How can I locate my Android device around the house? Oftentimes, I don't know where I placed my Android around the house. Is there a way to make it vibrate and emit high volume sounds/music that will help me find it?

Four come to mind:

Phoning Pigeon
Where's My Droid
Lookout Mobile
Prey

Each goes about it in different ways. Phoning Pigeon probably has the lightest touch. You pre-define one or more phone numbers with the app. Then, if the phone receives two consecutive calls from one of those numbers, it will turn the ringer on at maximum volume.

Where's My Droid is similar, but you send an SMS message with specific text.

The Lookout siren is very loud; you'd have no trouble finding it. The app has several other functions as well, including virus scanning and backing up your data.

Prey is similar to Lookout's tracking and probably wouldn't be as useful for finding a misplaced phone in your house; it's more for tracking a phone that has been taken. It might work for you, though, and there's no risk in checking it out.

I use wheresmycellphone.com, rather than downloading an app. Works great!


Where does the 'set as wallpaper' feature save your picture in Gingerbread (2.3)? I had an image from a website which I set as my background inside the browser. I am wondering now where I can find the image in the file system, because I can't find it online anymore. I already checked all the obvious folders including Downloads, but did not find it there. In fact there is an answer for a similar question on this forum, but that is for Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) and I am on Gingerbread, which is why that answer did not help me.

/data/data/com.android.settings/files/wallpaper. It's a PNG file and appears to be uncompressed due to the size.

According to this post:

Location of Current wallpaper:

For Android 4.0 and below: Once in /,

go to /data/data/com.android.settings/files.

Find a file named wallpaper in that folder and copy it to any location you want. Rename the copied file to anything.jpg or anything.png to open it as a normal image file.

This requires root.


How to change my device location on the Play Store I'm trying to download an App on the Play Store, specifically the Vue Cinema app, but this app is only (presumably) available in the UK.

I have just relocated to the UK, so how do I set my location to be the UK?

I have updated my google+ settings to say that I am currently in the UK.

Also, my google account is a Google Apps account but I don't there is any location associated with Google Apps.

(May 2013) I've contacted Google and this is their response:

  Thanks for contacting us about country support for Google Play.

  We use the billing address of your default payment instrument in
  Google Wallet to help determine your home country for accessing the
  Play Store. Our collection of content can vary by country, so your
  view of the Play Store may differ from what others are seeing when you
  travel outside of the country listed on your default payment method's
  billing address.

  Please note that you must have a valid payment method with a billing
  address located inside a country in order to access that country's
  Play Store.

  If you're having issues viewing your intended country's Play Store and
  would like to change your default payment method or update an existing
  billing address in Google Wallet, please use the following steps:

  1) Sign into your Google Wallet account to manage your payment methods
  https://wallet.google.com/manage/paymentMethods

  2) Add a new card or change your default payment instrument to one
  with a billing address located inside your desired country

  3) Open the Play Store and navigate to any item available for download

  4) Click to begin a download until you reach the "Accept and buy"
  screen (no need to complete the purchase)

  5) Close the Play Store and clear data for the Google Play Store
  application (Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Clear Data) or
  clear your browser cache

  6) Re-open the Play Store. You should now see the Play Store that
  matches your default payment instrument's billing country.

  If you haven't yet added a payment method to your account for the
  first time, please add a card directly from the Play Store with a
  billing address that matches your intended country location. Then,
  follow steps 3 through 6 to show your intended country's Play Store.

  If you believe that you're experiencing a different location-related
  issue, please first verify if the country of your primary payment
  method matches your intended country. If the countries match, please
  provide any screenshots and additional details that might help me
  resolve your issue.

  We appreciate your feedback as we continue bringing more content to
  Google Play. Thank you for reaching out!

(July 2015) Update

Due to the popularity of this answer, I've decided to add bits to this answer which others have pointed out to improve and update this answer.

The Accept and buy screen is only available on desktop (not mobile) - thanks @fwuensche
Google Wallet has changed since the original answer was posted, also try to change your address on these links - thanks @corbacho
Settings
Address Book
Clear all cache and data from the Play Store app
If you're in a "family account", leave it
Try these steps of removing and adding back your account - thanks @Dushy
Google customer support suggests it may take between 30 minutes to 24 hours for the address on the account to refresh.

It should work if you change it from your Google account, which for whatever reason is not the same as a G+ account.

If you have gmail, I found the setting under settings > Accounts and Import > Other Google Account settings

right now the page looks a little small but hopefully that's just my browser playing tricks on me again


Mediaserver is eating my phone's battery? I'm using dual boot on my SGS2 with CM10.1 and JellyBam and both running fine but with some issue of mediaserver draining my phone's battery like a crazy nut. I have checked on Google and got many threads about this without any proper solution. This question already exist on this site but that solution doesn't work for me and rebooting every time is a big pain.

Screenshot of "Battery Usage" (click image for larger variant)

I've also deleted all media files on my Sdcard but it still trigger to eat my battery.

In case anyone is still having issues, try an app called mediaserver killer.


How can I merge SMS and Hangouts messages within Hangouts? It made sense to me to merge SMS, WhatsApp style messaging and video calls into one app to save resources and switching between apps so I set up Hangouts to be the SMS app.

I just had one problem - how to send SMS messages from Hangouts? (If I know the person has a problem with data reception, then I do specifically want to send an SMS at that time, for instance.)

According to Google:

"Choose a contact from your conversations list. Touch someone's name at the top. You can then choose SMS from the drop-down menu."

But that is not true in practice. It appears the reason I couldn't do that was because I was in the "hangout" for Hangout messages (I will call it MoIP - Message over IP - in the following) and video calls for that person, not the SMS "hangout" for that person.

Integrating the two in one app and then separating them seems to be going half a step backwards again, so does anybody know if I can merge those two hangouts and do SMS, MoIP and video calls to a person from the same "hangout"?

My phone is a Moto G 1st generation without 4G (XT1032) with Android 5.0 "Lollipop".

If you long press on either hangout (MOIP or SMS), then press on the other one you should get an option to merge them. This should then give you the option to send either from the same hangout.

There is also a setting within Settings > SMS to Enable merged conversations which needs to be enabled.

Go to settings /sms/default sms account and Change it to your Gmail account


USB Driver for HTC Dream G1 - 64 bit Windows 7 I have a HTC Dream G1 (T-Mobile) - android version 1.5 and I have 64 bit Windows 7 on my laptop. I am unable to access the memory card in my phone through my laptop. Can someone tell me how to install the USB driver for my phone?

Thanks in advance.

Go and download the Android SDK installer.
When the SDK setup tool runs, you can select the USB Drivers
The drivers will be in <install_directory>extras\google\usb_driver
find the android_winusb.inf and right click it
click install

if right click -> install doesn't work, then try the following

Start Menu -> Right Click Computer -> Click Properties
Click Device Manager (on the left)
Find the device in the hardware list, will probably have a "warning icon"
Right click the item and select Update Driver Software
Select Browse my computer for driver software
Select the usb driver directory noted above
Check Include subfolders
Click next
finished...

your device should now have usable drivers so you can mount the sdcard.

For reference, the android sdk documents also has a page with links to many of the different OEM drivers too.

just follow these directions to install the android driver... very easy ! how to install Android driver


ADB bricked android doesn't connect to pc I have a bricked android BLUBOO X2. I rooted it, changed build.prop to set some settings so that I could boot in Ubuntu Touch(which didn't work). And now I can't boot up anymore at all, it is in boot loop.

I tried booting in recovery and then selected "apply update from ADB". It then says: 'Now send the package you want to apply to the device with "adb sideload < filename>" ... '. I did this once and it showed an error, but the weird thing/problem is that I cannot sideload anything anymore: 'error: device not found'.

I (think I) know it is connected with my (Windows 10) PC because it made a connection and deconnecting sound when booting in recovery.

How can I get my android to be connected or how otherwise can I load a ROM or change the build.prop back?

Well, you've just messed with the system partition, so there's nothing much to panic.. Here's a stock ROM for your phone:

http://www.needrom.com/category/bluboo/x2-bluebo/ (Choose the ROM for the SAME android version you had before bricking).

The good news is you won't need to lose your data. Everything will be safe.

Download SP Flash Tools, load the scatter file from this ROM, uncheck all the partitions except ANDROID (SYSTEM) as this is the only partition you need to rectify. Click on Download and connect your device. Your device will be unbricked without having to lose any data.

if you bricked your phone and the battery is non removable..
just open your back panel..
open screws and just cut off the power supply from the battery to phone..
for your reference i have posted a link of how to cut power supply from vivo xshot and restore it

https://moschino2015.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/exquisite-and-easy-to-disassemble-vivo-xshot-teardown-map-tour/
have fun!!

p.s who says battery arent removable??

note :- i am not responsible if u damage the internal circuits or void warranty of your phone!!
do it on ur own risk!
but it worked for me :)


Is that only very few app really use mult cores power? I google this question but there is almost no discussion. So only very few apps really use more than one core?

It's a pretty subjective question, since no one really knows how many apps do or don't do any given thing. You'd have to carefully analyse each app to find out how much use it can make of multiple cores.

Likely, more apps than you realise are doing this. First off, Android makes it very simple for app authors to work in multiple threads, with helpers like AsyncTask. App developers are encouraged to do most operations in background threads, such as loading bitmaps from storage, transferring data over the network, or long computations. Running those on a second core keeps the app more responsive while the operation's going on.

If the app does anything with GL (most graphics-heavy apps and almost all games do), then it's certainly using two cores. How much use it's making of that freedom to parallelise is different for each app, but again, it lets the app do long-running operations while still responding to you.

On top of this, even if the app you're using right now is only running in a single thread on one core, anything else Android is doing in the background will be running on another core, which again lets your app stay responsive. This might include activities like drawing the system UI, running background services from other apps to check your mail &c., features like "Smart Stay" on Samsung phones, listening for the "OK Google" hotword, and more.

So in short, while we can discuss how much use any given app makes of the power available to it, a sweeping statement like, "very few apps really use more than one core," sounds like the kind of thing an uninformed salesman would say to try to impress you.

There is no central repository where in the apps that are uploaded in Play store or any other store for that matter are sorted into

Apps that use the camera
apps that use one core etc etc

This is because majority of android users do not care how many cores apps use!

Also due to restrictions on clock speed / computational power you can't actually do compute intensive stuff on android, there is CUDA for that, you still have to revert to desktops.

And it all depends on the developer really and we can't really say for sure if there are few apps for android that use multicore.


Galaxy S6 won't charge after drain to 0-1%, cannot boot After letting my Galaxy S6 drain more than usual, I connected it to the fast charger a bit after it hit 1%, and left it for the night while still powered on.

Next morning the phone was off. Powering it on, the phone shuts down before completing boot.

I plugged it in to an Anker charger, also supporting Quick Charging, and left it all day. Same problem. Once it managed to finish booting, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the 0% battery indicator in the status bar.

I tried booting into recovery mode (holding Vol. Up and Home while pressing Power) and left it to charge for about an hour before rebooting. Same problem.

Any suggestions, please? :-)

I got the chance to attempt to charge the phone via a wireless Qi-charger which, to my surprise, worked. So it didn't seem to simply be a dead battery, or a weird software loop, but something specifically concerning the USB/charging port.

I decided to bite the bullet and had the phone repaired. They replaced the "Charging Port Flex Cable", a part that can be bought online for 14$ or less, in case you feel like replacing the part yourself.

Connect to a charger
Wait 30 mins-1 hr
Unplug the charger
Press and hold the power key until you see the Samsung Galaxy logo


Is there a way to speed up the delay when pressing the home button? My guess is that the reason there's a delay when pressing the home button is due to the fact that it could be re-purposed into launching "Google Now" or "S Voice" by pressing it twice. So it has to wait for a second before it sends a signal "this is a single press" to the OS. I don't believe it's caused by phone waking up from sleep because it happens every time and it's consistent.

If my guess is correct and I'm not using "Google Now" or "S Voice", it would be great to remove this delay. How do I do that? Is that even possible?

In my opinion, it is annoying. The moment I press the home button I'm expecting an instant response by showing up the home screen as immediately as possible.

EDIT:

I already disabled all the apps that could possibly make use of double pressing the home button like "S Voice". Now when I open an app to foreground, pressing the home twice doesn't take me to home screen but instead nothing happens. That means there's no longer any function that is currently bound to double pressing the home button. If I press the home button once, it still takes a delay before it takes me back to the home screen.

An important navigation mechanism in Android is called a long press. You perform a long press by pressing and holding down a physical key or touch (capacitive) button. If the long press is successful, the phone will provide some physical feedback such as vibration, and the long press action will take place.

You can use a long press to open menus that are specific to the active item - think of it like opening a context menu on a PC. For example, performing a long press on a song in the Music player application in Android 2.2 will open a menu that allows you to add or remove it from a playlist. To perform a long press that opens a context menu, press and hold the select key or the trackball.

Yes you can increase/ decrease  the time duration of the home button under the settings>Accessibility scroll down to Mobility.

Select your desired time gap from the three  -Long/short/medium

When I use other launcher, little bit improved.
I have used poco launcher


How does a tablet automatically power on when a power source is connected? Please imagine a car situation where you have an Android tablet:

http://content.worldcarfans.co/2014/11/24/thumbnails/24486128385597.hl2.jpg

And the following working rules (as expected in most cases):

If the car is OFF, tablet is OFF;
If the car is ON, tablet is ON (automatically);

I have been reading about enabling auto power on mode when the charger is connected: most tablets have the playlpm, lpm, or a specific file that displays the battery charging animation.
The trick is to overwrite these files and force a boot.

Furthermore, I have also checked and tested Tasker, where I was able to achieve this behavior only when USB is connected.

However, I would like to know if there's anyway we can do it if the tablet has no battery attached on it.

Would this same approach work?

I managed to solve this situation only by removing the battery.

Turns out that most tablet's automatically power on when they're directly connected to an external power source.

Solved simply by removing battery and shorting power button on lenovo a2020


Download location for Android 4.4 x86 (64bit) Where can we download following
 Android 4.4 ISO
 Android 4.4 64bit ISO

I have checked at following location
https://code.google.com/p/android-x86/downloads/list

Seems like android-x86 4.3 is the maximum version provided there.

I am searching for ISO to set it up on VM Player/Virtual Box.

It looks like there are no Android 4.4 images ready yet for this. In the download area of the Android X86 project you can find a couple of images and more, starting with Android 1.6 (Donut) and currently reaching up to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), and also other useful resources. Might be worth checking there again later, as I would expect they add 4.4 as soon as they have an image ready for that.

I'm not sure whether the Genymotion project (the "next generation" of AndroidVM) offers some image downloads as well, as checking would require one to sign-up first. Genymotion is another VM solution, which AFAIK works together with VirtualBox. It should be quite fast and stable, is based on Android x86, and available for MacOS, Linux, and Windows alike.

EDIT (2014-10-31): The download-area now holds the 4.4 images. A second place to check is the project's downloads at sourceforge, which currently also have the 4.4 images available.

Here is a link for Android 4.4 :

android-x86-4.4-RC2.iso

Android X86 is still in beta, the above link will give you RC2. On 8/8/2014, they released version R1.

You can always go to http://www.android-x86.org to check for new updates.


How can I stream audio from my phone over wifi to a speaker or receiver? I have a Galaxy Nexus and would like to be able to send music from it to speakers or a receiver.

Since I use a few different apps to listen to music (Spotify and Pandora mostly but sometimes also Audible) I don't want to have to use a specific player.

And I'd like to do it all over WiFi because Bluetooth doesn't provide enough range for me (I've tried, many different ways).

Is there a way to do this with android?

What I'm not looking for:

A way to stream to or from a PC.
Anything involving BlueTooth.
A new music player app on android - I want to stream music from any app on my phone to a wireless receiver or speaker.
Anything involving software running on a PC.

This should work when my PC is off. I should be able to pull out my phone, open spotify or pandora or audible or google listen or whatever and hear the output on any speaker in the house.

You would need to get the speakers accessible over wireless somehow.

This does that: https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_audio

Alternatively, you could plug your android phone directly into your speakers and remotely control your android phone over wifi with a laptop/PC. May need to be rooted for this however.

Sony's Walkman player does the job. You can stream your audio to network PC


How do I use an external microphone with my Galaxy Nexus? How do I use an external microphone on my Galaxy Nexus, and what kind do I need?

I know if it should use a jack plug (3.5 mm), but not all jack connectors are the same, and I don't know if the lower or middle or upper part is for the microphone.

I want to use my phone for a video conference, but there is going to be a lot of noise around me, so I need an external microphone without all the background noise which the microphone in the phone gives.

I don't think the Gnex can handle a USB mic through the micro USB port, correct me if I'm wrong.

Today i have made some progress in this question.
On iPhone you can buy a iRig Mic which can do the job (and it should work on android too).
But since i want to use another external microphone i have decided to make the adapter myself from some different adapters (which does the same thing as iRig Mic, but with a female 3.5 mm jack output, so i can use my wireless microphone with it)

I have ordered the parts from an online store in denmark, but you can get it all over the internet, you just need to know what you need :)

The first thing you need is a 3.5 mm male 4 pole conductor jack (TRRS) to RCA adapter.
Like this one
Then you need a RCA to either female jack or XLR adapter (either if your mic has a jack or XLR output)
Like this one
And thats all.

Then you can plug everything together and use the mic of your choice on your Android phone.

(BTW some stock camcorder apps can't use external microphones, then just use this camcorder app: https://market.android.com/details?id=rubberbigpepper.lgCamera&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInJ1YmJlcmJpZ3BlcHBlci5sZ0NhbWVyYSJd )

I'm using this app ^^ with this set of wireless microphones

And i'm just waiting for the last adapter in the mail tomorrow..

So from tomorrow i can record with my galaxy nexus and record the sound via the wireless microphone on a distance up too 30 meters :D

And if i need to go around with the phone and the microphone, i will just plug in a wired microphone to the female jack and go around with the phone and microphone in my hand :)

I hope someone in the future can use this information which was very hard to find on the internet :)
When i have some time later today or tomorrow, i will upload a couple pictures to illustrate my setup :)

http://www.startech.com/Cables/Audio-Video/Audio-Cables/35mm-4-Position-to-2x-3-Position-35mm-Headset-Splitter-Adapter-Male-to-Female~MUYHSMFF

I think this is what you are looking for.


What is the meaning of "need access to: " in when we want to install an application? Whenever we want to install an application from Google Play, the application will ask permission to access to some things. The number of permissions are different from one to another application. Below is an example of application that requests permission to access.

Then my question are, how that access work? Is the application will take our data for them? I.e: It ask to access images in the phone, will the application will copy and send all the images to the developer? Or, will the application copy the conversation as it has access to the microphone? And how long it will have the access one we granted and installed the application?

Is the application will take our data for them? I.e: It ask to access images in the phone, will the application will copy and send all the images to the developer? Or, will the application copy the conversation as it has access to the microphone?

There is no authoritative answer to this in the absence of the source code of the software being available for review, and of course, one's ability to review the code themselves. The applications are written by actors, developer(s) technically. That actor may be benign and genuine and minding just their business, literally and figuratively, so they would mention it in their terms of use policy that to what extent and what category of data would be collected.

However, a malicious actor would naturally want to have access to all the private data of yours, so their app may listen to your private conversations, use your camera, upload your photos and so on once you have granted access to the permissions it would have demanded.

Some detection and preventive safeguards can be deployed, but that matter is beyond the scope of this question here.

  And how long it will have the access one we granted and installed the application?

Since Marshmallow, a user can revoke or grant certain dangerous permissions later in time even if they had been granted earlier, by going into Settings > Apps. The permissions stay as long as the app stays in the device. Once you uninstall an app, all granted accesses are lost, but not the data that it may have collected and uploaded somewhere else. A reinstallation is no different than a fresh installation in terms of permissions access.

It means app requires to use those features of your mobile. For example, app may let you upload a photo from gallery, so for that it requires permission to access storage.


Huawei Ascend G630 shows on the display: "Recovery image verify failed" I've spent much time reading up on my issue with no progress at all.
I have a problem with a Huawei Ascend G630.

I have never rooting my phone or flashing a custom rom. The phone does not work, I can’t reset it by pressing volume up, down and power, and only when it’s on charge, it shows the message:

"Recovery image verify failed
Please update to the authorized images”.

I removed the battery, then, I tried getting it into the recovery mode to reset It or even flash its stock firmware following this instruction to solve it:

1)  I downloaded HUAWEI G630 Firmware from here:
http://consumer.huawei.com/kh/mobile-phones/support/downloads/detail/ascend-g630-kh.htm?id=26062

2)  I extracted Huawei Smartphone firmware (UPDATE.APP) on my PC and then I have pasted it on micro SD card.

The process doesn’t start and the phone returns to the first message
“Recovery image verify failed”.

I think that bootloader is locked.

I enclosed a picture.

Please help me.
Thanks.

There is a quite simple workaround to solve your problem.

First you should search (on XDA example) and download an original-recovery.bin for your device.
After you can flash it in fastboot mode with the following command:

fastboot flash recovery original-recovery.bin

After this you have an original bootloader on your device.

Source: XDA-Developers

It looks like your recovery partition has somehow damaged.. Flashing UPDATE.APP is done by recovery so since your recovery is not working it failed to do so. If your device still has warranty I suggest you to take it to a service center and get it fixed.. Or else you'll have to reflash the stock recovery manually which requires unlocking your bootloader.
Unlocking bootloader voids your warranty.
Doing this for your exact device model and variant can be specific for your device. You can try searching on xda for that.


Can't exit recovery mode after intalling HD revolution 71.1 I started with a HTC ONE m7 with HD Revolution 12 and Android 4.2.2.

Downloaded and installed Android_Revolution_HD-One_71.1.zip.  Install seems to go fine.  After installation it asks me to fix permissions.  Also wiped from TWRP before installation.

After installing and rebooting I can only get to TWRP v2.5.0.0 or the bootloader mode that shows:

TAMPERED
UNLOCKED
HBOOT-1.44.0000
RADIO-4A.14.3250.15
OPEN DSP-v26.120.274.0202
eMMC-BOOT
May 3 2013, 20:01:28-1

FASTBOOT USB:
Bootloader
Reboot
Reboot Bootloader
Power Down

or HBOOT:
Fastboot
Recovery
Factory Reset
Simlock
Image CRC
Show Barcode

What now?  Everything I try takes me to either the Recovery Screen or the TWRP.
:?

Summing up the solution from the comments, as neither OP nor the "solution provider" posted an answer:

Per Johnny Wrights recommendation I was trying to update TWRP to 2.6.3.3:

Plug in the phone to the PC via USB and make sure the phone is in FASTBOOT USB mode from the bootloader menu.
On the PC, I installed "Minimal ADB and Fastboot". Running that from the command line (cmd.exe) you type fastboot flash recovery then drag the file. (watch the youtube video – it will make more sense). I my case it was the 2.6.3 TWRP .img file. That pushes the update to the phone.
I already had the HD 71.1 zip on the phone. I installed that via the TWRP install and from there it booted up normally.

In my case, removing TWRP and reinstalling it solved the issue:

install stock recovery to replace the installed TWRP
install TWRP again so it replaces the stock recovery

After that, my device booted up normally.


Thermal receipt printer for Android I'm Thinking about a Queue management system built with Android tablets. I figured out that the cheapest way to give each customer a number is a thermal receipt printer. I'm looking for any solution that:

Can print text and basic graphics (e.g. QR codes)
Can connect to my Android directly via BT or USB, without Cloud printing or internet connection
Is generally reliable, and can handle a few hundreds of prints every day

Is thermal printing a good idea? Are there any thermal printers that play nicely with Android?

What you are looking for is usually known as a 'receipt printer'. A quick Google for 'bluetooth receipt printer' turns up a number of models from a variety of manufacturers (quite a few of them are actually battery powered and portable - like you see at car rental places).

The big problem here is that Android doesn't really have any concept of local printing, so I think you're going to have to implement it yourself.

Android DOES have bluetooth communications APIs (docs), and I'd be surprised if the printer manufacturers haven't heard all this before, and have at least clues how to proceed (after all, they like to sell printers!). If you'll be buying a significant number of printers, I bet they'll happily help you talk to their devices.

If that's too expensive for you (and those printers look a bit pricey), then you could try USB. Again, you can find USB receipt printers, which again you'll have to learn to talk to. Android does have a set of USB APIs (docs). On the plus side, my quick Google for 'USB receipt printer' turned up some sub-$75 choices right away, so this might be a good approach if you are price sensitive. I'd also be willing to bet that at least some of the USB printers are actually serial devices with something like an FTDI chip bolted up to them. That means that talking to them is probably not very difficult.

Alternately, if you can find a cheap receipt printer that's serial or something, you could look at the IOIO boards and software stack as a way to interface your android tablet to some funky printer. These are boards that adhere to the relevant Android APIs + software that makes them easy to talk to. The boards are available commercially, and the schematics are available, if you want to build your own, and they are designed to make hardware interfacing easy.

I work for a thermal printer manufacturer based in India (Mumbai). We have the perfect solution for your requirements: our 2" Bluetooth printer.

We can also provide a sample APK file, and the source code to integrate the printer with your application. If you want more information, please contact us.


Unlock android phone with forgotten password and attached gmail account details too Unfortunately My android phone Sony Xperia Go with got locked. I gave this to a friend for use and he gave this to his friend. Now the problem is no one have any idea which gmail account is linked to this. Neither any one is taking the responsibility... well that's other problem.

I am writing here for help. If anyone can help in this.

The phone is not allowing to enter pattern now. It is asking for gmail account details or security question answer and don't have any of these.

I hope anyone could help me this.

If you don't worry for the data of your phone the everything will be easier.First of all turn off the device.Then open it again, wait 3 seconds and then press the power button and the volume up or down(the reboot may differ from phone to phone) Then, at the reboot you will be able to use it only with the up and down volume buttons.Reset the phone and everything will be deleted (even the password) For more information check here : http://www.greenbot.com/article/2458403/how-to-perform-a-factory-reset-on-your-android-phone-or-tablet.html

Do you have home button at your phone. If you have try to do the same but with power button and hone button.


Mute Emergency alert in Google Now (without removing it) Google Now has a neat feature (at least I think it's from Google Now) where it warns you for emergency events. The problem is it's just warned me twice in half an hour with an extremely loud tone about a snowstorm I've known about for days.

Is there some way I can make the phone vibrate or change the ringtone? I only see an option to disable these alerts entirely. It's not my default notification/alarm ringtone; it's a special LOUD warning tone. Good at attracting attention but major overkill. I would like to still get them, but I would like them to be much quieter (yes, even though they're "emergencies") as my phone blaring loud warning tones at work is quite distracting.

If you go to google now, and then go to settings (the three dot menu button if its a soft key) theres a section that says notifications. That section has a part titled Urgent Updates and has the option to set a ringtone or turn on vibrate. As far as I know this should change the sound for the alert since it says urgent updates include public alerts. Just note, I am using KitKat so if you don't have the latest version of google now it could be different.
EDIT: I just realized this question was asked a year ago so the answer details a newer version

On my phone, which runs Android Gingerbread, this setting is under Sound\Emergency\Emergency Tone. I have set it to OFF, as opposed to Alert or Vibrate.


How can I view all of my attachments from gmail? When I search in Gmail app for files that were attached to emails, Gmail can't find them.
Is there a way to see all of my attachments from Gmail? 3rd-party apps would be acceptable too.

If you search for has:attachment within the Gmail app then you should see emails which have attachments.

you should use the new gmail INBOX + the "has:attachment" and you'll see thumbs of them all


Sony Xperia E1 D2005 Custom Recovery&CustomROM Flashing? I want to flash a custom ROM and install custom recovery; but when I enter ROMmanager (my device is rooted) and try to install CRW or TWRP it says "custom recovery does not support D2005 (sony xperia e1).

I want to flash a custom rom safely (well if I brick it I can drop it in water and say I dropped it accidentally in water; I know it's dirty trick but I don't want to be with no phone either, so let's say I have 2 lifes). My bootloader is locked, I don't know how to unlock it so I'll need help for that.

So what if my phone can flash a custom ROM, which ROM? I want the ROM to be performant and good at 3D gaming (I want to play Despicable Me but now with the "stock" ROM I'm getting 15 fps and 20 in clear areas).

I don't know that exact model, but I found a pretty much complete guide to rooting, flashing and so on at XDA for your model here.

IMPORTANT: Remember to read the entire guide closely a couple of times before commencing the rooting and flashing procedure, so that you know exactly what you're doing and don't brick the device.


Using ADB, what command can I use to break/permanently destroy a Galaxy S5? I really need to know how to completely fry an S5 (don't ask why) using ADB while attached to a USB to my computer. Someone had posted the instructions for an S4 but the command only turned it off and on again when I used it. If there is any other method I can use to do this (break it I mean, but not physically), let me know.

Requires root access

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/mmcblk0

It won't complete through the whole disk, but will proceed to a point where the device flashes black and falls irresponsive. All data are not erased, but the system is gone and it's very hard to recover.

For the same effect:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/mmcblk0 bs=4096 count=256
# Only erases the first 1MB, where the GPT table lies

Alternatively (for Galaxy S5 and other "modern" phones):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/by-name/aboot

An aftersale service can recover the device without breaking it open, which is what you wanted. I'm not going to post any details about recovery, only the fact that it can be recovered.

If you have root right then its very simple. with adb command

$ adb shell rm /system/bin/linker

you can also try this with terminal emulater with root permission

this will remove executable linker which is very important for .so library in system or in apps.
after reboot i'm sure you can't access your device.
but if you want it back you can use flash tool to flash stock ram and get running it back.
you can also try to remove some other binary in system part.


google play store says no connection retry When I open the Google Play Store it says, no connection retry even when I am connected to wifi and when I hit Sign In in the Youtube app it says, An error occurred.

You checked your internet connection of the modem/router? I also got that problem several times.. > modem/router/ap restart helped me in this cases because it was a connectivity issue with my provider and not an android/app problem.
Sometimes even a simple turn into flight mode and back resolves this issue (at least for me).

Mine Solved..

Some times your network blocks ip's or google may black list your network ip's for some reason..
If setting date and time, clearing data and cache doesn't work. Install VPN HotSpot Shield via browser. Than turn this app on once it secures your connection you will be good to use play store.

Hope this helps.


Email application with notifications only for specified contacts (standard SMTP/POP3/IMAP) I have a lot of mail traffic on my phone. But I want to be notified only for mail from certain contacts like my family, colleagues/boss, critical automated systems or at least any contact in my phone contact list (with email typed in).

Are there such applications which can access email on my personal/corporate server? Standard IMAP (or at least POP3) + SMTP, not some proprietary protocols like Exchange/Gmail.

I haven't found a standalone app but K9 in conjunction with WhoIsIt Lite supports this. It doesn't do away with visual notifications mind you, but it can silence them.

Alternatively you could investigate whether your workplace email support server based rules. You could use them to filter unimportant emails into a folder other than your inbox. Android's stock email app only checks for new emails in your inbox so the app would ignore the others.

If you don't mind paying money check out touchdown.  There is a free trial but I think it will do what you want.

http://www.nitrodesk.com/features.aspx


Map Whatsapp media to external SD on rooted Lollipop I've wanted to create a symlink from the Whatsapp media folder on internal storage to external. So I installed FolderMount from XDA, which is claimed to work. Instead, what I've seen is that Whatsapp is unable to write to the new location on the external SD card. When I click on a picture or other media file sent by someone, it downloads it but the blurred thumbnail persists, and when you click on it, it says 'the file was not found on SD Card' or similar.
Does Lollipop deny writing to the external card for apps somehow? The other option I've used is Link2SD to a separate internal partition, but that doesn't work well with Whatsapp either.

Do I need to make sure I'm mapping the actual path to the internal/external storages and not symlinks/aliases, and in that case what would the actual path be?

Symlink should work
Run ln -s /ext/directly /ext/dir/no/fat


Restore IMEI for Samsung Galaxy SL (GT-I9003) when there is no backup Well I was on phone and suddenly I lost IMEI and my SIM card is not detected.
So I tried flashing (to some firmware and I flashed back to original I9003XWKPG) and nothing.

I don't have any backups. I have Samsung Galaxy SL (GT-I9003).

How can I restore my IMEI?

(Click image to enlarge)

Were you messing around with poweruser settings because most of us don't suddenly "lose IMEI"  but in that case if you are rooted get an app called root explorer and go to the following directory /system/efs and see if your imei is in there. otherwise you will have to buy a new phone.


disable two startup logos on android devices startup There are two logos on my android device(s) showing while loading device.

How to remove them showing?

First one is general android logo
Second one is vendor specific.

I need either of them to be  disabled, without going to change them.

There has to be some option for this.

You need root and a root explorer like ES File Explorer. Go to system/media/ and delete or rename the file bootani.qmg if you want to get rid of the Android animation.

The vendor one should be named like samsungani.qmg or htcani.qmg.

You can't change or remove them. Only way to do it is by installing custom ROM; which will inturn invalidate any warranty you have on the phone.


Where Android apps store data? Could you list all possible directories where Android apps may store data, providing description what kind of data are stored in each directory?

All apps (root or not) have a default data directory, which is /data/data/<package_name>. By default, the apps databases, settings, and all other data go here. This directory is "private" to the app – which means no other app and not even the user can access data in it (without root permissions).
If an app expects huge amounts of data to be stored, or for other reasons wants to "be nice to internal storage", there's a corresponding directory on the SDCard (Android/data/<package_name>).
Apart from that, all apps can store data anywhere on the SDCard, as there are no restrictions -- and many apps do so. They can use directory names freely (and they again do), which is what often makes it hard to decide what all that "junk" on the card is intended for, and what of it can be deleted.
Though, as Tom pointed out, root-apps could store their data almost everywhere on your device, they usually follow the same rules as other apps.
You can find a general explanation of the Android directory hierarchy in my answer here. For your specific question I might add some more details on the /data/data/<package_name> (and corresponding SD-part):

databases/: here go the app's databases
lib/: libraries and helpers for the app
files/: other related files
shared_prefs/: preferences and settings
cache/: well, caches

There might be several more directories in this place, or fewer -- it all depends on the app. In its own "home directory" (and that's what it basically is, spoken Linux-wise) they can place files where they want. Usually, these files and directories are only accessible by the app itself (and root, of course) -- other than those stored on the SDCard, which are accessible by all apps.

The answer to your question you are asking is too big. I can, however, give you a basic answer which covers the basics.

There are two kinds of apps:
Root and non-root.

Root apps can basically store/modify files wherever they want.
Non-root apps can only store/modify files here: /sdcard/ and every folder what comes after.Mostly, the installed apps store themselves at /sdcard/Android/data or /sdcard/Android/obb.Some apps store their save games/configuration data files on /sdcard/APPNAME/, or just on the /sdcard/

To be able to use root apps, you'll need to have rooted your Android device and have given permission from one of the superuser apps.


Data turns on automatically I am using lenovo k3 note. I recently updated to android 6.0 marshmallow.  Whenever I turn on the phone secondary SIM data turns on automatically.

Help me to solve this issue friends???

I think that this kind of problem can be caused by some sorts of applications that have access or permission to enable your mobile data,I know that Facebook,Whatsapp & maybe every single social media app does not have that kind of permission.I know that samsung got a disabling option that turns off mobile data for good.that's all I know about that buddy


Is it possible to access data while a device is on bootloop? I own a Samsung tablet (GT-n5110) and it is in bootloop. I don't have a data backup (yes, I'm an idiot). It isn't totally bricked, so I can access recovery mode (HOME+VOLUME UP+POWER), but before wiping it to factory configuration I am desperatelly trying to back it up. It isn't rooted.

I use linux (ubuntu), but I am open to trying to access it through Windows if anyone thinks it's easier (in spite both ubuntu and android are unix, right?). I've read in many foruns that it is possible to back up an android device through ADB tools in linux, but my device isn't recognized with $ sudo adb devices

I have alredy updated UDEV rules with the correct idVendor and idProduct and I have alredy reinitiated ADB server.

When I connect the device to the computer, it recognizes the tablet but says it cannot access it due to a MTP problem (this alredy used to happen before the bootloop, but it didn't bother me as I didn't use the computer to back the device up as I should have done). I have alredy installed and updated mtp-tools, but still receive the same message.

HERE IS MY MAIN DOUBT: IT DOESN'T WORK 'CAUSE I AM NOT CONFIGURING ADB CORRECTLY OR BECAUSE ADB CAN'T ACCESS A DEVICE ON BOOTLOOP?

Is there a way for ADB to recognize and access this device? Should I keep looking? Or is it simply impossible for a bootlooping device to be recognized though ADB or any other tools?

Thanks A LOT, I really need this help!

USB DEBUGGING CAN BE TRIGGERED BY PULLING OUT THE BATTERY...

If you have a built-in battery, You need to force a reboot by holding all the buttons on the device simultaneously for 30 seconds...

Try to remove the battery and replace it,   or force reboot ...

This will or should enable ADB Until boot logo starts to loop .. It will only enable it for enough time to check the settings and then disable it.... This means you can only run one segment of adb commands, So type them out first or just paste the following in CMD with ctrl+v

adb wait-for-device
adb pull /data


Possible to disable LG Cliptray? My LG G2 (and I assume other LG phones) have a "Cliptray" which replaces the clipboard with one where you can access the history. I'd like to remove this function as 1Password cannot remove copied passwords after a set time.

Phone is rooted, if that helps.

Since the device is rooted, here's a way of disabling Clip Tray:

Go into Clip Tray and delete all entries.
In the file /system/etc/permissions/com.lge.software.cliptray.xml, change this line

&lt;feature name="com.lge.software.cliptray"/&gt;

to

&lt;!-- &lt;feature name="com.lge.software.cliptray"/&gt; --&gt;

This will put the feature in comment, and will not grant permission for this feature.
Reboot the device.

Note: You might still see the option Paste, Cliptray in your stock LG keyboard, which will not work after this modification but cannot be hidden or removed. A way to work around that is to use an alternate keyboard, like Google Keyboard.

With that permission edit, it affects how the screenshots are saved.
You get a warning toast about the file not saving, and then the "saving screenshot" notification, never goes away, until you reset your phone.
The screenshot does actually save though.

Edit:

You can avoid this side effect by instead running this command (source):

rm /data/data/com.lge.systemservice/databases/clipdata.db && ln -s /dev/null /data/data/com.lge.systemservice/databases/clipdata.db

Or

Select option B from this app, which enters the command for you: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jfsoftware.disablecliptray


Google account on HTC desire & galaxy tab just got my new shiny galaxy tab out of the box and am attempting to add the same google account i have setup on my HTC desire. after entering my username and pass, i am given the worded picture that i have to type in(you know the bot check)
After i put it in, it says please wait for 2 seconds, and gives me another worded picutre. I've done this 100 times at least, so i couldn't have got it wrong everytime.

is there a reason for why i cannot get past this step? I'm going crazy here!

Try changing adding either of the following to your user name and try the CAPTCHA again.

@googlemail.com
@gmail.com

I just got a windows tablet on black thurs and had the same issue. I currently am logged into Google on my nexus 5 phone and laptop. I downloaded chrome for the tablet because I don't like explorer. logged into Google & was prompted to recover/reset password. No idea why because my password was the same as always. I reset it, then was kicked out of my account on my laptop.. Dist password reset again on the laptop, then logged out of Google on the tablet. Then came the nightmare, my phone kept popping up the password reset prompt in a vicious cycle, it kept popping up so quickly that I couldn't type in the CAPTCHA fast enough. I ended up managing to open my notepad app and copy/pasted my password into the prompt screen. It seriously took like 20 min to do this.
I ended up making a whole new Google/gmail account to use specifically on my tablet. I'm ok with this bc I don't need my browser & photos synching anyway, I plan to use the tablet more for general internet browsing and streaming. The only thing I can think of is maybe Google only allows a max of 2 devices logged in at once? it's super annoying if that's true.. I'm going to research more online & will post here if I find any answers.

EDIT: ok so I realize your issue is with an android device not windows, but it may still be the same issue because it involves Google accounts (the fact that one of my devices is windows is prob irrelevant)


How do I downgrade from Lollipop back to KitKat on htc desire 816 How to go back to android kitkat from lollipop in htc desire 816 dual sim?

factory data reset and phone reset in settings, i have tried.

You would want to look for official stock firmware(Kitkat) provided by HTC, if you find one, you can flash it and get back to Kitkat. At least that's what I did on my Nexus 5.


why do I have to move my apps manually to the SD card to free up space? If the internal memory is so precious why doesn't Android move the apps to the SD card automatically.  I just don't get the logic of searching through the All Apps list one by one to get a couple of apps that are only installed on the internal memory and then move them to the SD card.

In my opinion is a rather lazy memory management that relies on user intervention to free up space for important OS operations.

I can only speculate, as this is something that can really only be answered by an Android engineer, but off the top of my head I can think of a few reasons they might have decided on this:

It's less confusing for end users, since I certainly wouldn't expect apps to magically show up on my SD card after I install them (especially for users coming from versions of Android prior to 2.2, when this feature didn't exist yet).
It allows the user to manage their storage however they see fit, which can be relevant in some cases since you can't access SD apps when your external storage is unmounted. Maybe I don't want some apps on my SD card because I always want to access them, but Android has no way of inferring this, really. Otherwise you might unexpectedly be unable to use an app you wanted because you didn't know it was on the external storage.
Many apps can't be installed to the SD card, so how do you handle a situation where you want to install an app that must be on internal storage but it won't fit? Do you arbitrarily bump another app onto the SD card instead? What if that's not what the user wants (like above)? It could get a little sticky.
Some apps, confusingly, allow you to move them to your external storage despite the fact that it breaks certain features. Pandora, notably, could be moved to external storage even though it breaks the widget (I don't know if it still allows this). How do you handle that situation? Do you forcibly move it anyway, possibly breaking the user's widget?

I just discovered I was barking to the wrong tree, it is not the OS fault is a wrong choice for hardware design (obviously driven by economic factors).  Since the Operating System is taking most of the 512 or 570MB of my phone's internal memory I'm left with the dribbling of moving apps from the phone to the SD Card.  I just checked other manufacturers' phones and they come with 1-16GB of internal memory or even more! (Samsung's Galaxy S II), SD card is effectively just an external/supplementary storage.

With more internal memory available there is no need to move application anymore.

Thanks for your comments.


pdf reader which has zoom and width locking? I have both Adobe Reader and EZPDF. Are are both lacking. I want to lock the width and zoom and everything once I have a pdf open to my preferred settings. I just want to page up or down when sliding/swiping.

In ezpdf the settings menu keeps popping up irregularly when I slide. Sometimes it zoomed in or out. I see the words 'ln' or 'sf' overlaying the pdf and I don't know what they mean. Some I am locked in a page. I can't on the next or previous page.

In adobe Reader I can't zoom in to will the width of the page. It has minimal settings.

Is there a pdf reader that displays the text to the full width of the screen and locks everything so it doesn't do erratic stuff?

ezPDF has an option to remove this overlay: Bring up the popupmenu, tick Settings. In the Link section there is a checkbox marked "Indicate Link". Uncheck and the Ln overlay is gone.

Version 1.9.5.3


my samsung galaxy 2 battery is draining to fast! I have an Samsung Galaxy S2 GT i9100. I have had it for quite a time, but today I noticed something strange:

First my battery had not been charging while I was sleeping: when I woke up I had only about 13% charge left. So I put the phone on the charger while I was making breakfeast.

When I came back to the phone some time later, it had nearly not charged at all: in fact the phone was using more battery then it was charging.

Why is my phone battery's charge dropping when I'm charging? I had this problem the whole day -- it won't charge more then 30%, then suddenly the battery level drops. How can this be solved?

Had exactly the same, did the same as you asking questions and hearing lots of different answers. My solution new battery, couple of quid on ebay.

The cable does make a huge difference, so I'm glad that I read your new cable made it last for a day. In addition, once a week you want to do a full charge cycle. Completely waste the battery, [to the point where you can't boot] and charge it for 8 hours straight, off.

I find that shorter, thicker cables make the battery of the device last longer.


Video footage from a 'face down' camera - orientation issue Using a  Samsung S5 Neo (SM-G903F), Android 5.1.1

I have filmed a few short clips, facedown, ie, towards the floor.

I am guessing that this is a Samsung/Android issue, seen as even when I watch the clips in Windows media - they are vertically oriented. Must be a sensor issue?

I have tried filming with the camera both ways (volume buttons towards me, or away from me) and there is no change.

My question is what can I do to return as high Resolution as possible? When i rotate the videos to the correct orientation - I am losing quality (my estimate is from 1920x1080 down to 1080x607, right?).

Are there any tricks that can be done? either at filming or editing stages? So far the only thing i have found, it to start shooting in regular landscape mode, and then pan downwards to wards the floor, and then it plays in the correct orientation.

Thanks!

Have a look at VLC Player and the Transform-Options to rotate the video without less quality.


Set two languages simultaneously for the stock keyboard? I want to have both english and german prediction and auto correction at the same time for the stock keyboard (Jelly Bean here).

My use case:
Multi-tasking between english and german domains on my tablet where I both need the keyboard (e.g. Google Talk with my german friends and editing/answering questions on Android Enthusiasts in english). Problem: I don't want to switch off prediction/auto-correction nor do I want to switch to an alternative keyboard. At the moment I have to manually switch between en/de keyboards when I switch tasks (from Google Talk to the browser and back). This is annoying. I don't mind the keyboard layout (QUERTZ or QUERTY) but would prefer the english one.

How can I have simultaneous multi language prediction/auto-correction in the stock keyboard?

The stock keyboard in Jelly Bean (4.1 or 4.2) does not support multiple languages simultaneously. However, SwiftKey, a third party keyboard, supports advanced predictions with up to three languages simultaneously.

SwiftKey Official Website
SwiftKey on Google Play

Note that SwiftKey is a paid app. You can find the non-trial versions of the application in the Play Store. If you are looking for Swype-like functionality, note that an upcoming version of SwiftKey also includes it.

In Android keyboard settings there is an option to slide your finger along the space bar to change languages.There you can selec the languages you want to use.


How do I disable regular Android notifications from Google asking to verify my phone number? This has started happening recently.  It seems like I am getting at least one notification every day or two now on my Android phone from Google saying:

**Verify your phone number**
Google can warn you of suspicious activity in your
account & you can more easily connect with friends
in Google services.

I don't want to see this notification any more (it plays a loud sound every time, and the other morning it actually woke me up!) and I also am not going to verify my phone number.   How can I make these notifications stop?

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


Hide "User is typing..." in WhatsApp In WhatsApp Group chat, when other person is typing when I am actively looking at the group conversation chat, I could see who is typing at the other end.

That conversely also means, when I am typing in a group chat, other people too can see me typing.

I checked the FAQ Section of WhatsApp. Could not found any settings mentioned for this.

Is there a way to disable showing "Me typing..." to other people in a group chat when I am typing? Wanted to surprise them by my post directly :)

You could try a modded version of WhatsApp, there are many of them nowadays and are constantly being updated too.
I have tried a few for research purposes only and Gb WhatsApp seems to have a bunch of extra options with the ability to block features like:

typing status,

online status,

and blue ticks to mention a few...
Take a look here: WhatsApp modded versions for more information.


Does the Nexus 4 have 4G? I know it doesn't have LTE, but what about the 4G networks of other carriers?
If I happen to buy one, will I be able to use it T-Mobile's "4G" HSPA+ network?

Yes, it has HSPA+ which is what T-Mobile's "4G" actually stands for.

This article on AndroidAuthority should help you understanding  why it doesn't have LTE.

It appears the Nexus 4 does have an LTE Chip, but its not enabled. Here's a post to get it working: http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/23/how-to-enable-4g-lte-on-the-google-nexus-4/
I've seen a fair amount of Youtube videos of people enabling it and testing it.


How to disable the "Screen is pinned" ScrollView? Everytime I pin an app I get a "Screen is pinned" green ScrollView and have to tap the "Got it" button.
At first, I thought it was just some kind of "getting started" thing, but after a few months it's still showing up every single time.
Since I'm pretty sure I "Got it", is there a way to disable this warning/info ?

Here's a screenshot of the ScrollView.

What device are you using? You may (or may not) be able to remove this message via your stock settings.

In any case, to remove this message you'll need root access and an app called EhancedToast.

This will allow you to select the toast messages that you don't want to show up. For example: Screen Pinned, Screen Unpinned and messages of the sort.

Requirements For EnhancedToast Method

Xposed Framework (one that's compatible with your device, obviously).
Install the EnhancedToast Xposed Module.

From your phone (using a Terminal Emulator app - Root Required)

su
appops set android TOAST_WINDOW deny

From PC (adb required) but no root needed

adb shell appops set android TOAST_WINDOW deny

Please let me know if these methods work(ed) for you and good luck!

Source


Insufficient Storage on changing default install location After downloading an APK file from Play Store. It always prompts "Insufficient Storage" dialog.

I changed the default install location into external memory(SD card) using adb command

adb shell pm set-install-location 2

There is a room for both Internal (400mb free) and External memory(8GB free).

I am running on an Android Kitkat 4.4;
I am not rooted anyway. I don't want to void my warranty

By default I think apps are only installable to phone storage. The developer has to specifically allow the app to be installed to external storage (SD card or emulated SD card storage).
The ADB shell command you have used is only designed for use during development (see http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html). It may be that despite issuing this command the system is still trying to install to internal memory.

Install Terminal Emulator app and run the "pm" part of the command directly in your phone. works just the same, without the trouble to install SDK and all.


Change own phone number in ICS I've change the SIM in my Galaxy-Nexus-S. Under Settings -> About phone -> Status there still is the old phone number and I cannot manage to change it.

I've seen this answer which is outdated. The menu option Own numbers discribed in the answer is not there in ICS.

The navigation terms might be called differently, as I manually translated the names from German.

In previous versions of Android (mine is 2.3.7) you can set this setting in the Additional call settings. In Android 4.0 the Additional call settings screen is located here:

Open the Phone app -> [Menu] -> Settings -> Additional settings.

I have not verified this on a physical device yet.

You need to reprogram the phone.  Dial ##786# on the dial pad and then hit view.  You may need your MSL to be able to change the phone number.


How to recover deleted photo album saved on internal memory - Note 3 I have a Samsung Note 3 and I accidentally deleted an entire photo album from my phones gallery. I didn't enable my device to sync with Gmail. I didn't manually backup any of the data. The images were saved on my phone, not on the SD card. Is there any way for me to recover this deleted photo album? I Google'd and came across SDrescan but that won't work since the images were not initially saved on my SD card.

Considering you phone is always writing some kind of data to your internal storage, it's going to be a very difficult to recover them - at least not all anyway.

Unless something like PhotoRec can do it (as mentioned in the comments), I'd say they are gone for good.

An alternative, and probably a very expensive one, is to take it to someone who specialises in data recovery. Search for 'mobile phone data recovery' on Google and see what appears in your area. It may mean sending your phone away.

Yes, that is painful. Happened with me once.

You will have to root your phone in order to get the data back, but it usually only works if the root has been done before the incident. There are several softwares for different OS which enables us to do deep scan and fetch the data files from the phone which had been lost (You should be able to open the phone as a Mass Storage after that which makes it easier to scan for the software). One of the best software is Recuva.  Read this for more information.

Android storage works like a computer storage - every deleted file is still stored in a temporary storage until it is overwritten, but it isn't visible to us. It can be accessed by rooting your device + using certain softwares, but rooting should be avoided as much as possible. So if you think that these pictures are worth that, then check it out. Otherwise take precautions in future.

You can Install this in your phone. This application works as Recycle Bin and stores every deleted file in it and can be restored easily.


My Android Phone Keeps Telling me that it is on Silent Ever since I updated my mobile to Android Version 6.01 I get notifications regarding my phone being on silent... This only happens when I plug it onto charge.

Its rather annoying that it keeps telling me this for two reasons:

A: The phone is on Vibrate not Silent

B:I chose to put it on vibrate I don't understand why it needs to keep telling me this.

The same applies for when I leave battery saver mode on, it tells me its on and that the performance is effected. I leave it on battery saver for a reason...

Is there any way to disable these "Helpful" Messages in the settings as I cannot for the life of me find a setting that references this, even in the developer mode. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini if that provides any assistance...

I went into Samsung+ app, went to Settings and turned off Diagnostic Notifications.  Have not seen the notification since.

Samsung Galaxy. Following Rick's tip that it was a Samsung app, I disabled the app in the app manager. That worked for me.


Why does my SD data get messed up when i connect to PC with USB? Every time I connect my phone to my computer via USB (Huawei U8666E, Android 4.0.3) even after I've disconnected my phone, the following 2 things happen (that I can tell): My ringtone goes back to "Default" (i'm using a custom one which is saved on the SD memory) and my music playlist (the only one i have) goes empty. No music file is missing, they're just removed from the playlist, and they, too, are on my SD memory.

What can i do to fix or circumvent the issue?

Edit: The problem is not that it happens while the phone is hooked on the computer, but that it persists AFTER i disconnect it. In other words, after disconnecting the phone, i have to manually rebuild my playlists and change the ringtone again. Is there a way for me to transfer data between PC and phone without having to "reconfigure" the phone after the process? Or better yet a way to use the USB normally without the "reconfiguring" having to take place?

It sounds like your ROM doesn't properly reset settings when the sdcard is re-enabled (since it obviously becomes unavailable to the OS when using USB Mass Storage). Unfortunately, this is likely an issue with your ROM and I don't think there is a likely setting that would fix it.

However, in Android 3.0, Google added MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) support and it has been in all versions since. This allows the sdcard to remain mounted in the Android system while also allowing it to be accessed on the computer. I can't remember the exact layout of ICS, but to be able to change it to MTP from UMS, it is probably pretty close to Settings -> Storage -> Menu -> USB Computer Connection -> enable MTP

In Settings > Storage > press the menu key > USB connection > MTP connection.


Unable to make an outgoing call after calling to *31# in my moto g Hi I have Moto g First Generation mobile bought in India,

When I tried to make my Caller ID hidden
from Here,

I called to *31# and after that I couldnt make a call to anyone.
Then I tried tried and miraculously I could make a call by adding a prefix of *31# to any number

Please Help me out on fixing this issue.

I tried solutions from the below links
GSM Feature Codes
GSM Codes
but no help.
Called Motorola Customer Care n they told me to Factory Reset. I did after backup of my data and now it works.

Dial #31# and call. After then it will start working outgoing calls.


Android Market disappeared! How do I get it back? Since upgrading to FroYo, the Android Market app has disappeared from my wife's Droid X: it doesn't appear on the home screen or in the Applications list in settings. Is there any way to get it back?

It's a built-in app and can't be uninstalled.

To restore the icon to the home screen, find the icon in the application list and long-press, then drop it where you want it. Alternately, long-press the home screen where you want the icon to be, choose "Shortcuts", then "Applications", then the "Market" icon.

Update: Okay, it appears that you're not the only one with this issue. See this thread on the Google support forum: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android%20Market/thread?tid=3322620a3c715568&hl=en

One offered solution is to do a factory reset. It's up to you to decide how comfortable you are with that.

Update 2: Several people in this thread said that the factory reset worked for them. Additionally, someone wrote a script (also in that thread) to fix the issue, which you would need to get on the phone. (USB would seem to be your best bet.) Caveat Emptor. Someone also mentioned that if you get the Vendor.apk you can also get the Market back. (Details are a little fuzzier.)

My android market icon dissapeared when i clicked on it yesterday on 2.2  i just read today in the news that google changed the name from Android market to Google Play to get more customers focused on its videos and books.  I found a brand new icon in the second apps location on my phone.  It is called google play not called  android market any longer. All you do is click accept and use.....


How do I transfer data from a android phone to a mac? I have a sony xperia z5, and I need to transfer five videos, from this phone to my mac, so that I can edit them. Problem is, I don't know how to.

You can send emails containing the videos on your phone and then download them on your Mac.

Or you can use bluetooth to share from phone to mac.

Or you can transfer with an app that can connect phone to Mac without USB.

Android File Transfer lets you transfer files over USB. That's the "official way" to do it. It's an application you install on your Mac. Details/instructions on how to install and use it can be found on the linked website, where you also can download the .dmg installer file.


ROMManager does not backup my sd-ext I am using rooted LG P500 running stock 2.3.3. Recently I partitioned my SD card using ROMManager in to three partitions (swap, ext and usb storage). I checked with Mini Partition Tool and understood that the sd-ext type is ext3. Link2SD created mount script and linked apps perfectly, releasing loads of space in memory.

To try an unofficial CM10 ROM, I backed up using ROMManager (NAndroid) and installed the unofficial CM10 ROM.  While using CM10, I wiped sd-ext partition and linked few apps with belief that backup is done. Since I was unhappy with the CM10 ROM I decided to restore the backup and while doing so only I observed that my sd-ext partition contents were not backed up.

Thinking that I might not have backed up properly, I tried again to back up in restored backup of stock 2.3.3 and observed a message:

  "Could not mount sd-ext. sd-ext backup may not be supported on this device. Skipping backup of sd-ext"

Had if I had noticed this message, I would not have installed the CM10 ROM at all.

Question: How can I make ROMManager to backup sd-ext partitions as well? I guess just because it was unable to mount, it just skipped sd-ext backup. When Link2SD was able to mount, what is stopping ROMManager to mount it and how can I fix it?

Info:

I tried this with ClockworkMod Recovery version 5.0.2.7 and ROMManager version is 5.0.2.1
I have seen the question "Ext4 partition clockworkmod recovery backup" and this question differs because the partition used is ext3 and was created by ROMMananger itself.

Update:

I have seen this modaco forum thread and it just only helped me to come to a assumption that my present recovery version 5.0.2.7 does not support it. I will be glad to confirm it either from any authoritative source or burst the myth if some other user successfully backed up (either with 5.0.2.7) sd-ext.
When I attempted to use "mount and storage -> mount /sd-ext" option in CWM recovery console, I just get "Error mounting /sd-ext!" message.

A possible solution is described e.g. in this modaco forum thread. In case of that user, the sd-ext partition got corrupted as it was mounted wrongly by the Android system (he used GPartEd to create his partitions which, regardless of the filesystem created (ext2/3/4, fat32), then were mounted as ext4).

So what he basically did: He factory reset the phone, deleted the partitions on SDCard, recreated them on phone (i.e. not with the card mounted to any PC, but directly on the phone, using CWMs options as far as I understood).

I didn't try that solution myself, as I'm not affected by the problem.

I Think that CWM is not able to detect sd-ext because it is not mounted as"/sd-ext" but instead as "/data/sd-ext" by link2sd. But I do not know in detail abot Android Working  I cant fix it.


Convert to system app using Link2SD doesn't work on CM11 I am using Galaxy Y (S5360) with CyanogenMod 11 build date Feb 2015. Previously on stock ROM, I was using Link2SD to move apps to system/app. Trying to do the same now is giving the following error.

  sh: cannot create /system/priv-app/name.apk .t:read only filesystem.

Why is it trying to move to /priv-app instead of /app? What are the possible solutions.

Change permissions?
Use some other tool or do it manually? (Looking for simplicity).

Things I've tried so far:

ES File Explorer: change permissions, gives "Operation Failed". "Mount as rw" option does not show up.
Terminal: mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock8 /system & then cp /data/app/fooBarApp-1.apk /system/app/fooBarApp.apk gives error "Can't create foobar.apk. read only".

Any help is appreciated. Thank You.

Just change the permission to be set on /system/app & /system/priv-app by the gapps updater. Following are steps for same:

Open gapps archive

Go into Meta-inf\com\google\android. Open updater-script with notepad.

Change the permission from 0*** to 0777 for /system/app & /system/priv-app
e.g. the line will be like set_perm_recursive(0, 0, 0755, 0644, "/system/app");
So change both 0755 & 0644 to 0777.

Save and update archive. Install from cwm-recovery.

try another app known as titanium backup and convert it


How can I forward texts to my  tablet and reply back? I have a tablet running Android 4.0.1, and a cell phone running 2.2.

When I'm working on my tablet, I would like to be able to see my texts and phone calls get forwarded to the tablet, which doesn't have a SIM card, and be able to interact with them as if I was on my cell phone, preferably over wi-fi and/or bluetooth. Is this possible? Paid solutions are acceptable as well.

If you're in the USA, use Google Voice - it allows a user to make voice calls while on WiFi and also allows sending / receiving SMS.

Also look at Tablet Talk for your SMS needs at least. In early development, there's also Phone Link

If you're working on your tablet, I believe the simplest solution for voice calls is to have a bluetooth handsfree paired with your phone so you can make and receive calls.

For text on your tablet, I found an app on Google Play called TextNow. It gives you "text number" in the area code you want and you can text any number (all for free and not just for "app to app" text only...). Did you find how to make and receive phone call on a tablet without a SIM card?


Cant see call log on Sony Xperia M4 Aqua This is all I get when I follow the instructions for viewing your call log.

When I get a missed call, the notification shows at the top and when I click it then I get this screen. I can't find anywhere else on the phone to view my call log.

Please help!!!

Click on the image to enlarge

I finnaly found the solution.
Turn off guest mode option in your mobile. DONe

One of the ways is to factory reset your phone,if that problem appears again you should do a hard reset. Check some tutorials if u dont know how to hard reset.


Remove user account in Android 5.0.1 on Galaxy S4 I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android upgraded to 5.0.1. There is a GMail account added that I've linked in order to install a specific application (Google Domain Policy) and now I want to remove that account in order to pass the phone to my co-worker.

I've gone to Settings -> Accounts and the account is listed there (as a Google account). I can tap that and get to privacy and sync settings but I can't see any option to delete the account. I've tried tapping, tapping and holding, double-tapping, swiping and everything else that happened to cross my mind but to no avail.

How on earth do I remove that account from the system if there's no delete option visible?

Click image(s) for larger versions

I have spent weeks looking for a solution to this and finally this post helped me! It was so far from obvious and it felt like Google wanted me to keep the account by force lol.

Anyway, what I did was go to Settings > Accounts > Google, clicked the account I wanted to delete, the Sync menu option opened and this is where I always got stuck. Through this, I realized I had to press and hold the menu button on the bottom left side of my S4 to get another menu pop-up with the options of canceling sync or deleting the account.

Finally! Hope this helped.

I tried all of the above but nothing works, my phone doesnt have the menu button on the bottom so there was nothing to click on, but here is how i did it.

Settings > Accounts > Tap on Google > Search > Accounts and Privacy > Sign Out

very very cumbersome but finally figured it out! should have been easier than this.


Save images via Chrome for Android I can save images from other sites on chrome browser but cannot do it on Facebook. Does it contains any JavaScript which block saving images?

How to save them ?

Try this way.
Go to the photo > Click "View Full size" > Then click and hold on the photo, where you'll get an pop-up asking to Save image,Open in new tab...etc

type in address 'mbasic.facebook.com' and you will be able to save images.


Can I use my phone as an audio device via Wifi? Is there any way to stream all audio from my (Windows) PC to my phone via Wifi, so that my phone acts like a sound card? I basically want to use my phone with my headphones as wireless headphones.

It looks like Remote Audio does this, but it is only for Linux.

I have experimented with streaming audio from PC to Android over Bluetooth. Recent versions of BlueZ are able to sink an A2DP stream, but the build I have on my phone (Droid running Sapphire 2.0.2) is outdated and won't do it. You may have better luck.

If that won't work, Android's media player may be able to receive one of the streaming protocols that VLC supports. Another poster may know more about this.

Use Apple Airplay Protocol.

There is plenty of software using that like Airfoil Speakers which works on android, windows, ios...


Installing APK signed with different key possible through adb install -r? Android will refuse to upgrade a package, if it is signed with a different key, making me to uninstall first (and lose user data) and re-install.

If I install the new APK via adb install -r XYZ.apk, I switched to the other APK and kept user data. Is that a correct workaround?

Rootless method:

As is mentioned above, you can uninstall an app while keeping its data with adb.

adb shell pm uninstall -k PACKAGE

Do note that it failed to keep data in my test case.

Then you can install the new app with adb install.
Be aware that adb uninstall is invalid as there's no uninstall subcommand for adb. You must connect to a shell on your device and run pm from that shell. However install is a subcommand for adb but it does not take any options, so if you want to run adb install -r you must type in adb shell pm install -r instead.

Root method (Recommended):

If you have root, you should never miss Xposed Framework. Get Xposed Framework and get XInstaller. Navigate to "Installer Settings", scroll down and tick "Disable Signature Check". Now you can install the replacement app in any way you like.


How can I answer a call using the HOME button in CyanogenMod 9? Just flashed CyanogenMod 9 RC2 on my Galaxy S2.

While I appreciate the enhanced customization and loads of options as well as the removal of some bundled Samsung bloatware apps, I do miss certain functionality - the ability to answer a call by pressing the physical HOME button.

Is there any way this functionality can be added via some setting that I've missed or via some 3rd party app?

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Answer calls with home button.


Hundreds of "phantom" contacts I got my Android 2.3.7 ZTE phone used on eBay, and it appeared to be completely reset.  However, sometimes hundreds of contacts with names like "brwlvweaace" show up.  They all have randomized emails, like "tcgege@hotmail.com".  It almost seems like a list of generated emails for spamming.  I can see them when choosing a contact to send a text to, and if I add the "All Contacts" folder to the home screen.  The SIM card is new, and shows 0/250 contacts.  The SD Card was new as well, and formatted on top of that.  I don't have these contacts in any synced account.  And I can't delete them, because they never show up in the main Contacts app.

How do I get rid of them?  I only have about 15 real contacts, so it's a pain to send a text message to one of them when the list has hundreds of fake names.

Here's a picture:

What I did:

Move my actual contacts to the SIM card
Wipe the data from the Contacts Storage app in the Application Manager
Load the contacts from the SIM.

Well, that's weird but I think there are two gmail account put over the device, try going to the settings>Accounts and backup. Check if there are two gmail accounts configured, better to remove google account, once you remove the gmail account its again going to ask for the google account, but before configuring also head over to the application manager and clear the cache and the data stored by the contacts, and then restart your device an configure the gmail account which you were using previously again and see this time does the contacts appear again or not ? I don't think it would appear again anyway let me know how it goes for you !


forbid ADB install apk through a password pls is there a way to forbid the adb install to install apk into tablets unless there's a password?

Android 5.0 - rooted devices?

thank you

The simplest solution is to turn off USB debugging.

If you want to disable adb install from computer while enabling USB debugging, you can try XInstaller (Requires Xposed Framework). In its settings you can disable "Auto Install" to prevent ALL kinds of silent installation.

well simply,
activate the developper options & then disable usb debugging then decativate the developper otions & delete the settings!
Hope this will help others.


Will android phone work without MicroSd card Can nexus one phone or any similar android phone work, when its microSD is pulled out from it, and if only internal memory remained.

Yeah definitely it works fine without any issue. But if you have installed any apps on SD Card then they won't work at all. But to take backup of any data(Contacts, Messages, Call log) on your phone you should have SD card inserted.

Finally to answer your question, yes. it works fine as the OS and related information stored on the phone internal memory.

Yeah of course it will. But barely you can use it as a phone. You cannot even transfer anything via bluetooth(I have tried this with HTC Desire HD).


How to remove Android stock movie player as preferred default app for movies? Using ASTRO File Manager, I've set Movies (stock Android app) to play my videos. Now I want to remove this association, but I simply can't find a way to do it.

Looking into applications didn't help (The Movies app doesn't show at all, I think it's part of the Gallery app, but the gallery app isn't set as default). I've tried downloading an app from market called DefaultApp Reset but it didn't help either: Movies was not there.

Any hints?

Normally you would do this from Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications.  Find the app in the list, click it, and choose Clear Defaults.

It's not the best I could do but installing brand new Gingerbread (obviously) solved the problem


Wi-Fi turned off but battery usage shows shows huge drain from it I have a problem with my Galaxy S3 4G. It's currently all stock and running Android 4.4.4.

It seems the Wi-Fi will not turn off i.e. I can turn it "off" in the settings or notification bar, and this will stop Wi-Fi from being connected and device uses my mobile data instead, however in the battery menu the Wi-Fi is still being shown as on, even when it's turned off.

As you can see in the attached image, it's draining my battery really fast, and will only turn off when the device is in flight mode. I've checked and cannot see any rogue apps causing this, but after searching online and checking all option menus I seem unable to fix this problem.

Is there any way to stop this, save for a factory reset? Is this a KitKat wide problem, or just on my phone?

(Click image to enlarge)

This is a common misconception with Android. When you turn off Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi does not actually turn off. There is an advanced settings menu where you will find an option that either says Wi-Fi scanning or Wi-Fi always on. Google uses Wi-Fi points to determine the device's location without activating the GPS.

Turn Wi-Fi scanning off to fix this. You might want to turn off Wi-Fi while asleep while your at it. It's in the same menu.

(Click image to enlarge)

Edit: In Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), this option has been moved. It is now located in Location > (Overflow menu) > Scanning (Thanks, nanny)

First reboot your phone! If this doesn't work you should try a factory reset. I would recommend some apps to disable your wifi but they are already disabled! So i believe it's a software bug!


How to set MP3 ringtone in Android (Nexus S) I am using Music (latest up to today) and TTPOD as my MP3 players.

After Googling, I suppose I can set my MP3 ring tone, by long press on the song through Music application. However, once I long press, there are only the following selections

Play
Add to playlist
Delete
Shop for artist
More by artist
Search

I was expecting I am able to get a selection choice Set as ringtone, but I didn't find one.

May I know what is the "correct" way to set MP3 as ringtone in Android?

This isn't the "correct" way, but IMO it's a good way: use Ringdroid. With it, you can cut a suitable part of the MP3 to be used as a ringtone. This way you can get rid of those pesky intros on songs that have a slow start and save space by not having the entire MP3 duplicate in your ringtones folder.

Download MP3 music download app. Select song tab, and press the selected song. You will get option set as ....


Stolen phone - does Android Device Manager's lock override the thief's password? I'm currently trying it on another phone and it seems that as long as I have a pattern lock set up, the ADM lock screen shows up but the old pattern is requested instead of the remotely set password. The stolen phone had a simple swipe lock (Android 5.1) - if the thief set up a pattern/pin in the meanwhile is the ADM lock basically useless?

Okay, in my case the thief can definitely still use the phone - he receives WhatsApp messages and can read them eventhough I've set up the remote lock over 50 times. This is absolutely revolting - an utterly useless feature. I can guarantee he's not circumventing it another way - if they were even at the least bit technically savvy they would have wiped the phone, switched the Google account or at least disabled ADM long ago.

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...


Does flashing stock ROM via Odin delete phone data? So my Galaxy S6 is stuck in a boot loop and I've literally tried EVERYTHING already and nothing will solve the problem. Safe mode won't work, clearing the cache partition won't work and USB Debugging was turned off so adb wasn't seeing my device either. I also tried Kies and Smart Switch. I am convinced my phone is soft bricked and I need to recover some very important pictures and files from it. At this point my last hope is to flash the stock ROM via Odin and I saw that some people have said that they have successfully done this without losing any of their data. Is this possible? If so how do I go about doing it properly? If you can give me a step by step of what settings to use in Odin to not lose my data I would greatly appreciate it!!

Thanks for any help!

Phone is not rooted and 100% stock. Recovery and Download screens are working.

Phone: T-mobile Galaxy S6 with Lollipop

None of your internal storage files i.e. Photos, Music, Videos, Docs etc., will not be removed until you do a repartition of the device using Odin. Your phone will be restored to perfect condition; just that all your personal information will be gone such as contacts that were on the phone storage and apps.

But I'm not responsible if anything goes wrong. Do it at your own risk.

OR

You can flash a custom recovery using Odin and use the MTP feature of the recovery and move the required files (which I assume would be safer).


Transfer Whatsapp chat history to new device I've got a new phone (Samsung) and want to transfer my Whatsapp chat history from my old device to it. Is this possible, and how to do it? I have a Whatsapp backup file for that date.

Go to WhatsApp > Settings > Chat's and Calls > Back up chats
Connect your old phone to a computer
Go into the device's internal storage and search for the folder WhatsApp
Copy it to your computer and plug in your new phone.
Open internal storage and copy the folder WhatsApp to your internal storage.
Install WhatsApp on your new phone (if already done, clear data of WhatsApp), set it up and you'll be asked if you wan to restore the backup.
Click yes and enjoy.

You can try the following

FileDrop
If you're looking for an app that keeps things simple, then I tink you're going to like FileDrop. It's a free app you can install from Google Play and is very easy to use.
When you first install the app, you'll see that it's divided into two sections. The top part will ask you to sign into your Dropbox account, and the bottom part will show you all the files you have on your Android device.
Don't worry if you didn't previously create a folder since you can create one directly from the app. Just tap on the drive icon on the top left and tap on Create Directory. If you want to rename a folder that's where your WhatsApp content will go, you can do that too.
How to Backup Your WhatsApp Files to Dropbox
The option you need to tap on is ¨As Sync Directory¨. Now, tap on the folder you want the WhatsApp backup to go to. Switch to the bottom section of the app and scroll until you see the WhatsApp folder. Tap on it and then select what you want to backup. I chose Media.
Then tap on the SD card icon and select As Sync Directory. Once you've done that tap on the cloud and sun icon to the right of your display. Tap on the Turn On Sync Feature and then enable Use Sync. After that, it should automatically start backing up your WhatsApp content.
If you want the app to automatically backup your WhatsApp content, tap on the Turn On Sync > Sync Policy > Enable Auto Sync.

Source: How to Backup WhatsApp


Samsung Galaxy S stuck upgrading firmware. Should I unplug my phone? Should I keep on waiting? I tried to upgrade my firmware on my Samsung Galaxy S using Kies

The Firmware upgrade appears to have gotten stuck.

Kies says

Upgradeing firmware... Do not disconnect a mobile device from the PC during upgrade process
Progress Bar has "Upgrade is in progress.." and is stack at about 1/3

The phone screen shows a green triangle with Downloading... below it and "Do not turn off Target!!! at the bottom.

It has been this way for about an hour.

What should I do?

Should I unplug my phone?
Should I keep on waiting?

I really don't want to end up with a brick.

I disconnected the cable

Kies popped up an error message which said, the upgrade failed and offered to try to recover for me.

By following the instructions on screen I was able to recover my device.

I had to open task manager and end all processes like skype, icloud, last.fm, spotify. once there was a decent amount of cpu and memory available, the program went from 69% complete, to 85% to 100% within five mins of when i opened task manager.


RedMi 2 Bootloop after MIUI update Today I had I have received a MIUI updated on my RedMi 2.
[Note: The phone is rooted and has CWM installed]

The phone was supposed to boot and start the updated but for some reason it got stuck in bootloop.

At the moment I can only enter in fastboot mode, recovery it is not working.
How to recover it ?

Ok here how I have managed to correctly boot the phone:

Boot in fastboot mode ( power + volume down )
Flash again CWM: fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
boot into CWM: fastboot boot recovery.img
reboot the system using CWM (fix root)
re-flash with flashify

step 3 is to be sure that CWM will be rebooted.
step 5 is to be sure CWM is flashed ( in the past I have experienced some problem flashing the recovery image with fastboot )

There is probably some other way but this way worked for me so it maybe useful to other as well.


Getting signature error while installing a different version of the app Recently I install a custom ROM named eelo https://e.foundation/. It comes with pre-installed Telegram app. After much research I was able to uninstall if from the system with the command adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 org.telegram.messenger. But when I tried to install the new apk with adb install telegram.apk I got the following error

adb: failed to install telegram.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE: Package org.telegram.messenger signatures do not match the previously installed version; ignoring!]

I also tried uninstalling with this adb uninstall org.telegram.messenger but it gave out Failure [DELETE_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR].
With further research I found out that I can install the new .apk with different if I comment the section in /data/system/packages.xml referring to telegram. But after making the change when I reboot it get back to the unedited version.

Currently using Android Nougat 7.1.

Can anyone tell me the reason as to why this happens and how I can stop it from happening? And how would I be able to install a different version of the app?

Ultimately found an answer to the query and how to solve it.

The first is how to delete a system application completely?
These are the following steps

$ adb root  - To start adbd with root privileges.

$ adb shell - To interact with the phone system directly.

$ pm uninstall --user 0 <package>.apk - To uninstall the package from the root    user  is any package you want to remove from the system.

These few steps may remove the whole package but in my case it was different as it  left behind few files from the previous built app. So these were the steps that I followed :

$ adb shell mount -o rw,remount /system - This would remount the system as read-write. Originally /system is a read-only folder so you can't edit directly.

$ adb shell rm -r /system/<package>.apk - This would remove the apk and there won't be anything left from the previous built.
Why I couldn't edit the /data/system/packages.xml file?

The answer to this is that though I can edit it with vim but it kept reverting back to the previous unedited form. This was happening because it was updating the information from /system/app files. Thus, editing it went in vain.

Refer to the following links that actually helped me out

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6066030/read-only-file-system-on-android

https://www.besttechie.com/remove-preloaded-software-from-android/

Try using an apk Cloner if you want to reach to your goal fast.
using https://appcloner.app/
you can change the package id of your new telegram version and install it manually


GS4 - Stuck in a bootloop on stock ROM SGH-I337 I got recently is stuck in a bootloop. Itll post and then attempt booting and stay on the screen forever. As this phone is completely stock and never touched so usb debugging is not enabled. Factory resetting does nothing, the phone will not wipe the cache (it attempts then errors out and restarts itself). Ive tried flashing TWRP via odin but the bootloader is locked. Trying to use ADB logcat does not seem to work. What route should I take from here?

Run adb logcat during boot, record the output and post it here / try to find the cause of the boot loop.


Please help for whatsapp plus I tried to install whatsapp plus on my Gionee M2 but it shows some error as it says something like; files existing with the same name, I rooted my mobile and tried to unistall the app with titanium backup also but still the problem is persisting, please help, I am really keen to use the apop. Thank you.

Delete the Whatsapp-related files on the SD card ?