Why are apps not loading anything after a while of use (Nexus 5 | 16GB)?

Try wiping the cache and data of that app in settings .


Upgrade Samsung Galaxy Tab to Android 2.3.3

In May Samsung begin rolling updates to 2.3.3 for European devices, starting with Italy.

At this time (June 2011) there is no word of an update to 2.3.3 being available in South America or Netherlands, so you will have to wait some time, or you can go to XDA-Developers forums and follow the instructions to manually update your Galaxy Tab


On Honor 6x camera is slow to start. Any solutions?

UPDATE: New culprit identified. The official Google Search app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox) - the one that activates Google Assistant on the device, appears to do something that brings 6x to its knees. Once completely disabled, it manifested in a huge boost in the responsiveness of the device - camera included.

And since, admittedly, Google Search app is often useful, there is a Lite version that does not cause any issues - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.searchlite

Original:

Located a solution on XDA that solves this issue on a wide range of Honor devices (https://forum.xda-developers.com/p9/how-to/slow-camera-t3476554/page6)

"went to Settings, Apps, Advanced, Ignore Battery Optimisations and then Allowed the Camera App.

This has made a world of difference on mine, opens up in about 1 second now where before it was the 2 -5 seconds like people were reporting. "

And also:

"Thanks to safc1978 this really annoying problem is mostly fixed. I do still get some lag though, and wondered if it was partly caused by the Gallery app being slow to pull the little thumbnail image of the last photo taken (bottom left of screen).

I used safc1978's theory, and allowed "Gallery" to ignore optimisations too, and it seems to have made another small improvement."


If the same thing happens on another operating system, the problem is not the driver. It sounds like a power issue or the connector is not seating well on one of the two ends. See if a different cable helps.


Party Mode or guest Access for Google Play Music?

There is a way to share songs and albums with friends and family. This is not quite the same as a "party mode," but is the closest thing I have found to it.

Pros:
1. Don't need to give anyone your account information.
2. Friends can listen to shared music on any device they want.

Cons:
1. Only works with Google+ (for now) so your friend must have a device which can access Google+.
2. Can listen to the entire song only once for free.
3. Only works with limited number of songs (many more are being added though).

Setting up a type of "guest account" may be a viable option but this opens up a whole hose of security concerns - I doubt Google would implement this officially. Sharing music has a long history of abuse.

So much music can be found for free these days, sharing a listing of your favorite songs may be all that is necessary.


Terminal app launch and subordinate intents

Provided that you have root access, you can use this command to launch the Run Log window:

am start -n net.dinglisch.android.tasker/.RunLog

RunLog activity, without root access however, fails to launch and throws the error:

Permission Denial: startActivity asks to run as user -2 but is calling from user 0; this requires android.permission.INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS_FULL

Perhaps the following attribute, as mentioned in the manifest, is the cause of the issue.

android:exported="false"


Is there a Bluetooth earphone that can control the Music being played?

This sounds a bit like a shopping question, which is off-topic here, but as a general answer: Yes, it's possible to change tracks from Bluetooth headphones.

Almost all headphones that support A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile), which is required for better quality music streaming, can also handle AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) which handles controlling the playback.

As an example, I have a Samsung SBH-170, which has buttons for play/pause, next/previous track, volume up/down and call answer.

Just check that the headphones you're going to buy support A2DP, and most likely they support AVRCP as well.


Do you find any lag when opening applications or does it slow down when multitasking?
If no is your answer then it is a very normal behaviour.
My phone has 1 GB of RAM but more than 600 MB is always occupied and it doesn't lag anytime. You can read about RAM management in Android in so many developer forums if you'd like to.


How can I disable the "Send Message?" warning with emails having blank subjects/bodies?

It appears it's not possible, even on gmail.com, according to this answer.  Gmail does understand the "EOM" tag at the end of the subject and will not prompt you about having an empty message body if that exists anywhere in the subject (even if it's the only thing in the subject).


How to transfer Firefox bookmarks (and saved logins, etc) from one phone to another **without** using Firefox's "sync", 3rd-party apps nor root?

As of now, given the constraints, you cannot achieve what you have set out for.

Firefox app would be able to restore bookmarks using these methods,  in the absence of a hack:

native settings option to import bookmarks. This is not available in Firefox for Android as of now.
Using Web Extensions/ Addons. Firefox for Android doesn't provide API support for manipulating bookmarks as of now.
Read and write to its browser.db database using a universally accessible content provider. Firefox's content provider for this is not accessibly by any user other than Firefox itself.
Full participation in Android Backup Service. As a result, a user can use adb to backup and restore Firefox app's data. Sadly, Firefox explicitly disallows backup as of now, so adb is also out here.
Using its own implementation of cloud backup service. It does provide a sync service -- but then, you don't want that so this is also not an option anymore.

Possible hacks:

copy and then restore the browser.db or into your another phone. That database contains users' bookmarks. Alternatively, use a root backup/restore solution, such as Titanium Backup.
Use content provider with root access to read and write into browser.db. But if you have root access, "1." is plain and easy.

As you can see from above, your options, as of now, are: get the devices rooted, or use Firefox's sync services.

Third option is to raise a feature request with Mozilla to provide bookmarks import, and extension support for manipulation of bookmarks.


Nexus 7 won't boot up - could it be due to cell phone sitting on top of it?

It could very well be due to your mobile sitting on top of it.

There may have been an electrostatic discharge from your phone, that was sent through the Nexus 7, breaking/harming some components.

If you can, I would suggest you take it to the repair center - it would be the only way if this is what has happened.


Why does it happen: When you connect to a DHCP enabled router, your device (notebook, smartphone etc) obtains an IP address in order to access internet via that router/server.

Which IP is that, static or dynamic: It's a dynamic internal IP address and is valid only within that network.

Does this IP address identify my smartphone: Yes, but only in that network and it's actually the MAC address of your network adapter that identifies your device, not your IP.

The same is true for the router. It may have a static or dynamic IP which is given by the ISP. If it's static then yes it identifies it, otherwise no. Your external IP (router's IP) is different from your internal IP. All of the devices connected to that router have the same external IP address.


What does it mean when Google Maps says "moving"?

From the last point (Harding's) to your current point, it assumes that you were moving, probably because of changes in distance or because of movement.


Can't unlock bootloader for Lenovo a1000

According to your phone specs:

Chipset Spreadtrum SC7731
CPU Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7

SPD devices don't have a flash mode that can be entered manually, but it is detected when you connect the powered off device to the computer (3 secs before it starts charging). They don't have recovery as well making hard reset impossible with button combo.

Open device manager (on Windows), Connect the device to the computer, you should notice something similar to SCI2COM... this is the flashing port, it last few seconds before the device starts charging.

You need a flash tool to flash ROM (.pac file or . bin). RechearchDownload is the official flash tool for Spreadtrum devices.

Download ROM and flashtool for Lenovo A1000 SC7731 + extra drivers here
Download SPD SCI drivers here
To learn how to flash an SPD device, go here


Stock Android 6 (Motorola Moto G 3rd gen) has no 'Exchange ActiveSync' account option

http://vodafone.intelliresponse.com/index.jsp?id=1593&question=Set+up+Hotmail%2FOutlook+as+an+Exchange+account+on+your+Android+device&requestType=NormalRequest&source=100

The trick is picking manual and then Exchange. The link above walks you through the screens. Won't be exact but close enough.

Ken


Sony Xperia S - suddenly can't connect to PC anymore (it was working before)

In the end, it turned out it was working for the original USB cable, while the generic USB cable did not allow data connection, only charging.

For the original cable, the problem disappeared on its own, and I don't know what caused it, or what caused it to disappear.


Is there a way to sort apps in Google's app store by size?

I don't know of any third-party app or site that does this. I did look around a few months ago and found nothing, but something might have come up since then.

However, if the reason you're looking for this feature is because of limited app space, AppBrain (both the app and the website) has a feature to view only apps with App2SD enabled.


Try removing the Google account and adding it again.


You could try deleting the app cache. Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications and find the Kindle app. Click on it and then hit the button that says "Clear Data". This will clear cache and start you off at square one again with the app. Then see what happens.


This did indeed turn out to be file system corruption.  This question helped me solve it but I don't think it is a duplicate because the accepted answer did not work for me.  However one of the other answers was very close to what I needed.

To fix:
Connected to my Linux PC with adb.
Then issued adb shell mount | grep -i sdcard command.  This told me that my sdcard filesystem was vfat, which is why the accepted answer to the other question didn't work for me. So going off another answer to that question I did a adb shell fsck_msdos -y /dev/block/vold/93:80.  This spat out a bunch of output and created a bunch of files in LOST.DIR on the sdcard which was awesome, because then I could get at them and delete them.  One was 770M which was the bulk of the missing space.

Problem solved.


My Nexus 6 turns itself off randomly; How can I fix this?

This is a partial answer based on the output of logs provided.

Okay, after looking at the logcat, my guess would be a buffer overrun error originating/stemming from mm-camera and connected services/processes and ion memory allocation.

Snippets,

08-11 17:51:19.504 E/libaprpmem( 1539):  Ion allocation success virtaddr : ret=2996989952 fd=48 heapid=33554432
08-11 17:51:19.507 E/libaprpmem( 1539):

08-11 17:51:19.332 E/mm-camera( 1539): mct_stream_destroy_buffers: Exit

08-11 17:51:19.337 E/mm-camera-isp2( 1539): isp_port_check_caps_unreserve:807 ide 3000f port 0xb6749d60
08-11 17:51:19.337 E/mm-camera-isp2( 1539): isp_handler_destroy_stream_param:1616 num_streams 0

Okay so don't be ready to quote me on that but dig this article discussing buffer underrun/overrun http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/computers/buffer-underrun-and-overrun-scenarios.html

I can't pin it to a specific specific cause but try setting your camera resolution to as low a setting that you can get it, and if you can, disable your proximity sensor. Either when the camera crashes it takes your phone with it or even though it crashes , seemingly repeatedly, it keeps gobbling up your ram till your phone tanks and shuts off. Hit some development sites and see what devs have to say or are doing with respect to this subject if it's common. It could be "fixed" by a decent/corrected kernel build. Unless you are under contract or tied down by the knox/enterprise-ability thing.

You may need to go pirate/commando and break your contract to save your data though. Meaning rooting and ripping all your data off the device.

OH! and i forgot this,

08-11 17:49:33.932 W/ResourcesManager(29010): Asset path '/system/framework/com.google.android.media.effects.jar' does not exist or contains no resources.

That one is a genuine WTF.run ls -al /system/framework/ and look for zero length *.jar files.

More- missing lib

08-11 17:51:10.373 E/mm-camera( 1539): Tuning lib open failed: dlopen failed: library "libmmcamera_tuning.so" not found

Edit- Rerun your logcat "live" as logcat |grep F/ as before with phone connected till crash.


ROMs are not universal - you can't just flash one from another device and call it a day.

No one has ported N for S7 yet, and due to the locked-down bootloader on the Snapdragon version / development difficulty for the Exynos version, there likely won't be any until the official one drops.


Is there any Android TV that could act as a Bluetooth center?

The official Google Android TV support page has instructions for connecting devices via Bluetooth. This page (written in January 2018) specifies these steps for connecting Bluetooth speakers:

Find and select Settings from the app menu
Select 'Bluetooth' (may be under Wireless and Networks or Remote & accessories)
Use the Pair button on your speaker (or other device) to start the pairing process
Follow the dialog on the screen to complete pairing.

According to this answer on Stack Overflow, you should be able to connect up to 7 devices as long as they are above Bluetooth 4.0. The MiBox you linked to does have Bluetooth 4.0/3.0.

All this considered, yes, controlling Bluetooth devices via an Android TV is possible.

However, in relation developing an app to control Bluetooth devices, there are several in the Play Store now, but development questions are best handled on StackOvervlow.


Yes, it's possible. Probably creating your second email ID or creating her fake email ID will be the easiest solution. But try this -

With each Google account you have privilege to Sync only thing you want. I better recommend you to go to Settings on Android, then tap on Account > select Google and tap on your email ID and turn off Sync Contacts. I read it on Selective Sync Google Account Settings and I believe that should work.


LCD is short for "liquid crystal display".  The liquid is leaking out due to the fractures.  Really the only thing you can do is to replace the screen.


Audio on my phone while using earphones is sometimes good and sometimes isn't

First thing first, you should know that there a few basic solutions you can try, just to make sure that it’s not a hardware issue causing this:

Check the phone’s volume: Simply press the volume rocker up, in order to increase the volume. Maybe the phone was on silent, which affected the media volume as well.

Restart your phone: A simple reboot can be the solution for many problems.

Clean the headphone jack: If you’re having this issue only when the headphones are plugged in, try cleaning the jack. Also, try another pair of headphones, since it could be them causing the problem.

Clean the speakers: There some smartphones which have some pretty unusual grills for the speakers and they tend to accumulate a lot of stuff which eventually blocks the speakers from emitting sound. However, don’t use a needle or a toothpick, since this can instantly damage the speaker. Instead, rely on a Q-tip for this.

Clean the cache of your music app: Go to Settings > Apps and look for your default music app, then tap on it. Look for the Clean cache button and tap on it.

Check for any moisture or water-inflicted damage: Turn off the phone, remove the battery, as well as the SIM and memory card, and see if there’s any moisture or residue inside the phone, which can affect its normal functionality. Eventually, by using the dryer on low heat, keep it for a few seconds over the phone.


There is two ways you can restore your whatsapp messages from old phone to your new phone.

1) Using Titanium Backup

Backup Whatsapp app+data in old phone.
Copy the titanium backup of whatsapp to the new phone.
Restore data in new phone.

2) Copying Manually the messages

Copy the contents of SDCard/whatsapp/Databases from old phone to new phone
Paste the files in exactly the same location.
Verify using your number


Can I use Dvorak on a physical keyboard?

If your phone is rooted I think that you can write your own keyboard layout. I'm using my own layout (on SGS I9000) for some Chinese blouetooth keyboard that I bougth recently.

Layout files are in /system/usr/keylayout/ directory. Layout file that is used by my keyboard is Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kl. I think that layout used by built-in keyboard will be qwerty.kl - you could modify it and check if it's working.

Remember to make backups of original files before changing it...


Huawei Ascend Y511 with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean lock screen Widgets

Try changing it in Settings-Security-Shortcut settings. Try changing the icons to something different than they currently are.

If this doesn't work try a factory reset.

I have a y511 as well and I'm trying to get the unlock symbol to be at the right (3 o'clock position).


How to use my phone to transfer Wi-Fi to other devices?

It's not possible to share a Wi-Fi via Wi-Fi, this would require two Wi-Fi chips. Only mobile data tethering is supported via Wi-Fi.


Is there a way to always open Google Drive shortcuts from the same account?

Try deleting the shortcut and re-creating it. When you create a shortcut it should ask you which account to use before you select which file the shortcut should point to.

I had a similar issue on my LG G4 where it always asked which account to use. I think it is because I created the shortcut using a Google account that I subsequently removed and then added back on to the device.


As ProNetGuru already pointed out, Titanium Backup could indeed be used for that:

root
install TiBu
convert app to system app (i.e. it gets installed to /system/apps
uninstall TiBu
unroot.

Done. That app would have access up to "signatureOrSystem" protection levels then (if specified so in its Manifest).

Giving it root access is something different – but probably not even needed here.


How can I enter an English unlock password when the keyboard is Arabic?

Try plugging in a keyboard via USB.  If you don't already have an adapter for it I would recommend that you go ahead and buy one.  It comes in handy.


1.Remove your Battery.
2.Wait 5 min.
3.Put battery back to phone.
4.Switch ON your phone


I'm not really sure what your problem is, but on Android 5 you can categorize your notifications to normal or high priority. Instead of setting your phone to vibrate you can now set Android to show "All", "Only high priority" or "None" notifications.
See this link for additional info: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/6111295?hl=en


Download Region or State for offline Map

It should work with Maps (+) (or its ad-financed free version Maps (-) Offline Navigation). This app was developed for exactly this purpose (even before Google Labs introduced the "pre-caching" feature). I never tried it myself, but the comments look promising as well.

Maps (+) (Source: Google Playstore; click image to enlarge)


How can I make my Google Calendar make sounds when event is about to begin?

You can add additional default notifications in the Google Calendar app.

Inside the app, open the Settings menu. Then tap on the calendar you want to add more notifications to. You'll see a screen like this (this is for my calendar named "Events").

If you tap on "Add another notification" there you can add as many notifications you'd like, up to one minute before the event starts.

This will result in changing the defaults for every new event you add - for existing events, you'll have to edit them individually to add more notifications.


I used samepage merging a long time ago until I just recently updated my device and back then it worked perfectly. There were no problems regarding speed, errors (no graphical artifacts, inaccuracies, bricks etc.) or safety.

Samepage merging merges two identical portions of data in RAM to the same memory pointer which then saves the extra amount of memory needed to store additional images, sprites, binary files etc. for instance.  It's correct that these features are being tested before they get released/activated in the default source code.

From the KVM site we read about KSM (kernel samepage merging):

  KSM is a memory-saving de-duplication feature, that merges anonymous (private) pages (not pagecache ones). Although it started this way, KSM is currently not suitable only for Virtual Machine use, but rather, it can be useful to any application which generates many instances of the same data


Is there a difference between the CyanogenMod 11S Rom (for OnePlus One) and regular CyanogenMod?

AndroidPit has an article that outlines the major differences.

http://www.androidpit.com/cyanogenmod-11-vs-cyanogenmod-11s-the-main-differences

Google Apps, no root
Extra Themes and Wallpapers
Display activation via tapping
Optional on-screen buttons
Screen calibration and adaptive lighting
Camera and Gallery App
Boot Animation
AudioFX instead of DPS Manager

Other than this, CyanogenMod 11S is natively tested on the OnePlus One and contains the best possible drivers for the phone. Essentially, it is optimised to run on the OnePlus One..


I am being restricted on some app downloads by content filtering

In the Playstore app, head over to settings> content filtering and tick all the boxes in it.This should turn off content filtering.

If youve forgotten the PIN, you can reset the Content Filter pin by clearing the app data for the Play Store. This will clear the pin and also remove the filter.

Go to Settings > Apps
Tap on "Google Play Store"
-Tap the "Clear Data" button.


Visible to only some people on Whatsapp?

Yes, you can choose the option to be visible only to your contacts.

Go to Settings --> Account --> Privacy --> Who can see my personal info and choose Last seen, Profile photo, status to My contacts. But configuring this, everyone who is not in your address list can know that you have a WhatsApp account, but they cannot see your last seen, profile photo, status.  You can also block unwanted contacts here. By blocking a particular contact, the other side will not see your last seen, profile photo, status and additionally you will not receive any messages / calls from blocked contact, messages will be shown as undelivered to them.

When you are in a group, provided you set the correct privacy options, the group members can only see your number and the name that you used while adding account on the device. There is no way to change this behavior.

Also, you cannot avoid unknown users adding you to a group. WhatsApp doesn't ask you whether you wanted to join a group or not. All you can do is to quit after joining and block the ones that joined you. Blocked contacts couldn't add you to a group.


insufficient storage error while updating installed apps

Why?

You said: System storage Available space: 22.47 MB And Facebook app size is around 13MB. So why doesn't it update? It's because NOT ALL of the system storage is available for your Apps. Some space is reserved by Android. So unfortunately, you can't install Apps in that space.

About the space in SD card,

a. Facebook App is phone memory only app (Annoying!)

b. Mostly, your apps will be first downloaded to phone memory and then you can move them to SD card. So even if the app is movable to SD card, you will need phone memory to first install it!

Solution:

Now the solutions. Try these steps:

1) Move all apps (that can be moved) to SD card. You can do it from Settings or use App2SD for the same.

2) Clear cache. Again I would suggest to use App2SD for the same. This should free up good amount of space.

3) Uninstall apps that you don't need anymore.

Another suggestion I have is to install a custom ROM that takes less space on your phone.


Internal SD card accessible through PC even after encryption

You can't prevent that. It is because your device is mounted to the computer via MTP. It's supposed to be visible. However, whenever you boot up, a password will be required to decrypt your device before any data can be accessed, so you need not worry. Also, MTP connections won't display any data if the device is locked. This is a security measure. In Lollipop, not even a factory reset can remove your lock.


Is there an interactive calendar widget that allows me to switch between agenda view and calendar view?

Agenda Widget Plus allows a user to do this easily.

As far as full scale calendar app replacements go, give the excellent Jorte Calendar a try - it too has loads of widgets and many customizable settings.


What is it about Android that allows an application to "hard-crash" a device?

Like on any OS, although the app code itself is isolated in its own process container, it's possible for the app to trigger problems in the OS itself or in the hardware. For example, if the crash you're seeing is caused by a hardware problem such as a damaged heatsink, then any heavy workload will make the hardware fail, and there's not much the OS can do to stop that. The least reliable part of most operating systems is the drivers, so if there's a bug in (say) the GPU driver, that could make the kernel hang regardless of which process caused the situation that triggered the bug.


Improve load time/animation on lock screen (Samsung S7, Android Oreo)

I had the same problem.
In Settings, Developer options, set Animator duration scale to off or 0.5x.
This should fix your problem.


This is just the way Samsung chose to implement it... The quick toggle panel on most stock Android or near-stock devices is accessible without unlocking the device, although anything other than a toggle, such as selecting a different WiFi network, requires unlocking.

You would need to flash a custom ROM in order to get the desired result due to Samsung's customizations being so non-standard.


SwiftKey gets removed as input method after every update

Seems to be a Google issue. There is a blog post on SwiftKey's support site.

Essentially:

  The issue is that Google Play installs paid apps in a particular location on your phone and that in some versions of Android (particularly 4.1 on Samsung devices) this location is not available at the point in the boot process where keyboards are being switched on. So your phone does not know that you have SwiftKey, and it defaults back to the phone’s keyboard.


With cdma phones the data and voice use the same radio. Its going to run all the time anyway because its constantly syncing data, towers, location... If you want to stop it without turning off voice you should turn off the apn. Doing this will not put your radio to sleep but it will reduce your power consumption.  Check into apndroid or quick settings, and tasker to set triggers and automation.


I have looked into this issue before, and as it stands at the moment, native android does not support exFAT or NTFS.

Support for additional formatting types are included in some ROMs because they have been specifically coded to do so such as AFAIK which I believe supports NTFS.

I think you are stuck with FAT32 unless you wish to root and flash a ROM that supports alternative formats.


Tasker - If at least one context is true

From what I can tell you can't create a profile that will trigger when 1 of 2 conditions are met. To achieve what you are looking for tasker would have you create 2 separate profiles that choose the same task to active when the condition is met. If this doesn't answer you question dead on please provide more details since the example seems to imply you have another question.


I suffered the same problem, and was locked out for full day. I used findmymobile.samsung.com to unlock. I dont think you need to be enrolled to use the faciltiy. Thank God my problem is resolved. Give it a try, ADM was clearly not working


How to transfer files from Linux to android using the command line. (Linux/Fedora26)?

On your phone:

Open Settings > About Phone
Click on Build Number 7 times
Go to Settings > Developer Options
Enable Developer Options and enable Debug mode on USB

On your computer:

Install ADB on your computer. You may refer to this guide, although it isn't for Fedora, the steps should be similar.
Use adb push/pull to copy to/from your phone. To transfer a file to your phone, use adb push filename.extnsion /sdcard/0/ and substitute the path to the sdcard accordingly for your device.


How to set mms subject with the official Google messaging app?

You need to long-press the MMS button on the bottom right. Only then will you be able to add the subject.


How can I integrate and manage SMS from many phones?


Samsung phone still bricked via FRP after factory reset

Be sure that the stock firmware is correct. It should be 1 or a few gigabyte(s) in size.

I've finally unrooted my phone. I used Updato's firmwares (which is the only one that has SM-J111F stock firmwares), specifically SM-J111F with product code XME and its PDA as J111FXXU0AQD2 (J111FXXU0AQD2_J111FOLB0APL2_J111FXXU0AQC2_HOME.tar.md5).


Copying files from PC to "external" SD card

If you're not insisting on a wireless transfer, using an USB cable would give you at least two options:

Using mtp
Using adb

With MTP, on connecting the device to your computer you should usually get the option to open it in some file explorer (does so on Windows and on Linux at least). For ADB, you could use adb push to push files to your SD card – or, for your convenience, use an ADB GUI (some are listed here at my site.

For the latter, once connected via USB cable you could make it switch to TCP mode if you need it wireless. Without root, this must be repeated after each boot – with root, there are ways to initiate it without a cable.

Details can be found e.g. via the corresponding tag-wikis: adb and mtp.

Disclosure: The first two links lead to my Android website.


sounds like (no pun intended!) you have notifications set to alert you.  Do the sounds coincide with email delivery, twitter alerts, Facebook alerts etc.  You can probably check notifications in Android Settings.  I don't know about Samsung but on my HTC running OREO the notifications are under Settings/Personalise.

If this doesn't help I suggest you edit your original post to include the Android version that you are running - see Settings/About/Software Information.


Does Android L Developer Preview fix the mm-qcamera-daemon problem?

Unfortunately I was still getting this issue (seems to come and go) under android L, so to answer your question, no, it's not fixed.

See https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=70755 for others who are reporting the issue still exists.


Most apps should give you control of their own notifications via their internal settings.  For your specific example, app update notifications are coming from the Play Store app, and can be toggled on or off from within the app itself via menu -> Settings -> Notifications.  Other built-in apps like Gmail or Talk, or 3rd-party apps like Yahoo! Mail or Facebook for example, have similar controls that allow you to adjust notifications with varying degree of control (e.g. frequency, etc.)

In Android 4.1 and above, Google introduced a way to completely disable notifications for certain apps that either don't have such settings at all, or don't offer enough control for your liking (or include aggressive advertisements via push-notifications like AirPush).  Long-pressing a notification and tapping the new App Info option will bring up properties of the app that spawned it, and from there you can completely turn them off.  This feature appears in most custom ROMs as well that are based on the Jelly Bean (Android OS version 4.1.x/4.2.x) code base (CyanogenMod 10 in your case.)


Sdk:

adb shell getprop ro.build.version.sdk

Complete list:

adb shell getprop

Through the package manager:

adb shell pm list features


Phone starts playing podcast for no apparent reason

I was having trouble with the original pre-installed "Music" app on my Droid X randomly playing music even though I never used the app.  I tried factory resets, updates, cache wipes, data clears, everything I could think of.  The only fix I found was to root the phone and use Titanium Backup to "Freeze" the Music app so that it no longer functioned.

It's possible that Music has latched on to one of your podcasts the same way that mine latched on to a song.

Note: this is not the new Google Music service and app that uses the cloud.  This was the original  Google Music app that came on the android phone.  Shame on Google for re-using the same name for two different apps, and both buggy.


How to connect a Galaxy Tab 4 to projector with VGA or HDMI?

I use Amazon Fire TV and the Amazon Fire Stick with my Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 and Galaxy S3. The Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter is supposed to work with Android devices as well. All of these options connect to an HDMI port.

The Fire Stick is by far the most cost effective route and is very easy to use. Here is how to use display mirroring on the Fire TV and Stick (from Amazon's website):

  To quickly start display mirroring, on your Amazon Fire TV remote
  press and hold the Home button and select Mirroring. Then connect your
  compatible device. Swipe down from the top of the screen to open Quick
  Settings, and then tap Settings. Tap Display & Sounds, and then tap
  Display Mirroring.


IMEI number is generally not affected by any rom customization and you can also get it in fastboot mode. One possible reason of the problem can be that you have not installed correct version of stock rom.

Motorola has different firmware for different country/market.e.g  Flashing Brazillian firmware on Indian device can cause problems.

So get the correct firmware and install it.


Android 2.2.3 - long delay after phone call end

This is usual Android disconnection response.

It's to do with your phone checking in with the closest Antenna when you end a call.

Perhaps this will help explain the speed a little:

http://images.cellphones.org/cell_phone_calls.jpg

p.s. I just hit end call then home or lock screen and put it in my pocket :-)


Yes, there is a way to control your phone using your laptop.
GO through this link and download Vysor to your laptop as well as phone.


You could give POP3 Refresh for Gmail app a try. It sounds like it does what you are looking for.


It sounds like the answer will turn out to be related to the power-saving settings on your server.  Specifically, the timeouts on the hard drives.

If it takes milliseconds it is probably because the drive is already spinning, and when it takes 6-8 seconds it is probably because the drive has powered down and needs to spin up before looking for the file.

Having more than one drive exacerbates this problem.  If a music file is playing for some time on one drive, another might spin down.  Picking another song from the first drive will play very soon, but picking something from the other drive will involve some time lag before the drive is ready.

But it can also happen on a single drive if the music file is first loaded into RAM before playing.  In that case, short songs will finish before the drive spins down, but longer ones might give it time enough to see no activity and think it isn't needed.

My recommendation is always to disable power-saving mode on hard drives.  They tend to last longer if they are not constantly being turned off and on all the time.


ADB on Ubuntu does not recognize Nexus 4

It's not enough to make the Developer options page appear in the settings menu (by repeatedly tapping the build number). On that page, there's an option USB debugging, which defaults to off.

When USB Debugging is enabled, connecting your device to a PC using USB makes the "USB debugging connected" notification appear, regardless of whether adb is currently running on the PC.


How to properly close a program in Samsung Galaxy S3?

What you see there is the list of Last Recent Used apps, they are suspended, but all or most program code is still cached in RAM, so it's fast to restart them. Don't worry about running out of RAM, if a new app needs it, this pages will be freed and used.


How to enter in TWRP/recover on Huawei P9 lite with keys?

The basic process of installing TWRP on every phone is to boot into TWRP itself first so TWRP could overwite the recovery partition and replace the stock Android recovery with TWRP itself.

Step 1:
Boot into bootloader / fastboot mode

Step 2:
Make sure that your device's boot loader is unlocked. If not, please follow this tutorial on forum.xda-developers.com by user Mandrigan. https://forum.xda-developers.com/huawei-p9lite/how-to/guide-unlock-bootloader-twrp-root-t3405701

Step 3:
Boot into fastboot mode again. Type in the command
fastboot flash xxxxx.img

Where xxxxx.img is your TWRP image file name.

Step 4:
Immediately boot into recovery (make sure you don't boot into Android!!!)

Step 5:
While in TWRP, Press "Mount" and tick on "System" box. Then go to "Advanced" --> "File Manager" find a folder with the name "system". Go into that folder and scroll down until you find a file with something like "recovery-from-boot.xxx". Press on the file name and press on "Rename" and add ".bak" at the end of the file name and it should look like this "recovery-from-boot.xxx.bak"

Step 6:
It is recommended to flash either SuperSU or Magisk so TWRP stays and it doesn't get overwritten by stock Android recovery.

Installation is done and you should have TWRP as your permanent recovery!!


Steps Necessary To Update A Custom Rom To Its latest Version?

Summing up from the comments:

This very much depends on...

the ROM used
the update format chosen for a specific update

Some ROMs (e.g. CyanogenMod) come with their own "updaters", where special rules might apply. Specifically, they might deliver "patch updates", where only some files will be replaced. In those cases, no further action is required (except for, maybe, a reboot).

Some other ROMs ship in specific formats, and might require special tools to be flashed (e.g. odin or heimdall for Samsung devices).

Again other ROMs are delivered using the update.zip principle, where a custom recovery is needed to install them. This update.zip may be a complete ROM, or also just a patch. Instructions usually are to be found where the updates are offered for download.

In all above cases, some "initial steps" required for the first ROM install can be skipped and must not be repeated, including...

rooting your device (custom ROMs usually come pre-rooted)
unlocking the bootloader (unless you've re-locked it)
installing a custom recovery (when it's already there, no re-install is required; though there might be updates to this as well, and a newer custom ROM might require a minimum version here as well. Again, instructions should say so)

It's always a good idea to perform a backup before installing updates (or tampering with system stuff in any other way). Points to check for include:

nandroid backup: a full "sector-wise" copy of all the important partitions. If things go wrong altogether, this enables you to revert to the exact state of when these backups were created
logical full-backup: this is performed by tools like titanium-backup, and usually includes all your apps and data. So if something is missing after the ROM update, you can substitute the necessary parts. (note that Titanium Backup also can do that with Nandroid-Backups)
adb backup: quite similar to the previous one (see the backup wiki for details and differences).

Note also that an ota-update is quite unlikely to happen with custom ROMs. Some even include an app named fota-kill to "silence" the related update check. They either bring their own updater, or none altogether. In the latter case, the user has to check himself whether and when updates are available; often a "reminder" can be setup by subscribing to the corresponding thread on XDA (or wherever the ROM comes from), but actions have to be taken manually (as described above).

As I've shown until here, videos on updating your ROM most likely do not exist as the process already has been described as part of the initial video; though a few words like "for updating, skip to index ab:cd" would be a good idea (and could be suggested in the comments).

A special case are the google-apps (short: GApps). Whether you have to re-install them or not mainly depends on whether it was a "full update" (complete ROM), or the update just replaced some files. But it's easy to figure: When finished, just check if they are there and working. If not, you obviously have to flash them again. As a full-update replaces the entire partition content, GApps would be gone with that; a "patch-update" would just replace/add some files, and not touch the GApps, so they'd still be there. GApps are never part of a custom ROM (if they are, the "ROM cook" is in trouble due to license issues).


It's a default feature in Firefox but in chrome you need to add it as an extension
see here


How to sync Picasa photos to Android 4.2.2?

With the big Google Plus push this past year, Google have been slowly moving to retire Picasa Web Albums entirely.  First, they made it so that all of your Picasa albums are available via Google+ Photos, then they've set Picasa 3 desktop application's sharing options to Google+ as the default, then they even started redirecting https://picasaweb.google.com/home address to Google+ Photo Albums, and Android Gallery Sync options are indeed gone in 4.2.2 version.  As of this writing, the latest gapps package includes the following change log:

  All apps updated to 4.2.2 versions

  Google Play Store updated to 3.10.14

  Google Play Services updated to 3.0.25

  Gmail2.apk (Gmail) and GoogleEars.apk (Sound Search for Google Play)
  removed since they are available in the Google Play Store
  --May require uninstalling and reinstalling Gmail and Sound Search after flashing.

  Keeps previous version's Photosphere/Picasa sync install on Mako,
  Manta, and Tuna.

The last line means that the Gallery, which is no longer a stand-alone app, and instead integrated with the Camera app, is an older version in order to preserve the Picasa Sync functionality, while keeping the newer Camera features such as Pohtosphere.  Unfortunately this is only available on very few devices such as Nexus 4 (code name "mako"), Nexus 10 (code name "manta"), and the Galaxy Nexus family (code name "tuna").  This is due to the Camera apps not being open source on either Google's Android core apps, or every other manufacturer's UI overlay.  It is therefore impossible to get the Picasa sync code working on other devices.

If you are willing to experiment a bit, there is an older version of an add-on to the main gapps package here which may help you get Picasa Sync back.  You should flash this gapps-jb-picasa-20121011-signed.zip file after flashing the latest gapps.zip package.  However, keep in mind that this add-on was designed for Android 4.1 (not 4.2.x)/CyanogenMod 10 (not 10.1,) and will therefore remove any newer Camera features.  It may also cause other unforeseen issues and instabilities, so make sure to take a NANDroid backup of your current ROM before flashing that file.


How to delete backups made using Clockworkmod?

Clockworkmod stores its backups in /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup (replace /sdcard with the path for your external card if you're looking for backups to external memory). With versions prior to 6.0, you can move off (or delete) the entire directory to clear space. The entire backup is self-contained.

If you're using a 6.0 or greater version of Clockworkmod, this is no longer the case. The information about the backup is still in /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup, but the actual data is now stored in /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs and is deduplicated between backups. The upside is that this should save some space between multiple backups. The downside is you can't just move off or delete a backup directory. With 6.0+, you now have to delete that folder, and then run the "free space" option. Initiating a new backup will automatically free space.


How do I logout of Hangout on Android 4.4?

https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/3118600?hl=en

this doesn't work? I haven't tried it, because I don't have hangouts on my phone.

EDIT 1

Sign out of Hangouts

TIP: If you don’t want to receive notifications, enable Snooze notifications.

Touch Menu  > Settings > Touch your Google account > scroll to the bottom and touch Sign out.


How to set SELinux enforcing, config file not found?

Yes, permissive SELinux could be one of the reasons of failed SafetyNET test (1). So you need to set it enforcing. However Android uses a modified version of libselinux, not dependent on /etc/selinux/config (2). On Android SELinux is configured when building ROM, and enforced by init when booting ROM. However if you have root, you can use setenforce command (located under /system/bin) or write directly to Kernel Configuration File (/sys/fs/selinux/enforce). But make sure you have a working SE policy before enforcing, or you may get stuck.


Cloning an application with its full data store between devices

Solution one: TitaniumBackup
Both devices must be rooted and use TitaniumBackup application. I have found that Titanium doesn't start on Emulator 2.1
Solution two: use adb backup options
Use adb backup and adb restore properly. This would mean to restrict the backup to the single app to be cloned, including its data, but nothing else. This is important as adb restore <file.ab> is an all-or-nothing, no selective restore possible. Full syntax for adb backup is:
adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|nosystem] [<packages...>]

So to only have our "Foobar" app included, we need to connect the device and:
adb backup -f MyBackup.ab -apk com.foobar.app

This done, and adb connected to the emulator, the generated backup file MyBackup.ab then can be restored using
adb restore MyBackup.ab


Data store by the gallery apps are thumbnails it generates to preview the pictures and videos. The Gallery app can be considered as a movie theater where you go to watch a movie (in your case, viewing picture and videos in your phone). If its goes bankrupt (in your case deleting its data), it won't stop you from going to another movie theater.
Furthermore, if you delete the Gallery app's data, next time you opens it, the thumbnails will be recreated. When you navigate inside inside the folder thumbnails, more thumbnails will be recreated to preview their content. That's what increases its size.


Can Android Auto app connect to car dashboard device running Android 4.4?

Based on this tweet from Android,

Get #AndroidAuto today w/ Pioneer products & an Android 5.0+ device; now available in US, UK & AU. More partners coming soon.

So you'll need three things,

Android Auto compatible head unit.
For example, the  Pioneer AVIC-8100NEX Navigation receiver head unit

An Android phone running Lollipop or higher versions.

Also, you need a compatible cable to connect the head unit to your Android smartphone.

You'll also need a compatible microUSB cable such as the Pioneer
CD-MU200 cable (or a similar microUSB-to-USB cable) to connect the
phone to the receiver.


Does Youtube app playback not work with wifi?

After some experimentation: the EVO on Sprint can playback YouTube over WiFi.  The problem is likely some domain being blocked by the hosting WiFi network which is necessary for the YouTube app.


Nexus 10 cannot sign into Google Accounts

I reconfigured the router to resolve the problem.  The settings that work include:

g rather than the other options being b and g/n.  This looks like the setting for the suffix on 802.11.
WPA-Personal
AES

Of course other settings may also work and might be more secure but I did not try them.


Android 6.0.1 Mysterious "Videos" Taking Up Space

HOW FILES ARE CATEGORIZED ON ANDROID?

Let's simplify things. You tap a text document, it opens with text editor. You click on a picture, it opens with image viewer. Whether to open a file with a document viewer, or a photo editor, or a media player, or something else, is determined by MIME type, or Media Type, or in simple words File Type.

The simple and easy way to determine file type is the file extension; we know a file ending with .mp4 is a video file. That's how Windows set preferred program to open a file. *NIX operating systems usually rely on file's magic to determine mime type. That's what file command does. Android's toybox file doesn't seem to have a large collection of magics, so the primary source to guess file types on Android is file extensions.

That said, the size of Videos that appear under Internal Storage usage details, is the total size of files which have mime type video/*, based on extensions vs file category mapping used by Settings app (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If you think the size shown is inaccurate, you can cross check yourself. Use some app or simply a terminal emulator like Termux to find all video files:

~$ find /sdcard/ -type f | grep -iE '\.wrf$|\.movie$|\.wvx$|\.wmx$|\.wm$|\.asx$|\.mng$|\.lsx$|\.lsf$|\.mxu$|\.qt$|\.vob$|\.mpe$|\.fli$|\.dv$|\.dif$|\.dl$|\.mpeg$|\.mpg$|\.mp4$|\.m4v$|\.mov$|\.3gp$|\.3gpp$|\.3g2$|\.3gpp2$|\.mkv$|\.webm$|\.ts$|\.avi$|\.wmv$|\.asf$'

* If using Termux, grant Storage permission to allow /sdcard access.

This will find every file on you storage which is considered video by OS, though one might not be a video in actual and just disguising itself with a video file extension.
To find out individual file sizes and total size, extend the command a bit:

~$ find /sdcard/ -type f | grep -iE '\.wrf$|\.movie$|\.wvx$|\.wmx$|\.wm$|\.asx$|\.mng$|\.lsx$|\.lsf$|\.mxu$|\.qt$|\.vob$|\.mpe$|\.fli$|\.dv$|\.dif$|\.dl$|\.mpeg$|\.mpg$|\.mp4$|\.m4v$|\.mov$|\.3gp$|\.3gpp$|\.3g2$|\.3gpp2$|\.mkv$|\.webm$|\.ts$|\.avi$|\.wmv$|\.asf$' | xargs -I {} du -b '{}' | sort -n | awk '{sum += $1} {print} END {print sum}'

* All commands are very basic, usually part of busybox distributions.

This will show the individual and total file size in bytes. Convert that to MBs or GBs, and that should match the size appearing in Settings. In the same way, you can calculate size of other file types like audio and images.

The same categorized files can be viewed in the left menu of Android's default Files app (at least on Pie). However there could be possible differences. For instance, a file with .mpe extension will reflect in videos size shown in Settings, but won't appear under videos of Files app or other gallery apps. It's because the file extension vs mime type mapping which media scanner uses doesn't include .mpe extension in video category. In addition to file extension, media scanner takes further steps to segregate files for default apps and preferred activities.

Another way to get total size of video files is dumpsys diskstats service which reads from file /data/system/diskstats_cache.json. DiskStatsLogService runs once every 24 hours when device is idle and charging, and the extensions vs file category mapping it relies on is similar to the one used by Settings. So the sizes should be same when diskstats_cache file is updated:

~$ dumpsys diskstats | grep Videos

RELATED: How disk space is used on Android device?


How to disable redirects from Google Search results to Android apps (different issue from 2014)?

It is suspected that this issue is related to Google's roll-out of the ability to install apps directly from search results.  The install links are supposed to be clearly marked, but that was not happening here.  At the moment, I believe this is fixed because Google results are showing separate Install links and I am not being redirected to any apps otherwise.

If it's still happening for you, there are a few half-solutions I've seen suggested:

Use a desktop view/user agent when searching Google (I.e., Menu → "Request desktop site" in Chrome)
Long press on the search result you want and open it in a new tab
Try a different browser and make sure you have the latest version.
Use a different search engine.


Different app language from system language

I don't think you can, unless it's a rooted phone. Apps will always be shown in the system language if a translation is available. English is used as a last resort. Not to mention this is a very poor security measure.

Root option: install Xposed, look for a module named App Locale.


"Hey Google" should work on MM devices.
You can install https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.googleassistant app if you're unable to set 'Hey Google' from main Google app.


Spell Check app or setting while using drop down keyboard

Most keyboards come with suggestions for common words, so a spell check function is rendered moot. Once a user types a couple of letters, the most common words containing those letters usually show up in a bar above the on screen keyboard.

Most keyboards like Smart Keyboard / Better keyboard also have options that allow for word suggestion to show up if a user opts for the hardware keyboard instead of the "soft" on-screen keyboard.


How can I fix small images on the Facebook website?

Which Chrome browser version you're using exactly?

So I just went around reading about the issue (of which I also experienced too), and realized it appears to be fixed already, at least for me.

To confirm again, I also quickly pulled my phone and tried viewing images on Facebook via Chrome, and they appeared nicely, not in small size.

Assuming the issue (which is likely a CSS issue) was reported some months ago, I am sure they'll be at it and tried to fix it.

My images appear alright though. Perhaps update to the latest Chrome on phone and it might solve it for you. I didn't even noticed it's been fixed until reading this question and going to explicitly try it out.

As a proof, see image attached. This is how images show on my Chrome when I visit Facebook for mobile, the m.facebook.com

FWIW, my Chrome version is 42.0.23311.bla-bla-bla. I'm on Android 5.1.1, custom build, using CyanogenMod for Xperia Z2


To answer your question, see this previous question for options on changing the country that the Market think your phone is in: How can I circumvent regional restrictions in the Android Market?

For the second part of your question about which country to change to, from the app's description:

  Currently for U.S. and Canada based phones only.

But from this description:

  The application dials to our service, which dials to the other party,
  showing your phone number as the caller ID.
  The service then records
  the call at the telephony level, and sends a very high-quality
  recording straight to your email box.

I think that even if you get it to install, it will only work properly if you are currently in the US or Canada, as it seems to work by redirecting your call through a landline call forwarding service, which either won't work in other countries, or will be using a hideously expensive international rate call for that purpose.


Phone app shows all contacts even when contacts app is set to show only gmail contacts

The sync might be on. And all of your contacts are synced with Gmail. Thus it's displaying them.


Nearby wifi networks causing notification

Uncheck or toggle notify when public network available (from settings> WiFi> advanced)- that may be the reason


How do I know 360 Security antivirus app really works?

First, That app is shit !
Second, It does nothing but clearing junk and cache of the apps on your device.
It will always prompt you with ads and unwanted bullshit.
There is no such thing as virus in your phone. If it were then it will make you almost impossible to operate your phone as the malware and torjans designed these days are pretty cool.

 Clearing app junk and cache is now a built-in feature in android.
The memory booster does nothing but killing all the running apps in the background. Friend! My advice is to un-install that app ASAP !! save some memory than having an useless app


You can try one of these steps to solve it.

Is the problem recently? Have you ever used the phone when this all worked? Maybe then you can try to reset your phone. By setting your phone to the factory settings maybe some kind of glitch will be solved.
If you've never used other applications on the internet before, and you are using the phone for some time now. Maybe you can try to contact the manufacturer of your device. They can maybe help you better. Because I think, in that case, there is probably something wrong with your phone.

PS: Are you sure you are correctly connected to the web? Maybe if you are using a cellular network, it can be very slow.. Also check this link.


Ok I answer myself:

after installing samsung drivers you need to find oem??.inf file that contains ssudserd.inf
comment out all references to wdf stuff version 1.7 and decomment the ones referring 1.9


How do I know if I am off the internet after using the phone to browse?

You can look at the signal bar, the signal bar would be grayscale when it's not connected to the internet, green if it's connected, and have arrows when actively transmitting data.

  How do I switch off the internet after use on the Samsung Spica?

The phone will only connect when it needs to, such as when you're browsing or when an app needs to check for update. Unless you're charged by connection time (I don't know any carrier that does that, most critters charge by amount of transmitted data), there's no need to disable them manually when you're not using it. If you need to disable Mobile Data though, you can do that in the Settings > Wireless & Network.


Google accounts (and apps not syncing) on RealMe 3 Pro (Android 10)

First use browser to log in to Gmail. If you are successfully log in to Gmail. Then it is confirm that problem with Gmail app.
Update Gmail apps.
Go to app setting / gmail / storage / clear data and clear cache.


It's not always possible to move an app to an external SD Card via the
  Application Manager.

There is a feature, called Flex Storage, that allows you to use an external SD Card as Internal storage. This can be done from Settings > Storage > SD Card, depending to your phone model. Remember that usually this operation formats your SD, so make sure to make a backup first.
By the way, this option is not supported from all devices.

Another way to achieve the result is using a third-party software like Link2SD that allows you to move the apllications to a special partition on your SD Card and use them as usual. Keep in mind that this operation requires Root Privileges on your phone.

There are plenty of guides on the internet about this procedure, by the way I suggest you to perform it only if you are sure, because an error while executing the procedure (especially when partitioning the SD) can lead to data loss.


How would I go about purposely disabling all microphones on an Android phone?

I can not see a purpose for this but ultimately the easiest method if you never want to use the microphone again is to just break the microphone with a small pin or something,
 you could disconnect them from the motherboard altogether and rebuild the device with no microphone...

I'm recommending hardware based solutions because it's ultimately the safest method of complete removal....

If you are familiar with the mobile phone security protocol "SS7" and you have read your mobile phone provider's terms and conditions then you'd be aware that you don't actually have the legal right to remove the ability for police or other law enforcement agency's  to have access to the microphone ( even while your device is switched OFF )  ... This is clearly stated on most or all mobile phone provider's term's and conditions ...

The main reasons you can't legally do it ( without an unexplainable hardware fault - I strongly discourage tampering with your device )

You don't actually BUY the device, you ONLY buy the RIGHT to USE the device from the company or copyright holder.
You AGREE to ALLOW police and law enforcement angecys to have access to your microphone even while your device is switched OFF

So now that's clear,

This solution is provided for Educational use only.


Google Contacts - only My contacts, not Others

On my phone (moto x) I had to go to the People app, touch the three dot icon, and touch "contacts to display" option. Then select the "back up assistant" option instead of any other option in order to only display those contacts that are stored on my phone.


google maps wrong navigation starting point

Fixed !

The problem was that i setup my account on other device (Nexus 7 - 2012 ) and this what makes the navigation problem. Removing it in the security settings fixed the bug..
Here is the link for removing your account on installed devices :

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6264236?hl=en


Is There A Keyboard Layout Creator for Android?

There is developer documentation found within the Android SDK that shows the basics of creating your own keyboard input method.

The actual sample of the touchscreen keyboard is part of the SDK sample, based off the documentation. Download the sample code, and look for the SoftKeyboard sources, there's a XML layout under the res/layout folder that represents the on-screen keyboard.

All that aside, let's look at the question objectively, using a custom layout that was developed on the Windows platform, may not be easy to "translate" to the Android version, as there is strings attached, you do need the pre-requisite knowledge of Android SDK, Java in order to achieve a custom layout, unfortunately.

As per @geffcheng's comment above the OP's question containing the linky that pointed to the appropriate thread on XDA, the blog entry highlighting how to come up with your own version, is more or less the same as the official developer documentation.

Other keyboard packages such as Swiftkey, Go Keyboard, SlideIT to name but a few, would have a feature to customize the layout appropriately using an add-on or third party to suit one's need, effectively tied to that keyboard. Using the SDK and documentation relating to the keyboard is the effective way to go about in rolling your own custom layout that is independent of Android version in use provided that the decision to support older versions is warranted.

If the decision to focus on Android v4.x upwards, the actual app is on the Google Play Store, the source code to the AOSP keyboard is available to download and play with from here.


Regaining root access after 4.4.3 update

You can flash SuperSU from recovery (CWM or TWRP) to reinstall the su binaries again. You should then either have SuperSU already installed, or you can install another SU app. Then install Apphider again, grant it root, and then unhide SuperSU if it's not already showing. I ran into something similar yesterday while applying the OTA to a rooted Nexus 5, and this fixed it.


Malware App Installed, Then uninstalled immediately- Next action steps

Android won't run anything from the app as soon as you install it. An app can only set alarms, register broadcast receivers, etc. after the first time you run it manually, for example by:

launching one of its activities from the launcher
clicking Open in the Play Store app
creating a home screen or lock screen widget provided by this app
starting it from another app (via a Share action or the like)

This isn't a complete list, but it should be pretty obvious what actions start the app. If you haven't started the app, it can't have run yet, unless the author is able to exploit a bug in Android that no one else knows about.

This is very different to the situation on desktop OSes. In Windows and most GNU/Linux package managers, installing an application consists of running code provided by the app author. In contrast, Android is designed to limit what apps can do. Android itself installs the package by reading its manifest, which tells Android the name of the package and what components it contains. Android unpacks the app's files to its own private directory in internal storage, without running any code provided by the app. If the app wants to do any further setup (such as performing an anti-piracy check, or getting you to sign into a server), it can only do this when you first run the app.


Can't boot into recovery mode after flashing TWRP on Samsung Galaxy S5

Preface
I have found the solution to my particular problem now, but if someone else knows more about this feel free to improve my answer or post your own.
Solution
Annoyed with what I thought to be heimdall's fault, I turned to odin (not in a religious way).
This, however, gave me the same error. Close to desperation, I decided to check everything that I did again, and luckily so: Because the guide was emphasizing that the TWRP version has to be the correct one for the model, with not even a little deviation, I checked and found that what I thought to be be a Galaxy S5 was actually named Galaxy S5 LTE-A. However, the model read "SM-G901F", which belongs to the Galaxy S5 Plus. So after downloading the correct TWRP and LOS versions, everything went fine.
I am not sure if this was the only problem or if there is still a problem with heimdall, since the linked reddit thread suggests so.
Conclusion
All this may be very well due to me not being patient enough to get the correct model before I start. In this case, I still hope that my error can serve someone else in their search, seeing as I linked a lot of resources (and maybe other people make the same mistake as me).


Unlocking bootloader to change rom or firmware

The answer is also easy: some don't need it.

Most if not all AT&T/Verizon/Amazon devices are bootloader locked, yet some are popular enough that devs worked ways around it. A common-sight solution is called Safestrap.

Safestrap for AT&T Galaxy S4
Safestrap for AT&T Galaxy Note 3
Safestrap for Motorola RAZR
Safestrap for Amazon Kindle Fire HDX (3rd gen.)

Do note that, with the lockdown measure becoming heavier over the years, there's no such solution I know of for recent devices. Even for older devices, Safestrap took a considerable long time to be developed/ported.


Android Studio Emulator is running but but never goes beyond "Android Logo"

I think your memory is not enough to load the emulator settings (screen density etc). You should try a lighter version.


Android sync with calendar works only one-way

I fixed by giving the mobile calendar the same name as its called on Google...


I try to reply myself based on the little I have found out from experience and comments to this question.

DO NOT TAKE THIS INFORMATION FOR GRANTED AND ALWAYS KEEP BACKUP IF YOU MANIPULATE THIS DIRECTORY.

This has not been thoroughly tested yet.

It can be useful to delete files in the /Android directory. You can save a lot of space.
The obb directory was small in my case and I did not delete it on phone resident memory. It contains APK expansion files. Among other data it may contain licenses for the apps.
Ad. But even if you delete obb directory and .obb files, it is still possible that licenses and necessary data will be downloaded again from Google Play, as long as the phone is signed in to the same account/email address. So you may lose nothing.
If you have asked Android to install apps on the external SD card and you delete /Android on the external card, the apps must be downloaded again.
If you delete /Android on resident phone memory (Sd0), apps will not have to be downloaded in complete again.
"Important" app data, like log-in passwords etc are not stored in /Android. (They are stored in /data/data.) So you will PROBABLY not lose this kind of information.
Data for apps can be stored in the /Android directories. But the data seems to be "less important" than passwords etc. When I wiped the /Android directories, I only seem to have lost few, easily replaceable data, see below.
If you delete the entire /Android directories or subdirectories, the system will recreate them.
If you plan to delete /Android on the external card, you can get an idea of the effects by testing the phone after unmounting/removing the external card (use the Android command under general>storage).
Before I wiped the /Android directory on Sd0, I backed it up (under another name) on the external card. I have now deleted the backup.

When I wiped /Android on both Sd0 and external card I regained 21 GB space. After restarting and using the phone for about less than a day I have only noted small changes: The recycle basket Dumpster was emptied. I had to download datafiles for two dictionaries again. I.e. only very small changes that were easily corrected.

After almost one day usage the /Android directories now occupy about 2G on my phone compared to 21G before wiping them.

If you try deleting /Android directory, it is definitely recommended to be on line so you can download missing components.

With my setup and usage, wiping the /Android directories seems like a good idea, to save space.

PLEASE NOTE! THIS INFORMATION IS ONLY BASED ON WHAT I FOUND BY TRYING ONCE! BE CAREFUL AND KEEP BACKUPS!


add yahoo mail to android phone having two step verification active?

Like most other 2FA implementations, Yahoo also supports "App Passwords" for apps and APIs which do not have a proper login system to authorize the 2-factor login.
These are static passwords which work as if there's no 2FA implemented at all. Be sure to never share such password with anybody as it bypasses the 2FA.

Yahoo has detailed steps to generate the App Passwords. So, follow the steps to get started:

Sign in and go to your Account security page.
Click Generate app password or Manage app passwords.
Select your app from the drop-down menu and click Generate.
Follow the instructions below the password.
Click Done.
Use this app password and your email address to sign in to your email app.

For more details, visit the Yahoo website - https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN15241.html


Individual Photo Backup : New Google Photos

I've been trying to do what you're asking for a while and I think I've found a way. Upload the pic to Google Drive and go into pic info. From there click 'send to' and select 'upload to photos'. The pic/pics you uploaded should be in the 'photos' section of Google Photos. After that you can delete it from Drive.
Hope this helps


What folders should I backup to my computer

Your SD card contains pretty much all the data you need.

In addition to app backup, you can also use SMS Backup+ to backup your texts to the SD card (and then to the home server).

Titanium Backup Pro version has an option to backup files to your Dropbox folder, so you can use that instead of rsync if you like.

Also, try to move as much data to the cloud as you can - including contacts, settings, photos etc - you get peace of mind knowing that most things are already backed up even if your phone gets damaged or stolen.


Charging via USB can happen at very different rates depending on what the "host" end is plugged into.  Generally the vendor-supplied wall charger is the "fastest" way, but perhaps something has gone bad with your supplied wall adapter.  You should be able to improve charging times by shutting off wifi, GPS, etc, and making sure the screen is off.

See these questions for more details on what to look for on your adapters:

Why is charging from computer using USB slower than using an outlet?
Galaxy Tab is not being charged through USB Cable


Ice Cream Sandwich for Samsung GT-S6102B?

Technically, ICS can be put in Samsung Galaxy Y Duos S6102B. Unfortunately, a ready-made ROM featuring ICS for the device isn't available yet.
So, unless you are a ROM cooker & developer, you can't do this.


Make Gmail default for new contact instead of AT&T Address Book

On phonebook settings, mark to show only Google contacts. Unselect SIM card, phone, and other stuff. Now, the default options will be Google.


You cleared Android's batterystats file by doing a factory reset, specifically the file /data/system/batterystats.bin was deleted and regenerated. This file holds a calibration for your battery. Before you did a factory reset, your batterystats was probably miscalibrated. It's a common practice, for rooted devices, to delete this file every now and then with a fully charged battery. This correctly recalibrates batterystats.


Will rooting my phone improve its battery life?

The only way rooting can gain you battery time is if you can uninstall an app that's using a lot of power, and which you can't uninstall without rooting (i.e. it's something that shipped with the device). I don't know what is on your device, but judging from what I've seen on my Droid 3, there's not likely to be any noticeable change in battery life. On the plus side, if you root the device, you'll have the option to get rid of any junk that was pre-installed and thereby not have to see all the update notices for stuff that you'll never use and which wants more and more permissions with every update.


Android - Check whether an app was sideloaded or installed via play store

[If] I originally installed an app from the play store but then side loaded an update would it say installed through the play store or via a third party

It would say sideloaded. You can check the status through the command (requires adb):

adb shell pm list packages -i PKG   # replace PKG with package name of the app

In output: in case of sideloading, the installer would show null value. If the app is updated/installed through Play Store, the value would be com.android.vending.

I tested this on Android 6.0.1 though.

  [Does] google play services usually update in the background due to being prompted to check when you are updating other apps or is it just a coincidence

Yes, it does so on its own. I have setup a toast to inform me which app is updated in the system, and I noticed that the Play Services often updates in the background when Play Store app is  active on the screen.

No third-party app can automatically force any other app in Play Store to get updated or be sideloaded automatically. It could be just a coincidence  that the both happened at the same time.


Yes, support for this is native in Android.

I have an Exchange account added to my phone (Settings > Accounts & Sync > Add account). Once I snyc'd email and calendar I was able to receive meeting requests through the Mail application, accept them, and then see them show up in my calendar with a different color. The way Google handles Exchange is really sweet.

Update:

So I played around a bit and here is what I found. From the gmail app on the phone you cannot accept appts. But, not sure how it works with iCal and such, I just sent myself a meeting notice from my Exchange Outlook calendar to my gmail account. I signed into Gmail from my computer, got the invite, I clicked yes I am attending, and it now shows on my calendar.

So from the gamil app it appears we cannot accept invites but from a computer we can. :(


Is it possible to change the text bubbles on the s3?

Go to the Messaging app and hit the settings button. You will see Bubble style and Background style.

When you select Bubble Style you will see options at the bottom of the screen that you can scroll through (the top option is the look for your outgoing messages, the bottom option is the look for received messages).

When you select Background style there are a few options to scroll through at the bottom of the screen as well.


OK, I found the answer myself. This is almost too weird to be true, but it has to do with another app that dims the screen slightly.


First you need to make sure you install and configure Hyper-V accurately.
1. How to install Hyper-V?
2. How to configure Hyper-V?

After checking that you need to follow these steps.
3.I also encountered this issue here what i did on 1366 x 768 display.  This made it hard to use Hyper-V virtual machines, Hyper-V default is 1024 x 768 and its only allow you to configure 4 x 3 resolutions.

Luckily, it is actually possible to setup a Hyper-V virtual machine with a widescreen resolution.  Though the process is not that intuitive.  What you need to do is:

Right click on the desktop of the virtual machine and select Screen Resolution
Select Advanced Settings
Click List All Modes
Choose the screen resolution that you want and click OK.
You can also use this method to set the virtual machine resolution to 800 x 600 or 640 x 480 – which is usually not allowed on recent versions of Windows.


What is the typical Android OS Upgrade policy?

There isn't a specific Android OS Upgrade Policy. If it's a Nexus device and it can handle the latest version of Android it will get the latest version of Android from Google. Other than that it is up to manufacturers to update drivers and their specific customized version of Android for their own devices and then it is up to the carriers to approve those updates and release them to users' phones.

Apple has only one phone basically and they release updates on what seems to be a yearly basis and update is done via their own service, not restricted by carriers.


How to uninstall preinstalled apps on Gingerbread?

If Crayon Physics was a pre-installed bloatware application then you must root to delete it. Ice Cream Sandwich lets you "freeze" the app though that may not be what you are looking for.

If you side-loaded the application then I have seen times when an application won't show under the Market application because it doesn't have a signature the Market recognizes; that is, you didn't get it from the Market.

If you installed the application go to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications. Under the 'Downloaded' tab you should be able to find it. Again, if it was pre-installed then you didn't 'download' it so it won't show up here but you should see it here even if you side-loaded it.

Good luck (:


Install TWRP and Magisk Manager on Moto G5 Plus without rooting

Answer: it is not possible without unlocking boot loader.
Thank you to @alecxs !

Also for anyone interested, rooting has some side effects: cannot load the Netflix app due to safety net checks. Even with the magisk mod for hiding safety net flags.
And ultimately, ARCore still doesn't work, even after I flagged the Pixel 2 "image", and installed Google play services for AR.


How to install CyanogenMod 12 or above on Galaxy S2

First priority: get it updated to official Jelly Bean (4.1.x). Since you're rooted, you can't get it by checking for updates on the phone, so just do it via Odin. You need a PC with appropriate drivers installed, of course. Follow this guide, but get the official firmware for your region from SamMobile instead. Let the official ROM boot once before you proceed.

Keep a copy of the CM ROM you're about to flash either in internal storage or in a microSD card inserted in the device. The latter is preferred.

After that you're clear to read CM's official installation guide here, but instead of using Heimdall, keep using Odin which you used in the last step. Replace official firmware with this in the PDA/AP slot, leave other slots empty and start flashing. As the flashing comes to its end, quickly hold VOLUME +, HOME and POWER to boot right into recovery mode.

From there, use VOLUME keys for navigating in menu and HOME/POWER for confirmation. Choose wipe data / factory reset then choose install zip and select the location where you've put the ROM at. Select the ROM to start flashing. When done, do not immediately reboot, but instead install IsoRec TWRP recovery by following this guide, or else you'll have no usable recovery after boot. Reboot system now after that.

I know it's quite a mouthful for you to handle right now - do it step by step, report each error and choke points, and in case anything goes wrong, the first step (Odin + official firmware) should always reset things back to beginning.

To other members: although I had much experience flashing Samsung phones and Android devices in general, I don't own this particular device, so feel free to edit and correct faults if you have sufficient backing.


Strange applications are being installed sometimes

backup important data
do factory reset

if your device is rooted or the factory reset didn't work:

search for a complete factory image for this specific device model (also known as ROM)
flash it. (or if scared, find someone who is willing to do it)

Anything else would be a half measure, but if you really want to avoid resetting:

check if the attached Google account is compromised, because it's possible to install apps remotely via Google play.
Another possibility is some applications which got "device administrator" permission, so you can first find "device administrators" in settings and make sure that there are no device administrators.


Samsung probably felt the "non-need" of this feature, hence removing it.

You could either use apps from the play store such as "Schemes" which allows you to schedule messaging, or contact Samsung support via email requesting the re-addition of the feature (I'd go with the former because, one mail mostly doesn't make a difference against a huge OEM).


How to add 5 week shift schedule to calendar?

As far as I can tell, this is not possible within Android's calendar apps. It is possible, however, in Google Calendar's web app. If you are syncing with a Google account, you can go to Google Calendar and set up events to repeat every 5 weeks. You would have to set up each segment separately, but you could then set that segment to repeat every five weeks.

For example:

Go to Google Calendar
Add an event for one day of work (say, a single night shift)
Edit event...
Check box for "Repeat..."
In the popup that appears, set to repeat every 5 weeks, and select the days that week that have the same schedule (e.g., Mon, Tues, Wed).
Repeat for each segment in your schedule.

If you use the same Google account to sync your calendar to your phone, the schedule should appear shortly.


How do I download app's APK file from Market to my desktop computer?

As far as I know, it is against terms and conditions to do so.  But if you would still like to do so, a work around is to use an emulator and connect to market.  This site explains how it can be done.

Once such emulator is working you can use applications like app extractor to extract the APK to emulator's file system (sd card). Then you can use adb pull command to take it out.


How to force Samsung Galaxy Tab to shutdown?

For Tab S and Tab A
and Tab gt-5100
Should work with 8.4 or 10.5
Hold the Power button, Volume Down button, and Menu key for 10 seconds.
You will enter download mode, simply press the volume down button to restart tablet.
After reboot, you tablet should perform as normal


This time the correct approach, hopefully:

XDA mentions the stats being located in /data/system/netstats/* (the statistic data you are looking for) and /data/system/netpolicy.xml (configuration of the applications that have restricted reference data).


OTA Update on a rooted Nexus5 with Custom Recovery and Kernel

I think your best bet is to unroot your device and restore it to stock. This means stock ROM, recovery and kernel, and you will be unrooted. This is often referred to as "flashing a factory image", sometimes incorrectly. But that's what we're going to do!

Note:  This process will wipe your phone completely. Backup your storage before you continue.
I am also not responsible if anything goes wrong. Ensure you verify this is the correct device and code name (hammerhead) before you proceed.

From this excellent XDA thread:
For this process, you will need to:
Install adb and fastboot drivers. To do this, use this simple program

For MAC users
*Note: MAC users will have to write ./ before every command in this thread. For example : ./fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

Linux users should know their stuff

Download the latest factory images from here

Extract the archive you downloaded (Use WinRAR). It should look like this:

Unlock your bootloader (In case you haven't already) Link here
Flashing the factory images

Power off your phone.

Boot it in fastboot by pressing and holding Power Button + Volume Down at the same time.

Connect your phone to your PC through your USB cable.

Execute the flash-all.bat script (for Windows) or flash-all.sh(for MAC and LINUX) in the folder where you extracted the factory images.
!! For MAC: You'll have to edit the flash-all.sh, and add "./" before every fastboot command.

Wait for everything to flash.

After everything finished, select "Recovery" using the volume buttons.

When a small dead Android appears, press Power Button + Volume UP.

Select "Wipe data/factory data reset"

Reboot. Your phone should be stock.

Note: The XDA Thread has further detail on re-locking the device and resetting the tamper flag should you need to claim warranty. It's a bit outside the scope of this answer, but it might be of use!
Note 2:  Some Nexus devices will show as having 16 Gb after this on the 32 Gb model. The below is a fix via cmd:
fastboot erase boot
fastboot erase cache
fastboot erase recovery
fastboot erase system
fastboot erase userdata

fastboot flash bootloader C:/image-hammerhead-krt16m/bootloader.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash radio C:/image-hammerhead-krt16m/radio.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash system C:/image-hammerhead-krt16m/system.img
fastboot flash userdata C:/image-hammerhead-krt16m/userdata.img
(Note: this command will wipe your device (including /sdcard), EVEN if your bootloader is already unlocked.)

fastboot flash boot C:/image-hammerhead-krt16m/boot.img
fastboot flash recovery C:/image-hammerhead-krt16m/recovery.img


ADB/fastboot stopped working in recovery mode

It turned out that the communication problem on the USB bus came from a "loose" connection of in the micro USB. I succeeded to reset a factory image just leaving the phone and the connector in a particular position to keep the contact.


Have you enabled Searchify as a 'Searchable Item' under the global search settings?


Open current video in YouTube app from Firefox

This may be a solution. You can make the video open in the YouTube app when you press the little Android icon in the right corner of the address bar while you're on the site!


My HTC EVO 3D is unresponsive after charging

I have minimized the impact of this problem by disabling the [Stay Awake] setting (Settings | Applications | Development).

This setting had been enabled and once I had turned it back off the screen display became responsive sooner after unplugging. Apparently this setting on the HTC-Evo 3D is problematic.


Why is my phone's brightness reset to full brightness?

I'm going to assume that, as suggested in the comments, brightness is (for some reason) one of the settings that gets wiped when the SIM is swapped.


With this permission an app can...

read your IMEI/IMSI (to identify your device/SIM), #2 in your list
read your phone number (from the SIM)
which provider is used (again, the SIM)
see whether a call is active (#3) and if so, phone number of the remote party (#4)

Your #1 is simply an introductionary phrasing. With Android 1.6 and before, this permission was required to detect whether there was a call being processed (so a game or media player could pause). This is no longr the case since 2.0 (basically even not with 1.6, but due to a bug this permission was still automatically "injected" by the SDK).

In newer versions, it is mostly used to...

identify your device for target-ads (so the ad provider could tell whether a certain ad was already shown to you)
rightfully by call-blockers and similar apps which need to determine the remote phone number
for several statistics and other technical apps (again, rightfully)

And well, in a way it gives someone the possibility to spy. Some malware uses it (in connection with other permissions) to create a profile of you.

I'd say in most cases the dev is not interested in this, but it's rather the ad module requiring this permission. Concerning this, please also see: What information does stock Android send to Google by default, and how do I opt-out? -- which also covers the ad-modules stuff.


For those that came here, the problem is that when booting, twrp is erased by stock recovery. The goal is to avoid the normal boot.
Firstly, uncheck "Auto Reboot" in Odin.
Then finish others Odin steps, and when you see PASS here we go:

Volume down+Home+Power to exit installation/start reboot process.
Instantly when something change (screen should turn black) switch to Volume UP+Home+Power (combinason to enter recovery mode), and there it should be okay.
(if you are too slow it will again boot normaly and twrp will be gone again).


How to figure out which app changes pulse notification light in system settings?

You should check which is the first notification after your notification light is turned on automatically. Most probably that app is the one that is overwriting your permission, and as per my observation most of the apps that can access notification light have an built in option in their settings to disable led notification. You should try disabling it from there.


How to type a pipe "|" on an HTC EVO Android 2.2?

If you're using stock keyboard, then go to the symbols (?123, bottom left), then press Alt (ALT, vertically second from bottom left), the pipe character is third from top-left.

If on HTC IME, then go to symbols (12#, horizontally second from bottom right), go to the second page (1/2, horizontally second from bottom left), the pipe character is the fifth character in the third row, and the broken pipe character is the sixth character in the second row.


Exchange Calendar Sync can't edit turns reminders on

This problem was resolved by upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich


Difference between ways of rooting device

In my understanding, the end result is the same in both cases, it's just the rooting methods that differ. Some devices have vulnerabilities that can be exploited in order to push the su binary to the device via adb (example), but these do not exist in all devices. This is why flashing is required sometimes.

TL;DR: It depends on your device.


Updating HTC Sensation to Ice Cream Sandwich is stuck in a boot loop

I found the answer quicker than I thought I would, it turns out I was using the wrong firmware version. You need to check the ROM that the firmware is for, and apply it after the ROM is installed.

So my ROM is Sensation_3.32.401.5_deodexed

Which meant I should've chosen (from here):

  Firmware from 3.32.401.x & 3.32.401.10x RUU
  --- MD5 checksum: 74A8E07D40A42DA1B4B56C224C42E692 *PG58IMG.zip ---
  --- Only for 3.32.401.x & 3.32.401.10x based ROMs


One-Click-Root Failed On Samsung J7 SM-J700H

One click root methods seem not to work on Samsung devices running Android Lollipop and above. They use an exploit that is already patched by either Samsung or Google.

So, the best method still the  Chainfire's CF-Autoroot. I root mobile devices daily and this method seems to work on every Samsung devices. The method consists of flashing a modified recovery by entering the device in Download mode, no ADB here but OEM unlock should be required.

Download this file
Download Odin flasher
Open Odin, click on AP/PDA and select the file you have downloaded.
Boot the phone in download mode (volume down + power button the volume up to confirm)
Click on Start and wait.

The developer has rooting files for  almost all Samsung devices from his site.


As said in this XDA post,

  Clearly the Note 5 supports USB audio, but it appears to not work properly.

So you can be sure it is, but also you should be aware of potential incompatibilities with your USB audio peripherals.


How can I make my Droid2 push Facebook-originated contacts to Google?

So far, my only work-around is to recognize a new Facebook contact, navigate away from it, manually create a new completely empty contact by the same name, link the two, then begin duplicating the data. This is cumbersome and should not be necessary.


As you write you know Unix scripting, you might want to take a look at apps like SH Script Runner, Script Manager, Script Kitty, and similar. They all allow you to run shell scripts on your Android device.

Also, you could utilize Tasker: create a task to run a script, and then create a shortcut to that task on your homescreen. So you have easy access to your scripts directly from there.


I have also encrypted the /data partition (on my Samsung I9300) and wanted to reset it for an upgrade. This failed with the error you mentioned, /tmp/recovery.log contains:

ClockworkMod Recovery v6.0.3.2
recovery filesystem table
=========================
  0 /tmp ramdisk (null) (null) 0
  1 /efs ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 (null) 0
  2 /boot emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 (null) 0
  3 /recovery emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p6 (null) 0
  4 /cache ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p8 (null) 0
  5 /system ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p9 (null) 0
  6 /data ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 (null) -16384
  7 /preload ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p10 (null) 0
  8 /modem emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 (null) 0
  9 /sdcard datamedia /dev/null (null) 0
  10 /external_sd ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 (null) 0
<snip>
-- Wiping data...
Formatting /data...
I:Formatting unknown device.
W:failed to mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 (Invalid argument)
Error mounting /data!
Skipping format...

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsibility for anything that goes wrong, including (but not limited to) user error.

If you wish to wipe the /data partition completely (including media like photos), follow the below instructions:

Boot into recovery.
Run adb shell in a terminal (Linux) or Command Prompt ("CMD", Windows). After a few seconds, you should see a line containing ~ #.
WARNING. Triple-check the command that you are entering here. White space and capitalization are important. Make any mistake here and you may accidentally wipe your whole flash memory including recovery images.
NOTE: if you want to encrypt your partition later, you have to leave 16KiB unallocated space on the end of the partition.
In the adb shell, run the command mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12. Substitute /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 and ext4 according to the recovery filesystem table (for /data). Output when running the command:

~ # mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12
mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
755904 inodes, 3022848 blocks
151142 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=3095396352
93 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8128 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 34 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

(Optional) Install new firmware (E.g. CM 10.1).
Reboot.
(Optional) In order to encrypt the partition while clearing your whole data partition, run vdc cryptfs enablecrypto wipe PIN_OR_PASSWORD (before Android 5.0) or vdc cryptfs enablecrypto wipe password PASSWORD_IN_HEX (since Android 5.0, see this post for details).
Reconfigure device, choose language, enter name, install apps, etc.

Technical details below.

The factory reset menu item activates erase_volume("/data") in recovery.c which calls format_volume("/data").

format_volume is defined in roots.c:

int format_volume(const char* volume) {
    // <snip>
    // check to see if /data is being formatted, and if it is /data/media
    // Note: the /sdcard check is redundant probably, just being safe
    if (strstr(volume, "/data") == volume && is_data_media() && !handle_data_media) {
        return format_unknown_device(NULL, volume, NULL);
    }

Since the volume name indeed starts with /data, and the recovery filesystem table contains an entry for type datamedia and handle_data_media is initially zero, format format_unknown_device is called. That function is defined in extendedcommands.c as follows:

int format_unknown_device(const char *device, const char* path, const char *fs_type)
{
    LOGI("Formatting unknown device.\n");

    if (fs_type != NULL && get_flash_type(fs_type) != UNSUPPORTED)
        return erase_raw_partition(fs_type, device);

    // if this is SDEXT:, don't worry about it if it does not exist.
    if (0 == strcmp(path, "/sd-ext"))
    {
        // <snip>
    }

    if (NULL != fs_type) {
        // <snip>
    }

    if (0 != ensure_path_mounted(path))
    {
        ui_print("Error mounting %s!\n", path);
        ui_print("Skipping format...\n");
        return 0;
    }

fs_type is NULL and the path is /data. That means that the code path ends up at ensure_path_mounted(path) which is the place where this function fails. Looking at the name, ensure_path_mounted attempts to mount the partition by name which of course fails since the encrypted partition is not supported in CWM. Therefore, CWM refuses to "format" the partition (actually, all it does is erasing all files except for /data/media after mounting).

Therefore the goal is to format /data with ext4 (see recovery filesystem table) or mount the encrypted data partition somehow. I could not easily find the tools for mounting encrypted partitions, so I decided to go the easy way and just format the partition.


Can I remotely unlock my phone after I've remotely locked it?

Just tested this. Locked my phone via desktop. From what I can tell, you can not remotely unlock. Not via device manage anyway. Not sure if there is another way, but I guess that would defeat the purpose.