Strange status bar icon on Samsung devices after using Developer Options

The icon appears to be for when the device is locked to "Portrait" mode. Or in simpler terms, when screen rotation is turned off.
It is most likely inbuilt into the phone and was there before. In case it wasn't, you can disable it from the SystemUI tuner.
Simply tap and hold on the gear (settings) icon which you see when the notifications bar is pulled down. That will enable the SystemUI tuner. In there, select status bar and disable the icon for Auto-rotate screen.


Is it possible to change Android ID without root access nor factory reset?

AFAIK you cannot change Android ID without root or without performing a factory reset.
For my own and future visitors' reference, I'll explain what you asked in the comment:

Would a factory reset also lead to a different app-specific ID?

Android documentation is not very clear about this:

"The value may change if a factory reset is performed on the device or if an APK signing key changes."

As I explained in my answer to Where is the "android_id" stored and when does it change?, since Android 8 every app gets a unique Android ID which is saved in file:
/data/system/users/<User_ID>/settings_ssaid.xml

Since the file is not accessible without root, it's not possible to change the ID for a specific app.
Android 11 source code shows that the app-specific Android ID is generated based on two parameters: a random ID generated on first use to identify a user ID (in multi-users or work profiles), and the app's signing key.
Since the user ID is randomized after a factory reset, the app-specific Android ID should also change.
Without root and factory reset the only thing we can change is the package's signing keys, which may not always be very feasible and requires some good hacking skills.
With root access you can edit the file mentioned above. It contains the user ID as well as the app-specific Android IDs. Simply changing the Android ID will do the trick.
But if you reinstall or update the app the original Android ID (created by Android OS) will come back (since the randomly generated user ID and the package's signing key isn't changed). So you need to edit the file again. Or you can remove the user ID as well from the file (the line with name="userkey") which makes the changes permanent.
After making changes to the file, a reboot might be required if Android framework is caching the values somewhere.


Re-enable Disabled App (Enable option greyed out)

Navigate to Settings > Application Manager > All  Then select Reset App Preferences from the menu. Try if this works, it worked for me for some other apps.


To root the Lava Iris Fuel, you must disconnect your device from the Internet and then use Kingroot. You can download Kingroot and find more detailed instructions on the official Kingroot XDA thread.


SD card won't format on my Samsung Galaxy S3

If your device talks about "low memory", it is not evaluating the sd card -- but rather means internal memory. So it doesn't help to buy a bigger sd card: what you have to do is to free up internal storage.

This is an issue coming up here frequently -- so for details please look at the solutions already present:

Low disk storage Space
More internal memory or less memory + SD card
My internal storage capacity is running low, what can I do?
Message Memory Full, Incoming message rejected

There are many more -- just follow the internal-storage tag and watch out...


You're interested in the Youtube AdAway Xposed Module. It requires root access and the Xposed Framework.

It completely removes the following:

YouTube ads
channel logos
video suggestions
information card teasers

To the best of my knowledge, what you've requested (auto skipping advertisements in the stock Youtube application) cannot be done without root access. Root access is required to 1) draw over other apps and 2) record/replay touches.

See:

Bot Maker for Android
RepiTouch Free
HiroMacro Auto-Touch Macro


The phone came with Google Talk, then Google forced the update to Google Hangouts.

You need to remove all Hangouts updates in Google Play, then reboot and Hangouts will disappear from the application list and Talk be back. Talk can then be disabled in Settings -> Apps -> All.


Do I need to factory reset to root galaxy note 4 SM-N910V?

Samsung devices usually have no locked bootloader so you won't remove that. Official updates do however remove any trace of a working root.Your device is nowhere near a developer device but more a custom device served with a custom firmware of Verizon noticeable on the V in your model no.

Because of that custom Verizon model it is possible that the bootlader may be locked as you can see in the log where it says <ID:0/003> FAIL! (Auth).
This means you are not authenticated to flash anything on your device which leads me to the assumption that your bootloader is Verizon-specific and therefore locked.


Can I get a shortcut on home screen to open gmail with a specific search string?

Not for the GMail app (on non root). If you are willing to use online, you may be able to use some sort of widget that links to the search query (just search it up and copy & paste).


Unfortunately A2DP supports only stereo audio, it doesn't support two-way audio, i.e. your mic woud be useless if the calls were routed over A2DP. You'll have to enable HSP for call functionality.


Virgin mobile is a proprietary prepaid Samsung Touchwiz Android repack - So that portion of the rom is not configurable.

What I would do is reflash the phone to North American Unlocked S7.

here's an XDA link with instructions.
it might be a bit of a pain but it will solve your problem utterly, and debloat your phone as well... making it a better phone quite frankly...

https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s7/help/sm-g930p-to-sm-g930u-t3813580


Why does my Android device create a CD-ROM device on my computer?

Some network-branded devices use a virtual cd-rom device to supply their own tethering software. If your phone's tethering isn't restricted and the device created is empty, I'd say it's safe to ignore it.


Samsung Galaxy Ace locks automatically when clock application is selected

I had the same problem, and solved it by simply re-setting the "Screen timeout" option in display settings. It seems some app messed it up.


How to install XAPK packages on Android 4.4 (API 19)?

An XAPK package is basically ZIP files containing the different split APK files. Before trying to make an app work on your device I strongly recommend to you to extract the base APK files from the XAPK package and check the minSdkVersion in it's AndroidManifest.xml. You can do so easily by opening the main APK file e.g. in Jadx or any other tool that can decode and display the AndroidManifest.xml.
If this entry is 19 or lower there may be a chance to install the app on your device.
If I remember correctly the possibility to install multiple APK files as one app was introduced with Android 5, therefore the XAPK installer is limited to Android 5+. Also installing multiple APK files as one app via adb will not work. The only option I can see is building an universal APK from those multiple APK files inside the XAPK package. See section Re-Building an universal APK from my answer Creating universal APK form multiple APKs without having *.aab:

On the Internet you can find a tool named "SAP (Split APKs Packer)"
which seems to allow to combine multiple split APK files into one
universal APK file (if you have all the necessary split APK files)
This "SAP" tool is available for Linux and Windows, however it is
closed source and contains a lot of binaries. I am not sure if it is
really trustworthy - I would not recommend to execute it outside of a
protected environment (e.g. a virtual machine).
The following blog post describes the SAP tool and provides download
links.


If fastboot from your computer can't find it, try following these steps exactly, beginning with installing the Requirements below. The most likely problem is some sort of driver missing, disallowing the computer from reading the phone in while it's in the bootloader.

This guide can be found on addictivetips.com, and uses a fastboot program from your computer to unlock the bootloader:

Requirements:

Fastboot package.
Sony Ericsson USB drivers (32bit & 64bit).
A functioning internet connection.

Steps:

To begin, navigate to this website: http://unlockbootloader.sonyericsson.com/instructions.
Click Continue at the bottom of the page and enter your device’s IMEI code, name and email address in the relevant fields.
Your unique unlock key will now be mailed to you.
Now unzip fastboot.rar and open the folder extracted.
Within that folder, hold the Shift key and press the right Mouse button. Now select Open command window here.
Now we need to connect the phone to the pc in fastboot mode. Do so by turning the phone off, holding the menu button (search button for the Xperia Play) and plugging in the USB Cable.
Now in the command prompt, enter the following command:

fastboot.exe -i 0x0fce getvar version

Now enter the command, replacing KEY in the string with the unlock key mailed to you:

fastboot.exe -i 0x0fce oem unlock 0xKEY

That is it! The bootloader is now unlocked.


I just solved the problem by installing a ROM (in this case, CM13), and the problem is gone.

I still need to wipe and do a Factory Reset, because it came from another ROM.

After wiping, the ROM should install, and you could now get to the Operating System.


Reboot device without ask for the PIN again

There are a couple of ways to temporarily disable the PIN. One that I use is an app called Unlock with WiFi. Basically, as long as my device is on my home wi-fi network, the PIN to unlock is disabled. As soon as I leave home with it, thus disconnecting from my wi-fi, the PIN lock is re-enabled.

(The free version only lets you connect to one home network.)


Google Play Services can be Disabled (Turned Off), and it is possible you did so. To find out if this is the case, and to re-enable, use Settings>Application Manager, and find the List of Apps either 'All', or sometimes it is split into 'Disabled' (Turned Off). The 'All' or 'Disabled' lists are to the far right panel of this tabbed interface - scroll far right. If not in a Disabled list, the disabled apps are at the bottom of the 'All' list. Find it alphabetically to re-enable (Turn On).


Install the Google USB Driver while in phone is booted to bootloader.

Those are in your SDK folder location - extras - google - usb_driver.

When my N6 is booted to bootloader, Windows 10 shows me the following:


Can I re-install a purchased app from Google's Play Store?

You can uninstall it and the market will remember that you bought it.  It'll say "purchased" in the market and you can reinstall any time. Every time I reflash a ROM I go into my downloads section of the market and I see all my purchased apps.


How can I upgrade to the latest Android version?

If your phone is eligible for an operating system upgrade, you'll see a System Update message pop up in your notification bar (along the top of the screen).  You will only see this, though, when Google, your phone manufacturer and/or your cellphone provider have customized the operating system for your device.


Document file names automatically change during Share

Mine does the same when I share a file from the location in which it resides (like a pdf in "files"). But when I share it through WhatsApp (click on the attachment button in the chat) then it shows the correct name. Hope it helps for you too.


Unable to enable Mobile Network settings (options greyed out). Is there any way to restore lost mobile connectivity data?

Problem solved, and I think I'm finally getting a handle on all of this after several hours of some serious digging through the interwebz, and a bit of trial and error.  So here is what I ended up doing, step by step:

Locate a stock ROM as suggested by Matthew Read and user12295.

This was possibly the hardest part as there were so many dead links out there, and I ended up using a link I found to the Shipped Roms website.

I elected to download the file labelled RUU_Ace_Gingerbread_S_HTC_WWE_2.50.405.2_Radio_12.54.60.25_26.09.04.11_M2_release_199042_signed.exe.
Fully charged the battery on the phone.
Located the original HTC cable in a fit of paranoia and connect my phone to my laptop using a USB2.0 port.

For some weird reason the USB3.0 on my particular laptop wouldn't let me connect the phone during the flashing process the first time I tried to do this.

Ran the RUU utility that I had downloaded, crossed my fingers, and waited for the phone to be wiped and flashed after navigating the various screens of the RUU.
Saw my phone go through a reboot at the end of the process... and all connectivity was working with full networking/identity data restored.

So it turns out that the IMEI number is flashed to a different bit of the phone's internal memory, and the stock flash somehow picks this up.

So All systems go, but I miss many of the features of the phone, including the better battery life that I had under a better ROM and because a couple of my own experimental apps will no longer work.  All of a sudden I wish I'd downloaded the 1.72 version of the RUU as it seems I need to go through a downgrade process in order to root the phone and get a custom ROM reinstalled.

After a bit more Interwebz digging, I came across an application called Ultimate Multi Tool, and I worked through the following procedure:

Connected phone to laptop (as per earlier process)
Set phone to charge only
On the phone, enabled Settings -> Applications -> Unknown Sources
On the phone, enabled Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB Debugging
Ran the Ultimate Multi Tool
Operations -> TempRoot
Operations -> Gold Card.

Clicked on the CID button to get the id for my SD-Card.
Clicked on the "Free HTC goldcard generator" link and filled out the form on the screen to generate a goldcard image.
Clicked on the Load goldcard.img button and located the goldcard.img file
Clicked on the Create GoldCard button.

Operations -> Downgrade.

I needed to locate a file called PD98IMG.zip before I could begin the downgrade process. The downgrade process was VERY slow. Took about 30 minutes for me, but your time may vary. As an afterthought, simply applying an earlier RUU may have been a better approach, but I thought I should document exactly what I did.
Phone rebooted into HBOOT menu, and I simply followed instructions on PC and phone screens.
Waited for downgrade to complete and rebooted phone.

Repeat steps 2, 3, 4, & 5
Used On Screen buttons to push Visionary+ and SuperUser to the phone.
On the phone, Ran Visionary+

Checked the Set System r/w after root checkbox
Selected Temproot now
After process finished, Selected Permroot now
Superuser asks for permissions, so pressed the Allow button
Phone Reboots

Set phone to charge only once it had finished rebooting completely
Back to Ultimate Multi Tool, and selected File -> Check S-Off/CID/SIM

Superuser asks for permissions, so pressed the Allow button
Tool now reports back that the CID is a whole bunch of 1's, phone is S-OFF, and SIM Unlocked.  :-)


Voicemail app that doesn't require carrier voicemail

Try if any of these apps work for you. It would depend on your phone, as android has limited support for total offline answering machine capabilities due to technical barriers. See this thread on XDA. If your phone isn't compatible, you might have the following issues:

Not be able to record calls
Record the conversation at only one end
Very low sound quality or volume

Google voice doesn't depend on your voicemail. The calls are recorded on google voice's servers.


Press android version thrice took me to another screen which shows big Jellybean logo!

Its called Easter egg. All android versions contain same feature. You just hold that screen for 2 sec, and some more will be displayed.

JellyBean

Ice cream Sandwich

Honeycomb

Gingerbread


Is there any way to make a backup from download mode?

Unfortunately, "Download Mode" is just one direction (as the name suggests: Download data to the device to be run there) – so no, you cannot use it to read data from the device.

For comparison, take a look into our fastboot tag-wiki – as fastboot is the equivalent to Download Mode. There you'll find a link to can fastboot be used to backup device? Though fastboot isn't identical to Download Mode (especially with Samsung devices, where the two are not compatible and one has to use tools like odin instead), both serve the same purpose.

Speaking of QFIL: Especially not. QFIL is a tool to communicate with the device while in emergency mode ("Qualcomm 9008"), and only intended to make the device operable again (AFAIK) – e.g. to flash a bootloader. And of course it's for Qualcomm devices only (as others are unlikely to enter a Qualcomm emergency mode).


Cannot share calendars with out having both email accts on Android phone

First there's this, from the Help page at https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37082?hl=en

Emphasis is mine.

  You can share the main calendar for your account, or another calendar you created.

  On your computer, open Google Calendar. You can't share calendars from the Google Calendar app.
  On the left, find the "My calendars" section. You might need to click it to expand it.
  Hover over the calendar you want to share, click More More and then Settings and sharing.
  To share with individuals: Under "Share with specific people," add the person or the email address of the person you want to share with.
  To change wider sharing settings: Under "Access permissions," choose an option in the drop-down menu. Learn more about these options below.
  If someone isn't already added, click Add people.
  Add people and click Send.

  If you shared your calendar with an individual email address, they'll see your calendar in their "Other calendars" list. If you shared your calendar with an email group , they'll see the calendar in their "Other calendars" list once they click on the link in the email invitation from Google Calendar.

Then there's this: https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37100?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en

  Add using Email Address

  Ask to see a calendar

  On your computer, open Google Calendar. You can only edit Google Calendar sharing settings from a computer, not the app.
  On the left side, click Other calendars.
  In the Add a friend's calendar or Add a coworker's calendar box, enter the other person's email address.
  Press Enter.
  Depending on how their calendar is shared, one of the following will happen:

  If the calendar isn't shared with you, you'll see a form to request access.
  If the calendar is already shared with you, their calendar will be added on the left side under "Other calendars."
  If the other person doesn't have a Google Calendar, you'll see the option to invite them to use Google Calendar.

  Approval by the other person

  If their calendar isn't shared with you, the other person will get an email requesting access.

  To accept your request, the other person should:

  On your computer, open the email you sent requesting access.
  Click the link in the email.
  In the Settings page that opens, choose a permission setting and select Add Person.
  Click Save.

  After the other person has accepted your request, their calendar will appear on the left side under "Other calendars." If you don't see it, try refreshing the page.


How to keep Bluetooth Tethering enabled on LineageOS / how to enable it with Tasker on Moto G 2 LTE?

Automate can do so using its Bluetooth tethering set state block, no additional plug-ins required.


Use Drony:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.sandroproxy&hl=en

If you need any help regarding how to configure, this can help.


How to resolve Get Google Play services error

Simply click this link below it will redirect you to "google play services" in play store. There can be options:

To update(you need to update in this case), or
To deactive(nothing needed, it is already up-to-date).

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gms&showAllReviews=true

Enjoy!


Your device should be having an inbuilt file manager, if it doesn't you can download from Play Store. Many are available. Solid Explorer is a good one. Photos are stored in /sd/DCIM or if you have downloaded videos/ photos, they would be in /sd/downloads. You will need to search for the location and delete them, if stored elsewhere

If you don't wish to identify the folders, use Solid Explorer, on launching the application , tap the menu button on left and scroll down where you will find photos and videos folder. Browse through them, select and delete

Alternatively, DiskUsage gives a good visual feedback of your storage and let's you select the file you wish to and delete


Will the 2015 Nexus phones (5X, 6P) work with any US cell provider?

All major US carriers and Project Fi:  Link to Android Police

So that means any US-version Nexus 5X and 6P unit will work on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Boost, MetroPCS, Cricket, Google's own Fi Network, and more.


If Kingo root can't help you root successfully. You can try another tool like iRoot.I once used and found it do no harm to my device.Try as this guide:
one click root to root Android phones and tablets


Galaxy S2 Android 4.1.2 - calendar sync option disappeared

i just found out that there was one process - CALENDAR STORAGE - which was disabled. I enabled it, and then i could see the option SyncCalendar in my google account again.

after that my calendar is working fine again.


How to enable Do Not Disturb for 1 SIM only in a Dual SIM phone?

Method one
Disbable the notification tone and the ringtone for the simcard that you do not want to use. Just go yo sounds and set it to none for sim 1 or two.

Method 2:
This is a tricky one since there is no default method that i can find to do this, but if you have used tasker before and your phone is rooted then there should be a plugin or a method to do this.

Tasker on Playstore

Goodluck mate


Receiving animated image in WhatsApp, what is this?

Update: All WhatsApp versions now have GIF support.

The latest version of WhatsApp supports GIF images.

If you're on Android and Play Store shows that your WhatsApp is up-to-date, then download the beta version by joining the official WhatsApp beta program.


TWRP allows backup for devices with no external MicroSD Card. Therefore TWRP does always exclude Internal Storage from backup. They recommend manually copy Internal Storage via USB-MTP (which makes sense after creating  TWRP backup because it contains TWRP Backup folder too). If you know how to unpack/repack recovery.img you can add this fix (experimental) https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3941108 this will allow you backup of Internal Storage from TWRP


Samsung Galaxy S, Front facing camera is not an option

Open pre-installed Camera app & tap this icon to switch cam:

Same icon is found in Camera360 Ultimate (my fav) to switch cam.
Front-facing cam is automatically activated during video calls over 3G (if you are using pre-installed Dialer app).


How to set default SIM for calls on Lenovo A7000?

The setting can be found in :

Settings->SIM Management


Vibration on my Samsung, which is a Galaxy S3, is controlled from within the Messaging app itself. Start the app. Settings > Notifications > Vibrate. Uncheck.


Where does Android store offline contacts and email account details?

The email accounts are saved in the the file accounts.db under /data/system/users/<userId>/. If you're the primary user, then the userId should be 0.

You can also consider taking the accounts' backup using Titanium Backup.

Offline contacts are handled by Contacts Storage (com.android.providers.contacts) app and the contacts are stored in its data directory under the file contacts2.db. Your profile details are stored in the file profile.db. Both files are at the location /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/. I recommend backing up both.

You can consider Titanium Backup again if you want to backup Contacts Storage app or simply the contacts which it allows you to export using its menu. Although the Contacts app allows exporting natively  all the contacts into a VCF file.


How to modify functionality (skip song, play, pause) with side phone volume keys?

Headset button controller is an excellent app in market which will do all these functions..

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.kober.headsetbutton&feature=more_from_developer


Can a Terminal Emulator on android do everything that a terminal on linux or mac does?

Not really.... they are no more limited than the tools that Android has installed, remember that Android is not Linux, it is based on it but it's command line interface is very limited by comparison due to the fact that all the tools needed for a full Linux implementation are not needed with Android. The capabilities can be increased significantly by installing BusyBox though.

Don't be confused by the term "emulator" all terminals you are comparing it to (like Linux terminals) are all terminal emulators. Technically, a "terminal" is a physical device, like a Wyse 60 or Televideo 955 terminal, which contained no intelligence for processing data, it just displayed the information as a "terminal" to the mainframe. The terminology has stuck, and we use the term "terminal emulator" to mean any piece of software that is used to emulate a physical terminal.


I stop an option to use ringtones or another source how do l re-instate the other source

If you set some app to be "always used" for an operation, you can easily revert this:

Open Settings
Navigate to "Apps"
Scroll to the app being defined as default, and tap its entry
On the details page that's opening, you can "Reset defaults"

Next time you chose that operation, you will be asked again.

As the above steps might be cumbersome (especially if you do not remember the name of the app to reset), there are also several helper apps out there organizing defaults for you. Take e.g. a look at Better Open With:

Better Open With (source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)

In addition to letting you configure the defaults, this app gives you an enhanced menu where you still can chose to pick a different app (unless you set the timeout too short, that is ;)


Droid Explorer does not recognize Android Studio as a valid Android SDK during install.

Disclaimer: I am the lead developer of Droid Explorer.

I do not use the Android Studio SDK, nor do I have it installed. But what I can tell you is the following:

To be considered a valid android SDK for Droid Explorer to use, it has to meet the following criteria:

adb.exe must exist in the /sdk-path/platform-tools directory

It can also exist in /sdk-path/tools directory, as this is where it originally was located.

in /sdk-path/platforms there must be at least 1 platform. It will be named something like android-23.
Droid Explorer installer will check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Android SDK Tools\. If it finds a value there, it will set that as the initial directory of the SDK. It will still verify the tools in the directory.
Droid Explorer will also check that aapt.exe exists in the /sdk-path/build-tools directory.

If Android Studio SDK does not meet these requirements, then it will not validate the SDK as valid. These checks are made because Droid Explorer uses these tools, and even others in these directories.

The best way to get Droid Explorer to work is to install the SDK using the official SDK installer. You can set up Android Studio to use that path for the SDK.


USB modes, for transfering files with AFT

You have to change it every time because of security changes in Android, and there is no easy way around it without root on a stock device.

The reason is so anyone can't just connect to your phone without screen being unlocked, it is purely a security enhancement.


Stolen phone - does Android Device Manager's lock override the thief's password?

There might be a case if the Thief has formatted your phone to factory settings. Then in that case, ADM will be useless. Also, Hard resetting a phone is so easy, He was a thief, He would have done that till now...


How can I change the double-tap zoom in the Android browser?

The answer is in the browser settings.

In the default browser, this is found in Menu | More | Settings | Default Zoom. Options are "medium" (the default), "far", and "close".


Is there a way to automatically improve the quality of pictures taken with the camera?

The new updates to Google+ has features called auto enhance auto awesome. It is a feature that automatically enhances the photos you have uploaded.  Just make sure instant upload is on and the auto enhance settings are on in the app Settings>Camera&photos.  Here are the things that it does. https://support.google.com/plus/answer/3113884?hl=en


The Android source code is available online.
Your log line appears to be from:
WifiStateMachine.java specifically String getLogRecString(Message msg)
Around line 2196, the string output starts looking similar to yours:
sb.append(" rssi=").append(mWifiInfo.getRssi());
sb.append(" f=").append(mWifiInfo.getFrequency());
sb.append(" sc=").append(mWifiInfo.score);
sb.append(" link=").append(mWifiInfo.getLinkSpeed());
sb.append(String.format(" tx=%.1f,", mWifiInfo.txSuccessRate));
sb.append(String.format(" %.1f,", mWifiInfo.txRetriesRate));
sb.append(String.format(" %.1f ", mWifiInfo.txBadRate));
sb.append(String.format(" rx=%.1f", mWifiInfo.rxSuccessRate));

The variables names appear reasonably descriptive for at least further research. The above file is dated 2017, given that there have been a number of WiFi changes made between OS version, I would find the one matching your version of OS, by looking for a "base" OS version branch (left hand side), and then drilling down to the appropriate WiFiStateMachine.java file:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/opt/net/wifi/
or searching for an appropriate string where you can find where logging is occurring.


search somebody from contacts with the numpads

There is no way to do this with the stock dialer. There are a number of apps that you can install that do support this. Search the play store for 't9 dialer' (or click here). Pick one that you like the look of :)


New android user; switching between wifi and mobile data

To answer this question, it appears (at least in my case) that the app Skyvi was the problem. Almost all my Android issues (including random restarting) were sorted when I removed that app.


Can I add metadata to a jpeg in Android?

There are several exif editors in Google Play. One of them is EXIF Tag Editor (Photo).

As suggested by Izzy, there are also gallery apps that can do this:

JustPictures!
Photo Mate

Note that the latter two apps are no longer available on Play Store.


How to export a large WhatsApp chat with media exactly as it appears on my phone?

So, I managed to figure it out myself. Note that this answer has been written for non-rooted devices.

Go to Internal Storage/WhatsApp and rename the Databases directory to Databases.old
Open WhatsApp, go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup and set Back up to Google Drive as Never.
Tap the BACK UP button and wait for the backup process to complete.
Go to Internal Storage/WhatsApp and zip the Databases and Backups directories.
Arrange a spare device. Personally, I set up an AVD with Android Marshmallow x86 and increased the storage (partition size) to 8GB.
Root your spare device. If you're using an AVD, use this guide.
Create a new folder named WhatsApp on your spare device.
Copy the zip file to your spare device and extract it inside the WhatsApp directory such that the Internal Storage/WhatsApp/Backups and Internal Storage/WhatsApp/Databases directories exist. We won't be needing your non-rooted device in the coming steps.
Install WhatsApp on your spare device, log in using your original phone number, and restore the backup when prompted to do so.
On your rooted device, open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap the BACK UP button.
Install any root browser and copy the file /data/data/com.whatsapp/files/key to the Internal Storage. This is your WhatsApp decryption key.
Install this app, go to Settings inside the app and set the Whats key file to the WhatsApp decryption key you just copied.
Go back to the previous screen, select the File type to your preferred file type and hit Export to storage.
You'll find the exported chat files in Internal Storage/BackupTextForWhatsApp.

To reactivate WhatsApp on your original, non-rooted device, just open
WhatsApp on your original device and verify your number again. Your chats will still be there.


Your problem is not in display but in Lock screen. I had the same problem and fixed it: Go to settings, lock screen, then secured lock time, and set it for ten minutes


Marking email as unread issue in Outlook app

Outlook's support team helped me.
They suggested to delete my account, subsequently clear the application's cache and then to add my account again.

Update: This seemed to work in the very beginning, but the issue actually persists.

Update2: The Outlook development team is investigating the matter. We'll have to wait for an update.

Update3: The issue is resolved since some time, presumably because Outlook fixed this bug and updated the app.


Does adding a google account to phone increase data charges?

Yes, assigning a Google account to a phone would incur data charges UNLESS syncing is disabled as it will regularly sync calendars, email, etc.  Even so, other data related services may come into play (eg, Play store app update checking & downloading).


Would a Class 10 MicroSDHC card ever be worth it on a Smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S 2)?

No need for such high class card. This card is used mainly for photography where speed and amount of data to be stored does count. Classic sample, sport photography where you are not taking just single shot, but whole burst of 10-20 shots and later on analyse which is best


A Bad Charger Damaged My Asus TF300t Tablets

Chinese "Colorfly", Android 4.4.2 similar case. Long press the "Power" button, select "Power off". Connect to USB or charger. Charging starts a couple minutes later - depends on discharge level.


I don't know about your specific issue, but Swiftkey 4 has gesture typing that's worked for me in multiple languages (English and French).


Let's Encrypt: Is there a workaround for the 2021 SSL "cutoff" for pre-7.1.1 Android devices?

Latest Udate 2020-12-21
Let's Encrypt has delayed the new root CA certificate for 3 years:

We’re happy to announce that we have developed a way for older Android
devices to retain their ability to visit sites that use Let’s Encrypt
certificates after our cross-signed intermediates expire. We are no
longer planning any changes in January that may cause compatibility
issues for Let’s Encrypt subscribers.
A recurring theme in our posts about our upcoming chain switch has
been our concern over the effects on users of Android operating
systems prior to 7.1.1, whose devices don’t trust our ISRG Root X1.
Thanks to some innovative thinking from our community and our
wonderful partners at IdenTrust, we now have a solution that allows us
to maintain wide compatibility. Critical to our mission as a nonprofit
is to help create a more secure and privacy-respecting Web for as many
people as possible. This work brings us closer to that goal.
IdenTrust has agreed to issue a 3-year cross-sign for our ISRG Root X1
from their DST Root CA X3. The new cross-sign will be somewhat novel
because it extends beyond the expiration of DST Root CA X3. This
solution works because Android intentionally does not enforce the
expiration dates of certificates used as trust anchors. ISRG and
IdenTrust reached out to our auditors and root programs to review this
plan and ensure there weren’t any compliance concerns.
As such, we will be able to provide subscribers with a chain which
contains both ISRG Root X1 and DST Root CA X3, ensuring uninterrupted
service to all users and avoiding the potential breakage we have been
concerned about.
We will not be performing our previously-planned chain switch on
January 11th, 2021. Instead, we will be switching to provide this new
chain by default in late January or early February. The transition
should have no impact on Let’s Encrypt subscribers, much like our
switch to our R3 intermediate earlier this month.

Extending Android Device Compatibility for Let's Encrypt Certificates
Installing new Let's Encrypt root CA certificates
If your device is running Android 5 and before or is rooted you can install the missing root CA certificates yourself. As far as I know the following two certificates have to be added:

ISRG Root X1
ISRG Root X2

On Android 5 and before you can simply install them as "user certificate". Note that this automatically forces you to use a lock screen with pattern/PIN or password lock.
The easiest way is if the device is rooted via Magisk, then you can install the two certificates as user certificates and then move them to the system store using the  Magisk Module Move Certificates.
If Magisk and the mentioned module is not available you can still install the certificates as user certificates and move them manually to the system store.
The installation process is very similar as shown in the installation tutorial for the mitmproxy root-ca certificate.
The followings section shows the certificate hash values for the Let's encrypt certificates:
openssl x509 -inform PEM -subject_hash_old -in isrgrootx1.pem | head -1
6187b673

openssl x509 -inform PEM -subject_hash_old -in isrg-root-x2.pem | head -1
8794b4e3

Also make sure that the copied certificate file has the correct permissions:
chmod 644 /system/etc/security/cacerts/6187b673.0
chmod 644 /system/etc/security/cacerts/8794b4e3.0

Once you have installed the certificates you should be able to browse (without a security warning) to the following location: https://valid-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org/


remove apps with htc bootloader unlocked

No. Unlocking your bootloader allows you to flash unsigned images to your device, but it doesn't (in and of itself) give you root permissions which you need to remove bloatware. However, having the ability to flash unsigned images makes it very easy to gain root via a custom recovery, so unlocking your bootloader can often greatly simplify the process.

If you need instructions for getting root, there's a fairly exhaustive guide here.


Toast message with Chinese characters, is it a virus?

Based on the information given, it's indeed caused by the latest update (9 July 2016) of ES File Explorer. From some of recent reviews,

This new version has a new issues, whenever I open the ES file explorer it's showing some errors in Chinese language. It's affecting other apps too... (link)

Latest was a series of Chinese toast notifications being displayed even when not using the App. (link)

new problem raised while using app some chinese lang messeges display which is distracted the main usage (link)

Latest update now causing messages in Chinese to popup near the bottom of the screen. (link)

and many more...

I don't think it's a virus. It supposed to be kind of "helpful" messages to the user (who can read it).


Not in any simple, user friendly way.

You're really wandering into the realm of digital forensics here, unless you can convince your carrier that it's worth their while to salvage something from their logs.

Or, y'know, ask your friendly NSA contacts ;p


Nokia here map data for Android - download on pc and move to phone

I could suggest you to use an emulator like Andy. Using this will help you to use your computer's Ethernet to access Internet.

You can install the app on that emulator and download the map data. Then you can either identify the download area and copy them to your phone. If that's too cumbersome you can rely on apps like titanium backup to restore the data alone.

It would be helpful for you if you use the same Android version on both emulator and phone.


You do need to install security updates incrementally, as each release has its own /system image that has had all the previous patches already applied to it. When installing an update, most of the time, /system is completely wiped and then replaced with the new image in your update file.

About the negative performance, a common issue is that the update is dirty flashed, meaning that the /data partition was not wiped with the new system image install. Try first wiping your Dalvik/cache partitions from your recovery. If that doesn't help, you can try wiping /data to see if that will solve your performance issues.

Wiping /data will remove all user data from the device, so be sure to back up any important data before performing a factory reset.


Lollipop 5.1, completely safe from stagefright?

You can use Zimperium's Stagefright Detector app to test your device for the known attack vectors. The bugs were not patched upstream until Android 5.1.1, but it is possible (particularly based on the change notes) that Motorola backported security fixes to their 5.1 release, so the version of Android you have is not necessarily the best indicator.

NB: One of Zimperium's researchers is Joshua Drake, who disclosed the Stagefright vulnerabilities to Google and submitted patches to fix them. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the tests in their app are more than likely accurate.


What is the storage constraint for Micro SD cards on the LG Optimus L7 II

32GB is the maximum capacity for a card following the SDHC standard found in version 2.0 of the SD standard.  Cards larger than that are SDXC cards.

Unlike the compatibility issue between SDSC and SDHC, An SDXC card is likely to work on an SDHC device, especially if you reformat the card to use the FAT32 file system, rather than the default exFAT, though a high performance card (e.g. UHS) will be limited to SDHC levels of performance.


I'm not aware of any native settings for this, but there is an app that was built to bridge the gap: Lockscreen Policy. When you first launch it, you'll need to hit the "Activate" button to give it device administration permission, then you simply toggle the camera to "Off":

One caveat to this app that the author notes on the Google Play page:

  Does not work on TouchWiz Android 4.2.x firmware (such as Galaxy S4)

However, this does not apply in your case, since the N4 is not running TouchWiz.


I think I found my answer after a bit more search.

I don't know why they use 's' and calls it SLIMROMs but Slim + Jelly Bean = SlimBean, Slim + Kitkat = SlimKat and Slim + Lollipop (LP) = SlimLP.

SlimSaber on the other hand is an unofficial build of SlimLP. I suppose 'Saber' comes from custom toolchain Sabermod.


How to disable duplicate calendar notifications?

There are likely two calendar apps on your system. Stock Android includes an app and Google provides one as well, which might be preinstalled on your device, or you may have downloaded it without realizing it. They both look very similar (which is probably why you thought they were the same when you held on them for the App Info screen). Check in your app drawer. The stock Android calendar is a green calendar icon, and the Google one is blue. Then disable notifications for one of them.

You can always click on the roll-up notifications and when that app opens, go into the settings and disable notifications. Then go to your app drawer and check both icons (both are labeled calendar) see which app has notifications disabled. Once you determine what app it is, if it is the Google Calendar, you could just uninstall it, or if it is the built-in one, you can disable it via Settings -> Apps -> All -> Calendar -> Disable.


Google Play authentication required error

I think it's better inform it to the Google Play store support.

Go to this page:- https://support.google.com/googleplay/?hl=en
Then click top right "Contact US" button.
Follow its on screen instructions.


Android ASTRO Cannot Locate Download Directory

Look at /mnt/sdcard/download.  And based on Al's comment, I suggest making sure your phone is not connected to your PC and then reboot the phone before looking there.


Do all USB C data/charge cables support Quick Charge?

Simple answer It depends, may or may not

Any USB C cable will not serve the purpose . You need to search your device forums and some sources mentioned in answer here (which also includes references to technical details if you are keen) How to select a Non OEM USB Type C charger or cable for my device?
This is a good read for USB C state of affairs, for charging and data speeds too It’s 2018 and USB Type-C is still a mess. See the wide variation in power even with standard OEM cables weekend used with different phones


APK signature verified but warns file "not protected by signature"?

Summary
The warning you have encountered only applies to the APK signature v1, but as the APK file is signed with additional signatures of the newer signature schemes you can safely ignore this message as every modification on the APK file can be detected by the newer signature schemes.
However even if the signature can be verified it does not mean that the APK file is genuine. It still could be resigned after modification, therefore you should carefully compare the certificate digests (shown when verifying it using apksigner verify --verbose --print-certs) of the APK to be verified and compare it to other APK files of the same app developer. See this answer of How can I verify the authenticity of an APK file I downloaded? for details how to compare the certificate digest of an APK.
Detailed explanation
First of all as you can see what you get is a WARNING not an ERROR. If relevant file(s) of the APK file would have been modified the verification will fail and you would get an ERROR message.
To understand the warning message you need a little understanding of Java and how Java signatures (APK signature v1) work. This old signature is stored inside the JAR in two files: META-INF/CERT.SF and META-INF/CERT.RSA. Of course a signature can not sign the files it is written into , hence those files are excluded by the signature.
Additionally the META-INF directory is location of the MANIFEST.MF - a file that is only relevant for Java on Desktop but not used by Android at all.
There can be additional files in the META-INF directory, considering the standard Java directory layout no code should be stored inside files within the META-INF directory.
Because of all this Sun as the original inventor of Java decided to exclude the META-INF directory from the Java code signature at all. Several years later Google just used the Java signature for APK files which is now known as APK signature v1.
Therefore for the APK signature v1 the files inside the META-INF directory are not covered by the signature and hence can be modified without being recognized if you only verify
Because of several attacks on the APK signature itself (such as including the same file multiple times with different content in the APK Google decided to develop a completely new APK signature that does not apply on the APK content but on the overall APK file itself. This was the beginning of APK signature v2 and it's successors.
These new APK signature schemes do sign the complete APK content at once, not excluding a single file that is stored inside the APK file.
Back to the Google Podcast APK, verifying it using apksigner outputs the following:
java -jar apksigner.jar verify --verbose "Google Podcasts Discover free trending podcasts_v1.0.0.301897054_apkpure.com.apk"
Verifies
Verified using v1 scheme (JAR signing): true
Verified using v2 scheme (APK Signature Scheme v2): true
Verified using v3 scheme (APK Signature Scheme v3): true
Verified using v4 scheme (APK Signature Scheme v4): false
Verified for SourceStamp: false
Number of signers: 1
WARNING: META-INF/services/com.google.protobuf.GeneratedExtensionRegistryLoader not protected by signature. Unauthorized modifications to this JAR entry will not be detected. Delete or move the entry outside of META-INF/.

As you can see the APK file is signed not only by an v1 signature but also a v2, v3 and v4 signature. This means that the WARNING only applies to the signature created by the v1 scheme. You can easily verify that by modifying a single character inside the file META-INF/services/com.google.protobuf.GeneratedExtensionRegistryLoader as it is stored uncompressed within the APK file. You can simple open the APK file in an hex editor, modify a character in the section that belongs to that file (it is the first ZIP entry within the APK) and then again verify the APK:
java -jar apksigner.jar verify --verbose "Google Podcasts Discover free trending podcasts_v1.0.0.301897054_apkpure.com - modified.apk"
DOES NOT VERIFY
ERROR: APK Signature Scheme v3 signer #1: APK integrity check failed. CHUNKED_SHA256 digest mismatch. Expected: <ac8a15569352655a22f13d3c565c2c0e5c62dc70c8f6f8c10f6fbfa63decb19b>, actual: <aa5622cd904500c38424562ef4b5be9e5716d10a85985a41f35e4ed834cee8fe>
ERROR: APK Signature Scheme v3 signer #1: APK integrity check failed. VERITY_CHUNKED_SHA256 digest mismatch. Expected: <56eeebd545733fd6408cd6a30b8bcf98a557076167902b6d9502b5aca86b78e89b42220000000000>, actual: <c37e1e1436cfd62f89592c48211ffb6ad2f1dff0f69d2203072f1e6c3872a5919b42220000000000>

As you can see now the APK signature is considered invalid. I don't know why the v3 signature fails first, may be the signatures are not verified in order v1, v2, v3...
From my understanding all signatures except v1 should fail on the modified APK file.


How to play video on mobile browser's webpage WHILE ON the webpage?

HTML 5 video plays within the browser in Chrome. To use HTML 5 video with Youtube (both the mobile and desktop websites), go to http://www.youtube.com/html5 to turn it on.

Browsers won't be able to run Flash animations, videos, and games, because Adobe decided to stop supporting Flash on mobile devices. Adobe is also winding down its Flash authoring tools and encouraging its customers to output to HTML 5 instead. Because Flash is a closed, proprietary format, Adobe's free to choose to support or not support Android according to their whims, and there's very little consumers can do about that.


Is internet tethering possible on Android phone via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi?

Lorenz Blog has an article which explains how to set up a Wireless Hosted Network specifically on Windows 7.
To do so, the easiest way is to install either Virtual Router or Connectify

(source: londatiga.net)

(source: londatiga.net)
These programs will set up your computer to pass through the Wi-Fi connection
Then on the Android device:

Go to Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Wi-Fi Settings
Open Advance settings menu
Tick the Use static IP option
Enter your desired IP address (ex: 192.168.2.2)  into IP Address field
Enter your IPV4 Address (ex. 192.168.2.1) into Gateway field
Enter 255.255.255.0 into Netmask field
Enter your internet connection’s DNS server (use ipconfig /all command to get DNS info) into DNS 1 and DNS 2. As an alternative, you can use Google Public DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
Connect to Wi-Fi using your password
Disable and Enable Wi-Fi (in case if it won’t connect)
Check the connection using browser or other application.


You can easily limit what data is synced by navigating to Settings > Accounts and Sync. ( Your menu may look somewhat different than this but should be similar.) From there you can deselect Background Data, Auto-Sync as well as individual accounts such as your Google (@gmail), Facebook, etc. However, I believe this will just prevent syncing from occurring automatically. If you open the GMail application, I believe it will sync your inbox/outbox/etc. BUT, if you're not using GMail, this wouldn't apply to you.

While you're at it, you can navigate to Settings > Connect to PC > Default Connection Type. There you may have another option regarding Syncing (with a PC). I see "HTC Sync" but I'm not certain what other manufacturers have in that menu.


How to change lock screen on a phone like it is on a Kindle Fire?

You don't need root access to change lock screen of your phone. Kindle Fire's type of lock screen is called Sliding Tab or Slider. I'm not sure if it's possible to use exactly the same lock screen but you can experiment with applications on Play Store.


Try doing a hard reboot (Power off the phone and power it back on). I had this problem just two minutes ago and that seemed to resolve it. Cheers!


Is Snowden snowing us with his "Smurfs Suite" interview?

Yes, the government can perform nefarious acts on your phone to listen in on what your are doing.

If you phone is truly off, there is no signal you can send to wake it up. But:

You can spoof the phone turning off.
In some older feature phones, turning your phone off was not good enough because some things on the phone stay awake, and the FBI used this to eavesdrop on mobster phones.

One of the best ways you can ensure your phone is truly off is to remove the battery.
This is something they do to particular people. It's not technically feasible to do this to every possible phone, but the government doesn't have to because any given mobster or other target has a particular phone.
This is why there is a market for undiscovered software exploits. Once you get root access, you can basically rewrite software to do what you want.

In conclusion, this is technically possible. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy your friends some tin foil hats as a gag gift.


I had a similar issue where I could not figure out what was taking up my phone's storage.
I used an app called DiskUsage to visualise the issue and find the folder causing the problem.


What options do I have to purchase a play store app for another account?

Another solution would be to buy some Google Play credit you enter the code you buy into your wife's play store, and you can use that balance to buy apps


How to access VNC server running in an android phone in another computer?

Go to Setting > About Phone and note down the ip address of your mobile phone.

Now connect to the Wifi hotspot of your mobile phone. In the VNC viewer, connect to the address ip-address-of-mobile-phone:1, to access the localhost:1 of the mobile phone.


Google Search Bar Missing (after OTA update)

The widget may be listed under the ridiculously renamed Google Search app called "Launcher3" - find the 4x1 widget and drag to the desktop.


Can I recover photos that were being stored in a corrupt SD sector and then deleted after a phone restart?

When confronted with such situations on a tight budget I have used the HDD software offered in the Hirens Boot CD.

www.hirensbootcd.org/hbcd-v152/

There are a few hard drive recovery options to choose from and I'm sure one of them will work providing the drive is not completely fried.
I have had many success stories in the past few years with the various tools offered by this useful collection.

Be sure not to try to write anything to your drive until it is recovered.
You may even be able to access the folders successfully using one of the alternative file explorers offered. There have been times when windows simply cannot read what Total Commander could.


Lock screen security - reboot after X invalid PINs

Stock ROM doesn't. Apart from building custom ROM or installing DPM, there are 3rd-party apps, SnooperStopper & Wrong PIN Shutdown.

SnooperStopper will power off device what option can not be changed. However, custom command can be issued in Wrong PIN Shutdown.


Any way to hide the "Advanced Reboot" option in Power menu in AospExtended?

I asked this on their Telegram group(which is great):

Extensions -> Systems -> Buttons -> Power Menu -> Advanced Reboot


Move applications to SD card in Samsung Exhibit?

It's impossible to move apps without root if this function is not supported natively. And 'overriding manufacturer's removal of this function' means you are trying to have extra access apart from native support. And that's possible only when you have root access

If you are willing to root your device, you may check this link:
http://androidforums.com/threads/root-t599-t599n-t599v.763393/


How can I run Android applications on my computer?

You need either Bluestacks or Youwave. I think Bluestacks can not be installed on your PC because of less RAM (minimum of 2gb recommended). So Youwave is your only option. It is easy to install and use.

Click here to download YouWave for Android on PC


My HTC Desire HD has been stolen. What data can still be accessed by the thief?

If the data was not encrypted: everything.

The data on the removable SD-card can be easily accessed, just like a lost USB-Memory-Stick. The internal flash storage can also be read out via some, admittedly sophisticated but practical possible, approaches.
AFAIK no Data that you sync with the Google cloud is encrypted.

It's always wise to install some remote wipe tool, like pyko said. Even if they are not foolproof and can not provide a "secure delete" functionality, they provide some security and raise the bar to read out your data.

Hint: The AN.SX security tag provides some further related information for such cases.


What is the reasoning behind Samsung being against rooting? Why does rooting cause your warranty to be voided?

It is not a Samsung-specific case. Almost all manufacturers demand you to use the device as is. It is mostly about risk management. The risk of user damaging the phone is increased significantly when the phone is rooted and it would create a very big burden on manufacturers both as work force and economically. When they manufacture a series, they do it hundreds of thousands in numbers. They expect a number of problems with certain percentage of phones manufactured. If rooting is allowed, it would add greater risk and make the number of expected faulty phones unpredictable.

  Isn't rooting a good thing for the user, since you have added functionality?

Yes, as long as the users know what they are doing, but you obviously fail to see how unrelated this fact is to the question you ask. All computers have their own security-usability ratio. The reason you need rooting in the first place is because Android deliberately restricts the access of the user to certain properties. Not many people cares about getting to set CPU frequencies of the phone but many people cares about having a phone that is malware-free.

When you use a phone as is, the odds of creating bootloops, hard-bricks, security problems, usage of unauthorized software etc. is minimal and that is the way warranty-providers want to keep it. And that is not even the whole story. Manufacturers get paid to install bloatware. They don't want you to be able to delete them that easily.

  I understand that there comes security risks with rooting, but I'm
  sure if Samsung gave their full support to users that want to root
  their phone by making it an option, that they could avoid/fix security
  problems that come with rooting.

You are sure but you are wrong. You don't understand the root user concept of Unix-like operating systems. It is risky, period. You are free to use your device the way you want but you can't ask manufacturer to cover the expenses you might create by using the phone the way you are not told to do.


Android 4.x supports contact groups. This is the only way I've found till now.


Why does Pandora advance songs randomly?

This solution seems to help--not too sure yet. My phone might think I'm intentionally skipping songs by way of headphone buttons I don't even have. The solution seems pretty simple and effective: install the Headset Blocker widget (free in the Market).

Note: you might need to restart pandora after enabling the block for it to kick in (not sure).

I'll know in the next few hours if this helps or not...

OK, three skips in the last 10 minutes...this isn't helping at all! I'll leave it here as an failed option for future browsers.


Bluetooth audio streaming issues with Droid X

I solved this by turning off Wifi on my phone.  Not sure why having Wifi turned on would be a problem, but I don't get any skipping when Wifi is off.


How to save or back-up whole SMS threads on SIM

Try using 'Super Backup' utility. You'll get an option to backup your entire SMS threads on your SD card in xml file. You can easily restore your sms too.


Restricting data usage monitoring to certain days

Glass Wire Data Monitor let's you customize your monitoring period. But it has to be done manually every week

(Click to enlarge)


This may help some folks: In my case the error was caused by a corrupt copy of the data file to the USB drive. On the offchance that I had yanked the USB out too early, I recopied, and after that the "whole-file signature" was OK and allowed the firmware update to complete.


How do I disable the annoying auto-correction of punctuation on device keyboard?

I installed Vlingo and I switched over to that as the input method and I no longer have the above issues.


How can I force-stop all user applications that are running?

Note: This solution:

is tested on Android 4.2.1 and 5.0.2 (COS12);
requires a rooted device with Busybox installed and latter's applets available under PATH variable. You may see How do I install missing command line tools onto an Android device?

If an app is running (be it in background or foreground) then it must have a process assigned to it. In that case, it should show up under the radar of ps command. We can single out apps' processes from ps command and compare them with the list stored from pm command. Whatever comes out as common can be safely killed.

Here's a basic script to do that:

#!/system/bin/sh

HOME="/data/media/0";
mkfifo "$HOME"/ps "$HOME"/packages;
/system/bin/ps | grep 'u0_' | awk '{print$9}' | sort -o "$HOME"/ps &
pm list packages -3 | sed 's/package://g' | sort -o "$HOME/"packages &
comm -12 "$HOME"/ps "$HOME"/packages | while read package; do am force-stop "$package"; printf "Force-stopped: $package\n"; done
rm "$HOME"/ps "$HOME"/packages;

This script must be run with root privilege.

In that script:

I'm creating two named pipes, namely ps and packages under /data/media/0. (It is optional to do. You can safely remove the lines starting with mkfifo and rm). I'm relying on the output provided by native ps tool. If an app has a process, then its package name would be shown under the column NAME. I'm using grep to filter out processes running under user 0 (your user account has user ID 0) and then using awk to print the 9th field. That field in each line would show a package name.

Note that you can use Busybox's ps tool. It has a feature to show only a particular column. You'll have to tweak the script a bit but you can do away with hard-coded dependency (a particular field in a line).
I'm storing a list of user-installed packages (third-party) using pm tool.
I'm now comparing the content of ps and packages and listing only the common lines. Note that I used sort in earlier commands because comm requires a sorted file.

Each common line then goes through a loop where the line (a package name) is used to force-stop the corresponding package.

Note: am force-stop is useless against a device administrator app.


Move Nokia Backup (NBF) contents to Android Phone

Just change the extension from .nbf to .zip. For detailed step-by-step instructions, read this.

Go to settings, sync and backup in old Nokia Symbian phone. Click on create backup and store the backup in memory card.

Connect the old phone to your PC through normal 'mass storage' mode and open the backup folder from memory card. Copy the .nbf file from memory card to your PC.

The trick lies in this step when you fool Nokia around.
.nbf stands for Nokia Backup File.  Just change the extension from .nbf to .zip and extract using winrar/peazip.

Here you see a list of .vcf files in the extracted folder. Connect your Android phone to PC and transfer these files to SD card or internal memory.

Use this free "Import Contacts" app from Google Play and transfer contacts.


adb backup command on non-rooted device creates an empty backup file?

The workaround was to set the desktop backup password under Developer settings. It seems there is a bug in backup process. If you didn't set a desktop backup password under the developer options settings the above problems occur and your backup will eventually be incomplete(empty backup file). However, I couldn't find an official source for this bug report that setting the desktop backup password solves adb backup issue.

Got this information based on the XDA Forum [GUIDE] Full Phone Backup without Unlock or Root

  Note: There seems to be a bug in which backup and restore operations will
  fail unless a desktop backup password is set under Developer Options.
  It will not work with a blank password.

After I set my desktop backup password under

Settings > Developer Options > Desktop backup password

adb backup -apk -shared -all -f D:/backup.ab

I am now able to run the above adb backup commands successfully. Note that I left the -system parameter as it is default one and the backup.ab file is almost 6GB now.


Back in 2012, /proc/last_kmsg (1) used to be a dump of kernel console messages, exported after reboots by Android's ram_console functionality (CONFIG_ANDROID_RAM_CONSOLE), which used persistent_ram (CONFIG_ANDROID_PERSISTENT_RAM) to handle a block of RAM that wasn't erased across reboots (2).

persistent_ram was based on Linux upstream RAMOOPS code which logged panic and oops messages to RAM. RAMOOPS was deprecated in favor of PSTORE (3) (memory handling) and PSTORE_RAM (4) (logging panics/oops to pstore/dmesg-ramoops). Later PSTORE_CONSOLE support was added (5, 6) to log not only the panics/oops, but all kernel console messages to pstore/console-ramoops-N which can be read later by mounting pstore (7). So the Android specific RAM_CONSOLE (8, 9) and PERSISTENT_RAM (10) were utterly removed.

Now pstore also offers logging userspace messages (PSTORE_PMSG) (11) and other features (12). Plus it supports multiple backends for persistent storage if supported by hardware, though SoC's on Android devices only support RAM storage (ramoops driver, AFAIK).

So it's not possible to enable last_kmsg on an upstream kernel, instead pstore offers a more versatile functionality.

  mount: 'pstore'->'/mnt/pstore': No such device

It shows that your kernel isn't built with pstore support. All you need to do is use a kernel built with CONFIG_PSTORE_CONSOLE and optionally CONFIG_PSTORE_RAM (though buggy). Android's init by-default mounts pstore at /sys/fs/pstore (13) from where dmesg-ramoops (on panics/oops only) and console-ramoops can be read.

You can search forums for a custom ROM shipped with such kernel. Or if you have kernel source, you can build yourself on a Linux machine.

NOTE: Some new devices, like Samsung, still expose /proc/last_kmsg interface; I'm not sure whether they use original implementation or pstore at back end.

FURTHER READING: Reading kernel logs


My first guess is that your phone has two mics - one for "computer-like" use, one for when you're holding it to your face - and the second of these is broken (i.e. a hardware problem). If that's right, then you should get it repaired, either by taking it back to the shop, or by finding a repair centre near you.


How do you move a contact in address book tied to an email to different one?

I cannot find an option to do it easily but here are some solutions:

You can export the contacts to your storage and import it to the right account.

You can also share the contact by email for instance and send it to the right account. Then just import it from your email.

EDIT: If you have set up a default application for handling contacts intents (for instance if another app such as outlook automatically imports the contacts), you will need to reset your intent associations. See How can I manage Intent association with Apps?

Last option, you can use the Contacts website (on your computer) which is in my opinion easier to use if you have multiple adjustments to make: https://www.google.com/contacts/


Have you tried reset your phone in recovery mode?

Nexus 5

If your phone is on, turn it off.
Press & hold the Volume Down and Volume Up buttons, and then press & hold the Power button simultaneously until the phone turns on. You'll see the word "Start" with an arrow drawn around it.
Press the Volume Down button twice to highlight Recovery mode.
Press the Power button to start Recovery mode. You'll see an image of an Android robot with a red exclamation mark.
While holding the Power button, press the Volume Up button.
Use the volume buttons to scroll to "wipe data / factory reset" and press the Power button to select it.
Scroll down to "Yes – erase all user data" and press the Power button to select it.

Note: If at any point during the above steps your phone becomes unresponsive, you can restart it by holding down the power button for several seconds.

https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4596836?hl=en-GB


Should warnings about not charging your phone at airport/public usb ports be taken seriously?

Yes an no.

Some years ago this was a very severe security problem, as a lot of devices automatically enabled the MTP mode when connected via USB that allows to access all files in the "sd-card" section. Also some device had ADB enabled by default.

Nowadays MTP and the other file-access protocols provided by Android devices are usually disabled by default and the user is explicitly asked if it should be enabled. And for ADB there is the public key authentication to identify trusted computers.

However this does not mean that there is no risk to use public USB power ports for charging. For example some Samsung devices had an exploit that allowed root access using an exploit in the MTP protocol - and this was possible with disabled MTP and locked screen.

Therefore in my opinion the risk of being attacked by usb ports available at the airport and public places has reduced a but in the last years, however it is still present.

If you want to use those usb ports and be safe you should use an "USB condom" or some equivalent adapter that does makes it physically impossible to transfer data through it (usually those devices don't connect the USB data lines to the device which makes it impossible to transfer data from/to the device).


Dual booting linux on android galaxy note 10.1

I just want to start this answer off by saying that if you are not an expert computer user, this is probably not for you. You will need to know how to setup and edit partition tables, along with knowing how to resize, delete and add partitions. I of course accept no responsibility for any damage you cause to any device from reading this tutorial.

In theory here is what you need to do:

Repartition your device's SD card so that you can make room for all the the Operating Systems you want to run
Get a new boot loader that supports dual (or multi) booting
Flash the partition with a build that is compatible with your phone

Specifically for your device (the Galaxy Note 10.1), here is a GREAT link on dual booting:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2258867

The tutorial is on an Ubuntu machine, if you do not have Ubuntu it is pretty easy to install from their website:

http://www.ubuntu.com

You probably don't even need to install Ubuntu to do this tutorial, I think you would be fine just running off of the live CD. I am a little biased because I love Ubuntu, but I would recommend installing it when you have free time. It really is a life saver and it runs on top of a linux kernel so you get all of the benefits of linux when you use Ubuntu.

VERY IMPORTANT BEFORE YOU START THE TUTORIAL

  1) Backup your device every time before you make a change to the OS or to the boot loader. It is extremely easy to brick your device if you don't know what you're doing. If you brick your device and you have no backups to go from, then you are out of luck my friend.

  2) You need to have a CWM (Clockwork Mod) installed on your device before you start the tutorial along with Nandroid Backup. See Extra Stuff below for install information.

  3) I cannot stress this more: MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE INSTALLING A MOD THAT FITS PERFECTLY WITH YOU DEVICE!! You will potentially render your device unusable if you do not check your ROMs thoroughly.

  4) This is not so important but will save you a lot of time in the future. Go get a bigger SD card, no 1GB or 2GB is not enough and 4GB is pushing it. Go out and buy a 16GB SD card, they are not that expensive and if you are going to be doing multiple booting, then you will want the extra space. It will be a huge pain to transfer all of your files onto a bigger SD card because you decided you wanted to triple boot Android, Arch Linux and Ubuntu all on one device. This is the voice of experience unfortunately.

Hopefully the tutorial works out well for you. When you get comfortable with installing OS partitions, then you can start trying out different flavors of Linux. My favorite is Ubuntu, followed closely behind by Arch Linux (ARM) (Which is great for server applications).

Extra Stuff

Installing CWM and NAndroid Backup on Galaxy Note 10.1

Here is a Video tutorial for installing the CWM on the Galaxy Note 10.1 if you need to do that. Again make sure you get the right ROM for your device.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIYiXzcW7xs

If YouTube is more your thing, then here is a pretty good video on doing the same thing in the other tutorial. This YouTube video requires you to already have CWM installed on your device.

Galaxy Note: How to dual boot 5 different ROMs

For those of you who do not have the Galaxy Note, here is something else I found that might be useful (or at least a starting point):

http://lifehacker.com/5826050/how-to-dual-boot-multiple-roms-on-your-android-phone

Please feel free to edit if you have something to add (Tutorials for specific devices etc.)

Also, if you need more info, just comment and I will help you out.


Note #1:

Rooting Mediatek devices isn't usually a clean area. Please remember that this solution is to help you out only and is not a mandate, which means the responsibility of recovering device (if required) lies upon the reader only.
Taking backup is very important. Consider the answers here to take backup. I can't stress this more. Please do not ignore this step.

Note #2: Keep you device's battery charged, possibly above 80%. Best is to keep it fully charged. Few folks sometimes report that low-battery during flashing resulted in soft/hard-bricking of their device.

I'm aware of two methods to root this device and both are tested by me on this very device.

Method #1

This method will sideload an app in your Android. You can see this answer to know how this kind of apps works. Also, I'm using this guide on AndroidXDA to corroborate my answer.

Instructions:

Go to Settings → Security and check Unknown sources -- in order to sideload apps.
Download and install Framaroot from any of the following links:

Framaroot's website
XDA thread
AndroidXDA

Launch the app and Install SuperSU will be shown selected. If not, do choose it.
Tap any of the following options(exploits):

Boromir
Faramir
Barahir

and wait for few seconds.
If the exploit you chose works fine then you would see the following or similar message:

Success :-)... Superuser and su binary installed. You have to reboot your device.

                                    OK

Otherwise, choose the rest of the two options. But eventually, it would work. (Worked on my A110Q).
Reboot your device and you would see a new app installed in your device named SuperSU.
You can use any of the root checker apps here on Play Store to see whether SuperSU is intercepting root access, or apps can detect su binary.

Congrats! Your device is now rooted.

Method #2

This method is a typical technique of flashing Recovery partition with a custom recovery and then flashing SuperSu zip file from the latter accompanied by installing an app from Play Store.

Note #3: The following instructions are platform dependent, tested and mostly works on Microsoft Windows 7 OS.

This method uses a tool named SP Flash Tool to flash Recovery partition of your device using a scatter(text) file. I've covered this tool in Method #1 of an answer here with links to some videos(to familiarize yourself). You can also see this guide as well.

About Scatter file : Scatter file has the index of location of partitions (including boundaries) your device has.

Instructions:

Download ADB drivers for your device, install them and verify that your device is getting detected. You can either query Google for them or download them from here.
Download a scatter-based ROM (Stock ROM preferred) for your device. Query Google for such with details like device model name, chipset, etc. You can download it from here as well. Note that the solution needs only a text file which is packed inside the ROM.

As an alternative of downloading this ROM, you can generate your own Scatter Based file. The instructions are mentioned here. I didn't try the instructions there so I can't cover them here. On a side note, I recommend downloading stock ROM since its always good to have this ROM ready for flashing in emergency.
Extract files from downloaded ROM and look for .txt file with name similar to MT6589_Android_scatter.txt. Note down the location of this file.

Download latest SP-Flash Tool.
Download a custom Recovery for your device. Alike step 1 querying Google is the option here. Mostly, the recovery you might get is either CWM or Philz Touch recovery. You can consider these links to download CWM recovery or Philz Touch Recovery.
Download SuperSU zip from here. The name might be similar to UPDATE-SuperSU-vX.YZ.zip. Put this .zip file into the root directory (Home folder) of your Internal SD card. You can do so by firing up your favorite File Manager.

Connect your phone via USB cable into PC.
Extract SP Flash Tool, look for Flash_tool.exe and execute it by doing  Right-click → Run as Administrator.
Once the interface comes up, click Scatter-Loading button, locate the scatter file (from Step 3) there and proceed with it -- this will list some partition names (unfamiliar names possibly) like MBR, UBOOT, BOOTIMG, etc.
Make sure that all the entries below name are unchecked except Recovery -- we do not want to replace the content of any existing partition other than of Recovery.
Click on Recovery, locate the Recovery file you downloaded in step 4 and proceed with it. Below the location you would see the file path of your Recovery file (like C:\Users\...).
Power off your phone (do not disconnect) and click the Download button in the tool.
If the flashing proceeds successfully you would see a small window with green circle. Otherwise, you would have to query Google for any troubleshooting. You can now unplug your phone and power on.
Power off your phone completely (it will vibrate after screen goes blank during this process). Press and hold "Volume Up" + "Volume Down" + "Power" button simultaneously. You'll see two options:

Recovery Mode: Volume Up
Factory Mode: Volume Down

Press "Volume Up" button then select the entry [Recovery Mode] using "Volume Up" button and press "Volume Down" button to proceed.
You'll now boot into your custom Recovery (CWM for me).

For CWM go to Install zip → choose zip from /sdcard/sdcard0 and use "Volume Up/Down" buttons to go up and down in the entries. Select your .zip file (from step 4) entry and press "Power" button to install. Choose Yes to install SuperSU zip -- this step will copy su binary et al. in your system which will be used by a Play Store app.
For Philz, look for similar options since most of the popular recoveries have similar options to flash a .zip.

If step 14 proceeds successfully, reboot your device and download SuperSU from Play Store.
Launch the app. Choose Continue and it will ask two options, choose TWRP/CWM. It might reboot your device but will eventually get installed.
For verification see whether SuperSU has been successfully installed and working, or not, by using any app that requests Root privileges. E.g. See these apps.

Congrats! Your device is now rooted.

About Framaroot

  Now you can root your android device without PC, just use framaroot. This app including several exploits named as the heroes of the book "The Lord of the Rings" Gandalf, Boromir, Pippin, Legolas, Sam, Frodo, Aragorn and Gimli. You can install Superuser and su binary on phone or tablet from android version 2.x to 4.x.

About SP Flash Tool

  Smart Phone Flash Tool (SP Flash Tool) allows you to Flash any Stock Rom or any Custom on the Android Smartphone.

 Note: I'm aware of MTK Droid Tools as well. Aforementioned methods should possibly work out easily for you. In case they don't or you wanna explicitly use this app for rooting (it has some other useful features as well), then consider this XDA link.


Is there a one-click widget to make my phone completely silent?

I created a Task in Tasker called Silent  that does this and created a widget that allows the one click behavior you are looking for.

Basically Silent is just a set of tasks that set the notification/ringer/system volume/etc to level 0.  Here is the XML for the Silent.tsk.xml if you want to import it.

<class cl="Task" sr="">
<nme>Silent</nme>
<id>14</id>
<class cl="Action" sr="act1">
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg2">
    </class>
    304
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg1">
        <val>1</val>
    </class>
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg0">
    </class>
</class>
<class cl="Action" sr="act0">
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg2">
    </class>
    305
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg1">
        <val>1</val>
    </class>
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg0">
    </class>
</class>
<class cl="AppIcon" sr="icn" ve="2">
    <icn>2130837581</icn>
</class>
<class cl="Action" sr="act4">
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg0">
        <val>1</val>
    </class>
    256
</class>
<class cl="Action" sr="act5">
    <class cl="StringArg" sr="arg5" ve="2">
        <val></val>
    </class>
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg4">
    </class>
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg3">
        <val>1</val>
    </class>
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg2">
        <val>3</val>
    </class>
    <class cl="StringArg" sr="arg1" ve="2">
        <val>Vibrate On</val>
    </class>
    <class cl="StringArg" sr="arg0" ve="2">
        <val>Vibrate On</val>
    </class>
    550
</class>
<class cl="Action" sr="act2">
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg2">
    </class>
    308
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg1">
        <val>1</val>
    </class>
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg0">
    </class>
</class>
<class cl="Action" sr="act3">
    <class cl="IntArg" sr="arg0">
        <val>1</val>
    </class>
    258
</class>


My Galaxy S Vibrant has 16 GB internal SD storage, and Settings -> SD card and phone storage reports 12.78 GB.  I would assume the ~3 GB difference is due to the reported size being actually in GiB, not GB, and partitioning (the internal data partition is 1.84 GiB as reported by Titanium Backup) and formatting.  The numbers work out, anyways.

Given that 8 - 5.01 is also ~3, I would say that you have an 8 GB model on your hands.  Checking with Titanium (requires root) or something else might be a good idea.


There is app called automate which probably achieve what ur saying like following examples like

sending message on specific app is running, when like battery percent is n% then do this, etc.

More description on there website


How to delete search history from Settings app?

Clearing the Settings App data will not reset any of your settings to their original state, but should clear the search history.

In the settings, navigate to your apps and find Settings and tap on Clear Data. The app should close and when opened back up, the search history should be cleared.


Try "Xender Web"

Open Xender App in your Smartphone
Now see top-right side of the app carefully and click on button to open Connect PC Page
Click on “Scan” button and hover your camera to the below given QR code.

Note : Use Wi-Fi whenever possible, because using it with Mobile-Data will consume your data quickly.


I have a HTC Desire, but I'm assuming the menus/behaviour should be similar:

  Settings -> Language & Keyboard -> Touch Input -> International keyboard

Select the languages you want to use. That should restrict the keyboard list to the ones you have specified.


How to prevent Internet access in NetGuard, "Allow" checkboxes greyed out

As you can see, Allow Wi-Fi when screen is on and Allow mobile when screen is on are greyed out for some reason[.] I don't know whether it is normal or not.

They are greyed out because you choose them to be so.  Under Settings, you would be having the following highlighted entries enabled which acts as global default for every app.

(Click image to enlarge)

  [Unchecking] Apply rules and conditions does not prevent Internet access to the app.

Because it doesn't work like that. Since you're currently using NetGuard in blacklist mode, in order to prevent an app from accessing Internet, tap on the network icons next to the app's label.

Tap on the Wi-Fi icon to prevent app from accessing Internet over Wi-Fi
Tap on mobile data/network icon to prevent app from accessing Internet over mobile data

Once you tap on a network icon its color would change and the corresponding but previously greyed entry would be made available for change as well.

(Image courtesy of Marcel Bokhorst at his GitHub)

You can use official help for more information on NetGuard's usage.


Does any version of Android support ad-hoc connections?

There are no Android versions that support the 802.11 ad-hoc mode (unfortunately).  To have ad-hoc working on an Android you need to root your phone.  This however does not fix the basic issue that the Android java API does not allow you to programatically control the wifi interface in ad-hoc mode - to do that you need to resort to native code which is not portable accross devices.

Android 4.0 however supports (and provides API's for) the new WiFi direct standard which offers some of the functionality of the 802.11 ad-hoc mode (+ a bunch of other higher level stuff).  One of the nice promises of WiFi Direct is that it will be backwards compatible with regular infrastructure mode WiFi (in the sense that a WiFi direct device will appear as a regular Access Point to non WiFi Direct devices).


How exchange messages between 2 android devices through wifi and bluetooth without internet?

I've myself worked on similar project in which not just text messages we were also interested in having audio chat (real time). As you pointed it, Android doesn't really support ad-hoc wifi functionality as of now (like u said that patching the wpa_suplicant isn't generic and frankly I'd call that method useless.) Also as your needs even I wanted to NOT use internet, so not being able to find any other way, for that time I just went with using any local wifi connection in proximity to connect with (just to be clear, still we're not using internet) I hope this possibly answers your points 1/2/3. I'm not sure whether a better solution to 1/2/3 exist atleast as long as Android people doesn't allow an ad-hoc to be created (or atleast joined..as of now one can't even join ad-hoc wifi from android if I'm correct)

Regarding 4, I'm again sorry to say that answer to that is also 'No'. When two devices connect first time, pairing has to happen. And, as far as I remember (I did this project a few months back and didn't get any time to continue/build upon) for subsequent connections to already paired devices it didn't ask for any confirmation besides our own confirmation which we asked to accept incoming voice call. Other than that bluetooth method actually worked perfectly fine.

Hope that helped. Let me know if there is something I can clarify more.

-Atul


ODEX file: Does every app has one and if yes where are they stored?

When your ROM is booted up for the first time, Android's Dalvik goes through every apk and extracts the dex file from it.  It places the dex files in the cache folder - located at /data/dalvik-cache.  This is the directory that gets cleared when you clear the dalvik cache in your recovery tool


There are a number of apps in the market that allow access to apps only after inputting a password.

For your second problem, i hope there's some way of preventing a user from putting a SIM of choice (either by encasing the device in a lockable case or something) and then configuring your WiFi router to only allow access to the site in question and block all other requests.


Keyword News seems to do exactly what you want, although it looks like a fairly basic model of this design. You could also use Google Reader which has a keyword entry on the left side of their page, that also has their very own app.


how can i backup wifi profiles without root?

If your backup app doesn't have such a category, then you cannot back it up. Even in cases where it is synced to your Google account (via the Settings > Google > Backup option) , it is restored only to the phone when you restore the backup while setting up as a new phone. But that will not show you the raw credentials if you're looking to use them. Do note that Google 's backup has its own flaws and this restore may not always work.
If you need the raw credentials, then you will need to ask the owner of that WiFi network.


Battery settings seem to be missing in Cyanogenmod 13

I encountered the same problem. Turned out it was caused by the theme I was currently using.
You can try resetting to the default Hexo theme from the Themes app.


Application-specific passwords only work for a short period of time

This sounds very strange. I've generated a few app-specific passwords (which look like "abcd-efgh-ijkl-mnop") for a few devices and have never heard from them since. Google says: "Application-specific passwords do not expire"

On the other hand, main password, which has to be accompanied with security code ("12345") does expire quite quickly. Please, make sure you use 16-letter app specific passwords, not the main password with security code.


chmod failed "Unable to open FILE: invalid argument"

First, try updating BusyBox.

However, I doubt it will help you much, because you are trying to modify very internal Linux "files" that may not even be files or block devices, or be in another filesystem (like ext4 while your phone may use f2fs etc.), or be corrupted. Maybe it's problem with file owner, I don't really know.

What I know, however, is that it's not good idea to run chmod -R 777 on Linux internal files


Check in www.appbrain.com for Android apps. It shows all possible information about app. Moreover, it shows release dates with respective released version numbers and number of downloads.


How can I get my soft-bricked Note 3 to work back

Flash your stock rom with odin, you will not loose the files on the internal storage


Phone crash caused my app icons to dissapear?

You can do 3 things:

Restart your phone.
Try another launcher like Nova Launcher or if you can, find your launcher in System Apps and clear defaults, so that it prompts you to set it as the default launcher again. This may recover your icons.
Try an icon pack.


LineageOS Update Failed: Unable to mount /data


Unable to mount from a Mac OS X using sshfs

There's a bug that prevents the OSXFuse implementation of sshfs from working with many versions of sshd, including the one used by dropbear, which is the implementation used by most SSH server apps for Android, including SSHDroid.

My solution to this problem was just to use a different SSH server app which runs the openssh sshd instead of dropbear.  SSHelper is expressly designed to do this, but I prefer to start up the full-ish linux environment provided by Termux and then run sshd from that command line.  This has the miraculous side effect of providing a fancy linuxy environment when you ssh in to your phone.

For Termux and possibly also SSHelper, you will need to edit the sshd_config text file if you want to change certain options.  SSHelper's config file lives at /data/data/com.arachnoid.sshelper/etc/sshd_config; Termux's is at /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/etc.  You'll also have to add your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys if you want to use public key, rather than password, authentication when you log in.  The config file is the same as for openssh under Linux so that documentation applies, more or less.

Also for Termux you'll have to apt install openssh in order to run sshd.


Is there a quick way to go to the top or the bottom of a web page when using the standard internet browser

No, but this can easily be done using gestures in Dolphin Browser HD.


Can't boot to Clockwork Recovery on Atrix (several methods tried)

Rooting the Atrix 4G does only that - gives you elevated privileges on stock OS.  In order to be able to install a different recovery image and custom ROMs, the phone's bootloader must be unlocked first.

This is a fairly complicated process that carries the usual warnings and disclaimers of modifying phone software.  It will most definitely void your warranty with AT&T (and possibly with Motorola as well,) so be very certain that your phone is either free of hardware defects, or out of warranty with your carrier before unlocking it.

See this thread on xda-developers forum for further details and installation instructions.


There are 2 methods of recovery at the top of my head:

Making an image of the entire flash partition that contained the files and using filters to find deleted but not yet overwritten data.

For this to be successful you definitely need root access, which means to have access to the highest system privileges in Android.

You need them to access the device directly.
There are Android apps and Linux Programs (you can run those aside of android if you have root access) that do scrape the deleted files for still whole enough files automatically.

To get root access on your device I may redirect you to xda-developers.com/root wwhich has also a nice explanation what root does.

--

This method has less chances of success but does not require root access.

Copies of the files in question that remained in cache folders. (Often the case with images.)

Therefore just search through any folder including hidden ones for folders with words like tmp or cache, maybe there is a thumbnail version still left.

Search with a file manager, not with the gallery. Most file managers have an option to show hidden files and folders in their settings.

--

Also here is some plausible guide from Androidpit that recommends specific apps.
https://www.androidpit.com/how-to-recover-lost-data

I am not affiliated with Androidpit.
I know very well how to do a root recovery manually but can not test any apps that automate it because I dont have an android phone right now. (3310 ftw)


Install Magisk in TWRP, with "Keep DM-Verity/AVB 2.0" option?

With Magisk 17.1 (introduced by topjohnwu in this commit), Magisk installer ZIP now detects system_root_image and keeps dm-verity/AVB 2.0 when being flashed in recovery. This should solve the issue most of the times (at least with my OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 6).

Alternatively, create a file at /data/.magisk with the following content:

KEEPFORCEENCRYPT=true
KEEPVERITY=true

This file will be parsed by the installer script (here) and the settings will be respected.


My Pixel C tablet doesn't respond to the unlock pattern and the recommend action to debrick it doesn't work

Just in case anyone else comes this way searching for an answer, I did get one on the XDA forums.
The solution is to start the device with volume down and power pressed.  This brings you to the menu I described in my original post.
Select the Reboot in Android recovery option.  Once you get the dead android logo hold power then press and release volume up, then release power.
That will bring up another menu which allows you to do a factory reset.
Once that is done you can restore your tablet.


Maybe you are talking about the contact picture. The contact picture is only visible if the user has specified it.

By default you can have contacts sync with all account but Profile pictures will not be sync'd in app. Each app may have different profile pictures.

Try this: go to sdcard -> whatsapp -> profiles Pictures->

Here you should see what and how many pictures are there. Only those will be shown in WhatsApp contact list.


The GPS on my Galaxy Note IV is often wrong

Nope. Since there isn't anything technically wrong with the gps in your phone and it's just the location of where you are that throws it off, the best thing to do is just go outside and see if the signal is stronger from outside the building or deal with it.
Google maps doesn't currently have any features that allow users to correct their location. You can type it in the search bar if you're trying to get from your current location to another but it won't exactly "stick".

Hope this helped.


First turn airplane mode on that should stop all erros google sync alike.

Then go to settings > account > remove google account.

Then go to where you manage your apps and delete all data + cache of every google app (play store google+ google play services etc).

Also look for an option called something "Redefine preferences" sorry my phone is not on English so may be a little different option but with the same meaning do it then reboot your phone and desative airplane mode see if it's all ok.

If you want you can also do an backup via your PC while on airplane mode so if that steps don't help and you really need to reset you will be OK


Wifi slow and delays with wifi power save on

It looks like you've already come across one solution: turning off Wi-Fi power saving. That option puts the Wi-Fi chip into a low-power state sometimes. This reduces power use, but the trade-off is that next time you want to use Wi-Fi, you have to wait a fraction of a second for the chip to power on again.

This page from the official Android documentation explains about Wi-Fi power states. It's targeted at app developers, so they can optimize the usage pattern of their apps to save power. Even so, it's easy to follow, and might be interesting for other users to understand how Android tries to save power.