It's most probably a buggy 3rd party app (preinstalled by Samsung or by you).

To find the offender I'd install Permissions and narrow the problem down to apps with precise GPS location permissions.
If this list is huge you can also cross-check with running apps (Task Killer or QuiteTaskmanager, the latter lists more but is not available in Google Play).

If you're rooted you could also run 'lsof | grep sdcard' to see which processes have these gps/txt files open and subsequently delete the offending app, here's a sample output:

1|root@android:/ # lsof | grep sdcard
com.googl  2635    [...] /storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.maps/[...]
com.fsck. 16308    [...] /storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.fsck.k9/[...]


From Play Store support

When you can write a review

You can only review apps you’ve downloaded.

Since you didn't download Google Play, you can't review it. Instead, from the Play Store → Help & Feedback → Send feedback at bottom (via mail) is an option.

Edit: Just found this, it is a better option. Raise it in the Google Play help community


I've had the same problem. Reinstalling WhatsApp solved it for me.


Whatsapp backup: Unable to move from windows phone to android

Here I got solution about your question on WhatsApp FAQ page. It says

  You cannot restore the chat history from any other phone type to Windows Phone, or from Windows Phone to another phone type.

This question is possible duplicate of this.


Alternative to Photosync to sync pictures into Picasa

If I'm understanding correctly, the Google+ app sounds like it has the functionality you're looking for. Within the app, press Menu -> Settings -> Instant Upload and turn the feature on. This will upload them to Google+ to a folder only you can see, and as Google+ and Picasa albums are the same, they'll be available on your Picasa account as well!


Connecting ZTE Axon 7 to Ubuntu via ADB - doesn't work with some cables, does work with others

I found following this article https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/how-to-connect-your-android-device-on-linux/ to setup your linux installation for mtpfs file system.  In a nutshell:

1) On your Ubuntu Linux:
    sudo apt-get install mtpfs
    sudo mtpfs -o allow_other ~/mnt
2) On your phone:
   Under Settings -> Connect to a PC, select "Media Device MTP"

This should immediately allow connection (with whatever cable in usb) to your Ubuntu 16.04 (which I use with my Axion ZTE 7 Mini) and allow access to phones internal storage and SD storage with file manager.


I doubt this is possible.

From Android Developer Center (Google's official site):

  Key code constant: Home key.

  This key is handled by the framework and is never delivered to applications.

And the Home key on a generic QWERTY keyboard is mapped to the Android "home" button, so it's treated the same as the real home button.

You can try modifying /system/usr/keylayout/qwerty.kl but as per my attempts, it doesn't work. Just in case it would work for you, for what it's worth, I changed

key 102   HOME

to

key 172   HOME


ADB Shell command not applied - "am set-standby-bucket" - Android 9

I see the same thing with the Android P emulator.
However, this works for me on a Pixel 2 device with P.

Btw I think you need to use the integer representation when setting:

adb shell am set-standby-bucket <package-name> 40

Not

adb shell am set-standby-bucket <package-name> rare


Mobile Network not available despite full coverage

Try installing the standard ROM, if this also doesn't work you can be sure that this is a hardware problem with the phone.

I think the problem occurred when you spilled water on your mobile phone. It will oxidize and become damaged over time. If you had lost your phone in salt water, it would be destroyed immediately. When you lose your phone in water or spill water on it, you should take out your battery immediately and deliver it to professionals to clean it before it oxidizes.

Since the phone has been in contact with water, your guarantee is void.

How a water sensors looks like: http://altinett.no/2/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/futkskade-mb.jpg
There is two water sensors in this picture. One looks like a black circle and white in the middle, this censor has not been in contact with water. The other censor to the left looks like a black circle with red in the middle, this has been in direct contact with water.

How an oxidized motherboard looks like: http://altinett.no/2/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/fukt-korrosjon-lcd2.jpg
This case is irreversible.


Does Wifi P2P require *both* android devices to be 4.0+?

"Normal WiFi" and "WiFi direct" are separate things. If you want to use the latter, the answer is yes: both devices must be supporting it. If, on the other hand, your question is whether there's a way to directly connect the two: there's always the "hotspot" feature, which was introduced already before 4.0. So one device (supporting this) could act as a WiFi hotspot, and the other could connect there as to any other WiFi router.


What is this symbol in the notification bar mean?

It means that the device is connected to a dock. You can find it described e.g. on this Samsung support page (scroll down to the last third, or Ctrl-F for "dock or cradle").


How to run a notifier if connected to specific Wi-Fi?

You'll need apps like Tasker or Locale to perform the sort of action you want.


Screen Overlay Detected, Permission problem

I also had this problem and it turned out that this was caused by Messenger's Chat Head. Maybe you have it opened?


Commute to work on Google Maps tracking is innacurate

Firstly a possibility to the app is tracking two different phones at once is quite impossible. Even though you tried on all the forums already, I suggest you to do a simple way.

If you are using Android, go to "settings" -> find  "apps" -> click on "maps" and then stop it.
Restart your phone and open "maps" app again.

This has already happened with friends and instruction above was the solution for it.


Resize photo before sending it by email?

There is a free (as in freedom) application Send Reduced, available at the F-Droid repository of free software.

Install F-Droid, install Send Reduced, select your photos, press Share button, select Send Reduced and then select the sharing method. Your photos will be sent reduced in resolution and file size.


Ideal charging / discharging percentage for maximum battery life?

In the comments to linked answer, it was brought out that batteries are not allowed to stay at 100% charge since it is harmful to the battery and the battery % rapidly drops to around 90% as explained in this XDA post. This is a precaution implemented by OEMs ( though not sure if all OEM's do that)
Related to this is battery longevity on terms of Voltage per cell
Source: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries

Most Li-ions charge to 4.20V/cell, and every reduction in peak charge voltage of 0.10V/cell is said to double the cycle life....
In terms of longevity, the optimal charge voltage is 3.92V/cell. Battery experts believe that this threshold eliminates all voltage-related stresses;

This voltage as per Table 4  ( above ) corresponds to battery charge level at 58 ℅ .  This is clearly impractical and the recommendation of your friend to charge to 80%, more than doubles the discharge cycles .
This was on the charging part. Table 2 shows another interesting aspect discharging and it's impact on battery life

IMO , if one badly wanted to maximise battery life, ideally, keeping practical usage in mind - charge when the battery drops to 50% and stop charging at 80 or 90%
Thanks to Dmitry in comments who says and subsequently made an interesting point in his answer for the end user is number of charge cycles*capacity at full charge: that's how long a battery will last for a given usage pattern

Edit:  For rooted devices, there is an app on XDA which disconnects charging at a given percentage. This is now open source.  Approach followed appears to be similar to my solution here  Automatically limit (stop) battery charging at a given percentage
Edit 2: Discovered this magisk module which does the same and much more - see Don't charge the battery but use connected power to run the phone


Android says Damaged SD card at EVERY card

The grand prime is known to cause electrical damage to sd cards and without warning. I have two of these phones and they each destroy an sd card every 3 months. The cards may have self sensed damage and dropped into read only mode, in which case you can read them with a usb reader on a desktop but the phone will refuse to mount at all, and the will not be writable in any case.


Will factory resetting my device remove the Android upgrade?

Don't worry, a factory reset will not change the version of the OS installed. You'll have the same OS version after the reset. However, as I'm sure you are aware, you will lose all your data.


Motorola moto 4g, battery drain, always high media server actitivity

A bug in media server seems to causes it
to get stuck in a loop indexing media files.

I've had the same issue and it used up 40% of my battery over 8 hours.

Restart your phone, then do a force stop on anything that might use it. I stopped google play music,  deezer and amazon music, if that fixes it you can disable them.

Seems to have worked for me so far.

Some say its an error on indexing the media on the sd card, you can create a .nomedia file to stop media server indexing it. Just add a file called .nomedia in the directory you do not want indexed.

This is a very irritating bug and hopefully google will fix soon.


Can I make a Google Doc shared with me more accessible on my Android device?

If it was shared to your Google account, you should be able to find it in Shared with me:


screen lock and not displaying lock pattern in android 2.2 (Eclair)

Are you entering an actual password, or an unlock-pattern?

Lock-patterns have the option to display/not-display the path entered, so it's a lot more difficult to "shoulder-surf"

  Use visible pattern   This is selected by default. Clear this if you
  do not want the screen unlock pattern
  to display as you enter it.


Backing up everything on my kindle fire with ubuntu before installing firefirefire, can't get past Hellions with blue flames when rooting

According to a post of by ch4lky in XDA:

    [-] Hellions with BLUE flames !

  This output means that the exploit didn't crash vold, or didn't know
  it did. The reasons can be :

  vuln[erability] has been patched
  no debug info in the logs
  no access to the logs
  the buffer size is different on your device than on the others (<- can be fixed)

I did a quick read of zergrush's code; the log he's referring is located "/data/local/tmp/crashlog", you may want to look at that file to see if there is any useful info.

Since according to the thread you linked to, the exploit has been reported to work for Kindle Fire, the most likely possibility is either the vulnerability has been fixed in the latest update (the vulnerability already had a patch in upstream since November) or you had a weird version that have different buffer size than other Kindle Fires.


How can I access the files in "/data/data" and copy them into memory card without root?

Without root access you have 2 options. Both options (may) allow you to access the files for a particular app, e.g. the folder /data/data/com.app.packagename.

If the application is debuggable you can use the run-as command in adb shell (more info about what adb is and how to install it can be found here)

adb shell
run-as com.your.packagename`
cp /data/data/com.app.packagename/

If the application is not debuggable, you can use Android's backup function.

adb backup -noapk com.app.packagename

You will now be prompted to 'unlock your device and confirm the backup operation'. It's best NOT to provide a password, otherwise it becomes more difficult to read the data. Just click on 'backup my data'. The resulting 'backup.ab' file on your computer contains all the app's data in android backup format. Basically it's a compressed tar file. This page explains how you can use OpenSSL's zlib command to uncompress it.
You can use the  adb restore backup.db command to restore the backup.


Apparently it had to do with the VPN adblock Block This! I disabled it and now it downloads normally.


For those of us who are frustrated in trying to alter the file system to MTP and cannot find how to change it. Do not despair.

If you've opened Samsung Keis and connected phone with a USB cable and got the error message, go to your phone and swipe top to bottom on the NOTIFICATIONS list you will see the USB symbol on the left hand side and the line stating - Connected as Camera. If it says - Connected Media Device - then your connected properly. To Change from Connected as Camera, tap/select the line - Connected as Camera and you will be shown another screen with the Camera option selected - Just select Media Device MTP and you will be able to connect to Samsung Keis, and all will be calm and peacful, no more screaming at the PC or mobile phone.


Contact search in Xperia Z doesn't show all contacts

I just got my Xperia Z and the contacts didn't seem to work properly in terms of filtering. The names were there when I scrolled through the list, but not all would show up if I filtered it with, say, the beginning letter. I enabled all ticks in the filter settings menu too.

Finally I figured that the ones not showing up were not assigned any group names like my contacts. They were showing as other contacts in Google contacts when I accessed the server through browser, but shown as undefined group inside android contacts, when I edited any of those contacts.

My solution was to log in to Google contacts server through browser, select other contacts group, click to select all, and add them to a group like say my contacts. Then log out from server. Go to Android Settings → Accounts, and force resync Google contacts by checking and checking the option. Wait for sync to finish. That's it. Now try Android contacts filter and it works properly!!!


Huawei does not accept password to unlock

Please sign in using one of the owner's accounts for this device


how to change the Mac address without rooting your phone

Simply, you can't. Because of how the permissions work in Linux, what android is built on, you are required to use a root account to make those changes. The root account being su, which is only accessible when you have a rooted device. To my knowledge there is no way around that, even using alternate commands that might exist.


How can I disable mobile data completely?

Create a dummy APN and select that as default.

With this, even if you enable data accidentally via toggles, it would still not connect.

 PS: Added as an answer as suggested by OP


What is this icon with a messaging icon enclosed by a SIM card's icon in status bar?

It's a SIM icon.

To change it, go to Settings → Connections →SIM card manager → choose SIM1/SIM2 icon.

(Tap to enlarge)


Where is "Stay Awake" option in Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy S3?

Samsung removed "Stay Awake" from TouchWiz back in the first OTA for the Galaxy S1. Other ROMs like CyanogenMod still have it, and other AOSP based ROMs as well.

Be very careful using any kind of "Stay Awake" options with these devices that have the Super AMOLED screens. I used to use it when developing and testing the apps. I now have a "burn" in the screen from the time and the top bar.


The following worked for me (once you have root permissions):

adb shell settings put global auto_time 0 && adb shell date 010219302018.00 set && adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.TIME_SET

auto_time -> This is to switch off automatic syncing of time.

To reset the time back to syncing with the network, do:

adb shell settings put global auto_time 1 && adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.TIME_SET


just clear the text of the draft message, and it will automatically disappear


Must I unpair one device from another in bluetooth?

The other smartphone cannot see my bluetooth device. Is this normal?

A phone that isn't already paired can only see the device while the device is discoverable. This is a special mode you put the device into (usually with a button or combination of buttons on the device). The manual for the device probably describes this as part of the pairing procedure. If you repeat this procedure, your new phone should be able to pair just fine.

  So once a headphone is paired with a cellphone, I need to unpair that headphone before I can use it on other smart phone?

Not usually. The pairing process just allows the two devices to swap special data (encryption keys) to allow them to recognise each other in future. After pairing, both devices remember the key. It's no different from saving the key for a Wi-Fi network in your phone, except it works both ways.

While phones can remember lots of pairings (and show you a list of paired devices), devices like headsets are a lot simpler, and can only remember a few. Exactly how many is different from headset to headset. Once it's reached this limit, most likely pairing a new phone with the headset just makes it forget the first phone you paired. Unpairing just means forgetting the key: it's something either side (the phone or the headset) can do without the co-operation of the other side.

  What about if I no longer have access to the original smart phone (say I factory reset the phone). What would happen?

Nothing happens, just like if you lose or factory reset the phone after giving it the key to your Wi-Fi network. Your headset will still remember its half of the key, but that half won't do anything any more. If you pair the headset with enough other phones, it'll probably overwrite that key with a newer one eventually.


Is there a way to rollback to a stock rom without "unlocked" icon on XT910?

The lock icon when you turn on your phone shows that the phone's bootloader is unlocked and doesn't show if it's rooted or not.

Just use the tool to you used to Root and unlock the bootloader to unroot and re-lock the bootloader it.

For info about the Razr XT910 have a look at this link

  By flashing a ROM or rooting your Razr voids Motorola Warranty Terms.
  Even if you flash the same rom your Razr came with.  3. All the
  devices are divided by regions. This means you can only flash a stock
  ROM designated for your Razr region. Common Regions are: Latam (Latim
  America 'n Canada) - Europe - Asia - PSHAsia - ME - China - Korea -
  Japan(*


how to monitor mobile data usage but exclude wi-fi

Try My Data Manager.  It monitors network and Wi-Fi data.  If you have at least Android 4.0 it should also allow you to view the data use directly without having to install any additional apps.


Connecting an AVD with an android device

No you cannot connect an virtual device. Because Avd of pc is just simulator and doesnt have facility to such connections. You can check wifi in avd using internet connection of pc or VirtualBox but not to your real wifi.


Why does my phone have erroneous input when connected to a non-OEM power source?

Though Alex's answer has its point; but as the OP confirmed the second adapter in question is a HTC charger, I hold it more likely that a special "PIN usage" is the cause. As I explained in my comments to the question:

PinOuts describes how the PINs of the USB connector are used in general.

screenshot from PinOuts.ru

Note the "x" PIN which, according to the description, may be connected to GND.

Now to my observation: As I was annoyed by the very same problem, I decided to dig a little deeper. I tried 3 different cables with the HTC power unit versus two other power units (one Motorola, one generic) on my Motorola Milestone 2. In short, all cables behaved exactly the same: connected to the HTC power supply, they caused the very same behaviour described in the question, i.e. unpredictable reactions to the touchscreen. Connected to any of the other power sources, there was no such effect. So the cause very clearly was the HTC power supply.

If EMI were involved, as Alex suggests, the same strange behaviour should appear here daily, as that HTC power supply is connected to a power source (and such must emmit those electro-magnetic disturbance), and my devices are often positioned not much more than 20cm from it. A connected cable might bundle that, true -- but I still hold my theory for more likely. And as one can find by looking at this XDA thread, HTC chargers do obviously use a different PIN layout -- which adds its weight to my arguments.

Besides: Other devices connected to the HTC charger (I tried with two tablets, none of them a HTC) did not show the effect. So with the EMI argument, the resumé would not be "HTC builds lousy adapters", but "Motorola builds lousy displays" ;)


How to turn off/mute the USSD notification sound in Jelly Bean?

I got an answer , download SliderWidget and reduce the media volume . In short the media volume is controlling the volume of USSD pop up notification.


Yes, it is possible to buy an Android phone that will last for 5 years.  My phone has served me well for 7-8 years, so far, and I believe it will last even longer.
However, you can't tell what will happen in the future.  So, here's some other thoughts.
The phone will definitely need a replaceable battery as batteries go bad.
Best thing to do would be to buy a phone that is popular or that you believe will be popular in the future.
Custom ROMs are key, as already mentioned.  XDA is where you'd likely find custom ROMs.
If the phone is popular enough, then in the future, with more people owning the phone, it will be more likely that there will exist someone that is able to and willing to create and maintain a custom ROM.  However, with a phone that has many models, some models may get more or less attention.
Also, with a phone that is popular will likely mean that there will be more replacement parts available in the future...although a lot of phones, I believe, are being made to be less serviceable...so that more people replace their phones.
I have a Samsung Note 3 that was first released in September of 2013.  It had Android 4.4 and later Android 5.0 also.  Nothing after that.  I was OK with it, except that some apps stopped functioning or were updated, requiring newer Android versions.  Luckily, XDA had a custom ROM for Android 10 and now for Android 11.  I was also lucky that the person(s) creating and maintaining the ROM(s) has/have a Note 3 model compatible to mine.  It's fast enough and has most, if not all, of the things that most current phones have/do.  I replaced the battery with an extended battery and can get up to 7-10 days of usage by minimizing screen use.  Main thing it doesn't have is the upgraded cameras that are available now.  There are some other items too, such as fingerprint sensors missing.  Liked it so much, I bought a second hand one for $60.
You'll also probably want a phone that is sufficiently fast as future apps will likely be more "intensive".  Another thing is that you'll probably want one with sufficient RAM/ROM so that future larger apps and ROMs will have enough free space.
Depending on what you'll be using the phone for, you might actually want to buy an older, released phone that meets some or all of the above.  I believe the replaceable battery will be the biggest item.  This way, you can verify whether ROMs are available, such as on XDA.  Also, chances are, if there's a custom ROM available, it's more likely that there will be future custom ROMs available for future versions of Android.


Wrong syntax :)

adb shell "mount -o rw,remount /system"

would do in your case (i.e. passing the command you want to run on the device to adb shell in double-quotes; the "exit" is not needed here as it is "implied"), provided your device's ADB daemon runs in root mode. You can even run multiple commands at once this way, e.g.:

adb shell "mount -o rw,remount /system && echo 127.0.0.1 foobar.com > /system/etc/hosts && mount -o ro,remount /system"

Commands connected with && here, meaning: only execute the next command if the previous one succeeded. If you don't want that dependency, use ; instead to connect them.

For how to use a multi-line command (so called "HEREDOC") with Windows (or any other OS), SuperUser is the better place to ask (in case the Wikipedia entry is not sufficient ;)


How to keep phone powered down while charging with ClockworkMod Touch Recovery?

You are stuck with this. This is the way ClockworkMod Recovery works. I did a search and the devs on xda say if you dont like it unroot your phone.

It is indeed a nuisance since powered off chargin charges faster. Though, oh well!


Multiple Androids with one bluetooth keyboard

No. Although the keyboard can pair with multiple devices, it can only be connected to one at a time. You can't fix that with software that runs on the tablet.


"Warning: camera failed" after update to marshmallow

As Murphy would have it, I spend 10 minutes putting together a question and then the next thing I try solves it...

In the end it was fixed by switching off and removing the battery for a while (~30s). This is mentioned in one of the comments in the linked article.


is there a cardboard/VR emulator available?

Just run the app. The Google Cardboard is just a way of attaching the lenses and phone to your face. The phone doesn't know whether it's in the headset or not. The app just displays the two views on the screen, whether it's in the headset or not.

Note that this only applies to Google Cardboard apps, not to Samsung Gear VR. Gear VR has its own electronics supplying extra sensor data to the phone, so apps written to work with Gear VR will only work with an actual Gear VR headset.


How can I downgrade from Lollipop to KitKat

There is a list of ROMs available for Z3 at XDA.
Please visit the link and flash your device with an appropriate ROM and you are done. :)

Sony Xperia Z3 ROMs [XDA]


Download it from the site instead: http://www.whatsapp.com/android/


What does the hyphen and number that comes after an installed package name mean?

The number has no special meanings. It is used to distinguish old and new packages during installation. While installing an app, the Package Installer first finds an available 'packageid-number' pattern, with the number incrementing from 1, and creates the directory (APK file for Android 5.0 and under). Then it places the APK file in it and removes the old one. Therefore, most commonly the number only varies from 1 to 2 because only one instance of an installed app exists. Summing up the old app and the temporary name, there can only be 2 instances. If you have, by some other means like installing 2 of the same app using a parallel container, there can be up to 4 instances of the app, thus creating com.example-4.

Here's my experiment on Android 5.1.1, using Root Explorer to install the app and Terminal Emulator to monitor directory content change.
Preparation: Use XInstaller (an Xposed module) to allow downgrade installing app (so that I can repeatedly install the same version of an app).
1. Tap the prepared APK file in Root Explorer to install it. In my case, it's Termux.
2. Repeatedly run

root@android:/data/app # ls -d com.termux-*

Output:
First: com.termux-1
After some time: com.termux-1  com.termux-2
After more time and finally: com.termux-2
3. Tap the APK to install it again and repeat Step 2.
Output:
First: com.termux-2
After some time: com.termux-1  com.termux-2
After more time and finally: com.termux-1
4. Create placeholder directories named com.termux-2, com.termux-3, com.termux-4 and set correct permissions.
5. Repeat Step 3.
Output:
First:com.termux-1  com.termux-2  com.termux-3  com.termux-4
After some time:com.termux-1  com.termux-2  com.termux-3  com.termux-4  com.termux-5
After more time and finally:com.termux-2  com.termux-3  com.termux-4  com.termux-5
Where com.termux-2, com.termux-3, com.termux-4 are all empty as they are created by me, not the Package Installer. To verify, run

root@android:/data/app # pm list packages -f | grep com.termux
package:/data/app/com.termux-5/base.apk=com.termux


Install Python to run speedtest-cli on android phone with no access to device - via adb

Solved this eventually. Here is what I did -

Installed termux via downloading apk and performing adb install com.termux.apk
Remotely launched the termux app via adb  (monkey) (this is needed to complete install on the device) monkey -p com.termux -c android.intent.category.LAUNCHER
once termux is installed I installed python and speedtest-cli on the device using adb input text and keyevents -

adb input text "pkg install python"
adb input keyevent "66"
adb input text "pip install speedtest-cli"

Then navigate to /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin
here you should have the speedtest-cli script that you can invoke from adb shell

/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin # ./speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from XXXXX
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 20.18 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed......................................................................................................
Upload: 3.98 Mbit/s


Moto G2 speaker phone issue when calling

Solution:
Factory reset.
Finally, after doing all the necessary backups using different tools like adb, Helium(Carbon), Google, Super Backup,  I did a factory reset(Soft Reset through the option under Settings > Backup & Restore > Factory Reset) and the speaker phone issue is solved.


Download MAPS.ME (MapsWithMe) offline map from PC?

The maps data is stored in /sdcard/MapsWithMe/. For each downloaded map, there are 2/3 files (depending with route or not) and 1 folder:

<Country> folder (empty)
Country.mwm for map data
Country.mwm.routing for its routing (direction) data

You need to download the map data from your PC (using Android emulator*, refer to this question.), transfer the data from the emulator to your PC, then transfer the data again from your PC to your physical device.

* for Android emulator, I recommend BlueStacks since it's simple enough for general end-users. You can refer to this question to transfer between BlueStacks and PC.

Disclaimer: I don't have any affiliations to BlueStacks. I just tried it and found that it's easier to use than Android SDK emulator and using ADB to pull the files


Try to clear the cached data and then reinstalling
Clear cached data by going in Setting>>Storage>>Scroll Down a little you will see Cached data,Press on the Button to clear cache. Should Work


Call Recorder not using microphone to record the other side

This is something that has to be enabled in the kernel. Some custom kernels do implement this, depending on your device.


Set up Google Play for restricted user accounts

Follow Following steps:-

First you have to make a gmail id for your kid.
Then open clash of clans and in settings use connect to supercell id follow this video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D7zX0kETazA]
After connecting your kid account is connected to supercell id means id is backup online.
Now uninstall clash of clans from admin account and open your kid account and download again in that account from play store.
After install in his account just reconnect to supercell id by using newly created gmail.
They will send sign in code on Gmail open gmail app and account in which you have backup his account copy that code and enter in game.
Now all done nothing is connected to your admin account and clash of clans has ended support to Google play games.

But Still If you want to connect to Google play use following steps:-

Create a new Gmail id then.
Open clash of clans and go to settings double click on Google play button.
An menu will pop up which shows you all accounts that you have in your device.
Just select newly created gmail which is created for kid all is done.
Uninstall clash of clans and logout admin account.
Open kid account download again From store and reconnect to Google play by double tapping on Google play in game settings and select newly created gmail account.

He will got his progress back any questions are most welcome.


Estimated, at least 50% of the questions starting with "is there a way (settings or app)..." can be answered straight away with the "big T" -- Tasker. That's an automation tool which doesn't come cheap (about 5 bucks; a free trial is available at its homepage), but is worth every cent. It works with so-called "profiles", where each profile consists of conditions and a task. So let me propose such a profile for you:

Condition:

Cell Near (set this up at work, let Tasker record all "cells near")1
State → Headset plugged (check "invert" to make it the opposite)

Task:

Audio → Silent2

1 this refers to your provider's mobile cell towers, and is the "cheapest" location mode in terms of battery (as the cells must either be scanned for calls/SMS/mobile data being available). If that's not exact enough, you may add GPS location or WiFi near (to scan for e.g. your office's WiFi AP) -- which then only kick in as soon as one of the listed cells is detected, again to save your battery.

2 Check whatever you want here. You could completely silence your phone (that would affect ringtone and phonecalls as well), but you probably just want the media volume set to zero.

So what happens with that profile? As soon as you come near to your workplace ("cell near", the mobile tower(s) close to the office), and the headset is not connected, media volume (assuming you chose that) will be silenced -- as the condition is completely met ("at office, headset not plugged"). Now you start your player and hear -- nothing. But once you plug the headset in, the condition is no longer valid -- and Tasker reverts to the settings as they've been before the profile was activated (so you can hear music via headphones).


What is the size of android Marshmallow source code?

Generally, the size of source code varies depending on if it is compressed or raw..

The full source code ranges around 20GB's as of now (slightly varies with ROM) and be downloaded using the repo tool..

The compressed source code varies around 2GB..

Here's an XDA Thread which provides compressed source code files (and updated quite frequently):
[INDEX] [SOURCES] [DevXchange] Android Sources Highly Compressed & Developer Exchange


Hotword detection of google now / search not woking

Solved it!
I realised that I had set Language to 'English(UK)' (under 'voice' settings of the Google Now app) and apparently hotword detection currently works only with English(US) (In my case, the offline voice recognition package I had installed was 'English(US)' , but language was English(UK) )!
Solution:
So a simple switching of 'Language' to English(US) will do the trick!
It is a little funny, who would have guessed English(US) and English(UK) are considered completely different languages!
By the way:
I tried downloading and installing English(UK) as my offline voice recognition language and then switching the Language as well to English(UK) BUT it didn't work, hotword detection stopped working again. This means Hotword detection only works with English(US) irrespective of whether you have other offline voice recognition packages installed as well!


How to multi select emails in browser or Gmail app?

Within the gMail app you can select multiple messages by using the big capital letters in front of a message.


How to mod android rom so none can ever install an app in it?

Your idea of removing the store and package installer should work.

To do so, delete the following apks (and any .odex files of the same name) from /system/app, either in your ROM image or after obtaining root.

DefaultContainerService.apk - used for app installs by both the Play store and Packageinstaller.
PackageInstaller.apk - This is used to install non-market apps.
Vending.apk - This is the Play store.
Phonesky.apk - This is the Play store on JB and some ICS builds.

With those gone (and the phone unrooted), it should be impossible to install anything.

Note : I have not tested this.  Making a backup before doing this would be advisable.


You can factory reset your device. Factory reset restores your device to the state it was in when you purchased your device, i.e. it'll wipe all your apps & data. For instructions on how to factory reset your device, follow this link: https://www.technipages.com/galaxy-tab-4-hard-reset


Can I safely downgrade my Sony Xperia SP?

Is there something I can do that is safe to return to the old OS?

Easy answer: No, there is not. You should flash it manually using, for example, flashtool (you don't need root).

Here is great guide which may help you.

Chance, that you hard brick your phone is really small If you flash right firmware.


How come I can't install Google Maps in Israel?

Google probably disables Google Maps in Israel largely for security reasons.

Google Street View in Israel was enabled only some time in 2012. Older news reports say that Google Maps for Israel was totally blank from some areas (especially areas that may attack Israel).

BTW, I can see Israel in Google Maps from my place (Philippines).

Related information:
Why Google Earth Pixelates Israel


Google Now Launcher is not displayed in Bluestacks emulator

Restarting the PC fixed the problem. I restarted the Bluestacks and also tried Restart option from the tray icon options menu. But restarting the PC fixed the issue and the fourth option Google Now Laucher is shown in the list. Wierd I dont know how this fixed it.(May be some registry or some other system reset changes required with restart.)


All commends and settings of MessagEase are documented on the app itself. Please run the app and consult the "How to" section, or send us an email support at exideas dot com if you need more help.


Using another phone's GPS signal as location

As a test confirmed, this is possible via corresponding apps:

on the device providing the GPS signal ("B"), you will need an app to Use your Droid as BT-GPS Mouse. An approved candidate would be Bluetooth GPS Output for this.
on the device where you want to access that "external GPS" from ("A"), you'll need an app to Use an external GPS mouse. Approved candidate for that is Bluetooth GPS.

As you yourself found out, another approach is tethering GPS with an app like TetherGPS Lite – which you write "sounds more efficient since it can be more optimized". As this waits your approval, please approve below this answer then :)


How to overcome the failure of data wipe? My smartphone's type is Huawei g730 - U 10

Common issue with Huawei devices. This happens when the memory chip (eMMC) is damaged and become read-only.
This is a hardware failure, the only fix is replacing the chip or changing the motherboard. Sometimes heating the chip can solve (temporarily) the issue.

To be sure the eMMC is damaged, power off the phone, hold volume up and volume down at the same time then briefly hit the power button: if the screen goes purple or you get a more explicit message : Update exception. EMMC is readonly, you can't update your system - the chip is damaged. Otherwise you can flash the device to solve the issue.


What might cause Google People details to stop syncing?

Had the same issue, tried several solutions but the only one that worked was resetting the phone to factory settings.


Google+ Auto Backup: How to reject non-camera photos?

If you have Google's Photos installed, then the following will do the same:
Bring out menu in Photos.

Select On Device.

Uncheck the blue cloud icon for any folder you do not wish to sync with.


Droid Incredible - Gmail Push - Can I add my hosted Email address to Gmail on my Droid?

When you add your email account through the Gmail app (Menu → Accounts → Add account), you'll usually need to use your full email address for the "username", rather than just your internal username.

In addition, if your company uses single sign-on for Google Apps (that is, if the login page for your business Gmail is not on google.com and doesn't look like the Gmail login page), you may need to set up a separate password for accessing Gmail from a non-web interface.  For this you'll need to talk to your IT department.


How to use the Search box on these Stack Exchange sites with the Galaxy S?

Don't if there's something on the StackExchange sites that has changed, or if the Froyo update has fixed this, but I do get the Go button now, not a Next button when I type into this site's search box on my phone.

(Vodafone UK branded official Samsung Galaxy S 2.2 Froyo release JP7)


How to disable mobile data for one of the sim

There will be an option in Sim and Network settings mentioning "Default Sim for Internet". Choose the SIM 1


Is there a 'format painter' function in Excel for Android?

The closest I've been able to come, is:

Click on the cell with the formatting I like, then long click on the little square bottom right of the cell, and release, then click on the clipboard icon.
Click on the cell I want to format, and long click on the square, bottom right of the cell, and  release again, this time, click on the downward facing arrow, and choose "Formatting".  It works, but much more awkward than the format painter function in the Windows versions of Excel. (and Word)

If anyone has a way to be able to do this quicker, it would be much appreciated!


How can I Run/Download Android Apps on a PC?


Why has my Android firmware upgrade been stuck at 0% for an hour? (Samsung Galaxy Ace)

I would suggest pulling it off and trying again.  Usually this happens when Kies wasn't able to properly communicate with the device after putting it into Download Mode.  I've had this happen before and rebooting my device and trying again worked.  You can also try putting the phone into Download Mode manually (may or may not work while plugged into USB):

Remove the battery
Hold VolumeDown plus the Home key plus Power.  While holding,

Reinsert the battery.
Release the Power button, still holding the others, about 1 second after the white logo text appears.
After a few seconds a yellow triangle with an android in it should appear, this is Download Mode.  If it doesn't, try this again while holding Power the whole time.


Depending on how you have networking set up for your emulator, you might need to forward your SSH port from the emulator to a port on the host. Your emulator might be set up on a NAT/host-only network, so your SSH client can't actually reach the server.

To test this, try pinging the emulator's IP address from the system with your SSH client.


Bypass proxy for everything but local addresses?

By using Hotspot Shield you can bypass proxy installed on any network


This seems to be a problem created by a failed installation of CyanogenMod.

Please make sure you have read the notes on the CM-Wiki:

  Note:

  On 2011 models, the kernel will not update when flashed in recovery, so the kernel must be >updated via fastboot every time you flash a new build of CyanogenMod.

As far as I know you should be able to exit the loop by long pressing the power button until the screen goes black.
Also I suggest you install CM11 as Android 4.4 has far more support by the community than 4.1-4.3.

Before installing any new rom I would consider installing a stock rom to flash all possibly missing files and then begin to flash everything again (recovery, rom, kernel etc. in that order)


How to set default action handler permanently?

AFAIK, defaults on Android is not preserved if apps that use the intent are changed.

Workaround:

Use intent to launch the application or its activity screen.

intent is comparatively reliable though it may be changed when app is updated.

Take sending email as an example

Install Intent Intercept (Google Play)
Clear the defaults of email client
Choose "Intent Intercept" in Share menu when sending email
Copy intent details of your desired application activity
Open Tasker to "Create Task": Misc > Send Intent
Edit the parameters (Usually fill in the Action and Extra is enough)

Ref: http://tasker.dinglisch.net/userguide/en/intents.html

P.S. Some famous companies even provide you the intent details on their developer website, such as Evernote.


Can I use Jio SIM in the second slot of my Redmi 3s Prime phone?

Not all dual SIM phones have 4G + 4G support.
It is mostly 4G + 2G(or sometimes 3G).

It is not predetermined which SIM slot will be able to use the 4G bands and which won't.

Usually when a dual SIM phone is booted for the first time with two SIM cards, on the setup screen it asks the user to select which SIM card would be used for mobile data. Whichever is selected becomes the primary data SIM slot and is subsequently used for 4G LTE or 3G whichever the phone supports. The second slot in most phones either cannot use data or even if it does, cannot use the 4G or 3G bands- whichever the phone supports and the first SIM slot can use.
In case of hybrid dual SIM phones with single SIM does not arise as there is only one SIM card in use, and the device will automatically use whichever SIM slot is occupied as it's primary data SIM and will switch to 4G if available.
There is no official confirmation of Redmi 3S Prime being a 4G + 4G phone. Seeing how it is a budget phone, it is most likely 4G + 3G/2G.
If you are booting the device for the first time after inserting both the SIM cards (doesn't matter if Jio SIM is in second SIM slot, you can select the Jio SIM when prompted to select which SIM you want to use for data and it'll work.
If you inserted the Jio SIM in the second slot after having already booted the device, it probably won't work. What you have to do in this case is reset the phone, and when you see the setup screen, select the slot in which you have put the Jio SIM, and you'll be good to go.


Should I re-install certain programs after upgrading from Android 2.1 to Android 2.2?

You shouldn't have to re-install anything. I don't recall any app having an issue from an OS upgrade, except those that needed changes to work with 2.2. Since you're getting 2.2 so long after its initial launch I'd expect all of those issues to already have been worked out.


Is there any way to access Google Plus Messenger history?

I guess this is irrelevant now as Google have moved messenger to Hangouts.

Hangouts does have message archiving. From the list of hangouts, select options in the top right corner. Then select Archived Hangouts.


A pop-up was on my screen and said I had a virus!

Congrats! You won 10 bottles of snake oil if you're lucky.

Honestly: this has two very clear indicators of being scam:

There are no viruses on Android. And even if there were, how should that website know?
Asking you to download an app via their specific link to fix {whatever}. If you do so, then you are in trouble.

Ignore that message (close the tab of your browser were it appeared), but remember that website – to never visit it again.


How do you enable Hotspot Wifi Sharing on Nexus 5 Android M version on Sprint, Tmobile, and AT&T?

I just tried it, and this worked for me:

(Nexus 6, Android M Preview 3, Sprint)

With root browser go to /system/ and open build.prop in a text editor.
Add net.tethering.noprovisioning=true to the bottom.
Save and reboot.

In Android L, I also had to do the tether_dun_required thing, but now that database just doesn't show up for me in Android M.


While both methods (factory-reset through settings and through recovery) should have the very same effect, both also usually leave the SD cards (internal and external) alone. So if you really want to clear all things up, you should "wipe" those as well. Some devices/ROMs offer to include the cards in factory reset, with others you'll have to do that manually – either by deleting all files, or by going to Settings › Storage and chosing to format them.

If you were "worried about security, privacy and encryption", I'd instead recommend you a tool to "securely wipe" all partitions, i.e. overwrite everything with garbage.


Change Input Method without unlocking the phone?

Try seeing if you can login when you are in safe mode. Boot into safe mode by holding down the power button to open the menu, then hold down the power-off button, and click "OK" when it asks you to reboot into safe mode. Then attempt to login once the phone restarts, and re-enable the virtual keyboard.

Hope this helps.


How to start a bootlooping phone in Safe Mode

Sorry for the disappointing news, but there is no way to boot into safe mode without USB debugging enabled and already authorized by Android, and  root access or a custom recovery.

The content of the file named persist.sys.safemode must be set to 1 for the device to boot into safe mode. The file is located under /data/property, is  owned by root user and is part of root group only. If only the root privileges are granted, the file can be edited.


Photos sync - where did the files recover to?

From the photos app, you can't recover onto your device. You can only view them , the restore option is a misnomer as it does not really restore to your device:

From Google help, where a similar question is answered. This thread is recent and makes it clear that there is no way one can directly restore photos using the app. Options are:

Use the Google Drive app to select and download the photos. Using a file manager, copy the photos in downloads to the directory you wish to (see Nicholas post of 11 Jun)
From the Photos app, select and download ( of course, you will need to move them using a file manager - Krissy post of Jan 01)
Use a PC to download from drive and move into desired folders or use third party apps that can facilitate downloading from the photos app


Whatsapp is disappeared in Ultra power saving mode

You can use what's app just go to gallery select any photo to share and then you will get 3 options 1 one is whats app just go ahead and select any contact when whats app is about to send the photo click on upper left hand corner what's app back button ...

Then you will able to use what's app without any problem
Just remember do not to clear your recent apps if u clear that part then you have to do the same processes again


There is an application called Infinite Design available in both free & paid versions. It will allow you to export to SVG for editing in your favorite graphics editor. It's been tested and works in Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape (paid version only).

Free Version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brakefield.idfree
Paid Version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brakefield.id

Another application is called Simplector, again available in both free & paid (pro) versions:

Free Version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=plasma.vector.editor.app
Pro Version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=plasma.vector.editor.app.pro

I cannot comment on the functionality & image quality compared to similar iPad applications.


Does Android 1.5 Cupcake support WMA decoder?

There isn't just one thing called WMA, WMA describes a whole set of different audio formats and technologies that all normally have a .WMA ending. Some of these are DRM encrypted, some have higher or lower level quality than others, some are optimized for voices. It's entirely possible that although your audio file has a .WMA extension and container, inside that it's actually a type of codec that Android can already natively handle.

See these links for a bit more explanation: Gentle Introduction to Video Encoding: Lossy Audio Codecs and Wikipedia - WMA


Does anyone know how to fix "No SIM card/Emergency calls only" error on Sprint Note 3 CM12.1?

I had the same issue with my custom Virgin Mobile XT1548 MotoG3 (Osprey). Thing is, CM is more geared for phones that are CDMA. It'll break your SIM card every time you flash if you aren't CDMA. Thankfully, I still have data, but no voice. So I use a VoIP number to make my calls


How do you answer a call with a physical keyboard?

I don't know about keyboard shortcuts for answering a call on Android.

What you can do is to connect a USB mouse and use mouse gestures that replicate touch input, it is cumbersome but it should work. I've been doing that on a tablet with a similar problem.


Pair two Bluetooth devices simultaneously

AFAIK, bluetooth connections can occur simultaneously as long as their operational bounds do not overlap. In other words, you cannot connect two bluetooth headsets at the same time, but you can connect a bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mouse to the same device at the same time (I personally have tested this last scenario, and it works!)

So in your case, I assume the steps you would take would include making sure that the two communication streams don't require any of the same functionality, which sounds as if it would be possible, since one is strictly for internet availability. If you connect both and they won't pair with the device simultaneously, you probably won't be able to. But if they register as different types of devices (under different bluetooth "profiles", for example) you may be in luck!

Sorry there's nothing definitive. The bottom line here may be trial and error. If they don't work initially, you may be able to set up the Arduino to register under a different "profile" when it connects to the tablet, so as not to interfere with the internet connection coming from the phone.


Bottom right and left page curl that shows shortcuts when swiped?

I figured it out. Omni Swipe gave me most of the options that I was referring to.

The page curl effect comes with an app called Clean Master. It has the option to have the page curl swipe with tools, favorites and recent apps.


If I select 'lock device' in Android device manager, will it affect scheduled alarms?

No,no effect on the preset, scheduled alarm set in the stock clock/alarm app because the alarming processes are generally given in a 'Android Service', that is a background process. Lock screen will not affect a background process.


Reasonably how much free space should one leave for best performance?

IMHO these governor settings are overrated. Of course it's nice to have such options, but it's confusing users more instead of helping them.

Just check your ROM and ask other users for their opinions. In AOKP for example you only need NOOP and Interactive and you should be good to go for anything.

You should save your time for more important things in Android. Just my advice, though.


How to prevent tablet working when laid flat?

With Tasker is very simple (note that it is a paid app):

Create a profile (in the 'profile' tab tap on the plus sign)
Choose 'State' -> 'Sensor' -> 'Orientation' and from the drop down menu 'Face Up'
Go back to profiles tab and you will be prompted to add a task to your profile: tap on the plus sign in the little pop up
Now it depends from what you want the tablet to do when lying flat, you can choose all kind of possible actions: send SMS (if the tablet has a sim card), lock the screen (so your son will need to come for you to unlock it), and so on. Pick the one you want between the multiple choices and add it to your task
Enable Tasker (long tapping on the Tasker icon in the top left corner)

Note that, as mentioned in the comments, Tasker won't be able to understand if the tablet is lying on the floor or on a table. You may want to add a condition that activates the profile only when it's 'Tablet time' (which is, during the time of the day when you let your son play with it).


How to remove device access allows from installing Exchange Account

if you have removed or deleted the account, it's already ensured that no one else can access your device or manage account.


The internal storage doesn't increase itself, but external storage start behaving like internal (you can move apps to it and so), so you can say you have more internal which is used for apps mostly
With titanium backup you shouldn't have any problem as with other apps, for TWRP I can't say anything because I didn't have that experience, but since adopting is android feature recovery shouldn't make you a troubles
If you pull out SD card which is adopted app which is on SD card (adopted storage) won't function for obvious reasons, and SD card can't be used with other phone because of encryption. If you put other SD card instead of one you have adopted new card will behave normal, like external storage.
Nothing special, just apps which were on adopted storage (SD card) won't work, and instead of their icons there will be little green android, also data stored on adopted storage won't be there (obvious).
Don't know about this one, but as I said adopting is android feature so there shouldn't be any problems, but as we know sometimes after upgrading phone goes little crazy, so there is chance you maybe should perform factory reset, but just maybe.
If on performance you think on faster loading apps, that won't happen, SD card are way slower than actual internal storage, but there won't be much difference in loading time maybe for some big, very big games/apps, basically, most of people who adopted their SD cards done that because they needed more space for apps
So if you want to adopt SD card make sure that is at least class 10 that would be minimum, and speaking from my experience adopting could kill your SD card not really kill it but kill r/w speeds so it becomes 10x slower, happened to me with 16 GB transcend, also it is possible that SD card was crap.


Default Launcher Crashing at Reboot, Access only to Status Bar and Settings

It seems that you have rooted your device.

Mistakes you made:

After you got root access you have to backup all system files to your sdcard, but you did not.
No Nandroid Backups were made.
You moved system apps to the SDcard.

How to recover:

Search in your SDCard, you are missing system files with prefixes like com.android... or com.system....

If you find it, copy it to /system/app then reboot in recovery mode.

Take any of your friends' devices, root it, and then copy all system files to your PC/laptop and then copy the same to your phone into the directory /system/app/.


So this was an official Android fastboot bug. They are currently testing a fix in their QA department.

With the new platform tools release it will be fixed:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=231129


There are several things you could try. Have you tried restarting both the router and the phone?

If it still doesn't work I would recommend trying to connect to your router using another phone or laptop.

If another phone or laptop can connect, I would recommend reseting your phone.

If another phone of laptop can't connect, you need to debug your router


"Slide to answer" alternative on Lollipop

If you're using Samsung Galaxy S-series, you can change the call answering and ending options in Settings > Accessibility > More settings > Answering and Ending calls. I didn't like the way it worked, I now have it set up so all I press is the home key.

The other one is Single tap mode, which is like its name, answering/rejecting incoming calls with a single tap.

Image courtesy of AndroidCentral


SD Card Suddenly Stopped Working -- Cannot Remove Read-Only Attributes

Full-sized SD cards have a physical write-protect tab. The adapter for your microSD might have one. Make sure it's in the correct position.


802.11 b/g/n - all those three modes are 2.4GHz only (802.11 n can theoretically also operate on 5GHz, however the number of devices that really support this seems to be very low).

Therefore your LG G Pad F7.0 does only support 2.4GHz Wifi. If the Wifi hotspot only operates on 5GHz you will never be able to use it by this device.

Only modes like 802.11a or 802.11ac indicate that 5GHz Wifi is supported.


How to view pictures from Samsung Galaxy Mini on Sony Bravia tv?

You can use the "AllShare" apk, which enable you to use DLNA phone device (Im considering that your sony bravia supports DLNA).


How to enable 3G video calls on Android smartphone?

This article on the history and future of mobile video telephony from 2010 covers the challenges of mobile video telephony at that time.

The author lists out the then existing landscape and practical issues regarding video call adoption. Perhaps more importantly is to what the author sees in the future:

  What’s next?

  We do have mobile video telephony, with all of its benefits and faults. But where are we going with it? The next step will be a migration of the service from circuit switching to packet switching – to become all-IP. This will require two major changes:

  Migration from WCDMA/HSPA to LTE, where an all-IP network will be the norm and network capacities and bandwidths allocated for each phone will increase.
  Replacement of 3G-324M with a different standard that runs over an IP network. Probably as part of IMS (IP Muiltimedia Subsystem).
  While Apple just came out with their front facing camera and FaceTime service on the iPhone, it is still quite limited: it runs over WiFi, only between iPhone 4 devices and uses a protocol that Apple plans to open. For mobile video telephony to become a valid solution it needs to use an open standard, run everywhere and be interoperable across devices.

  When will that happen? At the very least 8 years from now it will require the creation of the necessary ecosystem of companies who care. The problem is that these companies are currently focused on providing the basics of the LTE infrastructure. This requires them to rethink their voice and SMS technologies in initiatives such as VoLTE (Voice over LTE).

So

To get mobile video calling operators/carriers were mandating handsets support 3G-324M (a 3GPP specification), at least until the iPhone arrived.
Operators/carriers switched focus to providing the basics of LTE infrastructure.
Apple hasn't opened up Facetime
Android itself has no requirement to support the 3G-324M, and Android Compatibility Definition Document shows no support beyond standard audio and video codecs so any support would have to come from manufacturers or carriers building it in themselves.
In the US, AT&T and Verizon have announced end of 3G support, In Europe Vodafone has announced that 3G will be turned off throughout Europe between 2020 and 2021, and Deutsche Telekom plans to do the same in 2020 while in other regions/carriers it is still TBD.

So while older devices, like the Samsung mentioned had some type of 3G video calling support, should the associated carrier end 3G, support for 3G video calling will probably end as well, as the future lies with VoLTE which removed the circuit switch requirements.

If you are looking for older devices which does support 3G-324M,
from: https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/android_video_calling

  The only modern smartphones known to implement 3G-324M video calling are the Samsung Galaxy range:

  Samsung Galaxy S4 +s5 +s6
  Samsung Galaxy S3
  Samsung Galaxy S2
  Samsung Galaxy Note
  Samsung Galaxy S I9000

Note that the most recent device that appears to have supported 3G calling on a carrier like Telstra AU is the Samsung Galaxy S5 whose last official update is Android 6.0.


Get rid of duplicate songs on phone when using Google Music

I think that there is no other way as to simply delete the files on your Android device. Make sure you have a copy of the files on your PC or an external HD. I am not sure if one can download the mp3s easily from the Google music cloud. You have the files in Google musics cloud, why do you need them on the device too? The music App will cache the files on the device for fast/offline access.


Google Play Store won't download apps after reinstalling

You can try downloading the play store from GApps. You will probably want the pico version... You then have to flash it with a custom recovery (e.g. TWRP).

Good Luck ;)


Low memory memory full notification keep popping up

You can try following:

Uninstall Apps
Move apps to external storage or money card. You can do that by going to app settings. You may be able to move some apps by app settings option.
If you're still getting low memory issue, then you use This app. This is only app I found on play store which can move those apps to SD card which android app settings couldn't. But to use this, you need to be rooted.


Automatically un-mount SDCard safely when device is rebooted or turned off?

The Android OS is supposed to do this automatically for you unless the device is powered down or rebooted incorrectly (eg. removing the battery). Ive never heard of files being doubled on an SD card after rebooting before. I would suggest trying a different ROM since your phone is rooted.


Is there a way to keep youtube videos etc playing even while closing the lid?

For YouTube you would need to subscribe to YouTube Music Key. This allows you to

  play music on mobile the way you want to – with or without video, while using other apps or with your screen off.

It also removes adverts from music videos and allows you to download & play videos offline.

I'm not aware of how to achieve this with other apps (which don't support playing in the background).


USB File Transfer difficult on Cy10.2 ATT GS2 Skyrocket

This doesn't directly answer your question, but you could use an FTP app instead, an app which runs an FTP server on your phone that you then connect to over your local network using a client such as FileZilla on your desktop machine?

(This is how I transfer files to and from my own Android device, the USB is just too slow and unreliable)


Is your Galaxy S7 running slow after 11/2018 T-Mobile update?

Here is what I just tried to do and it seems to have worked for now. Be careful when doing this as this may lead to the loss of data.

Installed the app "X-plore". Thanks to the developers of this app - a really great tool! The feature to serve the phone's files over HTTP to the desktop PC is a brilliant idea.

It shows most of the system memory contents. I noticed that directory /sdcard/log was bloated: it had way too many files. Seemed like crash dump files that were zipped into ~6Mb packages. There were hundreds of them and they had dates in the names matching the time when the slowness started.

Deleting those files has freed up ~10Gb of space. The phone is running much better.


What's the purpose of A and B partition slots if both are flashed?

every tool and manual procedure I have seen flashes both A and B.

This is not correct-
Update engine does not flash both A and B, 2 slots exists for rollback purpose if updated slot does not boot up.


Android browser redirecting malware sites

Its not the problem inside your phone or your software. Its something that webscripts are responsible for. Many webpages create automatic redirecting ad popups.

There are two ways to deal with this->

1) To use AdBlock Plus or similar like MANI said. Though on personal note, I haven't really been able to get any such AdBlocking apps to work properly on Android. But again, that could be just me doing something wrong perhaps.

2) Change your DNS. You can use alternative Domain Name Server such as Open DNS or Google DNS or any other alternative you prefer. This works by changing your lookup for an ad-server which points to your local machine, hence basically preventing them to do anything to your PC. Additionally, many DNS servers are configured to block access to domains or hostnames which are responsible for such ads.

By the way, here's Google DNS and Open DNS in case you want to use:

Google DNS
DNS 1 – 8.8.8.8
DNS 2 – 8.8.4.4

OpenDNS
DNS 1 – 208.67.222.222
DNS 2 – 208.67.220.220

Also, you do not need to worry about malware. Malware wont affect your android device unless you manually install a malware infected app :)


"Will it creates any software/hardware problems to the device after updating/installing several times"
 - No.

These days, android security patches are being released every month. So, it is common to get monthly updates, although xiomi releases weekly updates. These updates are intended to fix the known issues and includes some security patches. For further information regarding the updates, you can refer to the update log, which is provided along with the update.


What GAPPS do I need for Ressurection Remix 5.7.4 by aditya?

It all depends. You can choose any flavour, what you need to be careful about is to select the right CPU architecture and Android version. Different flavours of GAPPS are just packages with a different number of Google apps. So you can download the whole Google Suite or just a few basic apps like the phone, Play Store or calculator.


Questions:
1. Do you mean SD storage (SD card) and not USB storage? 2. What action(s) are you trying to perform when it gives you this error message?
3. How much free space do you have on your internal storage?

If you're getting that message when you're trying to install an app, keep in mind that you can't download apps directly to your SD/external storage. You have to first download/install them on your internal storage. Then you can move them to your SD card if that option is available for the app. The same applies to downloading most types of files (documents, music, videos, etc). If your internal storage is full, you have to either delete some files or move them to the SD card to free up space on internal storage. Hope that helps!


There is a fantastic project underway called Android-VNC-Viewer has several input modes that would capture mouse movements/actions like right click.


HTC Incredible 2 clearing "App Associations" on reboot - why?

Has your friend modified the Linkify app that implements the App Associations? Typically both the Linkify app that actually performs the association and the Settings app where you set them are signed by the system signing key. If the Linkify app was replaced with a modified version not signed by the system signing key, which is possible if you unlock and root your device, I imagine it would have trouble accessing the settings.


Is it always possible to reboot the phone without removing the battery?

As pointed out by my other answer, and confirmed by the OP for the given device with reference to a blog article on the Z1, most devices with non-removable batteries have other means to "disconnect from power", usually "reset buttons" or "reset holes" to be poked with a pen or similar object. This should remedy in situations where the device freezes in a way not even the power button works. But it still leaves the disadvantage of not being able to "switch" the battery to a backup should you e.g. run out of power, of course.


iMessage automatically uses SMS messages for contacts who don't have an iPhone, so the answer is yes: you chat with them by sending an SMS message.

Apart from using SMS, there's no way for non-Apple users to get messages into iMessage. The protocol is closed and Apple does not have clients for other platforms, nor an interface for other apps to communicate with it. They designed iMessage not as a chat system in itself, but as a way to quietly redirect iPhone-to-iPhone SMS messages to use their servers instead of the SMS network.


How do I turn off the HTC Desire boot jingle?

There's an app for, well, turning off the sound on shutdown and then back on at startup.  As I've got Tasker I no longer use it, but you're looking for Silent Boot by Anton Weber.


I suggest going for Battery Monitor great app tells you exactly what is running the battery the most and then you can kill that process etc


HSP Profile not working on connecting via Android Settings Dialog

By default HS/HF profile has only control connection established. Audio connection become active during voice calls and speech recognition. You need to use BluetoothHeadset.startVoiceRecognition/BluetoothHeadset.stopVoiceRecognition and listen to ACTION_AUDIO_STATE_CHANGED intents.


Is there a way for Tasker to notify me when a background app is using the voice recorder or the camera?

Tasker cannot interact with background apps, and thus cannot detect if a background app is active or using the voice recorder. What Tasker can do, via Tasker Process Running (KC) is detect what processes, including apps, are running. if you store this data in some way whenever the error appears, you can look for correlations between running processes and the error.

Note: Have you Googled around to see if your error is common with your device, app, or OS version?


Does "trusted device" unlocking work with an encrypted device?

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


There are a few different options for video calling. i do not know how many of them will support the options you want, but i will try to specify their uses as best i can.

The new version of Google Talk It supports video calling and handles it well. You have to call from within the app though, i don't believe there is built in platform support for calling from call logs.

Fring
This is a widely used, multi-platform video chat app that has many options, and i know it allows you to remove your self image, group chat, and it pulls from your contact list to give you a list of other Fring users. On occasion, it has worked with Skype (mobile-to-desktop), but in my experience, this has been spotty.

Qik
The advantage to Qik is it's incredible online support. It has been improved greatly since it's introduction to the mobile market.

Tango
This got the last spot because it is personally my least favorite. You can only call to other devices using Tango, which i find extremely limiting, but it is the same scenario for Qik, so it'll have to be dealt with. It has very positive reactions from users though, so it's worth a look.

i hope this helps you get a jump start on finding a solution to what you want. Take a test run with one or a few of these and let us know what works best for you!


Samsung Galaxy S5 AT&T - Stop 5.0 Lollipop update mid-download

well let the update download. After downloading you have manually install it so don't install. This way you can prevent the lollipop update and stay on kitkat.


Consequences of removing Launcher3's APK (com.android.launcher3)

Don't see any issue with that. Though since you're rooted you can probably do it more cleanly with ADB as seen in this answer. If that doesn't work follow the manual delete steps listed there too.


I've had the same problem since upgrading my ROM.
The solution i'm going to present will lead to the loss of unsent emails, so copy them to somewhere.

You have to clear the application data.
To do that you go to:

Settings > Applications > Manage applications

look for Gmail and Clear Data

It will synchronize again with Gmail servers and the problem should be solved.
Send a test e-mail to yourself.


Is it safe to disable Network Location process?

Leaving network location enabled will save battery power, and in some cases increase location accuracy (especially when you have a weak or no GPS signal).

If you disable network location but leave GPS location you can still use the location services of your device. However, there is no guarantee that every app will work perfectly (some may crash, but probably shouldn't), and you may get a less accurate location or get drops in the location service's ability to provide a location.

But generally it is "safe" in that you can still use location services without it.


Is Mobiwol incompatible with WiFi networks, e.g. my home network?

The incompatibility of wi-fi and wi-fi tethering is due to the way most "no root firewalls" work.

  Sometimes this depends on the Android version in question because some
  Android versions have a bug preventing tethering and the VPN service
  working together.

Some devices hibernate Wi-Fi, preventing tethering from working when the screen is off and this behaviour can be disabled in the advanced Wi-Fi settings.

Currently as it stands, it seems Mobiwol firewall still has no compatibility with wi-fi or wifi-tethering in which case I would recommend installing an alternative no root firewall e.g NetGuard.

Netguard has confirmed support for wifi-tethering as mentioned here:

  Can I tether / use Wi-Fi calling while using NetGuard?

  Yes, but this needs to be enabled in NetGuard's settings. Whether or
  not it works depends on your Android version because some Android
  versions have a bug preventing tethering and the VPN service working
  together.

You could also browse Izzy's F-droid repo with similar firewalls here: Internet firewalls and choose the one suiting your needs.

Reference

NetGuard: FAQs


How to break in a new cell phone battery?

You may need to recalibrate the device for the new battery, especially if you got a 3rd-party replacement:

Allow the phone to drain completely to the point where the device no longer powers on
Plug the device in and allow it to charge completely. Do not use your device during this time.
After the device charges completely, keep the device connected to the charger for an additional 2+ hours.
Repeat this process once more to ensure that the device is being charged to maximum capacity.

If this doesn't cure your battery problems, make sure you don't have apps running in the background wasting power. Culprits include zealous Twitter clients and apps that constantly use the GPS.


On system restore, will I lose my software updates?

Yes, you'll lose your updates, along with any other installed app that didn't come with stock. But you will be able to re-update the apps via Google Play, and you won't lose any purchases you made (they are stored forever on the Google cloud).

I'm not sure why you're concerned about it, though. I can understand not wanting to lose your settings and data, but the only downside to losing app updates is the time and bandwidth required to re-update them afterwards.

Edit: You are probably asking about OS updates. Your phone does not keep an original OS image. Thus, once you update your OS (either by OTA updates or by installing a custom Rom), you will not be able to revert to the older Android version. Doing a factory reset should just reset the phone to a clean slate of the current Android version.


Cyanogenmod not saving video + root missing

The problem was that the back video camera was set to record in 4K resolution.

The fix for the video camera issue is:

Go to the default camera app.
Swipe from the left to see the "Camera" "Video" Menu, on the bottom right corner the is a gear icon, press it to go to camera settings.
Go to resolution and quality and change the back camera video quality to 1080p instead of 4K.

For the root problem I found that you need to enable root once you have Cyanogenmod so you need to:

  Activate Developer options (settings->about phone, tap 'Build number' multiple >times).
  In Developer options, tap 'Root access' and enable either "Apps" or "Apps and >ADB"

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/User:PsychoI3oy#Superuser_on_CyanogenMod_12.0


How to block a person's number and send automatic responses to its call/text attempts?

'AUTO SMS LITE' app will do what you want plus more.

It's fairly complex but awesome once figured out!!


How could I view that Android Screen on a computer or larger screen

There are lot of apps to do that. One is droid@screen; you need to have access to Android development toolkit for that though.

Extremely sorry for not providing the links, here are the links

droid@screen http://droid-at-screen.ribomation.com/ please install the USB drivers of you phone, instructions about how to use it is given there on the site.

If it asks for ADB you need to download Android SDK from here http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html (Got to other platforms, download SDK. ) ADB will be present in platforms tools inside the SDK


This seems to be some sort of faliure or glitch in your phone.

One way to fix this would be to factory reset your phone. by going to Settings > Backup & Reset > Factory data reset.

I would believe that there is nothing wrong with the SD card, so photos & music should be fine.

You can regain apps by then going to Google Play Store > Swipe Left to Right > My apps and install the apps back into your phone.

I hope this works.


No notifications at all on older Facebook Messenger app

Did you try to use Facebook Messenger Lite ?


Chances are most likely that the SIM card you are using is not LTE enabled. You can check with the service provider on upgrading the SIM.

Once the SIM is upgraded, install Open Signal application in the phone and test for 4G signal coverage.


Amoled screens can burn up. In bright colored UI, but for your case screen balance only adds some screen warmth (red hues) and coldness (blue hues) on it not changing the entire UI color like pure black or pure light. I don't think that can be a reason to your spoiling of screen. That is a totally different reason it got burning pixels.


How to fix a phone that always boots into TWRP when OS exists

The Reboot button shows an option to reboot to OS. After rebooting, Android OS starts


How can I make a controller work on my android tablet using an OTG cable?

The most likely explanation is that your tablet is missing the drivers needed to use USB mice and game controllers. If that's the case, then the only way to make the device work is to find another ROM for your tablet that does have the drivers. You might ask the manufacturer for an updated ROM that has the support, or look for a third-party ROM that supports your tablet (which is unlikely for unpopular devices). Installing a third-party ROM is not easy, though, and if you do it wrong you may break the tablet completely.

It's a bit odd that the manufacturer would choose to remove support for USB mice and game controllers, given that the support is in stock Android. Possibly they had to cut corners to make the kernel fit into the boot image, or something like that.


There are reports that the update to 8.1 has disabled USB storage functionality but there is a fix on the way (time table unknown). The only work around right now is to disable your lock screen, reboot, then you can connect it. This worked for me but it will stop working again as soon as you re-enable your lock screen (which obviously everyone should).

Sorry, but long story short, the update broke it and you'll have to wait for a fix.

A Motorola agent confirmed the issue on the official Lenovo forum


Are you trying to play in a browser?  I have found that is not supported but playing in an Android app using the native MediaPlayer should work.


"Set Warranty Bit : Kernel" text after rooting Samsung Galaxy

You can completely restore your device by downloading stock firmware and flashing it using Odin.

About "Set Warranty Bit: Kernel", a root method usually applies patches to kernel and Samsung bootloader detects that modification. However, this isn't a thing to be worried about unless, of course, you prefer warranty over cool modifications. Samsungs Knox will also not work if the Warranty bit is 1.


Someone PLEASE help me get rid of my startup pin. I've done everything and I'm at wits end with this

It's /data encryption. You must format your whole /data partition to decrypt it. Backup everything first, your photos, musics, etc. will be gone.

YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR DATA, INCLUDING INTERNAL STORAGE IF YOU PROCEED. THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE


Cannot ping Android devices on same wifi network

I know this question is quite old now, but I came across this looking to for an answer and managed to work it out myself.
What I did was download a root file explorer (I used Root Browser from JRummy Apps) and navigate to /proc/sys/net/ipv4 edit icmp_echo_ignore_all so that it is a 1-line, 1-character file that simply says 0 (when I opened the file, it was set to 1)
No reboot, ICMP requests started working upon saving. Hope that helps someone else!


I have used this Book Catalogue program to enter my book collection. It lets you enter books via ISBN (manually or scanning), has a search feature and works great.

It has bookshelfs where you should create on for a reading list, although there is a checkbox 'have read the book' also ...

Check it out if: maybe it has enough of the features you want to be useful.

I like it very much.


Disable personal language library feature of Swype

Have you tried using the Google Keyboard application?
It pretty much allows you to disable personalized corrections and a few more options.

You have the option to change the following settings:

Block offensive words: Block Google Keyboard from suggesting
potentially offensive words.
Auto-correction: Set the spacebar and any inserted punctuation to
automatically correct mistyped words.
Show correction suggestions: Show suggested words while typing.
Personalized corrections: Set Google Keyboard to learn from your
typing to improve its suggestions to you.
Suggest Contact names: Use names from your contacts for suggestions
and corrections.
Next-word suggestions: Use the previous word in making suggestions.

source: Google Support Page


Get rid of "Invite to Messenger" forever

Unfortunately I doubt you can get rid of it because Facebook wants people to use their messaging platform.

I would try third party Facebook apps such as Face Slim, Tinfoil for Facebook, etc...  Don't trust them all however and do your research into the permissions they use.  I'd consider anything on F-Droid to be safe.  Or use your browser instead of an app to check it.

Of course you could also just delete Facebook.


I think I found the solution.  I need to be root to move the apps.


How can I switch from WiFi to mobile data without interrupting my current download in Chrome?

If you switch from Wifi to cell phone network your public IP changes and therefore seemless handover without interrupting a download is not yet possible.
There is a standard that is designed to allow such a seamless handover between e.g. Wifi and cell phone, it is called "Mobile IP". Effectively it works a bit like a VPN. No matter what internet connection you use your public IP remains the same and changing between Wifi and cell phone network is covered by the Mobile IP system.
Unfortunately at the moment such Mobile IP providers are not yet well established.
Besides that even with the current situation a number of web servers should allow to handle download interruptions: Well configured web servers allow to resume downloads, hence if the download stops (because of a network switch) and you continue it, it skips the bytes already downloaded and continues where you stopped. Of course this also has to be supported by the downloading app.


The ps command shows many repeating processes named "app_process". Why?

I had a similar problem before. In my case, the culprit was one or more background services. Deleting Google Goggles solved it for a while, then it came back.

This time, I removed Trust Go. So far, so good.

Whether or not you have those specific apps, I'd say there's a fair possibility that one of them is the problem.

I tracked it down by going to Settings > Developer Options and checking the box to overlay the processes on the screen. This is important because the act of using another app to check on what's happening can itself change things. I saw that even though a system process was eating all the CPU, Trust Go was frequently in the top five. Removing it seemed to cure it for me


What does the padlock on wifi icon in status bar mean?

It means, it is a secure WiFi network, the device is connected to

Edit: See Wi-Fi lock symbol here


Samsung Android phone / tablet drivers without using the Samsung Kies

Have you looked into SideSync for Samsung devices? I use it instead of Kies now and love it

http://www.samsung.com/us/sidesync/

Sidesync has a lot of great features:

Display your phone or table from your PC and control it.
Send and receive phone calls from your laptop
Access all of your apps (like sending/reading SMS messages)
See notifications from your device on your PC
Access your Phone/Tablet via USB or wireless on the same network
Drag and drop files to and from device


Problem installing Google Chrome to Phone

(BTW, I also can't find it on the
  Google Market)

If you cannot find an application in the Market, this means the application is not compatible with your device. AppBrain cannot install applications that you cannot find from the Market, since in the AppBrain installation, you are brought to the Market to install your application (AppBrain is application discovery service, not alternative Market).

Are you possibly using Android 2.1, which does not have the Cloud-to-Device Messaging API, and therefore cannot use Chrome to Phone? Or possibly you have multiple phones linked to your AppBrain account?


Can't find other options in the "Ok Google" detection settings page

Not all phones support hotword detection being on all the time (i.e. "OK Google" from any screen). The phone needs a lower-power co-processor, to avoid running down the battery by keeping the processor running at full power all the time just processing sounds. It's up to the system integrator (the people who compile Android for the phone) to set whether this option is enabled or not. From other users' reports on Google Product Forums, it looks like the Xperia C3 doesn't support this, and Sony removed it in the update to Lollipop.

Most likely you could get this working with a custom ROM, but the cost would be that it would run down your battery - which is presumably why Sony removed the functionality in the first place.


How to make Termius look for hostnames on the local network first?

So, how can I persuade Termius (free version) to understand local network host names?

In fact you have to persuade Android OS, not a specific app. Resolving hostnames is handled by Android's C library to which apps are linked through APIs at the time of compiling.

  On the PC I can simply issue the command putty fred@servername and I can login without difficulties, as one would expect.

You haven't mentioned which Wi-Fi router you are using and if you have a DHCP/DNS server running on local network or not. But to resolve local hostnames on Android, you must have a local DNS server running. Usually Wi-Fi router is the DHCP/DNS server.

  I cannot find any settings that correspond to this problem.

That's the difficult part, you have to configure your phone to use a local DNS server but Android doesn't provide a straightforward way to do this.

  If I open a local SSH session on the phone itself and ping servername, then it appears to be going after some random internet IP address (92.xxx.xxx.xxx) and fails to login.

It indicates that Android phone is sending DNS queries to internet. You have to make sure that DNS queries are sent to the local DNS server only. Public DNS servers don't know what hostnames you have set on your private network. Android loves Google so much, so you will often find queries going to 8.8.8.8 (may be when router is advertising the IPv6 DNS server). Configure static IP in Wi-Fi settings to set IP address of local DNS server as the first (and preferably only) DNS. Or if you have root you can use Android kernel's built-in firewall netfilter to force a nameserver. Since DNS uses UDP port 53, do a Destination Network Address Translation (DNAT):

~# iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT -p udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to 192.168.1.1:53

Non-root solution which works for both Wi-Fi and Mobile data is to use a VPN app like Virtual Hosts which intercepts DNS traffic and makes queries to configured upstream DNS server.

This should resolve your problem.

For more details please see How to ping a local network host by hostname?.

Related: How DNS works on Android?


mount command outputs usage on correct arguments

It turned out that mount isn't actually supplied by busybox, but by toolbox.

With this knowledge, it was easy to track down the cause of the bug: unlike busybox, since I don't have another "toolbox" implementation with a correctly working mount command, it's likely that the behavior would've been easy to see from the code.

In fact the problem is here at line 330: it checks if type == NULL, but then outputs an USAGE that erroneously shows -t as optional

Compare with busybox at line 1930: // Loop through filesystem types until mount succeeds


What is the Difference Between an Android Phone and Android Tablet?

Questions that ask several other questions aren't the best format for Stack Exchange, but I'll answer these anyway.

  But is there a sim card slot in a tablet if you want one?

Depends on the model. Some do, but these are obviously used for just data and this can be used for internet access when outside of a Wi-Fi zone. Many mobile networks provide data-only SIM cards that are just used for internet which are perfect for tablets, but if you get a full SIM, with texting and calling, you'll be able to text but have a difficult time with making calls (I don't think most tablets even come with a dialer app?)

  Do all tablets have WiFi so I can link to my home broadband router. (I found out today that phones do - that shows you how green I am.)

I think it's safe to say that all tablets aimed towards the average consumer have Wi-Fi built into them. ;^)

Just read the specs of the tablet before you buy it and you'll be fine.

  Do they all come with a usb slot?

Again, it depends on the model, but all have some way to connect them to a charger. Micro-USB and USB Type-C ports are commonplace nowadays.

  Can tablets and phones both do Google Play?

Yes assuming that the manufacturer installs it in the first place. The only time you'll not find it is on Amazon Fire devices, specialist devices, and in countries which prohibit Google Play due to laws or whatever. There are ways to install Google Play yourself though.


Outlook Auto-Sync keeps re-enabling — How to ultimately deactivate it?

I suspect it re-enables because of the security policy applied when adding the account. This happens with me too and 10000% annoying. I removed the account and threw it out.


Disable the lock screen when specific apps are active?

This can e.g. be realized using Tasker (in fact, I'm even using it that way for "prolonged screen timeout" with reading apps):

Condition: App (opens a popup to select one ore multiple apps, chose the ones you want to act upon)
Task:

Keyguard (disable)
Display -> Timeout (optionally increase display timeout)

The tasks would be executed as soon as one of the selected apps is running in foreground, and reverted to what it was before as soon as the condition no longer is met.

Note: I know that Tasker doesn't come cheap (~5 bucks), but it's worth every cent. To "try before buy", visit its homepage, where you can download a 7-day-trial.


Is the Google GMail client able to download attachments for arbitrary file types?

As far as I know this was a new addition to the app recently, so it's surprising that it doesn't work for you.  I just tried emailing myself a .epub file and it worked just fine, I had a Download button to the right of the paperclip icon and attachment name.

I know that the Browser on many devices won't let you download any files that don't have a handler registered for their extension; perhaps this is related.  You can solve that issue via an app that registers for all files, such as Download Crutch; perhaps it will solve your attachment issues as well.  I'd reboot after installing it.  I have Download Crutch installed and have had no problems with it.


Can I wipe a Galaxy S4 Mini with dead screen and digitizer?

Take the HardDrive Out Burn it

Also if Your google account is Connected:
1.Go to google.com Enter "Find My Phone
2.There should be a little Window with the last known location of your phone
3.There should also be 2 little buttons there a "Ring" and a "Recover"
4.Once you click on that all the way at the bottom there should be consider erasing your phone (The page where it should send you)
5.USe that and follow the instructions.
Good Lucj


Encrypt phone only encrypts the /data partition.

Encrypting the SD card is a separate function and isn't implemented in stock android.  Some manufacturers (I know Motorola and Samsung do) extend the encryption (optionally.  Where you find "encrypt phone", you'll also find an "encrypt SD card" option) to the SD card.  I can't determine whether cyanogenmod implements such a function or if it may be device-specific.


Reinstalling Android after mobile has been erased by DBAN?

As the question already is answered with the line of comments to it, I'll take the freedom to sum up the details to make them easier to find:
What is DBAN?
My first point was that I never heard of DBAN before, so I had to look it up. Luckily, my first hit was Wikipedia (which article I linked here), and it answered this question quite compactly:

The program is designed to securely erase a hard disk until data is permanently removed and no longer recoverable, which is achieved by overwriting the data with pseudorandom numbers generated by Mersenne twister or ISAAC.

So we are not talking about some "remote attack" destroying your device, but a willful wiping of the "drives".
What could DBAN wipe on an Android device?
This question was answered by eldarerathis and GAThrawn in the comments: Unless there is an Android version of DBAN which can be executed directly on the device, DBAN is limited to the SD-Card and internal storage (the storage devices offered to the computer via UMS). It cannot access e.g. the /system partition for two reasons: 1) it is not made available via UMS, and 2) it is mounted read-only (unless the device is rooted, and you explicitely mounted it read-write -- which cannot be done without rooting). Similar reason (not made available via UMS) applies to all other partitions.
So what about restoring the Android system?
Nothing. No need for this. As described in the previous section, DBAN at maximum can access two of the data partitions. But it cannot access /system (where the Android system resides), /boot (where Android is bootet from), or even /data (where your apps and their data reside). Since nothing is lost from the Android System itself -- there simply is nothing to restore, it's all still there.


That's one of our more frequent questions, so we've set up some "first-aid-info" in the data-recovery tag-wiki1. Especially take a look at

How can I recover a deleted file on Android?
Data Recovery - How to Restore Deleted / Formatted Files on HD Micro SD Card

Also, the links to details on "File Carving" and specific recovery tools might prove helpful.

1: It's always a good idea to check our tag-wikis, as they often contain such "first aid" or at least useful information/links. You can find them either hovering your mouse over a tag and click the "info" link inside the opening box – or simply click the tag, and select the left-most tab on the new page.