In Google Voice, do all SMS messages have to be transmitted via a data connection? If someone is using Google Voice, do they need a data connection (cellular or WiFi) to be on in order to send/receive any SMS messages?

This seems to be a big limitation, as keeping data on all the time can really drain the device's battery (and can get expensive with all of Android's background data).

Also, signal strength for a functional data connection generally has to be stronger than the minimal signal required to send/receive traditional SMS messages.  Inside buildings, it is commonly hard to get a data signal, but SMS messages can often still be transmitted/received.

If you are using the Google Voice or Hangouts app to send or receive messages using your Google Voice number, then yes it must have a working data connection, but it's data usage will be extremely minimal.

In Google Voice you can setup your SMS messages to forward to email or your actual carrier's SMS service if you prefer. You can replay from either email or carrier SMS via both methods as well.

No, if you're using Google Hangouts to send message then only it will use data(or when you're calling someone via Voip).

If you SMS to someone on your contact list(only phone no.) using hangouts app it'll use your service provider to send message.


What podcast apps include variable speed playback? I know about Astro Player. Any other apps that feature podcast managment and variable speed playback?

If you'll pardon the "non-answer"...
I wrote Taffy to act as a proxy between your Android device and the podcast provider.  It speeds up the podcast before your podcatcher downloads it.  There are several undesirable aspects to this approach (hosting not the least among them, nor inability to change playback speed during playback), but I use it every day to listen to several podcasts on my Droid at faster speeds.
Here's to it becoming obselete soon.
My Droid uses BeyondPod, pointed to Taffy podcast feeds, to automatically download all of my podcasts straight to my handset during pre-dawn hours.  I wake every morning (and have for months -- Taffy's a pain to setup, but it's pretty smooth sailing from there) to no-hassle, "sped-up" podcasts ready for my commute.

as of today, there is no android application that supports podcast management and variable speed playback.


Sending Video to iPhone user What is the best way to send a video that is over the MMS allowed size to an iPhone user?  I really don't see any good way to do it besides uploading to some sort of 3rd party (youtube, gdrive, etc..) and then sharing it to them?  Even using non-mms with hangouts doesn't seem to allow me to send video that I have previously taken.

Any suggestions would be wonderful.

Previously I have used Sizable Send to transfer very large videos from my phone to my boss's. You can send them the download link via email or text.

Alternatively, if the video isn't very large you could use Dropbox in the same way

Depending on the file size it might take a while to transfer.

Email, or if not cloud storage or Instagram direct messaging. If you're close you could also do Bluetooth.


Is there a real time wifi traffic analyzer for Android? I'm using SugarSync to sync files between my phone and my computer, but I'm not sure if things are actually working as they should.
It would be great to watch Android network traffic in real time.

Does anyone know of an app?

Isn't really an answer, but...

There is WiFi Analyzer which shows more information on the wireless networks your device can reach. It gives you more detail than the average user would require.

As far as I know, there is no application available on Android (yet?) that can "sniff packets".

Would be an interesting application to have in the pocket.

Network Log is an app quite simple to use. It shows real time packets in a human-readable way as well as statistics. It takes it directly from iptables, hence you need a rooted device.


How can I have a separate birthday calendar without shoving all those contacts onto GMail? I have the HTC Sensation XL if that has any significance on the issue.

I'd like to have the birthdays of my contacts show up as appointments in my calendar automagically.

What I don't want is to put all those contacts on Gmail. I don't use gmail and I don't want Google to have them.

I would also prefer if they would not go into my default local calendar so I can toggle them on and off to reduce clutter. But this is optional.

Is there any way to do this?

Install my new open source app Birthday Adapter.

The only way is, to create a new unsynced calendar in your calendar app on android. But you have to create each birthday on your own.


Google "Play Music" app constantly running! Why is Google Play Music constantly running on my galaxy s4? I don't use any music app.

If you don't use any music app (especially not the one in question), there's an easy cure:

Go to Settings→Apps→Manage Apps
Go to the All tab
Scroll the list until you find Google Play Music
Tap the entry
On the screen which opens on the tap, you'll find a button labeled Disable -- push it.

If the Disable button is grayed out (and cannot be pushed), you might need to first Force Stop the app, and Uninstall updates. If you later decide you want to use the app, and enable it again, updates will be applied once more -- so no worries for that.

Done: You've successfully disabled the Google Play Music app. It will no longer be available in your apps drawer, and should no longer run automatically either. Works fine for me, also for Google Play Books and Movies. Another nice side-effect: Your device will no longer bother you for any updates of those (disabled) apps -- which might even help you saving your data plan for better things :)

I have a galaxy s2 with sprint as provider. The Google Play music app came pre bundled with the phone. After noticing that it was regularly opening itself and showing up in the "applications running" widget, I began to research the issue. First I attempted (as advised) to remove updates. This doesn't work, as the app just auto updates itself again with no option to disable this. The app CAN NOT BE UNINSTALLED. I called sprint and was told that since it came bundled with the phone, it could not be uninstalled because other features of the phone rely on parts  the google play music app. They essentially told me that there was nothing I could do about it, and to keep updating it in the hope that they will eventually fix the auto starting bug. I also tried installing other music players in the hope slim hope that this may fix the problem, but this (as expected) didn't remedy the issue. In summary, after extensive internet research on the issue, and a call to my provider, my conclusion is as follows: It still opens itself, it cant be uninstalled, and the update rollback just re updates itself without the ability to stop this (on the galaxy s2 anyway). Looks like we're stuck with this one and can only wait and hope that google fixes the issue in one of the updates. Call me a cynic , but I tend to doubt google is in any hurry to PREVENT the running of one of their apps. The Sprint Samsung galaxy s2 comes completely inundated with bundled google software. I have been a loyal sprint customer for over 5 years, and this, in addition to the sudden and drastic decrease in sprint's signal and gps strength is just another indicator that they are going down the tubes. Hopefully sprint & google get their collective acts together and fix these issues. I'll keep researching, and post if I find a solution.


Adding tags to photos in the Gallery The Gallery has an option to group photos by "People" and "Tags".  Does anyone know how to set these tags?  There doesn't appear to be a feature to tag photos taken with the phone's camera, and I've tried copying an existing tagged photo onto the phone (both via MTP and email) and the tags were ignored.

You need to have a Picasa account (which is auto-created if you have a Google+ account) and also have Sync Google Photos turned on (which is automatically on if you have Google Sync turned on.)

Share your photo with Picasa.

Go to Picasa Web Albums at https://picasaweb.google.com/home and find your photo.

In the right-hand margin, you'll see Tags  and a "+" button with a Tag icon.

Click that button, which is the Add Tags button.

Enter your tags, which are space separated.

On your Android device, go into Gallery and go up to the top level using the Up caret in the upper left, which is the left-most side of the action bar.

It should refresh automatically.  If not, you can manually choose "Refresh" in the menu in the upper right.  This is what syncs the tags that you created on the web to your Android device.  (Sync Google Photos is what really does it under the covers.)

Now you can choose the album that has the photo that you tagged above.

Then choose the menu item Group by > Tags.

Voila!  You can now see your photos grouped by tag.

Happy tagging!

Picasa Web tagging is documented at:
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?answer=55851

Sync Google Photos is documented at: http://support.google.com/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=2395276

Touch in the date area. That show tags and permits to add and edit them


Can android developers use the kindle fire to run their apps? I need a device to test my application against but don't own an android device. I found the Kindle fire for $40 which seamed like a great deal to get me started debugging my app but it says it uses their custom 'FireOS'. I was wondering if I could still use the kindle to debug my app because if not I will not purchase it.

Why it isn't a good idea
The Kindle Fire runs Amazon's customized version of Android, namely, FireOS.
FireOS has a very tight integration with Amazon's content distribution platform (Amazon's ecosystem, so to say) at the cost of the traditional Google integration we normally find in Android devices.
This is to say, Amazon devices, although they run Android, lack any Google Apps as default or installable from the Amazon AppStore. It is possible to root a Kindle Fire tablet and flash a GApps package, but that (IIRC) is a probable violation of Amazon's Terms of Service, so I will not include that information here. It can be found with a simple search, however.
TL;DR
How is this relevant to an app developer looking at a Kindle to test their apps?

If your app only relies on APIs provided by "core" Android, AOSP, there's no problem. Your app can successfully be used on Kindle Fire, and hence tested on it.

If your app relies on anything Google provides as OEM stock on most Android devices, such as Maps, Play Services or Play Games, your app won't run at all due to missing library dependencies, unless you have hacked the Kindle Fire and installed the core GApps onto it after rooting, flashing a custom recovery or ROM, etc.

If your app relies on Amazon Services, well, you should be using the Kindle Fire for testing. It is Amazon's product and will work best with it.

Finally, most Android developers do consider a Nexus as "the" device for Android app development and testing, but opinions differ, and you should decide your testing decice requirements on a case-by-case basis.

If your app is for android, you can use the android emulator what google offers to developers. The Amazon Kindle how Tamoghna  says, runs a limited and custom system of Android.

If you cant run the google emulator you can try the Genymotion what offers to the users free virtual machines with android. Also offers a premium service to custom and more android versions.

The free version let you test and develop on the more common devices.


Why do all the directories on my tablet have all these weird numbers? I have a Samsung Galaxy 10.1, running Android 3.2, which I've rooted.

When I plug it in by USB to my Ubuntu computer, it looks like this:

There's about 24 or so directories, all numbered as shown in the image. As far as I can tell, they don't correspond to any directories actually on the device, and I can neither find any files I think should be on the device or transfer any files to the device. (To be accurate: I can copy files to one of the weirdly numbered directories, but then I can't find them if I try to look for them from the tablet interface.)

What's going on, and, more importantly, how do I get a normal connection to my tablet so I can transfer files back and forth?

Update 1: I have learned this is probably "MTP mode". I can't seem to find any option to disable or change it.

Update 2: I have tried turning "USB debugging" both on and off, and neither way seems to make a difference.

Update 3: I've asked about this issue also on the Ubuntu SE site, in case part of my problem is on the Ubuntu side.

Update 4: Here's another error message I get if I try to use mtpfs to connect to the Android device:

It seems that you're connecting the tab in Media Player (MTP) mode. Try switching it to Camera mode, it usually gives better results. If I remember correctly, this option can be found in Settings -> Storage -> Menu button (top right) -> USB computer connection.

Most likely hidden directories used by Android to store hidden data, that are shown/visible when you connect it to your computer.

Try using root explorer on your tablet to see the directories.


What actually determines whether I see H+ or 4G in the top panel? So, I read the answers to What are the different signal indicators avalable on the notification bar? and as one answer says:

  3G: UMTS (384 kbit/s to 7.2 Mbit/s)
  H: HSPA (enhanced 3G, sometimes shown as 3.5G; up to 21 Mbit/s)
  H+: HSPA+ (even more enhanced/faster HSPA; up to 42.2 Mbit/s)
  4G: LTE (thanks to eldarerathis for confirmation); up to 300 Mbit/s

I'm guessing that these speed definitions are determined by some international convention or something like that.

I have different SIM cards from different carriers.

When I use Carrier A I see H+, H or 3G in the panel. I get speeds ranging from 4 to 12 megabits per second.

When i use Carrier B I always see 4G in the panel. However, I get speeds ranging from 1 to 2 megabits per second.

By the way, these are general trends for these carriers in various areas, not isolated instances of speed.

So, it seems that what symbol I see in the panel needs not matter so much for the actual speed? (Except for E, which is always terrible regardless.)

If not speed, what is the real reason for what symbol I see? Is it arbitrarily set by the carrier? Can they simply choose to call their network whatever they like? Or does it have to do with what sort of technology they have in their tower? Maybe Carrier B actually does have 4G towers, only their networks are overloaded and therefore cannot supply proper speeds to all the users?

I am in India where 4G is still new. AFAIK, Carrier B might have more traffic than their network can handle.

It is the speed that determines what is shown in the indicator
For the conventions regarding the symbols and speed , see this - which are in line with what is mentioned in your question
Advertised throughput speeds are not the actual, real world throughput speeds experienced by the end user. See this for factors affecting the speed

Coming to your main concern regarding different speeds and variance with symbols displayed:

Situation described is India specific and regulated by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. AFAIK, they are aware of operators delivering lesser speed than advertised and are in the process of streamlining it. Details are being skipped here being broad / opinionated

Operators are not at liberty to falsify speeds - some typical practices have been covered in comments
It is best to reach out to the carriers and or TRAI to get to the operator version of it

The speed has nothing to do with the icon being displayed so that statement is incorrect, the icon is specifying what technology is being used to connect to the mobile network. The handset is not evaluating performance and making a judgement about the icon. A slow 4G connection will still show 4G.
4G has much higher theoretical speeds and therefore should in general be significantly faster. However, numerous other factors will affect overall performance, such as:

Signal strength (a 1-bar 4G may be worse than a full-bar 3G
connection for example)
Traffic shaping at the carrier or other restrictions
Contention or other back-end infrastructure performance issue at the carrier
Local network performance e.g. mast equipment at the carrier

If you've got a 4G-capable carrier that is performing worse on a like-for-like basis than a 3G+ carrier then this is of course a significant problem but it is a carrier problem nonetheless.


How can I install Google Apps on Cyanogenmod for the Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100)? When I try to install the latest version of Open GApps onto my phone using adb sideload, and the default CM Recovery that comes with CM 13 for the Samsung Galaxy SII (i9100). However, I get the error message, "Failed to set up busybox."  The suggested solution, which is to use TWRP recovery instead of CM, I have no idea how to do because I don't know where to find a kernel, with TWRP recovery, that is compatible with CM13. I can't find kernels for CM12, since many of the download links on sites like xda-developers.com are dead.

I tried to install with CM12 and CM13 and I get the same result.

I successfully installed a copy of busybox onto /system/bin. I first tried installing Open GApps via adb sideload however, this failed. Running adb shell, I saw that perhaps busybox was runnable, so I ran chmod +x, and ran busybox, after which I saw busybox's help message. Surprisingly, Open GApps still didn't install for the same reason.

How can I install the Google Apps onto my phone?

Okay, I add another answer because the protocol I am attaching differs from what I posted above. This worked for me, I cannot tell if this will work for you; please don't point your finger on me ;) This is meant for all who have a CM CM12.1 Nightly build  2016-01-19 or later installed - including Cyanogenmod's recovery which IS NOT ABLE to install Zip Files. The Procedure also reorganizes your Partition structure.

== Resizing Partitions, Installing TWRP 3.0.2-0, CyanogenMod 13 nightly and OpenGApps Pico on Samsung's Galaxy S2 i9100 using Windows 10. Phone has CM12.1 nightly build 2016-01-19 or later, but no busybox. ==

CAUTION: Following these instructions may brick your device. All steps are performed at your own risk. This protocol was successfully tested on two independent i9100 devices. Initially both devices had CyanogenMod 12.1 with CyanogenMod's "stock" recovery installed (which lacks the busybox). Build > 2016-01-19. This protocoll will install CyanogenMod 13, OpenGApps and TWRP 3.0.2-0 recovery. This recovery should persist even after updating CyanogenMod to the next nightly build (not tested yet, would be nice if soeone could feedback on this!).

NOTE: All steps were performed on a Windows 10 PC. You may encounter different events using an other OS.

PREPARATIONS:

Read this first before executing ;)
Backup all your personal data.
Eject your extra SD-card from your phone.
Get the latest CyanogenMod Nightly Build: http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=i9100 -> store the zip on your extra SD-card you just ejected
Get OpenGApps pico: http://opengapps.org/ Make sure that the build date matches the CyanogenMod nightly build date. Store the zip on the SD-card you just ejected.
Get HeimdallSuite_v1.4.0.zip: http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3713767&d=1460278689 -> Extract it to a local folder (from now on called c:\localFolder)
Get Samsung_Galaxy_S2_Pit-Files_Collection_All-In-One_2015-05-04.rar - http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3293884&d=1430622849 -> store it in c:\localFolder
Extract yor desired system storage layout from the jujst downloaded pit collection archive. I strongly recommend to pick a file from the "I9100_512MB_Preload" subfolder, because those most likely won't cause trouble with CyanogenMod installation. I decided for the following configuration: I9100_2.0GB_Sys-08GB_Data-512MB_Preload.pit --> store this file in c:\localFolder. This file will be called myPit.pit from now on.
Get SAMSUNG_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones.zip: http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3713769&d=1460278744 -> double click to install. When you don't install this, you might won't be able to establish a connection between your phone and your PC.
Get MSVC++ 2012 Redistributable x86, vcredist_x86.exe (Heimdall won't open with x64 installed): https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/download/details.aspx?id=30679 -> double click to install. If you don't install this, you most probably will get a dll not found exception when launching Heimdall.
Get latest TWRP recovery: https://dl.twrp.me/i9100/ -> store the img in c:\localFolder. This file will be called as myRecovery.img from now on.

PROTOCOL:

Connect your device (and unlock it, if locked).
Open windows device manager (enter "device manager" in start). In the device manager, ensure that hidden devices will be shown ("View" menu).
Navigate to "Modem" -> "Samsung Modem". Right click -> "Uninstall".
Enter "change device installation settings" in start end select not to auto install drivers at all. This is necessary to prevent Windows 10 using any cached drivers for the setup.
Disconnect your device.
Reboot your system into advanced startup settings menue: Click the Start menu and select "Settings" -> Click "Update and Security" -> Click on "Recovery" -> Click "Restart now" under "Advanced Startup". When after the system reboot the boot menu appears, click "Troubleshoot" -> Click "Advanced options" -> Click "Startup Settings" -> Click on "Restart" -> On the "Startup Settings" screen press 7 or F7 to disable driver signature enforcement. (taken from: http://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/38289/~/windows-10%3A-disable-signed-driver-enforcement)
Turn off your phone. Bring it into download mode by holding "Volume Down" + "Home" + "Power" at the same time. A warning screen will appear. Acknowledge with "Volume Up".
Connect your device to your PC. The device is now in download mode.
Open explorer and change to c:\localFolder\Heimdall Suite\Drivers and open zadig.exe
In the "Options" menu tick "List All Devices"
Select "Gadget Serial" from the drop down menu.
Select "WinUSB v6.1.x.x.x" from the value picker and click "Install Driver". The installation should be confirmed with a success dialog.
Close zadig.exe
Bring your phone in the donwload mode again: Disconnect in from power. Reconnect it. Bring it into download mode by holding "Volume Down" + "Home" + "Power" at the same time. A warning screen will appear. Acknowledge with "Volume Up".
Open c:\localFolder\Heimdall\Heimdall Suite\heimdall-frontend.exe
Open the "Utilities" tab.
Click the "Detect" button in the "Detect Device" panel. Make sure the status message says "Device detected"
In the "Download Pit" panel click the "Save As" button. Enter a name like "backup". This is a backup file of your current phone partitioning. Because you are going to change its size, you will not use this file later on. However, this step is necessary to make the phone communicate with your PC, I don't know why...
Then klick the "Download" button in the same panel. If everything was set up correctly, no errors will appear in the status log. Please check.
Bring your phone in the donwload mode again. Disconnect in from power. Reconnect it. Bring it into download mode by holding "Volume Down" + "Home" + "Power" at the same time. A warning screen will appear. Acknowledge with "Volume Up". Yes, this is necessary.
Open the "Flash" tab.
In the "PIT" panel click the "Browse" button and select your myPit.pit (which you extracted from the pit files collection) and tick the "Repartition" checkbox.
In the "Partitions(Files)" panel click the "Add" button.
In the "Partition Details" panel at the "Partition Name" dropdown menu select "Recovery". Ensure that the "Partition ID" field reads "7". Click the "Browse" button in the "File" panel next to it and select myRecovery.img
In the "Sessions" panel, make sure that neither the "No Reboot" nor the "Resume (...)" checkboxes are ticked.
Now click the "RECOVERY" entry in the "Partitions(Files)" panel so that it is highlighted blue.
Click "Start". Hopefully the recovery will be flashed now. You will see progress when the status bar changes. Also check the output for errors. If just nothing will happen, check again if the the "No Reboot" nor the "Resume (...)" checkboxes are unchecked and/or retry.
Bring your phone in the recovery (!) mode. Disconnect it from power. Reconnect it. Bring it into recovery mode by holding "Volume Up" (!) + "Home" + "Power" at the same time.  The TWRP Recovery screen will appear.
Navigate to "Wipe" -> "Advanced Wipe". A list of available partitions will appear. (It is important to reformat at least "SDCard" (/emmc) so that it will be recognized by CyanogenMod later (otherwise it will most likely be marked as defect).) Check "Cache", tap "Repair Or Change File System" -> "Change File System" -> "EXT4" -> Swipe. This will force reformatting the partition.
Repeat this step with all other available partitions (some of them like "Android Secure" or "Dalvik" won't work. WARNING: when you still have your extra SD-card inserted, you may see two "SDCard" entries in that list. One of them is your extra SD-card. If you format it, your personal data (as well as the cyanogenmod-nightly and OpenGApps zip files) on it will be lost. At this step, I assume you have no extra SD-card inserted...
Finally, just to be sure that all necessary partitions are clean, navigate to "Home" -> "Wipe" -> "Swipe To Factory Reset".
Navigate to "Home" -> "Reboot" -> "Power Off" to tun off your device.
Insert your extra SD-card with the OpenGApps and CyanogenMod nightly build zip files on it.
Bring your phone again in the recovery mode: Disconnect it from power. Reconnect it. Bring it into recovery mode by holding "Volume Up" (!) + "Home" + "Power" at the same time.  The TWRP Recovery screen will appear.
Navigate to "Install" -> "Select Storage" and pick you extra SD-card. Select your CyanogenMod nightly build zip file and swipe to install.
Repeat this step with your OpenGApps zip file.
Navgiate to "Home" -> "Reboot" -> "Power Off".
Turn on your device and let CyanogenMod complete its work. This may take a while (about 10mins).
In CyanogenMod enable development options. Go to "Settings" -> "About This Phone" -> hit "Build Number" seven times.
Protect your recovery from being overwritten: "Settings" -> "Developer Options" -> disable "Update CM Recovery"
Restore your personal data. That should be it.

Get older opengapps version. 2016-02-08 works for me. 2016-02-24 does not )


Determine strength of the cell antenna in an Android phone to ensure good cell reception In some parts of the world, the cell towers are few and far between. In places like these, when someone is shopping for their next smartphone upgrade, they need to consider cell reception.

Boosters may be a good option, but it lacks a mobile power supply and is uncomfortably bulky.

It seems clear that some phones would be better than others when it comes to cell reception, for example, in the modern world my Note II will hold 4G internet even if my USB modem will not.

But in places like these, the challenge is to get any kind of reception, let alone 4G.

How can one determine the strength of the cell antennae on the phone they are about to buy? Is there a place to look this information up, or a spec one could check on?

And does the method of determination change whether you are on a GSM or CDMA network?

I suggest you ask carrier reps in the area you are concerned about, as I am not aware of another way to get the information you are asking for.  As others have mentioned, there are many factors that go into how well a phone will pick up, let alone how it will pick up in a certain area/location.  I used to work for Verizon and this was a question we got a lot. What I can tell is that, at least for the location I worked at, we knew which phones picked up well and which ones didn't.   If we had customers that lived in the country/rural area there were certain phones we would try to steer them away from.  However, if the customer was not going to be in the country then that same phone may have been fine.  Of course, as new phones launched we would eventually learn how they performed in different areas, so the information was constantly evolving.  Having to help technologically challenged customers troubleshoot signal issues was a great incentive to learn which phones worked the best!  Certain phones gained reputations for being great or horrible when it came to signal.  You didn't want to sell an elderly customer a  phone with bad reception unless you wanted them to pay you many angry visits in the near future!

All that is to say that you should spend some time asking people in the area who sell phones.  I personally try not to venture into carrier stores too much, but this is one area where you may be able to get some help from carrier reps. Dealing with as many phones as they do they are in a unique position to know which ones work the best in their area.

One way is to use apps like openSignal on two separate phones. The signal strength of the tower obtained can tell which phone is better.


Prevent complete charging? I'm looking for a way to prevent my phone from completely charging every time it is connected to my computer. I want to reduce the battery's capacity loss, as it is non-replaceable, and it seems to me that keeping the maximum charge at around 50% to 60% would be ideal. This chart, from this site, suggests that the benefit would be significant.

Capacity at    Discharge
full charge    cycles

100%           300 – 500
90%            600 – 1,000
70%            1,200 – 2,000
50%            2,400 – 4,000

The only potential solution would be to find a way to current-limit the cable so that the phone would have to run off battery. You cannot simply disconnect Vcc and Ground pins, as the USB standard requires the presence of those electrical connections before D+ and D- pins are permitted to be energized. Running off battery like that would just increase your charge cycles, causing the wear you want to avoid.

As far as apps, there is no way to programmatically control the battery charging subsystem in this way; BatteryManager outputs information but does not accept inputs from user apps.

Currently the batteries no longer have this limitation in relation to charges, they can work with loads at any level, from 1% to 100% without any problems.
However it is recommended to never leave download completely, because each one complete discharge battery life cycle is lost.


Link2SD doesn't really move the apps I have link2sd with granted root permissions and a partitioned SD card, but when I give Create Link to SD on some big app, it creates just few small files there, like 20-30mb, but the big files of the applications which some are more than 1Gb don't get moved to the second partition... is this supposed to be this way?

the apk file is stored in the internal memory still, it's in the 'data' folder.  I don't think you can do much about that with earlier versions of android but if you find a way then please let me know!


Google search not working properly - logcat included Nexus 6 Android 7.1

I've been having an issue where I will hold the home button down to pull up search, tap on the search bar to bring up the keyboard, and within a few seconds the search bar clears itself and closes the keyboard.

I made a screen recording to show you the issue in action. The first instance I don't type anything, just wait, and it closes itself. The second time I starting typing and it happens again. So basically every time I open search I have to tap the search bar, wait for the keyboard to close, then tap the search bar again, then it works... until i need to search something else.

Here is the screen recording.

And here is a logcat of the crash.

12-03 10:01:36.449   824  1796 seems to be what it spits out when the keyboard actually closes.

Thanks in advance, this is driving me nuts.

It turns out that Nova Launcher is the culprit. Using another launcher fixed the issue for me.


how can I re-link my apps to play store? after installing custom rom and downloading most of my apps from pc and installing them offline, my play store account is peculiar, some apps I uninstalled weeks ago but i can still see on play store desktop, many apps are shown installed on play store mobile but not on desktop, and many unlinked apps.
so what can i do?

If your phone is rooted, then Titanium Backup app has a relevant feature that might work:

Tap the app you want to link from the list of apps on the titanium backup app
switch to the "Special features" tab
You will find "attach to market(forced)"

There's also an XDA thread about this.

I overcame this by clicking install on desktop play store, on apps one by one.

EDIT:

On my desktop I go to google Play then find the un-linked apps one by one and click on install button. then on my phone I can see those app are included on my apps list in Play Store app.


How to on recover mode on my device How to Enter Recovery Mode on Sony Xperia XZ2? I tried a few methods to do and the phone doesn't do anything no factory mode at all. Now what? How can I on recovery mode on my device?

It appears that the XZ2 does not come with the recovery mode. There's no stock recovery to boot to.

So, the key combinations won't work until you root your phone and flash a custom recovery (which might not exist yet either).

If your intention is to reset the device, then as mentioned in the source link below, you can do it from within the Android system or the Sony Companion.

Source - https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz2/help/xz2-recovery-t3811741

Power button + volume up button:  press both at the same time for ten seconds.


Always see last-viewed group in Contacts Whenever I view Contacts it always defaults to the full list.

Is there a way to make it show the last-viewed Group of contacts? Or at the very least a specific group?

Thanks for any help!

If you are using google contacts as your address book, you could star those people you always want to come up, and then use the star folder on your desktop making it a quick easy way to always have access to them.

The Folder Organizer app will also allow you do this and isn't limited to using just the google address boo, and it also has more features enabling you to pick specific details from a contact i.e. choose only mobile instead of all their details etc.

I know it doesn't answer your question specifically in terms of the contact app, but it does provide a decent work around. Note that depending on your phone it might have built in widgets that can aid i.e. Sense has a pretty good one for this purpose.

In order to do that on Gingerbread select 'Display options' from the menu of the Contacts app. Then under 'Choose contacts to display' select your account and check only the groups you are interested in.


Can other apps play music from my Google Music library? I have uploaded my song collection to Google Play Music, and use my phone to listen to them.

Now, if I copy the original music files directly to my phone storage, I can then use any app I want to play them. But what about music synced via Google Play Music?

If I download the songs to my phone in offline mode, can any other app be used to play the same collection (just like with the files), or are they only accessible by Google Play Music app?

They're only accessible from Google Play Music. It stores them somewhere in the internal space of the app, not in the music library of the phone. There is no way to tell the app to move the file somewhere else at the moment, and no way that I'm aware off to point other app to that specific folder.

That's the main reason why I don't use Google Play Music. I want to be in control of my music folder.

You can. Try doubleTwist Music Player. Just so you know, this feature requires ROOT.

p.s. I don't know if this feature is still available, I haven't used it for a while now.


Pictures and videos not showing in the gallery I'm experiencing this issue since a month or so. I was using the camera and I received a message of some memory error, but was able to continue taking pictures. Then I realized that the pictures were not showing up in the gallery.

I connected the device to my PC and the files are actually there. In addition, I am able to continue taking pictures and access the files when using the camera (I touch the recent photos icon and I can see them).

I have tried many things, such as removing the DCIM folder, erasing the .nomedia files, erasing data from the internal memory, and none of them seemed to work. Could anyone help me?

Thanks,

Agustin

Consider any of the solution mentioned below.
Solution 1
Note: Follow the steps for both Internal and external SD Card

Go to File manager  -> Android ->  Data -> com.android.gallery3d.
Delete the folder (com.android.gallery3d) in both internal and external SD card.
Go to Settings -> Apps / Application manager -> search for Gallery -> open Gallery and tap on Clear Data .
Switch off your phone and wait for few minutes (say 2-3 min) and then switch on and wait for few minutes.

That's it now. All the images and videos would be showing under Gallery.
Solution 2

Go to the respective folders where images/videos are stored.
Go to Settings > Show hidden file and see if there is  a .NOMEDIA file. If there is such file then delete it.
Switch off and switch on the device.

That's it.
Solution 3
If above solutions don't work, then you have to search for apps in Play Store which scans SD Card . SDrescan is good. It's only of 20KB in size. And then scan the memory card using that app.

I have a best and easy solution for the above problem that first go to file manager > settings> show hidden files> than rename the folder .nomedia to .adc then restart your phone and remove the sd card card directly without unmount if then re insert it to the phone during switch on and watch by default it scan sd card and show media in gallery and music checkout this and if it doesnot work than delete the folder .nomedia and do the step of remove and insert sd card again then open gallery ok


How can I make Lock Screen widgets work on my Galaxy S3 on Android 4.3? When my Galaxy S3 upgraded to 4.3 last night the lock screen lost all its widgets and now immediately turns on to the password entry screen rather then the widget screen where I can slide to unlock or swipe a widget. Because of this I also lost the ability to check the temperature from the lock screen. Does anyone know how to bring back the lock screen widgets for the new update?

I have tried swiping to the left in the upper right hand corner of the screen as I have seen instructed for other phones on 4.3 and have attempted to swipe/tap/hold in other areas of the screen with no luck.  I also checked in all the different setting menu's including going through the lock screen and security settings and there where no options for lock screen widgets (that I saw) and was only able to change from a clock to personal message shown on the screen.

After playing with it some more I was able to get the ability to have widgets on the lock screen and customize them if I set it up to unlock with swipe and no password but if I have any unlock security at all the ability to have lock screen widgets goes away.

Update:
From time to time I will get text messages in my lock window or notifications that I have a lot of them so not sure what is up.

As far I know this is a security "feature" on Android devices that don't let you open personal data through widgets when you set a lock code or a lock pattern. Only works if you don't have no security set.

You can still put your own widgets onto the lock screen, but I can't figure out how to get the temp back.


How risky is it to return a rooted android device under 'warranty' A couple days ago I rooted my phone and I hard bricked it. I am debating whether or not to just send it in to get JTagged (for 50$) or to just try to get a new one under warranty. I have heard everything from:

  You can send a rooted phone back. Doesn't really matter.

Returning Rooted Phones

and

  I've returned a stock, rooted phone and even forgot to put the modded battery icon back to stock. No issues.

ATT Detecting rooted phones?

to:

  they can and do check. because they refurbish many of the returns for reuse. they can easily remove the rooted setup in favor of stock. but that isn't the point. its best to remove root with a restore if at all possible with the stock zv9 update. then the device is sent back in factory state. if you cant accomplish this due to issues with the device that prevent it,then you have to send it back as is. but the latter should always be the case to return it not restored.

Returning Rooted Phones

and

  not sure if they check that but if they did they can do anything from sue for fraud, since you lied. they can cancel your plan and ruin your esn. thats really about it. im not sure if they think its worth the hassle though.

So what is the truth behind this? Is it risky to return a bricked/rooted phone to your carrier? Is it different for each carrier? (AT&T, Verison, T-Mobile, ...) Are there any precautionary measurements out there people should take before they return a rooted device?

Update:

I received my new phone and then I shipped my bricked phone back to Verizon and I never heard back. Either they didn't check that it was rooted or they didn't care, either way I've got a functional phone again. Thank you for everyone's answers!

I'm not sure it would be legal for them to discriminate on warranty just because a phone is rooted. However, there are some "void your warranty" things you could do when rooted (such as overclock way high, etc). You might find a tool on XDA to restore an original ROM, I did once for a bricked phone. They may have such a tool in-store too.

I can tell you 100% with all FACT

If you return your phone, bricked or rooted there's NOTHING they can or will do about it. This is only if you send it in and not take it to the store.

I WOULD NEVER TAKE A BRICKED PHONE TO THE STORE - THE EMPLOYEES ARE LIKE US; THEY TEND TO PLAY WITH THIS ROOTING AS WELL AND MORE LIKELY TO CATCH ON AND VOID YOUR WARRANTY.

The phones are simply opened from your return box, torn apart and NOT TESTED for anything as THEY CAN NOT SEND OUT A PHONE THAT HAS BEEN USED BY ANOTHER USER -THIS IS WHY THEY ALL LOOK BRAND NEW WHEN YOU RECEIVE YOUR REPLACEMENT.

The housing is stripped and the main board pulled out ( end of your concern ) and put into a bin where they are simply reprogrammed.

IF ANYONE TRIES TO SELL YOU ON ANYTHING DIFFERENT THEY ARE LYING TO MAKE YOUR DAY HARDER OR UNEDUCATED.

I WILL LET YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT I JUST STATED AND AM SURE YOU WILL SEE EXACTLY WHAT AM REFERRING TOO.

I have a friend that has worked for both Samsung ( still ) and Motorola back in the day  with a few at Verizon and AT&T


How do I find out what wifi chipset my phone has? I've got LG Optimus One phone (model LG-P500h). How do I find out what wifi chipset my phone has? Is there a general mechanism that will work for all phones?

Well without some specialized program, there's always dmesg.

Turn on wifi, then run dmesg in a terminal/adb shell/ConnectBot. Towards the end of the file you'll see debug statements about your wireless.

dmesg | grep -i lan can be useful if you have busybox installed.

I get lines like this:

TIWLAN: 1251 PG 1.2
tiwlan0: no IPv6 routers present

The first one isn't interesting on its own, but the second one screams "network adapter" due to driver naming convention for network adapters. "tiwlan0" is closer to OpenBSD's naming convention than Linux's (Linux native drivers would just call it wlan0) but...not unexpected.

A few web searches later - and yep, it's a TI wireless chip.

I simply googled "what chipset is in galaxy j100" (my phone) done some reading and got answer..... fyi this one has chipset by marvell...
And yours, the LG has a Qualcomm msm 7227


Huawei Ascend P7: "Log In WiFi Network", but WiFi works well, and a very strange issue I have a problem with my Huawei Ascend P7

The cell phone connects perfectly to WiFi but I have several problems related to this:

Repeatedly asks me to "Log in WiFi network".
Certainly, it connects to the internet, but only for a few moments, the speed
of the connection goes down until it is constantly lost (for long periods of
time).

  EDIT: Well, I tried connecting in my cousin's WiFi and worked, now I
  know that the issue happens only in my WiFi

Important data:

This problem does not happen when I connect to a HotSpot, or a public network
(which asks me to login)
My router works perfectly.
Update the ROM (officially) to Lollipop 5.1.1

"Strange" things that happen in this case

The notification of "start session in wifi network" appears for a few seconds, and then disappears.

  Once I was able to open the notification, I could even "log in" to my Wi-Fi
       network with Google Sites, but nothing happened

The problem suddenly appeared, I do not know when it happened.

I tried:

Change to static IP.
Check the "Wireless" section of my router
Reset my phone.
Wipe data

I hope to find help to solve this problem, this is the only phone that I will have for a long time (that's why I updated it)

Of course, thank you.

Check to see if wifi service is actually an app called tispy ..
It hides under the name wifi service


Manually changing shared_prefs and forcing app to update to it? I've been trying to figure out if it's possible to disable/enable GO SMS popup notifications via something like Tasker. I came across the following line in /data/data/com.jb.gosms/shared_prefs/com.jb.gosms_preferences.xml:

<boolean name="pref_key_popup_msg" value="true" />

It would seem that I could just flip that to false, but GO SMS doesn't see that (and it actually rewrites the shared_prefs file it looks like). Is there a way to force GO SMS to re-read this shared_prefs file?

I am rooted and am pretty comfortable with shell commands as well as Tasker; I would think that any solution would require one of the above. (Tasker can fire Activities or broadcast intents.)

Try to edit the file after 'force-stopping' the app in settings → applications → manage applications. You cant edit the permission of the app to display notifications however

I had exactly the same issue with an app I use - I am rooted and found the XML prefs file and the value I manually changed but everytime I boot the app it rewrites the file.    Having done some reading on this and experimenting with code I think this is because an app will only call on its preferences (getPreferences) once a settings dialog/screen is closed - generally this is how the app is written.  I'm still not quite sure why/how the app rewrites the preference xml regardless of changing the settings in the app or not.

BTW I too want to use Tasker to change a value in the prefs xml of an app to dynamically have the app respond.  I am looking into decompiling the app finding the relevant piece of java code and then amending it to call on prefs more frequently.


Unknown error code during application install "-24" I just updated my Moto X to latest and greatest Android 4.4 KitKat (I even did full factory reset just to be sure) and now I'm trying to install WhatsApp Messenger but unable to do so, I'm getting following error:

  Unknown error code during application install "-24"

Please advise.

According to a thread on AndroidCentral, this is a problem with either...

the app itself having trouble to update an already installed version (unlikely after a factory-reset) → uninstall first, then try a fresh install
certificates not being handled properly → install from a different .apk (e.g. one from your backups, if you've made any, or from an alternative source)
certificates (variant 2) → Go to Settings→Apps, select the "All" tab, scroll to Google services framework, tap the entry, "clear cache", "uninstall updates". Repeat the same for Google Play Store, then reboot, then try again

I didn't verify this (don't have the issue, so I didn't even have the chance to), but it sounds reasonable.

Additional sources on this error:

Unknown error code during application install: "- 24 " (XDA Developers)
App description of the PocketTool App:

  The -24 error is a killer. People think it is because of PocketTool when it is actually the device. You may want to include in the description that if they get the -24 error to reboot the device, then try reinstalling mcpe. If that doesn't work, uninstall all apps that could be used to modify the game, reboot, and try again. If even that doesn't work, the only other option I am aware of is to back up important things such as Kindle books, music, movies, and saved app data on something (I used my laptop) and do a factory reset. If they are on Jelly Bean, then they will get a -24 error if they try to reinstall mcpe after a failed mod install.
  Users had the same trouble with Spotify. A second factory-reset solved it.
  A thread on Android-Hilfe.DE (German) again supports the first variant of my answer (remains of a previous install). Maybe your factory-reset did not complete cleanly.
  A Google search on "google-play error-24" reveals even more sources.

Remove application and set to factory setting. Mine works now.


How can I successfully run this script on a emulated terminal on Android? Background

I am trying to install Ubuntu onto my Acer Iconia A500 using VNC and this application called Complete Linux Installer. My tablet is rooted and I have found several sources saying they have achieved this on their tablet. It is Ubuntu 12.04, but since this is about doing this on the Android OS, it is off-topic on Ask Ubuntu.

Script

The script I am trying to run is as follows:

$ cd /sdcard/ubuntu $ su
# sh /data/data/com.zpwebsites.linuxonandroid/files/bootscript.sh /sdcard/ubuntu/ubuntu.img

This is what it returns:

$ cd /sdcard/ubuntu $ su
# sh /data/data/com.zpwebsites.linuxonandroid/files/bootscript.sh /sdcard/ubuntu/ubuntu.img
[: not found
dirname: not found
[[: not found
[: not found
[: not found
[: not found
[: not found
Checking loop device... [: not found
MISSING
Creating loop device... /data/data/com.zpwebsites.linuxonandroid/files/bootscript.sh: /system/xbin/busybox: not found
[: not found
FAILED
Error: Unable to create loop device!

Question

How am I able to install this correctly? I have ubuntu.img and ubuntu.img.md5 in a folder named ubuntu in /mnt/sdcard which is the root of the system.

 What is the [: part of [: not found? Is it just the script text?

You must install busybox on your device. And you need a kernel with loopdevice support. I use a 2.6.35.7 Kernel and I can run Debian. You may have a ARMv6 CPU Then Ubuntu doesn't work.


"invalid download uri" from Play Store on a Huawei phone I have a g350-u00 device that was shipped with JB 4.1.2 but without Gapps. To add Google account, I rooted the device and copied .apk files to /system/apk from gapps package http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip. After a couple of hard resets I have a working system with Gmail and Play Store. The latter fails to install any app with toast "invalid download uri". How can I cure the system?


Can one "saferoot" 4.4.2? I know that a Samsung 4.3 can be rooted using a method called saferoot. What it does is find a security hole in the OS and performs a "privilege escalation" on the process.

The advantage of this is that it doesn't touch the ROM and has little risk of bricking one's phone.

I assume that they fixed this specific exploit in 4.4.2. I want to know if there is another method like this?

Technically speaking there's no completely safe rooting of any devices, this is because rooting allows complete access to device files. So rooting no there's no really 'safe' way. You can however root your phone and then just be careful with what you install and do on your phone. I honestly don't see much of a reason to root a phone, but if you want to then just be careful. Also there had not been a release of saferoot and probably won't be for awhile due to Android 4.4 KitKat still being a fairly new OS.


TWRP Recovery stuck at splash screen I'm using TWRP 3.0.2 on my LG G3. At first it worked fine and I used it to install Cyanogenmod 14. But now I can't boot into TWRP anymore, it just hangs forever at the splash screen. Android still boots fine.

I was able to solve the problem by removing the SD card before booting into TWRP, like suggested here.


How to find the app that causes crashes? Where should I begin the hunt for the cause of crashes / reboots when logging apps do not work anymore?

As can be seen in this video from the Google I/O conference, in Jelly Bean applications can no longer read the system log for other applications, they can only read their own log. This has broken most (all?) system log readers, here's a blog post from a developer of such an application talking about how it has affected his application.

The only way to have an app read other apps system log entries when using Jelly Bean is to root the phone.

Although other apps can't read the log files it is apparently possible to do it from the PC, try giving LogShark a go.

The easiest most simple way that will give you definitive results is to remove all apps
and install them one at a time until you install one that starts your problem.

If you just installed an app recently and think it may be questionable, uninstall it and see if your problem is gone. This in all honesty is a lengthy process.


My Nexus 4 says it's charging but it's actually discharging I plug in my Nexus 4 to a charger cable plugged into a wall outlet each night, and each morning I disconnect it.

But sometimes during the day when it's not plugged in, like today, it says "Charging - 95%", and later, it says, "Charging - 92%", and continues to discharge normally. The battery icon also shows the little lightning bolt symbol to indicate charging.

I've seen the related/similar questions but they don't match my device or situation, as far as I can tell. Since other devices have similar issues, is it a software problem?

Either the battery is damaged or it's a software issue. You should first try to reboot the phone. If it doesn't fix it, try a factory reset.

It wasn't really a new question. It's the same as this one but with all the mentioned precautions already in place. Plus a full power off would preclude apps from preventing a battery charge since it's not idle but off. So my contention is that these temp fixes seem t circumvent a major flaw in the system but nothing actually seems to permanently fix it. The comment is on topic it just expands the parameters a bit since we're not all experiencing the same results from many different fixes. From what I am seeing most of these fixes are temporary and don't actually fix anything they are workarounds that must be repeated often.


Exchange ActiveSync on Android: All flavours of Android are not equals Just a quick question/remarks regarding the Support of Microsoft Exchange Activesync.

I work in a big company (10.000 people in belgium) and we have to configure an Exchange client to read emails.

iPhones are working fine, and on Android, they suggest to install Touchdown, a third party client with which they have an agreement and we get some discount.

Unfortunately, as I don't want to install third party apps to read email, in addition to gmail and stock email, I have been searching for some explanations.

I have then remarked that all my colleagues with an HTC Sense have a fully working email client!
HTC Seems to have improved the stock email app.

I contacted the HTC customer service but I couldn't get an answer on which ActiveSync features they improved.

Does anyone know if a list of all policies supported by native Android Vs Sense, Touchwozz, Blur.. exists?

I am pretty sure that other people than me are bugged with this issues and would like to compare all these email clients and see wich is the best, maybe some other would be porting Sense email to stock ROM.

Have you any idea of people working on that or other suggestions?

Thanks!

The stock email cient is not working after I updated ICS 4.1.2 cyanogenMod 10.  I am using nito desk touchdown and its very reliable.

There is a default AOSP Email.apk that is easy to setup with Exchange---

I suppose you would have to be rooted in order to get the Email.apk into your /system/app
But you can get one from:
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Latest_Version/Google_Apps
and
http://goo.im/gapps/

But you don't necessarily have to be running CM-- just make sure the base version matches up to yours.

Most rooted ROMS come with a good Exchange app--- if you prod around forum.xda-developers.com , you could probably find one that doesn't require root access to install.


How to get fm radio back after Desire X was updated to Android 4.1? My HTC Desire X recently updated to android 4.1. With that update, the FM radio disappeared. How can I get it back? I can't find an app the does this in the Play Store. Are there other ways?

Take a look at this forum: http://www.htcforums.com/desire-x/12477-updated-4-1-1-no-fm-radio.html. The only other way (I know) to get a fm radio on your device is to root it or install an .apk from outside the Play Store.

Use Spirit Light. Works well on Desire, excellent app.


Galaxy tab 4 7.0 version 4.4.2 stuck in Odin Mode Today I would like to root my samsung galaxy tab 4 7.0 version 4.2.2. while odin running, it display fail and then my phone now is stuck in odin mode..

Please see my photo :

Odin Mode Product Name: SM-T231 Current Binary: Custom System status: official.

please help

Hmmm... seems like you're stuck. Ok so solution is to download the stock firmware and flash your device vis odin.  Thats how I got mine fixed. Sm t231.


Connecting HID controller as keybord I'm about to buy an HID controller(Green Throttle Atlas Single Controller, w/ upd. firmware) and I've heard a lot that most of the games on Android do not support HID controllers, but they do keyboards.
I was wondering if I will be able to remap controller as keyboard layout; that is, make Android see keyboard connected instead of HID controller. Preferably without root. I'm on Nexus 5.

I have a nexus 5. It works fine, havent had an issue with any games so far (that is including play store games and emulators/roms). Once they pair through bluetooth, you can map the keys to what ever you want (in emulators, not play store games).

the only issue i have (and i think you are talking about) is with it working on a computer. the current HID controller driver that it uses seems incompatible with PCs unless updated. i am currently trying to find the correct drivers for it to install but according to what others are saying, ever since google bought green throttle, the firmware+drivers have been removed everywhere.


Nexus 7 Google Logo Boot-Loop My stock Nexus 7 was working fine until I turned it on. The lock screen was frozen. I then hard reset the device and turned it back on. On boot the tablet gets stuck on the Google logo and never continues. Tried recovery mode, but it doesn't start. I also tried re-flashing stock from here but it hasn't made a difference. How can I fix this? Can I resolve this with fastboot?

Try clearing/formatting Cache partition from recovery and than flash a factory image.

If it doesn't work, flash a custom recovery and than format the Cache partition and try rebooting your Nexus 7.


Osmand: Map font size I am visually impaired and have a hard time reading small fonts. In Osmand I can read the fonts when I zoom and the screen still has to be re-drawn. How can I change the default font size for street names to, say, 150%?

In OsmAnd+ 2.3.5:

tap the menu button -> Configure Map -> swipe up to reveal more options

and set the text size from there:

Long-Press the ZoomIn button and choose a map zoom level.


Battery was once swollen, but is now normal My tablet (specs below) has a swollen battery, but is now normal (back to its normal size).
It was swollen many years ago, so I just left it.  Now, I just found it and it is now unenlarged.
I don't find anything about it in the internet upon searching about it.  The device also doesn't have a removable battery.
I am worried that if I charge it, it will explode.
Is it safe to charge and use now?

Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 GT-P5210
Android: 4.4 Kitkat

Technically, this is just an update of what happened to my device, but this can also be the answer to my question: "Is it safe to charge and use now?"

We took the device to a repair store. They tried to charge the battery, but the battery won't charge. Also, the battery didn't explode when it is charging.

They opened the back of it, and they saw that the battery is still a little bit swollen.

They said that the cause of this is leaving the device for a long period of time, just like what I said in my question:

  It was swollen many years ago, so I just left it. Now, I just found it and it is now unenlarged.

They also said that we should replace the battery to use it.

So, to answer my question:

1. Is it safe to charge?

Probably yes? They charged it, but nothing happened. I just don't know if it will explode if I charge it for a longer period of time.

2. Is it safe to use now?

Well, this doesn't make any sense as the device doesn't have power for it to run. But, if I already replaced the battery, then yes, it is safe to use.


"Can't connect to camera", Nexus 6 - Lollipop 5.1 My Nexus 6 is unable to start the camera. The google camera app hangs when it starts and nothing shows up. Earlier the camera used to open but it lagged a bit when HDR was on. Now the camera isn't opening anymore. The other apps like Instagram that use the camera are also not able to open it. The app opens up and hangs, nothing shows up just black screen and sometimes the message "Can't connect to Camera" appears. This issue came after 5.1 and I also had buzz launcher installed once but then I removed it. The phone is less than 7 months old.

What I've tried:

Forced stop the app (Google Camera)
Cleared cache of the app
Booted in recovery mode and wiped cache partition
Factory reset the device

Nothing worked for me, I tried these steps one by one and then tested the camera but it is still not working. Please help me with this, I paid a lot of money for this phone on my own and it feels really bad and annoying that the camera isn't functional anymore.

Thanks in advance.

Update: after no solution was found and no help from Motorola, Google or flipkart, I have sent the phone for repair to the service center.

The phone is back from the service center and it works fine again. They told me that they had to replace the camera unit. It took them more than 2 weeks to get this done though. The people there were not aware of the actual reason for the issue to occur, neither were they concerned. But I'm happy that it works now.

My nexus 4 did same thing, I found these instructions on the internet and they worked perfectly, I emailed them to myself so I could see them on my laptop and followed them on the Nexus 4 and they worked perfectly, you might want to try them: I wish I had saved the name of the originator so I could give them credit, but have lost the site:
WIPING THE CACHE PARTITION

If your phone is on, turn it off.Press & hold the Volume Down and then press & hold the Power button simultaneously until the phone turns on. You'll see the word "Start" with an arrow drawn around it.Press the Volume Down button twice to highlight Recovery mode.Press the Power button to start Recovery mode. You'll see an image of an Android robot with a red exclamation mark.While holding the Power button, TAP the Volume Up button until a menu appears. 6.Use the volume buttons to scroll to "wipe cache partition" and press the Power button to select it.

Note: This process can take up to 10+ minutes to complete.

permalinkembedparent

[–][deleted] 2 points 8 months ago

It worked: THANK YOU!


Can I charge my AT7-C8 Toshiba tablet with an inexpensive USB charger instead of a Toshiba brand charger? I don't want to spend 30.00 on a USB wall charger if I don't have to. Can a cheap USB charger work to charge my AT7-C8 Toshiba tablet?

Possibly you can use a cheap charger, but it depends on the tablet as well as the charger.

Many cheap or OEM phone chargers give a low Amperage charge, from 400mA (milli amperes) to 1000mA. However, since tablets have a much larger battery, charging from a low amperage charger will cause the tablet to charge very slowly.

Most tablet USB chargers are designed to give a higher Amperage, in the range of 1000mA to 2000mA. They are generally bulkier due to the electronics needed to properly give more power. And it is also why they are more expensive.

Some tablets aren't even able to get a charge from low Amp chargers. For example, Apple's iPad will detect that you have plugged it into a charger, but it will say not charging if the charger doesn't have a high enough Amperage.

Basically, your tablet may reject cheap chargers, or it will charge very slowly. Check the mA spec of the cheap charger you are looking at; if it is below 1000mA (1A), it will likely either charge very slowly or it won't charge at all.

Sure can! Even old BlackBerry chargers work fine.


Navigation app lost after updating phone I lost the Navagation app that came with my phone after updating the phone's system. None of the free apps on Google Play work well for me. Any clues on how to get it back? It is not on Google Play.

The latest Google Maps app has the navigation function in-built. The navigation "app" was always integrated into Maps. The blue icon was just a separate entry point into that maps.

If you select a destination, look at the bottom of the screen where it says navigate and you will recognize what comes up next.

Update -- This morning I went to look for my familiar blue triangle and it was gone AGAIN!  I found out that you have to go into the Google Play app on your phone.  Tap on the top right icon for options.  Then click settings.  Then click on the Auto-update apps.  Then select Do not auto-update apps. Do this first, then the steps below...

Go to settings, apps, and google maps.

Click the uninstall updates.

It will give you a warning about all updates will be removed.

Click yes.

Open maps like normal.

Close maps and go back to your normal all applications, and navigation is back!


Is it possible to keep multiple address books on a single phone? I'm trying to find a way to set up and manage multiple address books on my phone, and to keep them distinct.

I want to do that to separate my personal contacts from the work ones.

The default behaviour is to collect all contacts from my various accounts in a single big list (two google accounts and some other social networking apps), but it is a bit of a mess to have everything together. I know that the default app have a built-in group manager, but it has a bit of a clunky interface that's not very handy (whenever you open it, you are several clicks away from the desired grouping).

Ideally I'd like to have a solution that let me manage my contacts in a powerful and customizable way, i.e. with tags, custom groupings, and so on, and that let me switch easily between said groups without too much clicking around.

How can I do that? I'm also willing to consider a third party app, but right now everything I've tried still collects every contact from all accounts together.

One app that works to create different groups of contacts is contacts plus. It is a bit of a crummy interface but works. The only way I found of doing via the native Google app is by creating different Google accounts and saving the contacts to each specific account, then signing in to an account and signing out of the other when you need to use another set of contacts.

Yes you can have multiple address books. You could just use google account for this purpose. You can put different people in different groups and do a custom view in settings to show the items you like.


ES file explorer has been denied permission for an interactive shell I have a rooted Nexus 7. I've been using ES File Explorer along with it. I have been able to navigate through files, after having set Tools/Root Explorer and turning it on. But now, I can no longer do this. When I go to turn on the Root Explorer, I get this message:
ES file explorer has been denied permission for an interactive shell
I must have change some other setting for this to happen, but I don't know what it is.
Can you suggest what I might do get this back?

I can suggest a solution for this....

As I was facing the same issue regarding the Permission Denied For ES Explorer

Go To KingUser Application in your Device (App available after root), you will find the list of applications which are in Allow / Deny state

Here, you will find the ES Explorer (must be in a Deny State..)

Change it to "Allow" and Go To ES Explorer and change the Option "On" for Root Explorer...


Recover Notes data after factory reset? I have an OnePlus One phone that was then on an old version of Cyanogenmod I factory reset by accident a few years ago. I used the OS notes app back then (it wasn't backed up) and I would like to recover them.

When looking at the files on the phone from USB on my Macbook pro a while back, I noticed there was a folder called O which has seemingly a whole new OS file tree.

I used the phone after the factory reset and after a while when I ran out of disk space quickly (it has 64gb) and on using the space calculator in settings I found out 22gb was being used Misc! I am assuming this is the old OS and so wonder if the notes can be recovered. Looking through the files on my Macbook file explorer on the phone I have not been able to find the notes data files. I Googled a while back and I think the notes are stored in XML.

Is it possible to recover these?

Coolmuster Lab.Fone for Android can help you recover notes data after factory reset from Oneplus phone. You just need to make sure the notes data not being overwritten by new data.


Can the new Galaxy Note 10.1 make and receive phone calls? I know that Galaxy Note 10.1 has multiple editions (one of them is LTE chip).

Can it make and receive ordinary phone calls? Like using ordinary signals, instead of the Internet ones.

I couldn't find any information on this.

No. Only skype or other voip options. It does not have a GSM module on it, it just has a small chip for data transfers.

Yes. Use a Bluetooth headset and the phone app.


can galaxy tab 2 gt-p5113 receive internet calls? I have a samsung galaxy tab2 gt - p5113. i would like to use sipdroid to make internet calls. unfortunately i'm not able to find the call settings option to enable "Receive internet calls".

Is it posssible to make internet calls in this tab? if yes - how?

Click on the phone menu, then click on the right side. There will be three options:

send message
speed dial setting
call setting


How can I free up Google Photos storage usage from Google Drive Google Photos (previously Google+) automatically backs up your photos from your phone to your Google+ / Google Photos account.

They give you the option to backup a compressed version which is unlimited and free, or you can backup at full original quality but it uses up your Google Drive storage quota.

I have always believed I have had this setting turned off, but I noticed I am using 8GB of my Drive quota due to Google Photos. Which makes me think it had been backing up the full versions for some time previously - Right now the option is set to the free compressed version.

(I am assuming the 8GB is due to the original uncompressed option being turned on at some point? Unless theres another thing that would use up this space?)

Is there a way to identify and remove all of the high resolution photos from my Drive / the Photos that are using my Drive storage, but still keeping scaled / free version of the photo.

I have just noticed you can choose an option to show a Google Photos folder in your drive of your Google Photos. I have just done this hoping I could somehow filter by size or quota used but this doesn't seem possible.

I just want to try and identify what is using the 8GB

I have just found the real correct way to combat this problem. There is no actual way you can easily see which photos are "original" quality vs "high".

Google provide a slightly hidden feature to convert all your "original" photos to "high".

On Google Photo Settings Page @ https://photos.google.com/settings
Click Recover Storage button to Compress Original Size Pictures!

I found a great solution.

On Google Drive app settings there is a option to compress storage. It compresses you files from full size to high resolution using your free space on photos.


My phone thinks it's charging After upgrading my Galaxy Nexus to 4.0.4, it keeps thinking the cable is being plugged in and out all the time. The battery discharges at a normal rate, even though the screen keeps lighting up as a result of the random plug events. I don't think this is a hardware issue, but I've not completely discarded the idea either.

Has anyone experienced this? Is this a known issue? Anything I can do about it?

I faced a similar problem recently on my Nexus S upgraded to stock ICS.
The problems were:

Connecting the phone to the AC charger would sometimes show the phone to be charging, while the battery level was not actually increasing and sometimes the opposite.
Connecting the phone through USB to my laptop would allow it to charge, but my laptop used to throw a "Unrecognized USB Device" error.
The battery level displayed on my phone was misleading. For eg, the battery level was shown to be 44%, but when I restarted it, it suddenly dropped to 19%.
Shutting it down while connected to AC charger would cause it to hang on the shutting down screen till I remove the charger.
Connecting it to an AC charger while switched off would cause it to automatically turn on.

A little research on the net yielded this dicussion on the Google Product forums.
The alleged problem was the pin in the phone's USB port, and the solution was to bend it upwards a little using a penknife.

I was a little wary of taking things into my own hands, so I went to a nearby Samsung service center where they replaced the charging connector, and I haven't faced any problems since.

There is an application running with a WAKEUP flag.

if you were rooted, a simple adb logcat would get to the bottom of it.

But what it comes down to is uninstalling that app-- perhaps review the seedy ones?

Last time this happened to me, it was a kamasutra app.


How can I remove the "Install Google Play Games" prompt in apps? I uninstalled the Google Play Games app on my phone to get rid of the other annoying prompt, but now I'm left with this one. Is it possible to remove the prompt shown above?

It's really frustrating to see that pop-up every time we play a game.
There's a solution if You've a rooted phone with Xposed installed in it.
It's a Xposed module which will stop that pop-up.
Be careful if not rooted.

Link - No Play Games - Xposed Module

Tell the game developer to correct his sign in algorithm. If the game prompts for Play Games install, the developer set it to prompt for it. It is an extra command to give to let you see this prompt.


Is there an app like ROM-control for non-AOKP roms? I found ROM-control very useful in ICS. But it can only work on AOKP roms. So is there an app can do the same job on ROMs other than AOKP?

The answer is no, you cannot, because ROM Control is an app that is geared and orientated towards Android 4 and in this instance AOKP, hence internal API's are different. Back porting it into a non-ICS/non-AOKP ROM may fail due to the dependencies on the aspect of AOKP, such as settings, and ICS internals are vastly different to non-ICS code.

If you are a programmer and like to torture yourself with the challenge of it, then maybe its possible to back-port certain aspects and build the ROM yourself.

not true. get xposed and there are a bunch of different tweak modules


Internet access from my Samsung G II through my office PC network via USB? Possible Duplicate:
  How to set up reverse tethering over USB?

How do I connect and have internet access from my Samsung G II through my office PC network via USB?

The PDAnet app has always worked for me in getting internet over USB.  The only difference between the free and paid versions is that paid supports https.

Even I had tried but didn't work for me. However, you can try this:
http://www.linuxreaders.com/2011/03/09/android-access-internet-from-computer-via-usb/
Another option is to set up your laptop as a wifi hotspot. This might help-
http://keithmac.com/?p=125

I have set up the same way at home without a wifi router. I have a wireless adapter on my desktop and set up an adhoc network and I can access my internet connection on my phone. But there's a catch. It might not work without rooting your phone.


internal storage showing up as 0MB I have a Redmi Note 7 (lavender)
As I was updating between custom ROM versions (Android 11) and the stock ROM (MIUI), I messed up a few things and ended up with broken encryption. The internal storage is showing up as 0MB, possibly due to this. I know the password, and when I enter it into TWRP's password scren, it shows it as being successful, but I'm getting the error: Unable to mount storage
Any ideas on how to fix this?

Depends on the type of encryption, if it's only 9 bits, it wouldn't take long to crack the encryption with the right tools, but to be honest, unless it's some REALLY valuable data, just format it. If you messed up the encryption though, it could have some bad sectors I wouldn't trust it for any data handling tasks.

Remember: You don't need to decrypt it using TWRP, just format it on a PC with an SD card reader, format it while being booted into android, and there ya go, you have a new SD card ready to go.


I forgot my tablet PIN I'm trying to log-in to my tablet, which I haven't been on in about 2 months. I can't remember my PIN. It's not giving me a chance to log-in with my Google account, so I don't know what to do.

Instructions:-

Download Aroma File Manager latest version
Place it in the root of your sdcard(Preferred)
Reboot into recovery

4.
    For CWM:

Mount all partitions (including sd-ext if you have it)

And flash Aroma File Manager from sdcard

For stock recovery:

In stock recovery, there is no option to mount partitions, so

Flash Aroma File Manager, Click on menu option and go to settings

Select Mount All Partitions

Now, exit from Aroma File Manager and reflash it.

Now, you will see each partition is mounted
5. Now, go to /data/system

Note : If you have sd-ext mod to increase internal storage, go to /sd-ext/system/
6. Now, If you have to remove pattern lock, long press and delete gesture.key

If you want to remove password, delete password.key
If you want to remove gesture, delete gesture.key

Exit the Aroma File Manager
Reboot

If you have not rooted your tablet just hard reset it.


Where is the location for old WhatsApp database? In my internal memory, I found the WhatsApp database folder, but it only contains a few files, a maximum of 6/7 days.

Where can I find my old WhatsApp database files? Where would I get the previous days' or months' chat database?

if you start what's app without restoring previous data it gets deleted and if you are talking about encryption you can eaisly access it by scanning the qr code in other device


Acer A500 internal storage is not auto-mounted by Ubuntu I just got my Acer A500 and have problems accessing the it's storage from my ubuntu machines.

If I try it with Win7 in VirtualBox it is automatically mounted without requiring any actions on the tablet itself.

Ubuntu accepts the USB device (it can be passed to vbox) but nothing further. The only dmesg entry is:

[119174.117100] usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22

I'm able to mount and use other usb storage devices.

On Ubuntu, your device needs to be manually identified to the udev system:

As root:
Create or edit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules and add this line:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0502″, MODE="0666"

Then:

# chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
# restart udev
udev start/running, process 3793

This works for my Sidekick on my Ubuntu 10.04 system.

Im not able to mount but ADB push/pull works... see this thread http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html


How do I get rid of "Network may be monitored" in KitKat? Ever since I've installed my own CA in the key store I'm getting warnings that the network may be monitored. Well, I guess that's a valid warning if I don't trust these certificates, but I really trust my own CA here; even more than the ones preinstalled.

How do I get rid of this warning I see at least once per day popping up?

This is on stock Android 4.4 KitKat on a Nexus 5.

I was looking into the same issue, and it was answered on XDA http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2537794

In short - it is possible if your phone is rooted to move the certificate to the System section.

Very annoying that it is not possible to exclude certificates from this warning - it only produces noise when I know that the cert is OK to use.

The easiest way is to install the certificate using Settings -> Security , and then go to a terminal window and do this:

$ su
# cp /mnt/ext_card/data/misc/keychain/certs-added/* /system/etc/security/cacerts/


How do I sync only "My Contacts" from Google on Samsung Galaxy S? Is there any way that I can limit my Galaxy S to only download & sync contacts from the google account that are in "My Contacts"? Right now, it downloads everything, in particular, contacts in the "Other Contacts" group which has people that I've only emailed one time (or responded to). This takes my contact list from <200 up to 500+. On the other side, any way to use the groups that I've included in my google account?

I'm not opposed to using a separate application to manage these. It seems to me that Samsung's contact implementation is just poorly thought out, and I really hope that they make drastic changes to it for the 2.2 update.

Contacts | Menu | Display Options | Choose contacts to display (account)

Make sure only "System Group: My Contacts" is checked. Or whichever groups you actually want to see. (More specifically, make sure "All other contacts" is not checked.)


Keyboard keeps vibrating, even though "vibrate on tap" is off? I recently factory reset my phone, I have Android 7.1.1. I want to disable the vibrations when typing. I go to Settings, Sound, Other sounds, and all options are OFF there, including "Vibrate on tap".

However, my  default keyboard keeps vibrating :(

How do I completely silence my keyboard?

Device: LG Nexus 5X

It depends on your version of Android.

Samsung Touchwiz-based phones and many others have the ability to control key press vibration intensity. Some more pure ASOP phone do not, such as official Google phones, or LineageOS.

One answer is to change keyboard. Both SwiftKey and GBoard offer the option to override the system sound and vibration settings.

You can try Setting, Trigger: application launched > keyboard; Action > vibrate enable / disable >


Widget to toggle "OK Google" detection always on/off I am looking for a widget which toggles my Nexus 6's option for "OK Google" always listen on/off.

Usually when I am in the car, I need the phone to always listen for "OK Google" and easily turn it on before I get there. After I leave the car, I need to turn it off, because it detects random sounds as the command and never stops listening for noise sounds.

I think such widget does not exists and I do not know if Android exposes API calls for this. I am web developer and I am willing to try to code this widget myself (never tried to code for Android), but I have the will if someone points me to the right direction.

Thanks!

It's not the best method but if you happen to use Nova Launcher you can make a widget that gets to the Voice Command Preferences (which is just one click away from accessing the detection settings).

Long-press on the home screen (with Nova installed)
Click Widgets
Place an Activities shortcut somewhere on your homescreen.
Scroll down to the Google App
Choose com.google.android.voicesearch.VoiceSearchPreferences

and you'll at least have a widget that gets you right to the Voice Search Preferences where you can then click on Ok Google detection.

I don't believe there is a widget, but you can turn it on/off in the google app under the ok google settings.


Creating a .dd image of a Galaxy S3 without rooting the phone I'm working for my university's CS Department, and we've got a Digital Forensics project which requires us to create a one-to-one .dd image of a T-Mobile Galaxy S3 (Jellybean 4.1), so that we can recover some deleted data. I've done some Googling, and called Samsung, but I haven't been able to find any way to create an uncompressed image without rooting, and we can't root the phone without dealing with some legal ramifications.

Does anyone know of a program that can get the image without rooting?

It's impossible to obtain block level access to a block device without root, since all of those files grant the write permission only to root. At least I have never seen it any other way and I doubt that the S3 is an exception here.

It's not because it's technically impossible, the default permissions simply forbid it. A this is done for a pretty good reason: It would be a major security issue if this was possible: The normal user could get a dump of all the filesystem data.

Try Concepts like JTAG ...
As far as i know, It is the only method to take a complete image of a non-rooted Device.
Correct me if i'm wrong


Can I safely install Android system updates with disabled Gapps? On my Nexus 5x for personal choices I disabled all the Gapps (Google apps) via the Settings menu, included "Google Play Services" and "Google Services Framework". With these two apps disabled the Software Update screen is not available at all, so I'd like to install the May 2016 security patch with the Adb Sideload method.

The question is, do I risk any bootloop or any other issue if I manually update while those apps are disabled?

I would say no for several Gapps because if so they wouldn't even let me disable them, but the two mentioned above are required to get the update screen, that's why I'm worried about it. The phone has the stock ROM, no unlocked bootloader, nothing unusual.

I answer myself, just updated and everything has gone smooth! Nice!


Internet not working in browsers on mobile data, but works on WiFi and in all apps. Please help! I get the error "ERR_CONNECTION_RESET" in Chrome along with the message "This site cannot be reached" when I am on a mobile network. However, all apps, such as New York Times, The Guardian, etc. work fine and can download and display content just fine.

If I switch on the Wf-Fi, then internet works both in apps and in the browser.

I have also tried using Firefox and Opera, but I get the same issue.

Incidentally, the Gmail app behaves the same as the browsers: It cannot connect to the internet when on mobile networks.

I am using a Lenovo tablet.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I have the same problem. that happens with Google Chrome over WIFI i have internet and can use YouTube App but the Browser isn't working.

I resolved the problem by removing Chrome and installing it again.

The problem disappeared, but i noticed it happened again when i allowed " Enable data saver feature on Chrome's settings/Advanced Datsaver" Make sure you have it turned off.

Have you set your APN settings correctly? Go to your carrier's website and do some googling to find the correct APN settings for your network. Once you have found them, you should be able to enter them by going to
Settings>Mobile Networks>Access Point Names (APN) and creating one with the correct APN settings.


Milestone outperforming Galaxy Nexus on mobile data connection speed I recently switched from a Motorola Milestone to a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and it seems the quality of my mobile data connections drops considerably between the devices without any apparent reason. The Motorola device can get up to 2mbps, while the Nexus struggles at ~150kbps.

The  *#*#4636#*#* menu on both devices shows no noticeable differences.

The tests were made 20 minutes apart using the same SIM card.

In summary:
Is there any configuration that can interfere so heavily on the way the data connection operates? If not, can it be a Radio/Baseband problem?

I'm using the 'stock' Google Rom (yakju) on the Galaxy Nexus, while the Milestone is using a custom Rom (ShadowMod 2.3), although it's behavior was the same on stock Froyo 2.2.

While this might not be the complete answer to your issue, it appears that the Galaxy Nexus is connected to an HSDPA:9 radio (10.1mb/s theoretical speed) while the Milestone is connected to an HSPA radio (14mb/s theoretical speed, not HSPA+ which can have a theoretical speed of between 21 and 42 depending on the network). While the theoretical capacities of the networks are similar, it does seem that they are using different radio tower connections, which could explain the difference in bandwidth that is being experienced.

The screenshot one is using a different radio band - one that is more popular than the camera one.

This means that is is more congested, and therefore has slower speeds.

This is the most likely explanation.


Can I mount external SD card read-only? I have a SamsungGalaxy S3 (32GB Verizon version, not rooted) with a 64GB external SD card.

I use the external card only for music, which I load from my computer. Several times now I have lost files from the external card. Is there any way I can force the S3 to mount the external card as "read-only"?

Ideally, a widget that would allow me to toggle the mount from RO to RW and back would be perfect, but any way to mount it as RO will satisfy my need to protect the data on the card.

I disagree with Liam's answer.

Its possible with root, you can just use the "root explorer" app on play store and navigate to /storage/extSdCard/ and on the top, click the "Mount R/O" button to mount the drive as read only.

Surely if you know the linux codes, you should be able to make it into a widget for it :p (one line or so)

(I think there's an app that makes widgets from busybox codes) - that could be your answer

Unfortunately, there is no way to do this, even if you were to be rooted. The sdcard filesystem doesn't support being mounted as RO.

If you try to mount it, you will get an error.

As well as this, the only way to mount it RO, if there was one, would require root.


How to update Google assistant app on non pixel device? As I read in news about the update(take and share screenshot) for google assistant but that update only for pixel devices, not for nonpixel devices.

I don't try it yet but probably it should work

Download the Google Play Services APK compatible with your device from here. There will be three files in the zip folder. Install the one (arm for Android 5.0+, arm for Android 6.0+, arm64+arm for Android 6.0+) compatible for your device.
Copy the file over to your Android phone. Remember, it needs to be running at least Android 6.0 or up in order for this to work.
Head on over to Settings > Security and tick the box beside Unknown sources, allowing for apps to be installed from outside the Google Play Store.
Using your favorite file manager, locate the APK and tap it before following the installation prompts.
Marvel at your all-new Google Assistant.

after updating it, google play service will bring Google Assistant updates for you

Reference: How To Force Google Assistant Update On Your Android Device Right Now

  ou will get further Explanation on this link. If this link disappear for some reason then just follow the above steps to get things done.


How do I force USB debugging? I am trying to figure out why my apps don't work on tablets manufactured by the company Ainol.

USB debugging is already turned on, and I took a look at all of the settings that I could find on it, but the USB debugging bridge refuses to find it.

I figured out that it might be because the tablet ALWAYS connects the USB file transfer (either as mass storage, or media, or camera, but it ALWAYS connects, and I found no option to not connect).

How can I force ADB to find it somehow?

Normally you should have to install the driver of the tablet to have ADB working with it. On the opposite, mass storage usually work out-of-the-box because any PC recognize this standard.

After some search on Google I found some info that may work with your tablet here:
http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/70585-adb-drivers/page_p_805857

Download PDANet from Google Play and for Windows in your PC. After doing a few configurations your PC should be able to detect your device.


my google play uninstall by itself.. how can i install it again ? I have just reset my Samsung Galaxy Ace and now Google Play doesn't shown up. I've already restarted my phone but nothing happens, and I've downloaded a different Play Store but it doesn't seem to open.  Before I reset my phone I read that nothing will be un-installed from my application, but how does it come that Google Play doesn't shown up ?

Here http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/02/22/download-latest-google-play-store-3-10-14/ you will find download links to the play store in this site


Why are my Contacts icons on my phone with different colors? Example:

Why is that? Does each color mean something? What is this?

Purely random placeholder picture. The colors are quite likely different so it looks more colorful than having one single, boring placeholder picture on every contact.


Put six quick-toggles in Note 3 menu I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The 'slide down menu' [1] can be configured with 'quick-toggles' [1] at the top. A maximum of five 'quick-toggles' can be displayed at any one time, with the remainder of configured 'quick-toggles' available by sliding the 'quick-toggles' control to the left.

My particular use case is that I do need to see at a glance six 'quick-toggles'. Scrolling to see the sixth is a hindrance to my particular use case. First-world problem, I know! How can I configure or hack the 'slide down menu' to show six thinner 'quick-toggles' on the display at once?

[1] This is my first Android device. Please correct my terminology so that I might be able to Google these questions myself next time!

Use Wanam Xposed or Wanam Kit. It's an Xposed Framework module that will allow you to change everything about the toggles


Sync arbitrary files with a server I'm looking for a way to keep a file (keepass .kdb) on my Droid2 in sync with one on a server.

This is just a file on the filesystem - not contacts, calendar, etc.
I need bidirectional, not just push or pull.  If the server's changes, download it, if the Android's changes, upload it.  Yes, this may result in conflicts that need resolved.

I'm using Unison to achieve this between PCs, but there's no Unison client for android.  I've found hand-waving about installing OCaml on Android and running Unison on that, but I'm hoping for something native.

Botsync sounds promising, but it's unidirectional - when making a config, you choose if it's upload or download.

I've seen sugarsync, but given that this is my KeePass file, I'd prefer to keep it on my own server.

You may have found something you are happy with now but I have compiled a binary of unison that works on android - it is possible using the hand-waving instructions you are talking about - I used them to cross-compile the linux source within ubuntu 12.10 using the android NDK and with a few alterations to the code it is now working. Follow the instructions at https://sites.google.com/site/keigoattic/ocaml-on-android and then you will need to do a few things. There is a file called pty.c in the unison source - find the following section:

// openpty
#if defined(__linux)
#include <pty.h>
/*#define HAS_OPENPTY 1*/
#endif

and comment out define HAS_OPENPTY 1 as shown. You also need to open ubase/util.ml and edit:

let homeDir () =
  System.fspathFromString "/Your path here"

Comment out from here:

    (if (osType = `Unix) || isCygwin then
       safeGetenv "HOME"
     else if osType = `Win32 then
(*We don't want the behavior of Unison to depends on whether it is run
  from a Cygwin shell (where HOME is set) or in any other way (where
  HOME is usually not set)
       try System.getenv "HOME" (* Windows 9x with Cygwin HOME set *)
       with Not_found ->
*)
       try System.getenv "USERPROFILE" (* Windows NT/2K standard *)
       with Not_found ->
       try System.getenv "UNISON" (* Use UNISON dir if it is set *)
       with Not_found ->
       "c:/" (* Default *)
     else
       assert false (* osType can't be anything else *))

...To here!

Then you'll also have to edit Makefile.Ocaml

   CWD=$(shell pwd)
    EXEC_EXT=
    WINOBJS=
    SYSTEM=generic
    # openpty is in the libutil library
    ifneq ($(OSARCH),solaris)
      ifneq ($(OSARCH),osx)
      #  CLIBS+=-cclib -lutil
      endif
    endif
    buildexecutable::
        @echo Building for Unix
  endif
endif

And comment out #  CLIBS+=-cclib -lutil as shown.

And as far as I can remember that all worked. The other step once compiled is to mount your android system partition as writable and copy unison to the /system folder where all the rest of the shell commands are.

Hope that is helpful to someone...I lost a lot of sleep getting it compiled.

For synchronize files from Android is new version of my app BotSyncPlus. When you wrote about BotSync, there was only one configuration for upload or download. But now a new version BotSyncPlus is available, where is multi-configuration.