apk_full_filename_here /system/app/apk_full_filename_here
exit
exit
adb reboot

  The device will now reboot. Your app is now saved as a system
  app.

  For Apps Whose APKs Are on the PC Hard Drive

  Open a command prompt on your computer and navigate to where the APK
  file is located.
  Enable USB debugging on your device and connect your
  device to the computer via USB cable.
  Enter the following commands:

adb remount
adb push apk-filename-here /system/app/
adb shell chmod 644 /system/app/apk-filename-here
adb reboot

  Your phone will automatically reboot. Your app will now be saved as a system app.


Finding the appropriate ROM - translating ROM names to something legible

I'm pretty sure that:

"WWE" stands for "World Wide English"

"RUU" is "Rom Update Utility"

"ARA" means "Arabic" (which apparently is for "middle eastern devices")
"ARA" may mean "Aramean" and since it is in the same spot that "WWE" is I would guess that it refers to the localization or language like "WWE" does, so "Aramean" makes sense to me.

As you can see the RUU is an executable. You will run on your computer while your device is connected through USB.  The zip is usually installed via a recovery - however that is my experience with my HTC EVO and Hero.


Google has added a dark theme to many of dev previews of Android, but they always remove it at the last minute :(

So, unless the OEM skin on your device provides this option, it looks like your only course of action would be to follow XDA's guide on installing a dark theme without root.


How to access and modify previous commands (bash history) in Termux

See the Termux help page for how to input arrow keys using the VolumeUp button, VolumeDown for Ctrl and some additional shortcuts!
Volume Up+W → Up arrow key


How to install 6.0.1OTA update on a rooted nexus 5

You cannot install an OTA update on rooted device because SuperSU changes some statement in install-recovery.sh to run itself on boot.

To install OTA you need to install factory image available at https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images?hl=en

If you dont want to loose your apps and data. Simply edit the script flash-all.bat and remove

-w

From

fastboot -w update image-hammerhead-*.zip

Installation script file name will differ according to your OS.

You will loose root access and TWRP after going through above method as there's no other way to install OTA because all system files should be intact for successful installation of OTA.


Cannot get Moto G to output over SlimPort adapter

SlimPort is not supported on the Moto G (nor is MHL). You can find a list of compatible devices on the SlimPort website.


Weird Bluetooth Behavior, difficulty reconnecting to paired device - Galaxy S II

I have similar issues with some headphones on my Galaxy Nexus, though it is only intermittent. While I do not have an actual solution, I have found that turning Bluetooth off and on again while the headphones are on is much quicker than navigating all those submenus, and does cause the headphones to reconnect.


According to files in the /dev/block/platform/*/by-name directory, my Recovery partition is in fact /dev/block/mmcblk0p10. The ending of the name of mmcblk0pX matches all the identifiers on the PIT, so thus I conclude that the identifier and the mmcblk name does match.

The command now will be dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p10 of=/storage/sdcard1/twrp.img bs=4096


Auto-mount microSD when plugging phone to computer with USB

Based on your answer in the comments (apologies for not catching the OS in your initial post), you're going to still have to unlock by hand.  Past that step, I would recommend trying Macrodroid, Tasker, or other automation apps to see if they can help out. I've not used them to automate connections like this, but they are great in other situations, so I have great hope for a solution here for you.


Can my friend's Android phone impersonate the starship Enterprise?

You could just use Audacity or something to create a short clip of white noise, then play that on loop through the phone's media player. However, in my opinion, this whole question is a bad idea. It will constantly be running down your battery and using up processor cycles.


Can't get into Google Play Store after changing Gmail password

Just waiting may fix it if there is some sort of slow sync between Google services. A simple reboot might fix it. I would try deleting your cache and data for the play store app as well. If that doesn't work try deleting and re-adding your Google account under settings > Accounts > Google.


I use a combination of keepassdroid, wavelauncher and clipstore, which allows me to access my password manager from any app without having to close it, and copy my password to the clipstore before returning to the app I was in. Sounds more complicated than it is!

Alternatively, many like lastpass for automatic password storage and entry.

But if you really want something gesture based, maybe biowallet along with it's separate biowallet browser might be of insterest. You can assign a signature, which is infinitely more secure than point to point gestures.


You could check whether there's a way to disable Keyguard (there must be some intent to use, as many apps like e.g. Tasker support that). That would turn any keylock off. One example how to do that I just found at Google Groups. First, that thread says the keycode should be 59 (keycode.KEYCODE_SHIFT_LEFT), but then also offers alternatives like:

$ adb shell
# cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
# sqlite3 settings.db
sqlite> update system set value="-1" where name="screen_off_timeout";
sqlite> .quit
$

Heavy hack :) I'd recomment to check the value beforehand, so you can use the same way to revert things back (i.e. lock the screen again). Also, that rather looks like it would only disable the screen timeout (but not actually disable the lock if the screen is already locked). As a similar trick is used in Cannot unlock tablet as have no internet connection?, that might serve as an alternative:

> adb -d shell
# sqlite3 data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
sqlite> update system set value=0 where name='lock_pattern_autolock';
sqlite> .exit
# exit

But this one only applies if you use pattern lock.

As written above, there should also be a way to do that via some intent, but I could not find a clue on which one that might be.


Google Play services runs in the background to keep applications up to date and to sync your information to Google.

One possible cause of the battery drain could be if you have multiple accounts on your device. Your device will drain more battery to keep up with the demands on the services
Another possible cause of the battery drain could be a third-party application running in the background and using data from Google Play services

To fix either of these problems, you may want to boot your phone into Safe Mode. This will ensure that the Google Play services or anything else that could drain the battery aren't running. But at the same time, you can freely use Wi-Fi or any application that you choose to run.

To boot into Safe Mode:

Turn off your device and wait about 2 minutes
Once it is off, hold down the power button and the volume down button. You may release the power button when you see the screen turn on, but do not release the power button until the phone is completely turned on.

(Google Play services battery drain is from this source)


How to set alarm for all calendar events synced from Google account android

Using stock Calendar apps, you can Press "Menu Button" > Tap "More" > Tap "Settings" > Tap "Set Alerts & Notifications" to set the phone to ring for each reminder you've set for each events.

EDIT:

The stock calendar icon:

press "Menu", then tap on "More":

tap "Settings:

tap "Set alerts & notifications":

tap on "Alert":

This is on Calendar version 7 on 2.1-eclair Samsung Spica


Is it normal for an Android OS upgrade to change bitness on an upgrade?

I was wrong about what was happening.
I was using a C#/Xamarin call to determine the OS bitness : "Environment.OSVersion.VersionString"
Which I mistakenly believed would tell me the os bitness rather than process bitness.
(I was already using IntPtr.Size to determine process bitness)


"Settings" hangs when scanning for WiFi since JB update on One X

I am using the same version of the OS on my HTC One X and I have never had this problem before. So I am thinking this is maybe a problem concerning the hardware of your phone. Maybe you should contact HTC for this problem. They can probably help you some more.

But you could always try to do a hard factory reset (this is something which HTC support will ask to do too) . Because an update doesn't really reset anything. A factory reset should reset all settings, this to make sure it isn't a problem of your settings. Before you do a factory reset, make sure you have a backup of everything.


Persistent techniques used by Android Malware

A malware can use a Broadcast receiver for the event BOOT_COMPLETED and triggers its main activity. Thereby whenever a phone reboots the malware's main activity is invoked. This is an equivalent to adding an entry in the Windows registry for auto-start/Run.

Hope this helps.


How to swiftly hide on-screen keyboard with a gesture?

Install Xposed edge module (see the help and support section on basics of how to use this module)
In preferences gesture on soft keyboard is enabled by default. Disable that (optional)
Choose an edge and the desired trigger (single tap, double tap etc from the 6 options) and action as soft keyboard → hide soft keyboard


Huawei bought in China, can't access Google Play (g510 t8951)

Three steps to regain full control over your phone,

Root your phone. There are dozens of rooting software out there. Last I used for a Huawei phone was Kingo Root, did the job quite well. Note: This might involve factory reset.
Install custom recovery. It might be tricky to learn which version will work with your phone. XDA should help. Otherwise trial and error. Note: This step might be optional, depending on your ROM.
Install GApps using (custom) recovery. There are plenty of different GApps packages out there, just google it. I normally go for the smallest GApps package, with just Play services and Play store. All other Google apps can be downloaded from the Play store later. Note: Not all GApps "editions" work with all ROMs, you will also need to use trial and error method.

ALTERNATIVE METHOD:

Check manufacturer's website for a non-Chinese ROM version. It will almost certainly have a working Play store. You should be able to flash it easily without rooting the phone.

Hope this helps.


/sd-ext gets suddenly remounted read only during work

Remounting as read-only is an action taken by Linux-based operating systems (including Android) in case of errors accessing the filesystem. In this case it probably indicates that your micro-SD has been (partially) corrupted. There are several possible causes of corruption like this:

Using the phone as a USB mass storage device and unplugging it while a write is in progress
The phone rebooting while an app or the OS is writing to the filesystem
A bug in the ext3 driver in the ROM you're using
A physical error on the SD card due to excessive heat or cold, mechanical shock, manufacturing defects, strong magnetic fields, &c.

Whatever the root cause, try plugging your card into a card reader on a PC and checking it for filesystem errors (for example, using fsck on a GNU/Linux box).


Is it possible to install Cyanogenmod on a SPH-D710 (Boost Mobile S2)?

CyanogenMod does not officially support the Epic 4G Touch (SPH-D710) phone. Your best bet would be finding an unofficial port over at XDA-Developers forums.

From the looks of it, Jelly Bean 4.2.2 and 4.3.1 are the latest versions of custom ROMs that are available.  These are not pure CM though. Details and installation instructions at the links.


Samsung Galaxy 3 Apollo I58001 | Limited Internal memory problem

Your best bet might be to get an app to sd app off of the playstore.

Here's an app you can use.  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.app2sd&hl=en

If you don't have enough memory to install it in the first place, check here


As far as I am aware of, the Nokia Android phones by HMD Global does not allow unlocking bootloader. I have also stated the same in another answer.

So you're out of luck, at least for the time being.

Reference: XDA Developers


How can I remove system apps / stock apps?

these can only be removed if you root your device. And even then, some of them you would not want to remove as they tie in to the system.

Additionally, removing them will not free usable space for "non-system" apps. The /system is separate from where user apps are installed and the space is separate.


Unfortunately, as of the latest version (8.0.5), GBoard only supports 4 variants for Japanese keyboard: 12 keys, QWERTY, Handwriting, and GODAN. The QWERTY variant also only supports romaji input, not kana layout.
The current solution is to use 3rd-party keyboard apps, and while I have browsed some kana/JIS keyboard apps, the only keyboard app that I could recommend for now is:

Japanese Full Keyboard For Tablet by Repy (freemium)

The keyboard supports 3 keymaps: JP109, US, and JP KANA. After selecting JP KANA keymap, the kana mode can be toggled by pressing the 全 key on the top-left.
While the name mentioned "Tablet", it's also working on the phone. However, since the layout tries to follow the physical keyboard layout, the size and the position of some keys may not be optimum for a smaller screen.
Based on a quick test, the keyboard is quite comfortable on a 5" screen while on landscape mode, though on portrait mode the keys are a bit too squished. Fortunately, the settings allow changing the height of the key, so it's still bearable on portrait mode.


How to watch a periodically shot image on other PC/Smartphone via Internet (no local WIFI)?

Another approach:

The free app IP webcam is a video streaming tool primarily, but there's also an option to fetch only a photo. It brings a webserver where /photo.png is a continuously updated resource. Since it gets refreshed each time you request it via a browser, you don't have to care about taking a picture every X minutes.

You then can use port forwarding on the router to access the phone's webserver from www.

Ip webcam also features authentication with username/password, but I don't know how secure it is.


How to do a factory reset without access to the phone's system

There is a guide on resetting the Nexus 4 over here. This is what the website says:
1. Turn your Nexus 4 off
2. Press and hold Volume DOWN + POWER
3. In the recovery menu, press volume down twice
4. Press power. You will see a red exclamation mark
5. Press power + volume UP
6. Go to `Wipe data/ Factory reset` and press the power button
7. Scroll to `Yes - delete all user data` and press the power button

The hard reset will take a minute and after that your Android phone will reboot.

All credit goes to hard-reset.com
Keep in mind that the reset may not be as safe against identity fraud as it seems. There is a bug in the reset feature that causes the phone to reset its state to default, but the encryption keys are not wiped. This means that any leftover data can be easily brute-forced and your old (sensitive) data may be decrypted.
I would suggest you reset your phone, encrypt it again with a different PIN just to be sure, and then reset the phone again to make sure nobody can access your data. This way, the encryption keys should be reset and your data would no longer be vulnerable.
If you really want your data to be safe, you could fill the internal storage after the first reset so almost all leftover data is overwritten. Because of things like remapping bad sectors etc. there still might be a little bit of data left, but that is virtually nothing.
Look at this article for more information about this bug


Preventing installed apps from making calls or sending SMS

The only right advise here is to download an app with the same functionality but that does not grants itself this permission.

Developers sometimes grant their apps permission their app in fact doesn't need. If you are aware and you don't agree with this trend, the only thing you can do is not download such apps.
Or even better, you can consider contacting the developer of the application and ask him why this permission is required. Maybe they are not aware of the fact and are very willing to remove the permission if they can please their users with it.

A to-do list should not have the permission to send SMS messages, if I see a to-do app that requires this permission myself, I would just look for another app to use.


Copy URL with unicode symbols without percent-encoding in Firefox

This seems to be an old bug as reported here. I did not find any other bug report that specifically relates to Android for this problem (Edit:OP has created a feature request)

A url shortner such as Tiny url add-on may be an alternative, till a better solution is found, keeping in mind the reservations of OP in comments


What folder on android does show as a media device?

First, that depends on the protocol. AFAIK, when using PTP, only the DCIM folder (with your photos) is shown, while in MTP mode, it should be your entire SD card(s).

Second, I doubt whether a symlink would work here – at least not when it points to the internal storage (below /data, where Play Music usually puts its stuff).


I changed my sim card - how do I find which app is sending sms messages to my old number?

I am such an idiot.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

When I bought my device, about a year ago, I turned on the feature "SIM change alert - Send SMS when SIM card is changed". I completely forgot about it later, and it only came back to me today. Of course the recipients I defined were my own number and my wife's.

The lead I followed was @roxan's comment, which raised the suspicion about the mobile tracker app. A Google search led me to this forum post that describes this security feature, and when I read it I recalled that I turned it on.

Despite this incident, I actually still think this is an excellent feature that can really help in case my device will be stolen, but I just have to remember to turn it off before I change the SIM card myself...


Try using the Do Not Disturb or silent hour mode of Android.

You will be able to set the window in which the phone will vibrate.


After update to Jelly Bean I am asked to select the E-Mail protocol. Which one should I choose?

Modern email clients are often able to detect the email server settings just from the username / password tuple.

If you are suddenly asked for an protocol (and possible outgoing/incoming mail server settings) then you should look them up on your mail providers homepage.

E.g., a quick Google search came up with this page for Bell Canada.


Android device doesn't support Google Play Services

The apks will not work without system libraries, and other frameworks that cannot be installed without root (or flushing from a recovery).


How to detect that an app is linked to Play Store or not?

Go to https://play.google.com/store/account, with a regular desktop. Then click on the tab 'orders', you shall find there all the apps you downloaded via Google Play.

After clicking Install or Installed button, you'll get pop-up having device list. If app is already installed in a device with linked status, device would be inactive to send install signal. It can be used as identifier.


Delete one of my google account from marshmallow

Once, you click on remove account, it will lead you to a browser page where you have to log in with your account password. It will warm you that the following information pertaining to that account will be deleted from your device. Follow the steps to delete

Deleting the account affects only your device and you can still access it from desktop

  The only way to sign out of the Gmail app is to remove your entire account from your phone or tablet.

See "Remove your Google account from your device" section, which says

  Removing the account from your phone or tablet won't delete the account itself, so you'll still be able to use it on a computer or other devices.

(Emphasis supplied)


How to stop my Android device from being spammed in the browser as well as in the application?

Based from the same problem on AskUbuntu, this is not OS-dependent, but an attack to the router. Try hard reset the router.

  This does not appear to be an OS related issue. I would recommend you to read this http://www.quora.com/How-do-I-stop-AdsMatte-spam-popups-and-ads

  Basically it is an attack on/via your router. You should hard reset it. A lot of computers on my intranet got affected. I got rid of it that way.

If it still fails, from Security.SE, try checking & fixing the DNS address both on router and Android device.

  If your router is affected and you're facing different issues on your devices (Android has no ads, computer does) may check/change your DNS settings on both devices and on the router.

  I think your Android phone uses a different DNS server as your PC. Your PC probably uses your router as DNS Server (e.g. 196.168.1.1) and your Android uses a 3rd party DNS like Google (8.8.8.8, 4.4.4.4) or OpenDNS. For this behaviour check: this answer on Super User

  To clean up your router, you may have a look at:
  this answer on Security.SE

To check DNS settings on Android:

Open Settings - Wi-Fi
Long-press the access point, select Modify network
Turn on Advanced options
Change IP settings to Static
Check/set the DNS 1 & DNS 2 to Google DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or other trusted DNS server.


type "adb shell su" in terminal (cmd in win or console in Linux ) let the terminal hang

typing a command, such as su, after adb shell only executes that command and returns. What you probably want to do is type adb shell, then once in shell type su. You will probably need to allow super user permissions, depending on certain boot.img/kernel configurations.


I think any auto-update/notification settings relate to apps installed via the Play Store, not the Play Store itself.  That's updated occasionally by Google.  You could try and force an update, if you're convinced one is available and that you're missing it, by going into the Application Manager and uninstalling updates for Play Store, then clear data, and clear cache, then running the app again and seeing if it forces the download of a newer version.

(Incidentally, I have the S3 too, and am currently on v4.1.10 of the Play store. Which version are you on?)


Phone bricked? Stuck in boot (can't access ADB)

My issue was that PWR + VOL DWN wasn't working, I apologize if I can't provide a more accurate answer, but PWR + VOL DWN finally worked and I was able to connect with adb once again.


"no command" after OTA update of a Wiko Rainbow 4G

It turned out that the drivers which were installed on my Windows machine were not good enough for flashing. They were OK for normal connection when the phone was working.

I found the correct drivers on the GSM USB DRIVER site. I installed the VCOM version by going into Device Manager, clicking on the computer (upper-most entry) and selecting Action -> Add legacy software.

The installation failed. So that it goes though the PC needs to be restarted in a mode which allows for non-signed drivers. This is explained in a good video, the steps are to reboot your PC by shift clicking the reboot entry, then Troubleshoot, Advanced options, Startup settings, Disable signed drivers enforcement. After the automatic reboot the installation above will succeed, and then the flashing does so as well.

All credit goes to Android MTK for the tutorials and GSM USB DRIVER for the drivers.


How can I remove Camera app on Cyanogenmod?

If you really just want to remove it (which, fair warning, may cause problems with the system; I have no idea) you can:

Use adb to delete the .apk file: adb shell rm /system/app/Camera.apk. You may need to first elevate to root (adb shell and then su from the shell).
Use Titanium Backup to uninstall it

A potentially safer route that people take is to use Titanium Backup Pro to "freeze" the app, causing it to essentially act as though it is uninstalled without actually removing it (so it can be "defrosted" later if needed). This does require the Pro version, though.


That indicates you are using VPN to connect to Internet

Either you installed a VPN or a firewall / ad-blocker app that uses VPN (I see you are using Orbot, that could be it)