That looks like a job for Tasker:

Profile CameraRotate:

Condition: App → Camera
Task: Notify Sound (Text: "Rotate me, please!", Sound: [select file])

This way, whenever the camera app becomes the active (foreground) app, a notification will appear with the text specified. You can also include a sound (maybe something annoying or shocking, to make the "user in question" really aware). Also, instead of the notification you could chose "play sound", and have a pre-recorded MP3 played saying/shooting something like "Hey, don't forget to rotate the device!"


Block Instagram for Android to access the Internet, using a software like SQUID on my Laptop/Desktop

If you have access to the WiFi Router you can block traffic and/or mac address. there are custom firmware for some router models like DD-WRT or Open-WRT. But the phone still can by-pass via mobile data.

Filter rules are complicated and may have unwanted effects. This is just a example

"Instagram" uses TCP protocol for communication.

TCP traffic analysis

Ports Range

Remote tcp port(s): 443, 80.

HTTP traffic analysis

HTTP traffic is found in Instagram's traffic.

Host(s) being connected(regular expression): ^..ak.instagram.com, ^..cdninstagram.com.

TLS traffic analysis

TLS connections are found in Instagram's traffic.

TLS Host(s) being connected(regular expression): instagram.com.

How to block Instagram?

Block the listed ports to block Instagram.

Block the listed http and tls domains to block Instagram.

Setup a content filter(ie: WFilter), which can block Instagram via signature

http://imfirewall.us/protocols/view.php?proto=Instagram


The problem is due to SMS message center not being stored in the new SIM. Unlike other mobile devices where you can manually set the SMS message center, the latest Android update seemed to keep this setting well hidden.

You can try setting the SMS message center by opening the phone dialer and dial - *#*#4636#*#*. This will open the hidden setting confusingly titled as "Testing".

Under the Phone Information, you can find the setting "SMSC". Try refresh or give the correct SMS center number.

Note:

I tried this and there was a refresh error / update error. The final workaround was to load the new SIM into a Samsung phone and manually set the SMS Center number. This gets stored in the SIM and then you can start using it on your Moto E / Moto G. Crazy stuff.
I use Airtel in India


Unable to install drivers of Nokia X on Windows 8.1

The Android SDK does not have specific drivers for all devices; really on Nexus devices and those devices that use Google's vendor ID are directly supported (on Windows at least).

The drivers can be modified to work with different devices though; I found a version for the Nokia X here.

You could also manually modify them yourself by following this procedure (using the correct IDs for your device instead).


Debug APK with Android Studio without breakpoints

Android Studio is not designed to work on APKs you don't have the Java source code of.
When it comes to debugging apps without sources I recommend to check out the tool Frida. It allows to manipulate apps at run-time.
Using frida-trace you may be able to identify what methods are called when the app "loops and jams".
For advanced manipulation you can also checkout the tool "Objection" which bases on Frida.
On a non-rooted device you may have to include the frida-gadget (a special native library) into the app to be able to connect to the app:
https://fadeevab.com/frida-gadget-injection-on-android-no-root-2-methods/
Alternatively Objection provides an "APK patcher" that does this injection for you: https://github.com/sensepost/objection/wiki/Patching-Android-Applications


New Gboard dual language suggestions, how do I disable it?

How can I get back to manually switching between languages? Is there a
  setting I've missed, or do I have to roll back to an earlier version?

On the the keyboard options you'll find settings for Languages, Preferences, Theme... and in Text correction you'll find the toggle you're looking for: multilingual typing.


How to Fix Nexus-4 sensor problem while on calls

Open up your Phone app, then tap the Menu/Overflow button and select the 'Settings' action. There should be an option to disable the sensor in those settings.

If there isn't, download the Xposed Framework Installer, open it up then select 'Framework' and 'Update/Install'. Reboot, then install the Disable Proximity module. Open up the Xposed Installer again, select Modules, check the box beside 'Disable Proximity' and reboot again.


USB malfunction and rooting of my Samsung SIII (GT-I9305)

This sounds like either only one or even both central connectors of your phone's micro-USB port are broken. Charging only uses the outer ones which let's you use the charger.
If I assume that by detecting your flash drive you haven't accessed it, then it's this.

You are able to root your device (I got the same one) without a USB connection using TowelRoot, FramaRoot or a flashable .zip (visit xda-developers for more info(1) or (2))


How can /proc/sys values be changed at boot (sysctl.conf does this on normal Linuxes)?

Use init's write command in /init.rc or any other .rc file. You may also create your own:

# /system/etc/init/custom.rc

on property:sys.boot_completed=1
    write /proc/sys/kernel/hostname MyDroid

Set permissions and reboot device.

~# chown 0.0 /system/etc/init/custom.rc
~# chmod 0644 /system/etc/init/custom.rc
~# chcon u:object_r:system_file:s0 /system/etc/init/custom.rc

You may also use some early trigger like on init or on boot but your value may get overwritten by some later trigger.

Also some values aren't allowed by SELinux to be written by init. E.g. /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches and /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio are writable only by vold. In this case you can use  exec command which allows changing SELinux label before command execution.

# /data/sysctl.conf

kernel.hostname=MyDroid
vm.dirty_ratio=20

# /system/etc/init/custom.rc

on property:sys.boot_completed=1
    exec u:r:magisk:s0 -- /system/bin/sysctl -p /data/sysctl.conf

* sysctl is toybox applet. Or you may use busybox.

For other options see this answer. Some apps may also provide similar functionality but I never used one.


How to upgrade android market to Google play

Google Play requires Android 2.2 or higher.  Since your phone  has 2.1, it won't run.  You'll either need to upgrade Android (which may not be possible with your phone) or sideload any apps you want to install from now on.


A coworker suggested going into airplane mode and then back out.  That corrected the problem.


Folder "mtklog" on SDcard keeps getting full

After a while, and no valid answers, I have come up with the following workaround. The required steps are:

Have "Android Terminal Emulator" app installed, with busybox commands also installed (as described in question)
Make a list and check the folders that bother you. The list I've provided contains only files that I'm sure my phone won't need.
Create a bash script (.sh extension) with remove commands on that specific folders. Here is mine:

#!system/bin/sh
rm -rf /sdcard/mtklog
rm -f /data/log_other_mode/*
rm -f /data/core/*.zip
rm -rf /sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnails

Place this script on an accessible folder. I've chosen mine to be /system/etc just as a convenience related to chmod'ing and such. And because unfortunately the sd-card is always mounted with "noexec" which means that you can't execute anything from here.
If you are not able to do so, it may be because your system folders are mounted as read-only. To change that, you need to do the following command in the terminal:

mount -o rw,remount,rw /system

and to revert it back to read-only:

mount -o ro,remount,ro /system

Note: You probably will need super-user (sudo) privileges in order to do these commands.

The terminal emulator contains an "Widget" option which allows you to place a shortcut to a command in your phone home page. I've used that option with the following command:

su -c /system/etc/scriptName.sh; exit

Every once in a while I click on this icon to make a clean. This asks permission for the user, since it contains a su command. When clicking "allow" the terminal finishes and closes automatically.

It's not an optimal solution since it needs the phone to be rooted, and you have to manually click the widget button. However, it was the best one for me, since making it run automatically would require it to ask for permission. I didn't want also to give the terminal emulator permanent access to su-privileges. My guess is that a more complex script can be made (e.g. one that monitors the size of the folders with the Disk-Usage command), but I'm happy as it is.


Problems after rooting with TWRP and SuperSU

In case anyone else has the same issue, I managed to solve the problem.

I unrooted the phone using the option in SuperSU, and then flashed the device with the stock firmware using Odin.

This fixed all the problems, and allowed me to successfully connect the phone to the PC via USB.

It turns out SuperSU was problematic, and that Magisk is a better solution for this particular firmware.

So I placed the latest Magisk build on the phone via USB, then used Odin to put TWRP back on the device. Then, from the TWRP Recovery menu, I installed Magisk.

After this, I installed Magisk Manager from GitHub.

The phone was successfully rooted after this point, and all functions are working properly.


The GPS was fixed by downloading a "tweak" script, whatever that is, from here. I originally found it on this thread on XDA-Developers.


How can I get the mobile Version of stackoverflow.com on Evo3D?

The Stack Exchange sites provide a "Mobile" link in the footer that will give you the mobile layout. It should work regardless of your browser's settings or which browser you happen to be using, so in that sense it's actually a very portable solution.


How do I get play store to stop asking me to auto-update on wifi?

I have since been updated to 4.0.27 and although I got prompted after my first app update as to whether I want to auto-update next time (no mention of Wi-Fi though, although I suspect this is dependent on your settings) to which I responded "Not Now", I have not been prompted since in subsequent updates for other apps.

  In Play Store->settings->auto update, automatic update is turned off, and has no setting for 'wi-fi only'.

In version 4.0.27 there should still be a 'Wi-Fi only' setting, although it is now (hidden) under the "Auto-update apps" sub menu. In Settings, tap the "Auto-update apps" option:

Update 2013-05-11: I've had quite a few updates for various apps over the past week and not been re-prompted to auto-update next time - that is, until today. Today I got prompted, to which I tapped "Not Now" again. I have not been re-prompted since. Perhaps it prompts once a week or every so many updates?


Free up space by only deleting older photos past a chosen date

Connect you phone to the computer via USB cable and use your favorite files management tool.


How do I send my own IR signal the with IR blaster?

This remote is widely accepted as being incredibly up to date, and compatible with hundreds of devices. It is not free, but there is a free version.
Something like this app lets you add codes for various devices.
In terms of programming, this would be off topic here, but since there might be alternatives you can use I've answered this. You could use the Android SDK and write an IR app yourself using the Andrid 4.4 APIs.

Infrared transmitters
When running on a device that includes an infrared (IR) transmitter, you can now transmit IR signals using the ConsumerIrManager APIs. To get an instance of ConsumerIrManager, call getSystemService() with CONSUMER_IR_SERVICE as the argument. You can then query the device's supported IR frequencies with getCarrierFrequencies() and transmit signals by passing your desired frequency and signal pattern with transmit().
You should always first check whether a device includes an IR transmitter by calling hasIrEmitter(), but if your app is compatible only with devices that do have one, you should include a <uses-feature> element in your manifest for "android.hardware.consumerir" (FEATURE_CONSUMER_IR).

(Note: I have zero involvement with any of the apps listed)


How to move installed apk from phone memory to sdcard on android 6.0.1 without root

Basically, unless your OEM did something very nonstandard, you can't.

Marshmallow has no facility to move apps to the SD card as that feature was removed in favor of adopted storage in the core operating system. In adopted or internal storage mode, the SD card is essentially "adopted" or brought into the internal storage as if it is built into the device. This method is not without drawbacks though, your SD card will become encrypted and can only be read by that device (not in another phone or computer) and it will put significantly more wear on the card which is a concern because SD card storage has a finite number of writes before becoming unusable. Adopted storage is also slower than standard internal storage in general.

Even with adopted storage you don't chose what to move, the operating system does that... And some apps cannot reside on the SD card even with adopted storage.


Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (GT-N5100) USB connection & charging problem

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

It sounds like you have a faulty port/connection. If you fiddle around with the cable in the device does it connect/disconnect? Have you tried using other cables etc?

The part that concerns me is that you say it starts to work after 3-4 hours. If this is the case every time; it could be even stranger than purely a faulty connection.


Other than the external LED indicator, how can I be notified that my phone is done charging?

I believe my phone vibrates when it's done charging, but I've never seen a setting for it.  I'm certain you could set up a profile with Locale to notify when charging is done.


There are two things involved in this.
 1. Implementation of RTSP
 2. Converting android camera output into RTSP source.

I could not find any open implementation while I was searching for it almost 6 months back. Here is the one which worked for me with little tuning. But you have to clone the repo and work on it directly to get it working
https://github.com/mutaphore/RTSP-Client-Server


Broken Glass on Samsung Galaxy S4 with slightly bent frame

It depends which frame was impacted. If it was the "thicker one" this
  one is easily replaceable (though you have to remove pretty much
  everything - there are videos on youtube). Of course if you have a
  warranty sticker on one of the screws warranty goes bye, bye if you
  remove it.

  If it's the "thinner" to the front the only way to fix this is to
  replace the whole assembly - screen included which costs big (about
  250 USD import). That's because the AMOLED is glued to that frame -
  you'd have to unglue the glass, and unglue the screen which is
  impossible without breaking it.

(Source)


I have achieved a solution by making the project folder in the main storage (/emulated/0/ProjectName) instead of on the sd card.
In termux i navigated to (...ProjectName/src/com/package/) and ran 'mkdir test'. In the ide i then created 'test.txt' in the newly made test directory. This all worked fine, although i have not linked git to this directory it proves that write access is there for both apps.
Before i was attempting to use a folder in the sd card which would not allow the permissions. I did not change anything else regarding settings and permissions between these two attempts, but some were changed prior to the initial attempt in the sd card, which may have played a role. If you are having the same issue feel free to comment and i will go through all other settings i changed before this. or maybe someone with better knowledge of android can comment as to why this worked.
edit: quote: "Some phones prevent third party apps from accessing the sd card but with the appropriate permissions all apps can access the internal storage."


I'm not sure what exactly you want to do but still here a suggestion:

With the App Trigger you can run two actions alternately. You can have various restrictions, maybe one of them is useful to decide which task you want to run.


How can I use a bluetooth controller to skip back/forward a video 5/10 seconds?

MX player has this functionality although it doesn't appear to have a bookmarking capability that can save multiple bookmarks in a video.


Tasker App Factory Generated app - Not reacting to variable set %CLIP

Instead of reacting to an event go for the state. Event → Variables → Variable Value → fill it.

I was not given an option to export the profile as an app so I moved the profile into a new project and exported the whole project. I disabled my profile, installed the app and whenever the clipboard contained the desired value, the app triggered the task.

Note that the app must be launched at least once to monitor the changes in that variable. Also, if you launch the app, it would execute the task regardless of the conditions put in place for profile.


Where are downloaded apps saved when installed on SD card?

Android apps are not .exe files - they are .apk files, which are effectively Java .jar files with additional included information.

The packages are installed in one of a few locations:

/system/app - for system installed apps - you can't modify this folder.
/data/app - any apps installed from the market are installed into here, and you as a user can modify the folder.
/sdcard/.android_secure - apps that are moved to the SD card are stored here

Note that apps will also put data in a number of locations, and not all of these are on the SD card, even if the app itself is installed on the SD card; this is likely your problem with the app on your device, and unfortunately - without rooting the device and using something like a2sd which enables you to move other partitions onto the SD card.

For reference, also see this question on StackOverflow which has more info.


cannot update applications because of confused memory

The OS attempts to maintain a specific threshold of free space, and that's why you appear to have plenty of space to install something but you get the warning and it fails.  As the link from beeshyams says above, it may or may not be 10% of your total internal storage.

How do you get around it?  Utilize external storage if you are able, or any other strategy you can use to free up the internal storage space.


Unable to access text messaging after updating to ICS

I do know that if you have a lot of messages on your RAZR before upgrading to ICS, it actually will try to pull them all in again to the text messaging app. I have seen this with both stock and GoSMS on a Droid 4 and it did take a little while on my RAZR MAXX the first time I opened up the messaging app after upgrading to see all of my messages re-appear, as they first appeared as if they had all been deleted.

If you are getting the little circular loading symbol, then it is likely the case - for a couple thousand messages, it took nearly all day to load them all. Not sure why, but this may also be what's effecting you. I guess the only solution is to wait it out and see what happens. Hope this helps and good luck getting your messages back.


How to check if an android device has a wireless card that supports promiscuous or monitor mode?

Unfortunately you need root to be able to do that, despite you saying it, but thought it would be useful to leave that in here for others :)

All modern wireless cards chipsets would may have that feature to be able to sniff/monitor, but as Matthew Read pointed out in the comments below, its a grey area in terms of driver support.

When you issue the binary command ifconfig there's a 'promisc' switch to tell it to go into promiscuous mode to enable monitoring/sniffing.


Android massive background data usage 38 GB month

Netguard can be an amazing choice in this situation. You can block apps from taking up unnecessary data, and can also allow apps of your choice to use data. I would most probably uninstall that email app since it's not secure. Give Netguard a try. (:


Since there is no specification of How hot, I would answer based on some assumptions.

The phenomenon you face is quite normal. Whenever the temperatures of the components in the device get hot, to the point of possible hardware damage, the phone CPU goes into throttling. Have a look at this post about thermal throttling.

Basically, thermal throttling is when the CPU of the device reduces its power (clock speed and voltage). And due to this the device starts to cool down.

When its too hot (like well around 70 degrees Celsius). This will cause the device to throttle and slow the clock speed. Which in turn causes lag (or dropped frames) this affects the whole of the device (touch screen, GPU e.c.t.) and will speed back up once normal safe operating temperatures are reached.

Thermal throttling is controlled by the kernel. SO by using a modified kernel throttling can be turned off, but is defiantly Not recommended. This is a feature to prevent permanent hardware damage to the device.

This also explains why your phone functions normally when it cools down since that is when the processor returns to its "normal" mode.


Volume controller and screen size controller missing from Youtube app

There isn't a non-fullscreen layout for YouTube for 7in tablets, only for 10in tablets. There's no button there because there's nothing to switch to. The developers evidently think there's not enough room to see the video and display other information usefully at the same time.

You're right about the volume control. Because Android already has separate volume settings for media, notifications, and the phone ringer, and it guarantees the presence of hardware volume controls, it's considered bad design to put additional volume controls on the screen.


How do I install Google Chrome on a Kindle Fire?

The instructions on that site pretty much explains everything. Since Kindle Fire OS is based on Android OS, you just need to know to which Android version does your Fire OS corresponds.

Also check the appropriate CPU architecture. For example for Chrome Browser 62.0.3202.84, click on all variants (or this link), then on the next screen you see that for each variant there is a compatibility table for each CPU architecture (i.e arm, arm64) as well as Android version.

If your Fire is based on Android 5.0 and arm architecture then, select that one for download and install.

Remember to reboot your device after installing


How to add camera brand or model in exif meta?

You can use apps like EXIF Tag Editor (Photo) and Pixelgarde to view/edit EXIF data of your images. Both apps has the ability to batch-process the images.

If you are looking for a way to automatically add information (particularly the camera model as in your question), you cannot do anything rather than waiting for an update from your device manufacturer. This is because embedding that information is configured the the ROM itself.


Use android phone with broken screen as WiFi camera

Are you sure that the camera isn't damaged as well?  IP Webcam has settings for resolution and quality, but I don't see anything indicating that it's tied to the screen of the device.

Actually, I'm not sure we're using the same cam app.  Maybe it would help to try a different one.  I used 'IP Webcam' because I was using mine for video.  I'm sure there are good options for still shots.

You can also try using something like TinyCam Monitor (free) to view the stream if you're viewing live video.  It makes for an easy security camera system.


This is due to the audio having stereo (left and right) channels being out-of-phase.

To put it very simply, when the audio waveform on the left channel is out-of-phase with the right channel, the resulting mono mix (basically (left+right)/2) may reduce the volume or even mute it (further reading: destructive interference & dead spot).

When playing with headphones or stereo speakers, there should be no issue hearing the audio because each channel is played through each speaker respectively. However, on some Android devices (e.g. Nexus 5) that only supports mono playback, the issue appears due to the previously mentioned phenomenon.

Depending on the model, there might be a true stereo (left-right channel separation) mod that can be applied/flashed. E.g. a detailed post by user "chdloc" on XDA Forum to apply true stereo on Nexus 5.

The alternative workaround is to fix the audio source by inverting the waveform on one of the channels. Example using Audacity (reference: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?t=71779):

Open the audio file
(Optional) Select the track, then open the menu bar: Tracks - Mix - Mix Stereo Down to Mono to see the effect of destructive interference, then undo the operation to continue to the next step
Select the track
Open menu (press Shift + M, or click the dropdown menu above the "Mute" and "Solo" button)
Select "Split Stereo Track"
Select one of the channels (either left or right)
Select all region of the track (double-clicking the waveform, or from the menu bar: Select - Region - Track Start to End)
On the menu bar, select Effect - Invert
Open menu on the first track (follow step 4)
Select "Make Stereo Track"
(Optional) Select the track again, then open the menu bar: Tracks - Mix - Mix Stereo Down to Mono to see if it is still affected by the destructive interference, then undo the operation to continue to the next step
Export the resulting audio from File - Export - ...


Why can't my Galaxy s4 load my email inbox after I changed the password?

This may be slightly different on a GS4 but give this a try and let me know if you run into any issues:

-Go to Setting -> Apps -> Web Browser (Chrome, Firefox whatever browser you are using)

-Clear Cache

-Clear Data

And if that doesn't work: Uninstall and reinstall.


HTC Dream keeps on showing power options screen

If you're running a stock ROM, I suggest you root the phone (the warranty's way gone) and upgrade it to CyanogenMod 4 (Android 1.6) or CyanogenMod 6 (Android 2.2).

Battery life is very good on 4; 6 is more recent version of Android -- however there are some additional hoops to jump through to get it installed.

The first step in most Dream rooting instructions is to downgrade it to a vulnerable version, so you will lose data stored on the phone. You might have luck with one of the "one-click root" programs but if you can't kill the "Power Options" dialog every few seconds, you may just need to flash it with the RC29 DREAIMG.NBH.


By running the command dmesg | grep -C5 initAsic I saw that I was getting this error code returned

service initAsic does not have a SELinux domain defined

The issue what that I needed to add the line seclabel u:r:init:s0 to my init service as this is a requirement of init. The complete service now looks like this. The disabled keyword has also been added as suggested by Irfan.

service initAsic2 /data/local/tmp/runn.sh
seclabel u:r:init:s0
user root
group root
oneshot
disabled

Also note that SElinux must be set to permissive to allow this service to run or  preferably - as setting SElinux to permissive is a security risk - defining the appropriate rules for SElinux and using the modified policy.

More information on the topic here: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/207647/218526

This post was where I found the suggestion to add seclabel property. It also has more useful information regarding the SELinux issue I was encountering: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43600261/init-warning-service-myservice-needs-a-selinux-domain-defined-please-fix


Desire stuck in Boot Loop After mod install

You installed Mod to system, so you need to reflash ROM from recovery.

Erase user data (hard reset) will not help you.


is there a less cluttered version of the Swype keyboard?

Try FlexT9. It's a bit pricey, but has the same functionality as Swype, with some great added features (Dragon speech support and trace input) and a better layout (in my opinion, let me know what you think of it ;) ).

Here's a screenshot from the app page:


How does the Android 7.0 Nougat Easter Egg work?

But here I'll do the work for you.
A simple Google search: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/138312-how-to-access-android-n-nougat-easter-egg

Your first step, as already mentioned head to the settings menu, scroll all the way down until you reach "About Phone", tap that and find "Android version". If you press this option multiple times repeatedly, you'll get to a screen showing the Android N logo on your wallpaper.
Repeatedly tap the "N" a few times then press and hold on it and you should see a tiny cat emoji appear near the bottom of the screen.
Swipe down from the top of the screen to reveal your quick settings toggles and hit "edit". You should now see a cat face icon with the label, "???? Android Easter egg". Drag and drop this icon to to the main quick settings options and place it where you want it. Now, the fun can begin.
Hit your home button and then drag down the quick settings shade from the top of the screen again. This time you should see an "empty plate" option. Tap it and you'll see an overlay with four food choices: Bits, Fish, Chicken and Treat. Select one, then continue using your phone as normal, and wait.
Eventually, you'll get a notification telling you that a cat has snagged one of the treats. But it doesn't always work, which is kind of the point of the game. You have to keep trying, using different treats to bait a cat.
When it does work, you'll get a notification saying "a cat is here" with the number of the cat listed underneath. Tapping on the notification reveals a new screen with a cat icon which you tap once to rename, or long-press to reveal sharing options. You can save a full resolution version of the cat's picture to your device, or share it to all your social media accounts like every other crazy cat owner.


Flashed wrong ROM on tablet and stuck in blue screen with no recovery screen

Do a Google search for "A31S Q8S-1.0" and you get the following link to the Baidu file store where many Chinese ROMs are located.

(13) H8C-3G 全志A31S Q8S-V1.0.rar - 百度云网盘
http://pan.baidu.com/wap/link?uk=2471183759&shareid=3994280233&third=1

文件名:(13) H8C-3G 全志A31S Q8S-V1.0.rar 文件大小:323.08M 分享者:惠泽客服售后分享时间:2014-10-25 21:30 下载次数:4.

Cheers,

=ccflasher=


How can I know if fstrim was run when I put my phone on charging over night?

A charging, idle device over night is not the only way to run fstrim, there are other ways too.

What this old article quotes about scheduled fstrim on Android:

  The Android framework will send out a “start idle maintenance window” event that the MountService listens for, and then invokes vold to fstrim filesystems when a few conditions have been met – the device hasn’t been touched for over an hour, no idle maintenance window event has been sent in 24 hours, and the device is either off-charger with 80% battery or on-charger with 30% battery.

But IdleMaintenanceService was removed in Lollipop, things have changed. On Pie, scheduled fstrim is triggered from StorageManagerService (1) to MountService (2):

  if the device is alive at midnight + idle, fstrim gets run at the next available charging + idle time

* (3)
Mount service calls StorageManager which in turn calls Vold to do fstrim.

If the schedule is being missed because the conditions don't meet and fstrim has not run for last 3 days (4), it will be forced during device startup if the device is restarted. SystemServer (5), PackageManager (6), StorageManager (7) and Vold (8) are involved.

In each case, the file /data/system/last-fstrim (9) (since Lollipop) gets updated (10), so  you can check its timestamp (requires root) to find out when fstrim was last run.

If you want to do TRIM manually, use Android's commandline tool sm fstrim (requires root or adb shell). Previously this was vdc fstrim dotrim but added to Storage Manager in Oreo (11) and removed from vold in Pie (12).

In order to send FITRIM ioctl to selected filesystem(s) only, use fstrim tool (requires root); a busybox applet.

What if you don't have root?
And you suspect that the scheduled fstrim is being missed for 3+ days, restart device, fstrim will be forced (since Lollipop 5.1 (13)). Simple.

Apps can't TRIM without root; see this answer.

PS: HOW OFTEN TRIM SHOULD BE RUN?

Flash memory (including SSDs, eMMCs, SD Cards, USB sticks etc.) has limited number of Program/Erase cycles before it dies. But unlike HDDs, data can't be just overwritten on flash memory, it has to be Erased first, which is achieved through Garbage Collection.

Now if we do too much fstrim, this will cause frequent GC in background consuming precious P/E cycles and hence reducing life. If we don't do fstrim at all, there could be unnecessary GC (of already deleted data), plus the write operations will get too slow with time because Erase will have to be performed before overwriting data, which has very higher latency as compared to Program operation.

So we need a balance between both.

Also there are other factors e.g. whether eMMC controller supports over provisioning, how effective it is in background GC scheduling, wear-leveling and managing write amplification etc.

So unless you have the data sheet of your phone's eMMC and you are sure what you are doing, better is to leave the fstrim to OS. On PCs' (14):

  Running fstrim frequently, or even using mount -o discard, might negatively affect the lifetime of poor-quality SSD devices.  For most desktop and server systems a sufficient trimming frequency is once a week.

But this may vary with situations.

RELATED:

Coding for SSDs
Why is TRIM not supported on encrypted “/data” partition?


Remotely uninstall an app via Play Store

Apparantly not. The Google Play Help documentation states that you have to uninstall the apps from your device. Either via the Play Store app, or via settings.


Can I connect to a shell from a PC to my Android using bluetooth or USB?

Yes, just use ADB over USB and run adb shell.  See http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html#shellcommands


Fast Upload, Slow Download on Wireless-AC WAN over SFTP

Maybe the site/computer you are downloading from have a upload limit. but when you push files (you upload) the other side is downloading, so it less of a problem for them.


Yes and no. You can issue intents with adb but that's it. So the steps you described can't be achieved with adb.

Edit: ce4 showed a blog post which mentions the input binary which is able to simulate key events.

adb shell input keyevent <keycode>


Google Maps failed to save offline maps on Lollipop

It was sdcard permission issue.

I had to flash 5.0 and then 5.0.1 again from fastboot. everything works fine now.


"Avoided poor Internet connection" on LG G2

Goto Settings --> Wifi-->(press menu) Advanced--> uncheck "Avoid Poor Connections" checkbox.
Then Click on network Available. Now it will connect(or else click forget and re-enter your password.


What's the difference between free and premium version of Aldiko Book Reader?

Answer is in their FAQ:

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


I will answer your question in the meaning "How can I control both volume and track skip on my Android device from my headphones?". This might not be supported by the system itself, but the Playstore holds a number of solutions available. Depending on your headset and Android device, one of them might work better than the other:

JAYS Headset Control
RemoteControl for Earphones
Philips Headset
Headset Droid Trial / Headset Droid (~ EUR 2)
Headset Button ControllerTrial / Headset Button Controller (~ EUR 2)
Klipsch Control

Ordered by their Playstore rating. These apps seem to share the same pattern -- and it is a pattern you use with the one-and-only button on your headset:

tap 1x for play/stop (or to accept an incoming call)
tap 2x for skip-to-next (or to reject an incoming call)
long-press to increase volume
tap 1x and then long-press to decrease volume

Plus more (up to 4x tap), but you've got the idea. I tried JAYS, which is the most configurable (1x tap and vol+ worked fine, but even after 3 weeks only 1 out of 10 tries for the other combinations worked, which might be due to hardware (headset) incompatibility) and the Philips Headset (which worked out of the box for all the above mentioned combinations -- no wonder, my Headset is a Philips, and that app was developed with this headset in mind). So if you have no luck with one of those, try another :)


How can I force Chrome Beta to display in landscape mode?

With a combination of Tasker and Rotation Locker you can keep your auto-rotation off but create a profile that sets the orientation for certain apps.


Set a profile in Tasker to wipe the phone

I'm not sure if it can or not, but Tasker has a 7 day free trial if you download it from their website instead of android market.

http://tasker.dinglisch.net/download.html

So you can try it out yourself.


It must be a problem with the ROM if it is not showing the app disabled through Settings app like this:

(Click image to enlarge)

Anyhow, if the Settings app doesn't show it then I see no way to solve this problem without root. If the following steps do not work then your ROM is faulty because they worked for CM13-snapshot in my Nexus 6. In case you do not know, root access can be enabled in CM13 from Developer options.

A disabled app is a user specific restriction and the restriction ends up in the file /data/system/users/USER_ID/package-restrictions.xml. USER_ID for primary user (owner) is always 0.

Find the entry responsible for disabling your app using the app's package name and either remove the whole line or make tweaks there. I'm instructing with a tweak. Here's how the restriction originally looked like:

For the case in question: In the line depicting the cursor and containing the string com.android.dialer, integer to enabled represents the state of the package and enabledCaller is the caller which instructed the package to be disabled. You can either remove the whole line or change enabled=3 to enabled="1". (Source)

Do a full or soft reboot and you would find your app enabled.

The alternative method is to use a terminal emulator app or adb with adb shell command to execute these:

su
pm enable PACKAGE   # PACKAGE refers to package name of the app to be enabled

If you don't know the package name of your app, follow View app's full package name?

Another alternative: While I didn't try, I've full faith that Titanium Backup
 would offer the option to unfreeze your app. There may be other similar apps that can help you out.

If the said solutions make no effect on the app's status, ditch the ROM.


How can i transfer phone memory apps to external SD card

Go to settings-> Manage Applications->
Select the app-> Move to SD Card


Galaxy S3 stuck on Samsung logo, is there anyway i can backup my data in recovery mode without rooting?

Boot into odin mode, plug into laptop,  get custom recovery and root via odin (this doesn't wipe data) then in the custom recovery do a nandroid backup then clear dalvik cache and try to boot. If this doesn't work then sorry you're gonna need to flash a custom rom or stock rom again


How do I control my second Android tablet mouse?

Install DroidMote Server on the one you want to be controlled and DroidMote Client on the one with which you want to do the controlling.


Update won't install. How to fix (or should I bother)?

How can I get the update installed?

It is possible that the device has been rooted or tampered with by your friend, such that it no longer passes the integrity check before OTA updates. Whether this is the case is trivial; if you want the update regardless, you will have to resort to flashing a factory image which requires you to unlock your bootloader and lose data on the tablet in the process.

However...

  Alternatively, is this even something to worry about?

Nexus 7, even the 2013-released version you have, is long obsolete as seen by Google, and therefore misses out on a large amount of security patches since its last official update in 2016. Updating it to a Feb. 2016 patch will not change how vulnerable it is by much.

To get an up-to-date security patch, unlock your bootloader, flash a custom recovery then a recent custom ROM such as LineageOS, which would bring you to both a newer Android version and security patch at the same time (Android 7.1.2 and patch set Oct. 2017 at time of writing).


What is the location of attachments that I download from the Gmail app?

That should be /sdcard/Downloads, replace /sdcard with wherever your "data storage" is. You can also access them using the App "Downloads".


Android Jellybean stock browser in Samsung S3 is rendering SVG improperly

This is probably NOT an Android issue, but would be true for any device with a smaller view port. See the SVG Specification about things that would limit the field of view. Most likely a combination of transform, viewbox, and canvas.

If you believe these are correctly stated in your code, some other combination will maybe serve better. If not stated at all, you risk the app to make approximate guesses during rendering.


What does the 'Mark as default' option do in my 'Edit' option of a contact

I'm looking for documentation to back this up, but in my experimentation the "default" phone number for a contact is what's used with voice commands if you don't define a phone "type".

So, if I have three phone numbers for John Smith, if I just use the command Call John Smith the default phone number will be used. Otherwise, I need to use Call John Smith home or Call John Smith mobile.

It's also used if, when looking at a list of contacts, you tap the phone icon next to the contact's name. It will use the default phone number (if defined).


Cannot get into recovery mode from boot-loop on BLU phone

Bingo! Your phone has a Mediatek chipset (MediaTek MT6589 precisely), nothing is as easy as flashing an MTK device.

You just need a flasher and flashing files (ROM) and eventually have drivers installed.

[The process below is for Windows OS only]

Prerequisites:

Blu Life One firmware (ROM): Here (Requires to be registered to the site, takes less a minute) or here (Serous mobile phone forums).
SP Flashtool : Here (Grab the latest version, always stable)
MTK VCOM drivers: Here

Install the drivers. Otherwise your phone won't be detected by the computer.

Unzip the firmware (should be a .zip or .rar file).

Open SP Flashtool. Click on Scatter-Loading then browse to the folder that contains the firmware. You'll have a text file xxxxx-android-scatter, or similar. Select it.

SP Flashtool should load some files on the main interface. Uncheck the firmware field labelled: PRELOADER (very important), leave the other checked. It is sometimes recommended to only keep the field SYSTEM or ANDROID checked.

Now, click on the green arrow (Download) then connect your phone to the computer. Should be shut down with battery inside.

Windows should start installing drivers the the flashing process should start.

Wait until the end, a big green check-mark should pops.

Et voilà.

Please report any errors I'll try to help you.


How to remove home-screens on a Vodafone 845?

Nicked from here:

  Menu -> Edit. Click the red (-) button in the upper-right corner of the screens you want to delete. Use the [+] button at the bottom to add a new screen.


Oneplus 3 - Oneplus3 randomly shutdown with glitches in screen

Step 1: Unbrick Phone with mega unbrick tool for oneplus 3.

Step 2: After unbrick, start phone normal, if problem still persist, download lastest rom from oneplus store.

Step 3: Flash latest rom to oneplus device with side load.

Hope this works for you too!


CM7 GPS works randomly, no rhyme or reason, is there a fix?

I had this very same issue with my Incredible! I did everything you described and even flashed a newer Radio version to no avail. I got so frustrated I broke down and did a factory reset - for some reason it magically fixed my issue. I know it's the nuclear option here (as well as a popular catch-all answer) but I honestly think it's worth a shot. This also might be an excuse to bump up to CM 7.1.0 Stable.

FWIW I've had various strange and inexplicable issues with Cyanogenmod on my Incredible, this GPS trouble being just one. If you're up for a slight paradigm shift I've come to really like MIUI and haven't run into anything terribly strange (...yet).

EDIT: Just in case, here are some great instructions for performing a factory reset from the helpful MIUI HTC Incredible Installation Guide (these steps are applicable to performing a factory reset in any ROM as long as you're using ClockworkMod Recovery).

  3) Open Rom Manager and select "Reboot into Recovery." (Yes, we're
  assuming you have already flashed the latest "Clockworkmod Recovery."
  If you have not, please do so now via Rom Manager by selecting "Flash
  ClockworkMod Recovery" from the Rom Manager options before trying to
  reboot into recovery.)

  4) ...from the Main Clockworkmod Recovery
  menu, select "Backup and Restore." Then Select "Backup." This will
  create a Nandroid Backup in case anything goes incorrectly during or
  you get a bad ROM, you can always load your backup and return your
  phone to EXACTLY the way it was before you began making changes in
  Recovery. You may also Restore your Backup from here, but only after
  performing a Full Wipe of your phone to eliminate any trace of the old
  data that may corrupt your "restore" process. For more info on
  performing a "Full Wipe," see the next step.

  6) Now to do a clean wipe of your phone. Note: At this point you
  will lose everything on your phone that you have not backed up to an
  alternative storage space, via cloud, PC, SDcard. This will basically
  return your phone to a straight out of the box setup. Select
  Factory Wipe/Data Reset from the list of options (On the HTC
  Incredible, you may move your selector up and down with the trackball
  or the volume buttons, the press the trackball to enter your
  selection.) After your selection scroll down through the Nos to the
  "Yes" and select it, and your phone will begin to clear out its
  memory. When it completes, you should be back at the menu to Wipe
  Data/Factory Reset.

  7) After your Full Wipe, scroll down to the "Advanced" menu, and
  select it. The next list of options should display "Wipe Dalvik
  Cache." Select it, Scroll down through the Nos to the "Yes" and select
  it. It should only take a second. This step may be redundant after a
  full wipe, but if you ever need to "Update" a ROM, its important to
  know where this option is, so good practice.

  8) Press the "Power" button on the phone to go back to the main
  Clockworkmod Recovery options.

  ...

  13) Select Reboot System Now, and your phone should reboot.


Where is the license information for an Android app displayed?

You can get license information from Apache.
These websites contain open-source code. For example:
https://android.googlesource.com


What part of android is responsible for alerts?

You should revert the permissions of the Google Services Framework app. This is the app that controls the connection to the Google Servers, and without it Sync and other things will not work.

You should also revert the permissions for all adapters, and non-bloatware system apps. There is a reason the apps need this data.


Recovering from a bootloop in Lenovo S960

The only way to overcome bootloop is to reflash the phone (start off on a clean slate) by using an SPFlashTool format firmware (where you have to use SP Flash Tool to flash).

Irregardless of the version release, replace the original recovery.img file with either CWM/TWRP recovery  file and rename it to "recovery.img" file. This will ensure that immediately after the reflash you will have custom recovery installed already.(but in the original firmware folder there will be a "Checksum" file. Remove/expunge this file from the folder since the CWM/TWRP (if it has checksum that doesn't match with the original factory recovery checksum)).

Then search for a "custom Firmware for S960" from NeedROM website and upgrade via TWRP/CWM. Install the latest updates you can find there (I do contribute firmwares on that site) and this bootloop issue is a normal occurence amongst users. I provide them with a downgraded firmware which is SP Flash Tool and then upgrade it back to the latest version with no issues, except you loose all the installes apps (better than having a paper weight!)


How to Sync Text Messages from Outlook 2010 to Android

SMS Backup + will sync SMS messages to your GMail account, you can then sync those to your outlook using Google Apps Sync.


You can install TWRP with root access without the need of a PC.

Download the latest image for your device here.
Your phone needs to be turned on.
Copy the recovery IMG to the root of your sdcard and rename it to twrp.img.
Open a terminal application and execute this command: su -c "dd if=/sdcard/twrp.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p6"
The custom TWRP recovery is now installed.

  Note: Do not use this guide for any other devices, it will be bricked.

The reason your device isn't recognised on your PC is probably because you have Windows 8/8.1/10 installed. The drivers (ADB) for Android phones do not work correctly yet. There are some workarounds  on the internet.


How can I disable the front status LED when charging my device?

I haven't seem any such options or settings for any device so far. You can try these apps

LightFlow Lite
Adjbrightness

but I doubt these would work properly. (I can't check as my device doesn't have LED notification light.)

I believe this kind of things are only doable via Custom ROMs. You would have to check your device development forums. Start here - Huwaei U8860 - xda-developers.

I don't think you can get an universal solution. If there has been a way to do it via Android APIs it would already be in Settings I believe.


Can system apps be enabled/disabled directly from the filesystem?

Whether an app is enabled or disabled is stored in a single file /data/system/users/0/package-restrictions.xml.

I took the following steps to re-enable the Google App and solve my bootloop problem:

Boot the Android-x86 virtual machine in debug mode (i.e. append DEBUG=2 to the GRUB entry)
mount the filesystem:

su

cd /dev    # these are necessary to "refresh" the environment
cd ..      # otherwise the following commands wouldn't work

mkdir temp
mount /dev/block/sda1 temp

Edit the package-restrictions.xml file with vi:

vi /temp/android-6.0-rc1/data/system/users/0/package-restrictions.xml

Find the entry containing <pkg name="com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox" enabled="3" enabledCaller="com.android.settings">
Move the cursor to the end of that line (Line 13 in my case) and press a to begin editing (see Basic vi commands)
Remove the enabled and enabledCaller attributes. The resulting line should be <pkg name="com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox">
Press Esc and type :wq and press Enter to save and exit vi

Type exit and hit Enter (twice) to boot to Android normally.


How to determine which app is creating a notification

This method does not work on Android 2.2.

Tested on Kitkat Android 4.4.2

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

on Lollipop

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


Insufficient memory with my andriod phone

The issue is that apps aren't by default stored on the SD card. The SD card is for extra data like music/videos/downloads etc.

You can however move existing apps to the SD card most of the time (some apps don't allow that). You go to Settings > Apps and pick from as many apps that are large (the list should have a filter for this). After selecting an app you can often click "Move to SD" or something similar.


Can't get file to copy from /sys/ on rooted Android

Files in /sys/ are part of sysfs which is a special virtual filesystem to dialog with the Linux kernel.

You can for example have a fast introduction here.

Therefore you cannot treat sysfs files as normal files as it may lead to strange behaviour depending on how the program treats them (same for device files, usually in /dev, or files in procfs in /proc).

Usually to tweak that files you just write in them with an echo, such as

echo 255 > /sys/class/leds/mmc1::/max_brightness


My question is about diabled apps that my husband diabled

Depends on what phone you are using but usually you have to go to Settings, then Apps, and there, you can filter by "All apps" and see which ones are disabled(and then enable them), or you can filter by "Disabled".

If you don't see these options, maybe you could install some package disabler from the Play store that can list disabled apps. Just look for one that doesn't ask for too many permissions.
There's one called "Disable Bloatware - Hide Apps" that may be useful to you.


Xperia phone not playing audio properly through headphones?

Check your headphones in another device, clean the headphone jack socket, if the headphones work fine on another device and you cleaned the socket and the problem is still there bad news the headphone socket on your phone is damaged, you can get it repaired but that can be expensive, you may want to think about using Bluetooth audio.


Lins2SD app error: could not load library libsigchain.so. What does it mean?

It basically means that some binary code cannot be executed on your phone. It appears the Link2SD app you use comes with a piece of 32bit software, but your phone is 64bit so it cannot execute the code.

LD_PRELOAD is a system variable which basically tells Android what code libraries should be loaded/executed when starting any process or app. It appears libsigchain.so was added to this variable, possibly by the Link2SD app itself. When the app tries to execute the system program /system/bin/sh, it tries to load the libsigchain.so file but fails, apparently because libsigchain.so is 32bit.

Another possible cause is that /system/bin/sh is 64bit but ligsigchain.so is 32bit. Because 32bit and 64bit software operate in a different way, the two can not be combined and the /system/bin/sh process cannot start and produces an error.

Either way, not being able to execute sh is a mayor problem for most apps working with root permissions as sh is used to execute scripts on your device. If you see such an error in other root-apps as well, this might be a problem with your Android ROM.

The solution to this might be either a software update from Lenovo or from a new version of the app. Try reporting the issue to the app developer, maybe he/she can give you the exact details.


Attempting to accomplish with automation. Using Automate to demonstrate how to do it:

Select the Broadcast Receive block. Click on it, in the Action section, select "Boot completed". Click Done.
Select App Start block. Click on it, in the Package section, select the first app you wish to start at boot. Click Done.
Save and give it a name. Link the blocks as seen on the image below.
In the Settings, select "Run on system startup".
Don't forget to give the necessary permissions when asked. Press start.

Every time you reboot your device, after the boot has been completed, the app will be launched.


adb su permission denied, no rom, rooted, need to fix internal sd card

Quoting your code:

adb shell
mount /sdcard
su

And now your output:

adb shell
~ $ mount /sdcard
mount /sdcard
mount: permission denied (are you root?)

it becomes quite clear why your su is not recognized: it comes too late. You need to move it one line up, as mount already requires root. Still, that would launch another shell, and wait for your input. Once you exit, the remaining commands would be executed. So correctly put, it should look like this:

adb shell
su
mount /sdcard

or like this:

adb shell su -c 'mount /sdcard'

So this part would work. The next part is something completely different:

su parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
rm 1
rm 2
rm 3
quit

The first line is your command. But the remaining lines are no shell commands, but the input to parted, so this needs to be handled differently:

su parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 <<MyCommandsHere
rm 1
rm 2
rm 3
quit
MyCommandsHere

That's a so-called Here-Doc.


Where are apps natively stored on a Nook running CM7 off a micro SD

I would just repartition the SD card so that the first partition is larger.  AFAIK the system doesn't rely only the partition size, just the order.

You could, however, run su then pm setInstallLocation 2 in a terminal on the device, or from adb shell, assuming you have root.  That will make installs default to the "SD card", your second partition.


How to permanently delete data on an android phone including images videos and etc..?

I don't know if your phone it's rooted or if you know terminal but rm it is a badass delete command even in Linux it is really hard to get information from, deleted whit rm but not impossible if you want to don't have to factory reset your phone for delete something you can over write on it, like delete it whit
rm -rf myfolder/to/delete

okay and then over write the space left on the device like
dd if=/dev/zero of=/sdcard/some_file_name.txt bs=1024 MiB=space_left_on_megabites

this will create a file of the size of the space left on where you want to overwrite the sd or the internal storage you must be really carefully whit the dd command  "space_left_on_megabites" it is the amount of megabytes left on the device if you have 6 gb it must be MiB=6000 etc..
you will get the notification of running out of space on the device don't worry you would get it back
ones the dd command finish it will take some time it's writing whit zeros on all the space left, then you delete the /sdcard/some_file_name.txt whit rm
rm -rf /sdcard/some_file_name.txt

then you have wipe ones you available space if you what to make it harder you must repeat the process like 5 times and then it will be really really impossible to recover it! but whit one time does app you mention it wont be available to get it back


What happens when using a cellphone when charging?

As using the device also uses some power, the device cannot "charge with the normal speed" at the same time. It will however primarily use the external power source for its consumption. Depending on whether you "consume" more power than the source can feed, either it compensates by taking whatever is needed additionally from the battery, or feeds whatever is left to it.

A side effect described in the other answers already is true, however: the device will get "warmer" this way. I already described that in another answer:

  Recommendation for cold days to get warm fingers: Take your device with both hands, plug in the charger. Now stream a HD video from youtube via 3G, play it fullsize, and in the background do some video recording which in parallel gets uploaded via 3G. CAREFUL !!! Wear gloves... #-)


The Marshmallow 6.0.1 update seems to have solved this battery drain problem.

Source: AndroidPit

2 users have confirmed it in that link. Please check.


Problems using bluetooth tether on a cheap chinese tablet

It's not a hardware issue.I had the same problem . Finally I figured it out. It's a bug. The JB device fails to register the connection parameters (DNS) for Bluetooth network after connecting to tethered device and uses DNS of default wifi connection to connect. So  the request fails with a timeout.

Rooted users can fix the issue using a set of commands in terminal, either using adb or terminal emulator.

Terminal Emulator or adb

Connect the bluetooth tether and install terminal emulator. If you are using adb, connect device to pc through USB (in debugging mode) and run the command

adb shell

to enter into the shell.
type "su" and enter. Grand super user permission to terminal emulator when prompted .
use the command "netcfg " to list the available interfaces. you can find the bluetooth interface in the list. It may be "btn0" or "btn", etc.
Set the network status of "btn0"(bluetooth interface) to up.

root@android:/#netcfg btn0 up
Run DHCP to get an Ip address.

root@android:/#netcfg btn0 dhcp
set the DNS of your choice.

root@android:/#setprop net.dns1 8.8.8.8;
root@android:/#setprop net.dns2 8.8.4.4;


How do I root a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini LTE (GT-I9195)?

These instructions are courtesy of arco68 over at xda-developers, who is also the person behind the software downloads linked here. All credit to him/her! You can also visit this link for the original instructions from the author and up-to-date file downloads.

Now don't be fooled by how few steps arco68's instructions have; you will need about half an hour to do this if you've not done this before, I reckon, if you want to be careful and not rush it.

As a prerequisite, download Samsung KIES and make sure that the drivers for your phone are installed correctly. Otherwise, Odin Tool will not read your S4 Mini properly.

Download the Odin tool and the ClockworkMod recovery to your Windows PC. Extract both of these archives.
Download the rootkit S4Mini_RootKit_v2.zip to your device's SD card. Do not extract it. Place it in the root folder.
Turn off the phone. Press and hold Home, Volume Down and Power simultaneously. The phone will turn on and you will see the following screen:

Connect the USB cable. Press Volume Up. The screen changes to this:
                                                         (the fields I blurred out will say something like "Original" initially, can't quite remember)
Run the Odin tool you unzipped in step 1.
Uncheck F. Reset Time. Click the AP button. In the dialog that appears, select the "recovery-clockwork-6.0.3.7-serranoltexx.tar.md5" file that you extracted in step 1.
Before you continue, read this step in full because it requires quick action. First you take the phone in your hand. Then you get ready to press and hold Volume Up and Home as soon as the phone vibrates. If you're only a second too slow you'll have to repeat from step 3 (see below).
Now that you're ready to press and hold Volume Up and Home, click the Start button in the Odin tool. It only takes a few seconds before the phone vibrates. Feel the vibration and immediately press and hold Volume Up and Home.
Once the phone shows the S4 logo with the words "recovery booting", you may release the buttons.
If you did everything right, you will see this screen:
                                                         But if you see a black screen like this:
                                                         then you've messed up – power off the phone and continue from step 3.
Using the volume up/down keys and the Home key, select "install zip", "choose zip from sdcard", then "0/", then the zip file "S4Mini_RootKit_v2.zip" that you saved to the SD card in step 2.
The zip will be installed and you will be told that your warranty is now void (which is not necessarily the case, of course). You may now reboot and enjoy your rooted S4 Mini!
When you choose to reboot, you will be asked "ROM may flash stock recovery on boot. Fix?" I suggest you choose No because you don't really need ClockworkMod anymore (although I think I pressed "No" and ClockworkMod remains installed regardless).

For the record, the reason I'm posting this here is that I didn't even realise I got the wrong screen in step 10, so I wasted a whole hour messing around with it. But I can't post this tip on xda due to their draconian requirements for posting replies. So I thought I'd just write up instructions in such a way that others can edit them here.


A tool for semi-automatic merging of contacts?

One thing you can do is open the Contacts application then press menu and go to "Import/Export". From there, you import from SIM card and import them to your google account. Once you have imported all the contacts, open the google contacts manager and click on "More", then select "Find & Merge Duplicates".

You may have to go through and edit some manually if they have really different names. But then you can merge again if needed.


Install Recordense application in Pebble and Recordense Light in Android. You can also tag your recordings during recording, which is useful.


How do I stop com.google.process.gaps force closing randomly?

After a lot of experimentation and backwards and forwards and disabling and enabling various things, I've got it to the point where I haven't seen that error popup for about a week now (which is a huge improvement over it appearing every 10 minutes).

Unfortunately Logcat never seemed to show any obvious, enlightening errors when the Force Close messages popped up, so there was nothing to work on there.

Various posts on web forums suggested that going into Accounts and Sync disabling sync on Calendars and Contacts, then clearing the data on the Calendar and Contacts app should help, but it didn't seem to for me.

In the end what I think solved the problem was:

Completely deleting all my non-primary Google Accounts off the device (I have a primary Google account, which is a Google Apps one, plus another Google Apps account and a normal GMail account)
Disabling all of the sync on my primary account
Clearing the data on the calendar and contacts apps
Leaving it an hour before re-enabling the sync on my primary account
Leaving it a day before adding back my secondary accounts, and enabling their sync

Not 100% sure which of those steps solved it, but after doing all of those steps in that order my problem has gone away.


I have got a technique to deal with this issue.

I have booted my phone into recovery mode and wiped android's cache partition from there. Since then, the flashlight issue seems to have flown away.
I mean, now the flashlight is not automatically turning itself off.

@Zillinium, I think you should also try this method to deal with your issue. If that doesn't work, a system update or factory reset might do the trick, if there is no hardware problem.


Stand-alone Google docs and sheets apps vs Quickoffice

From self testing of the Drive, QuickOffice and the new Docs apps and an official Google blog posting, it seems like the strategy will be:

Google Drive app to view and organize your files
QuickOffice to open MS Documents
Stand Alone Google Docs apps (Docs, Sheets, and eventually Slides) to open Google Doc Files

Some testing I did shows (Moto X 4.4.2 with Docs v1.3.144.12; QuickOffice v6.3.1.041; Drive v1.2.563.21):

The QuickOffice app ONLY Opens Microsoft Format files; I am unable to load native Google Documents
The new Docs app ONLY opens Google Doc Word files; I am unable to load Microsoft Format files

A Google Blog post has a statement that leads me to believe their strategy is to remove document editing from the Drive app itself, and just have it open the stand-alone apps for Google Doc files, and QuickOffice for MS document files:

  If you don’t have time now, over the next few days you’ll be prompted
  to download the apps when you go to edit or create a document or
  spreadsheet in your Drive app. And of course, you’ll still be able to
  use the Drive app to view and organize all of your documents,
  spreadsheets, presentations, photos and more.

We also may be in line for a new Google Drive update soon - which removes in-Drive editing. The iOS version of Drive has stripped in-Drive document editing (in favor of the external apps) and added a Pin Code to allow you to encrypt local documents. (Source)

Edit: The new Google Drive app has been released, which removes in-Drive editing, and will prompt you to download the new Docs and Sheets apps.


What should I do now to move apps to SD in my Samsung Galaxy S Duos (ICS)?

I have LG P768 Android 4.1.2. I can move apps to SD using Move2SD

some app2sd (that can't work) will show this error "device does not have a real primary external storage or the primary external storage is emulated"


Everything gets saved to the phone instead of SD card

Background

Android has specific rules regarding the installation of applications and their physical location. It works like and hierarchical structure:

If the app has a specified location by the developer, this takes priority.
If it is not specified in the app, then the default install location is used.

Android has 3 identifiers for app storage location: that may be mentioned on the application manifest android:installLocation:

"internalOnly":

  The application must be installed on the internal device storage only. If this is set, the application will never be installed on the external storage. If the internal storage is full, then the system will not install the application.

"auto":

  The application may be installed on the external storage, but the system will install the application on the internal storage by default. If the internal storage is full, then the system will install it on the external storage.

"preferExternal":

  The application prefers to be installed on the external storage (SD card). There is no guarantee that the system will honor this request. The application might be installed on internal storage if the external media is unavailable or full, or if the application uses the forward-locking mechanism (not supported on external storage).

Old applications may have no choice but to install on the internal storage, as per the Google Documentation:

  The ability for your application to install on the external storage is a feature available only on devices running API Level 8 (Android 2.2) or greater. Existing applications that were built prior to API Level 8 will always install on the internal storage and cannot be moved to the external storage (even on devices with API Level 8).

What can I do?

You can manage the installed applications and set their storage location, all from one place:

Tap "home" to return to your device home screen;
Tap your device "menu" button;
Depending on your device, you either have to:

Tap "Manage apps";
Tap "Settings" > "Applications" > "Manage applications".

Now access the third tab where it reads "USB Storage" or "On SD card" (again, varies with the device);
Here are listed all the applications that are allowed to be moved to your External Storage, tab over one to bring up more options about it;
When the application details panel opens, you have a button "Move to SD card", use it to move that application to your External Storage;
Press "back" to return to the list. If you've moved the app to the external memory, you will notice that a green tick is present on the right side on the list, to let you know that the application file is currently on your External Storage.

This is a safe guide to have your OS managing the applications and moving then from Internal Storage to External Storage without hacks or tricks. You can read all about it on the Google Official Documentation.


How to show media controls on lock screen when playing music?

I had this problem - to resolve it, play a track with Google Play and lock your tablet. You should notice the new lock screen with album art is now present.

Now, quit Google Play etc. and go back to using (the excellent) doubleTwist. You should find doubleTwist's "now playing" track appears on the lock screen just like Google Play.

I suspect Google Play starts a background service enabling this new feature. Hopefully an update to doubleTwist will do the same in future - but I'm just guessing.


How to purchase an app on Google Play without a credit card?

I am from India.  I think Google play gift card is not available in India till now.  I will tell you a method through which you can purchase android apps from Play Store in India without credit card.

The only legal way to buy paid apps from Play Store other than credit card is by creating Virtual Credit Card. Virtual Credit Card is an artificial credit card which acts similarly like any ordinary credit card and you can use it for on line shopping. But in virtual credit card you have to transfer the amount first just like debit cards.

There are two trusted ways of creating Virtual Credit Card -

Create Virtual Credit Card from bank - Many banks are having a service of creating a virtual credit card for online shopping. STATE BANK OF INDIA and HDFC BANK are two banks which I have used for creating Virtual Credit Card especially HDFC BANK's NetSafe service is awesome and just perfect for any online shopper. Amount charged for creating virtual credit card is very minimum.
Create Virtual Credit Card from Entropay - If your bank doesn't give the service of creating virtual credit cards then you can use ENTROPAY for purchasing apps from the Play Store. Entropay is an online service which I strongly recommend for creating virtual credit cards, as it is completely safe and secure. All your information is protected by encryption. Creating virtual credit card through is very easy you just need to fill up your details and your virtual credit card is ready in minutes, now transfer your fund to virtual credit card and start shopping. EntroPay is used worldwide and processes thousands of transactions daily. For using EntroPay you need to pay certain charges.

Earlier Google only sells android apps through its Play Store in India but now Google has start selling books and movies also, so this Virtual Credit Card method work perfectly with them also means you can buy android apps, eBooks and movies without credit card using Virtual Credit Cards.

I hope this post is helpful for you.


Why is device not showing the phone signal bars anymore?

This is definitely due incompatibilites between the RIL and the baseband/modem firmware. The RIL or the radio-interface layer are the libraries (shared-objects) that allow the phone to talk with the modem firmware. I found this issue on the Cyanogemod JIRA: https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/CYAN-2172
If you read the comments, you'll see that people have solved this issue by flashing a compatible firmware.

Since I'm now running Cyanogenmod 11, I dug around XDA and found a leaked 4.4 firmware for my device. It was packed in a CWM-flashable ZIP so I flashed it and voila.

Please remember to backup your device, your current modem/baseband and the RIL files. Flashing a new RIL isn't necessary always but helps.


How do I save `javascript:` URLs in Android's browser?

You'll have to copy and paste.  I don't know why the long click doesn't work, but I assume because the url doesn't start with "http".

I've found the easiest way to create bookmarklets is to do it on the PC and then import the bookmarks, or by copying the text of the js url to a text file, emailing or dropboxing it to my phone and then copying & pasting the text into a bookmark.


How does carrier/network lock work? How is it implemented?

Carrier locks work at SoC/bootloader level. In simple terms the modem - which has its own Baseband Processor -  is tuned to certain frequencies / bands or programmed to register with only one MCC/MNC which identifies a universally unique carrier. MCC/MNC is part of IMSI which is stored on SIM card and used in initial authentication process when device goes online.

Both modem (which is integrated in SoC) and SIM (which is a Java card Secure Element) are completely isolated from Application Processor (the one on which Android OS runs); they have their own processors, OS and possibly storage. Modem's communication protocol (through RIL) is usually vendor-specific and closed source (used to be simply ATC in good old days). Communication to SIM (APDU commands) is also routed through BP. So the unlocking workarounds aren't very straightforward but hacks do exist and they work, usually through special hardware/software.

Mostly modems accept some kind of dial code for SIM unlock, which is calculated by passing phone's IMEI through some mathematical functions, which are cracked by hackers sometimes. Another approach is to communicate with modem thorough some service mode e.g. Diagnostic Mode (DM) on Qualcomm SoC's (see this recent example), or possibly go even below that and directly use UART/JTAG entirely bypassing Android OS. So there is no standardization and official/unofficial unlocking methods largely vary from vendor to vendor and device to device.


Yahoo Mail App - Send Email To Contact List

Okay, I just figured out a workaround. You can export your Yahoo Contact Lists by:

Signing into your Yahoo Account via their web interface,
Clicking on the "Contacts" icon, and
Choosing "Actions" => "Export".

This will create a CSV file which can then be used to import the contacts into a Gmail account via Google's web interface. After that, you can sync your Gmail contacts to your phone using the Android Gmail app. This will create the contact lists from Yahoo and import them into your phone as contact groups on the device.


The simple way to do this is to use Duplicate Contacts.
Although it is meant for duplicate contacts, it also manages other contacts as well that are stored in your different accounts, including deleting all of them if you wish

Deleted contacts are stored as a .vcf file in the root of sd card storage.

Its general description is:

  Simple tool to see and delete duplicate contacts. You can see a list
  of contacts sorted by name or by number and you can select which to
  delete. The duplicate contacts are automatically selected. The removed
  contacts are saved on vcf file on sdcard.

From experience this is one of the very few  applications that serves its purpose - to delete and NOT to merge contacts.


Path where Firefox Mobile Addons store their data?

As with all apps, they store their data below the /data/data directory, in a directory named according to their package name -- which is what you can see following the "id=" in the playstore URL. So for Firefox, data should be in /data/data/org.mozilla.firefox.

So far the good news. Now for the bad news: This directory can only be accessed by the app itself -- or by the root user. So if your device is not rooted: bad luck.

I could imagine that for userscripts and some other profile data, Firefox might (or might not) use some storage on the sdcard -- so you could check if you see a similar directory structure there. Certainly not with the "doubled" /data, and maybe even just named "firefox" -- as I do not have Firefox installed, I cannot check, but it's worth a look.


Stock ICS email app refusing to auto-update or notifications

Is the following settings enabled in Settings -> Account & Sync:

Bakcground Data,
Auto-sync
'Sync Gmail' inside your email account


I had Same concern, got response fro Samsung itself, it seems they have discontinued "SIM Change Alert" after Nougat update. They have suggested to use third party app as an option,

Find below screenshot of chat for your reference:


IMAP forwarding show IP address to Google servers?

No, if you tell K9 to fetch your mail from Google's imap servers, then whenever K9 goes to fetch your mail, it has to contact Google at which point Google will know at which IP they can reach you (to reply to the fetch request).  They may not get to know your "internal IP", tho (e.g. if you're behind a NAT router, they'll see the external IP address of the router, rather than the specific intenral IP address of your Android device).


Any way to have Location services turn itself off after a time limit?

That might be solved using one of the many automation apps. I myself prefer tasker here, but YMMV (and Tasker doesn't come for free) – llama might be capable of the same.

What I do here is creating a profile like this:

Condition: App (select the apps you want to use GPS with)
Task: GPS On
optional exit task: GPS Off

That way GPS by default is off, but automatically gets turned on whenever you launch one of the selected apps and have them running in foreground. It would automatically be turned off once you exit that app, or have any other app running in foreground. The "exit task" is optional as Tasker restores the conditions from before the profile became active.

For other alternative automation apps, you're also welcome to take a look at my list here.


Are the HTC Desire HD video issues solved yet/solvable by the end user?

I guess these issues are solved as I have never encountered such on my Desire HD.


adb logcat outputs the BackupManager activities, so you can monitor if the process is running or stalled. Since adb logcat produces lots of logs from other processes, it is not easy to watch BackupManager logs. The easy way to watch BackupManager output is to use grep.

adb logcat | grep BackupManager

will filter only BackupManager logs.


Unlock your Chromebook with your Android phone

I apologize for not posting an answer in timely manner, however I'm doing it right now (that's the best I can do); As of now I'm using Google Chrome OS / Version 66.0.3359.43 (Official Build) dev (64-bit) and Pixel, (Phone by Google (1st generation)) w/ Android 8.1.0.

I went ahead and removed my Phone from Chromebook's Bluetooth devices and from Chromebook from Phone's Bluetooth devices, now that everything is tidy widy, you can proceed to next step:

under Settings, expand Screen lock (under People), click on Smart Lock for Chromebook (beta) and follow steps.


Like above ...

If the file is persistent or un-deletable
 (usually the associated binary files under system > bin)
You need to use a Chattr first ..

busybox chattr -ia /system/bin/viralFile

and then

rm /system/bin/viralFile

This is helpful for force removing virus or non-deletable files,  like most people on here that have used KingRoot or similar programs, it's a last option for hard to remove files !


Odin not working - Samsung S3 Mini GT-I8200

It looks like you only tried the md5 file ... An md5 is a calculation of the size the rom is, This is so you can check if you have downloaded the full rom or just half of it..

I suggest you try to flash the actual TAR file, Then the program will read the md5 to see if it's a complete rom ...

If it calculated that the md5 is "lets say" 500001 and the md5 file you downloaded says the md5 is 500002 ..

it can see that the rom is not complete or either it's not an original rom with the value of 500001


Inconsistent UIDS and wiping a data partition

I found another solution:

Have a look at /data/system/uiderrors.txt. There you will find the apps that are responsible for the trouble. You can delete them (manualy if necessary) to fix the issue. Reinstalling the apps brings the error back, though.


Would it be possible to use the SD card as the root filesystem

The boot.img that is responsible for booting up Android, has their init scripts embedded in the RAM Disk of the actual boot.img which mounts the partitions into the respective /data, /cache, /system mount points respectively.

By altering the init scripts to hit on the SDCard, could lead to an unstable system, furthermore, reducing the life of the SDCard via wear and tear of the SDCard - why?

The kernel when booting, is loading from the / which is within the same partition as the boot partition - hence the need for the RAM Disk to be present along with it. It is that, which gets loaded into memory - a temporary file-system, in order for the init scripts to be read in and executed. Once the mount points are established, then the RAM Disk gets removed and thereby, the temporary file-system a lá RAM Disk, gets "flipped" over to the real partitions at a later stage during the bootstrap.

This is where the RAM Disk comes in - only temporarily, it is through that, the whole process of booting can happen.

The chicken and egg is this - the kernel prior to boot, has no idea what partitions are there!

Not alone that, by hard-coding the SDCard into the kernel's init parameter, which is a specific option that can be passed into the kernel upon boot in which it alters the kernel's processing of the environment.

The wear and tear of the SDCard would be significantly increased, not alone that, the entire Android ecosystem would drastically change, the API's have defined internal storage and external storage - so it could lead to confusion in where to store their own content providers for contacts etc, "Are we sitting on a external storage or internal storage?" from the perspective of Android itself, bear in mind, the content providers itself are housed in internal storage and from an overall picture, its one of de-facto standard convention for Android's file-systems involved.

So to sum up, I do not think that's possible, not ruling out its impossible either but if it can be done, chances are it will be tied intimately to the handset itself, give or take, what manufacturers put in there from a perspective of partition format types (yaffs, emmc, LinusStoreIII, and more importantly, the SDCard handling mechanism from the kernel/hardware viewpoint will be different - am talking about different IO addresses here) and not alone that, differing sizes of the partitions also, this would make the whole concept of Android - not exactly portable either due to non-standard scripts found within the RAM Disk itself.


Well I found SuperSU in the settings menu. I don't mind it there but it did throw me off as I do remember it being in the apps list and being searchable.

So I'm not sure if it's suppose to be in both or not but for the time being I'm marking it as answered.

If this is still not normal and it's suppose to be in both places or searchable let me know here


Can't hard reset samsung and forgot the Pattern

On my phone, I need to draw 5 wrong patterns, before the phone asks for the pin code. But I noticed, that pattern consisting of few points (I think less than 4 points) do not count.

I hope this observation helps you. You need to draw 5 complex patterns (four or more points) in order to be asked for the pin.


You can try viber. You only need to put your phone number.

Personally I don't like it because of the UI and their notification mechanism but its a matter of personal flavor.


Is there a way to toggle a secure lock screen without having the feature built into a custom ROM?

I'm not too familar with doing stuff like this, but I guess this will help!
Well, I'm pretty sure the app called Tasker is able to do it if the Android version is between 4.x.x and 6.x.x, not sure if Automate can do it?
I do personally recommend Tasker if you want an app that is able to do a lot on your phone, even without ROOT it can do amazing stuff. Else I would recommend to give Automate a try, I'm not that familar with it and can't tell that much about it.
Tasker

Cost's 3 USD!
Create and sell your own apps!
I don't know what it can't do! I'm not kidding!

Automate

It's free to download and ad-free!
Easy-to-use drag-n-drop design!
Built-in community to download other user's uploaded automation tasks!

Both

Automating what ever you want, just like you want!
Use ROOT functions like executing shell commands or rebooting you phone!

Sorry for my bad english if it's not good enough! At least, I tried my best!
EDIT: I'm not able to tell you that any app can help you with a Nexus 6 because I do only have a Galaxy S7 Edge that is working and a Galaxy S5 without a working display.


Galaxy S4 - Exchange ActiveSync picks wrong Display Name

For posterity's sake, I'd like to point out that after doing research online, I have found out that this is an issue plaguing Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3 as well. Most of the discussions on this issue end with, "Why don't you just get a @gmail account?"

Since I refuse to have an email with numbers in it, I am going to stick to my more professional looking email on @live.com. I don't want to put an ugly email like jsmith223@live.com on my resume or any other correspondence for that matter.

Anyhoo, long story short, if you have a hotmail email address (@hotmail.com, @live.com, @outlook.com, etc) and you value a synchronized mailbox (meaning, having all sent and read messages marked as such on your desktop, web mailbox and phone regardless of where you sent or read a message), then don't get an Android device until there is concrete evidence online of someone being able to show that it works. POP3 is archaic technology from the mid-90s. IMAP isn't a whole lot newer, but you can still get by with IMAP. Unfortunately, Microsoft has refused to offer IMAP services on hotmail accounts. So your only options are POP3 and Exchange ActiveSync (EAS).


Whatsapp: could it be that messages from some contacts are received but not from others?

The double-check indicates that the message received. So, it might be possible that the recipient simply chose not to reply.

You mentioned that your mom hasn't blocked anyone. How about if your mom has been blocked? You can check for these indicators:

- You can no longer see a contact's last seen or online in the chat window.
- You do not see updates to a contact's profile photo.
- Any messages sent to a contact who has blocked you will always show one check mark (message sent), and never show a second check mark (message delivered).
- Any calls you attempt to place will not go through.


An application files consist of apk, dex, lib and data files. Link2sd can only move the first three types of files to your SD card. Program like Google+ has huge data files so even after using link2sd they take up precious space of internal memory.

When you move app to sd, only the apk file(in Android 2.2) and only the apk and lib files (in Android 2.3) are moved.


How to block YouTube in general on my daughter's phone while allowing her to follow her favourite YouTubers?

There is a "combined approach" that should work for you, requiring multiple components:

1. Block youtube.com

As alecxs successfully tested, blocking youtube.com will only affect the web browser, but not the YouTube app (and thus neither the YouTube kids app). You could block that in your router, but then it would only apply when your daughter is home and not using mobile data. Do do that directly on-device, you can use e.g. Netguard (yes, the one from F-Droid – the one from Play Store doesn't have that feature as the Play Store policies do not permit, see here).

2. Use a child-protection app

While 1. would work, it would not prevent your daughter from simply "quitting Netguard". So you need something that restricts the apps she can use. For this there are plenty of child protection apps¹ – but you should choose wisely: many of those come with a bunch of trackers (Analytics, Ads etc), which is an absolute No-Go in this context. JoLo seems to be a good choice – it got very good reference from MobilSicher.DE, which never just scratches the surface (aka "looks great and has many features") but also checks what apps do "behind your back" (aka tracking, calling home, extracting data…). With such an app, you can establish a "Kiosk": only the parent can change settings – and the child only gets access to what the parent configured.

So combining 1+2, youtube.com would not be reachable from the browser, the kids app would still work, and the official YT app could be hidden. On top you get an ad blocker (less traffic, and also protecting your child against "unwanted content"), which you'll certainly welcome.

3. Put the YouTube app into "restricted mode"

You could try putting the YT app into restricted mode and see if that works for you, so the girl can "follow her channels" from there. Not sure how well that works, or how you can keep your daughter from changing that setting (probably only by using Google Family Link which from a privacy perspective can not be recommended, as all data will be logged with Google (again, found out by MobilSicher.DE).

¹ disclosure: link goes to my own Android site


Where can I find the stock kernel for my Samsung Galaxy S2?

Have you tried this site?
sammobile
Just select the right country and mobile operator.


How can I recover data from lg g4 stuck in a boot loop?

Well, you can connect your mobile to your computer via ADB (Android Debug Bridge) and easily copy all your stuff to your computer.To do this, just:

Boot into recovery mode by holding the Power & Volume Up buttons on your phone. (if Volume Up doesn't work, try Volume Down and if there are other hardware keys try them too).
Now connect your mobile to your PC using a USB.(You must have the usb driver installed on your pc). Download ADB from the internet and run command prompt or terminal.
Use the command adb pull filepath+name destinationOnYourPC.
Congratulations, if you were successfully.

  For more detailed information, prefer a quick search on the internet. Even if you are new to this, you can easily learn these all by watching tutorials on YouTube. But I hope you are familiar with all this. By the way, what stuck your phone in bootloop.


How to load public route into Google Maps?

Is this the route you want to take offline in Google Maps app:

How did I take it to Google Maps app? Well, I opened this question in Dolphin Browser and tapped the link you provided. It gave me Share via.. pop-up from which I chose Maps. Done!

To push links to Android device, you don't need to publish it on web. There are plenty of options available viz. AirDroid. You can use Gmail too. In Android device, just open that link in web browser.

If Share via.. pop-up doesn't appear with your web browser, it means that its not tightly integrated with Android. I'd recommend you to use Dolphin Browser because I have tested it.

To make it offline, just hit Options key & you'll find Make available offline option...

To later use this map, just tap Layers icon on top bar (on bottom bar in ICS) & choose the route:

Note: I've put screenshots from a Gingerbread device. My ICS device is currently not available. If you're running ICS or above, it'll be slightly different.


Will restoring WhatsApp chats also restore my WhatsApp number

You should be able to restore your account using titanium backup if you have app+data backup of whatsapp taken using titanium backup.

However, there can be cases of app crash, if the backup is corrupted, android version of your device upgraded/changed.
Also there can be a scenario in recent/latest version of whatsapp where it would detect this dirty restore and ask you to authenticate the number again. If this happens try using a bit older version of whatsapp(you can download it here) as I recall I was able restore whatsapp account using titanium backup a couple of years back.


Two separate issues.

Does your current ROM force vfat or not? For example, I'm pretty sure CyanogenMod does not force vfat and will not forcibly reformat an ext4 when it finds it back to vfat. This is what will happen on some stock roms. If it does not force vfat, great.
Ext4 is almost certainly supported, if it's not forced instantly into vfat. I quote from CyanogenMod FAQ: "Is ext3/ext4 safe for my SD card? Probably, unless the SD card is very old and does not support wear leveling."

In short, it's impossible to answer if "ICS" works with ext4. It might work, but force ext4 into vfat instantly. It might not work at all. What's important is that you check if the ROM you are using both supports ext4 and does not force it back to vfat. Only one way to find out, except asking around xda-developers ;)


How to check if somebody had done a data recovery on my phone?

You're probably okay. If it was a few months ago, chances are the data has been overwritten by other files. If you're really worried about it, try DiskDigger. It needs root access for the best scan, but a basic one can be performed without.


My phone got factory reset and all data wiped, can I find out how?

Well, I don't think you could get to know what has made your device getting factory reset on its own. As far as I know I think somehow the volume up and power keys may have been pressed which results in factory reset. I have also heard the if you put the patter lock wrong over the HTC M8 for more that 10 times, the device gets automatically factory reset. I am sure Accidently you may have !!


How to install Google Play Services without through Play Store in Redmi 3?

Just install Google Play Services from a trusted website. You can download it from apkmirror.com, but it is important to choose the right version for your smartphone. Read the minimum Android version and architecture (arm/arm64/x86).

After that you need to install the APK. Well, sometimes the Play Services don't work after the installation.

In my experience, it's caused when the Android doesn't have Google Services Framework, Google Contacts Sync, and Google Account Manager app. If your phone doesn't have all the Google apps (usually with MOD ROM or MIUI ROM) you have to install them first. Just find them on the website I mentioned above.


You can't push to the sdcard's root, but you can push in any folder found in it, except /sdcard/Android/data.


Can dual-sim phone use one sim for voice\sms and second solely for internet access?

Yes you can. Both sim can be used for internet and voice calls. You can also select which sim can be used for internet and which can be used for voice calls.The settings can be found under Settings-> Wireless & networks.


How to turn off the sound for the "Wi-Fi has no internet access" notification on Android 7.0?

Thanks! It solved for me, when the notification popped up, I long press it few seconds and there's an option 'All categories' and 'Done' after pressing All categories it took me to the System settings as in the picture, and on Network alerts I disabled the Floating notification and Sound, The annoying notification were never to be seen again.