Lowering the brightness of the camera flash I have a Samsung Galaxy S Duos (GT-S7562L).

The camera is good, but its flash is so strong that after the photo we have to wait for 1 or 2 minutes to our eyes be able to see all clearly - it is like to when you see the sun light directly.

So I would like to change flash brightness in some way: hardware or software.

The easier but ugliest hardware way is to use a semi-transparent sticker in front of lens.

Do you know any way to change flash brightness entering some hidden settings (common settings do not have that option) or using another settings app or camera app? The phone is not rooted, but I accept solutions in this way.

This question was asked over at StackOverflow HERE

Basically, the answer is No. The OS is limited to pretty much just FLASH_ON and FLASH_OFF. Though I have seen some flashlight/torch apps that have a 'turbo' mode that makes the LED even brighter (but that's not what you want and these types of apps usually require ROOT access).

Another workaround is to remove the back cover, put a small piece of tissue paper over the LED (make sure the paper is still big enough to be held in place with the back-cover back on) and put the cover back on.

yes of course you can lower the intensity -- you just have to have the flash OFF mmore than on.
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Optoelectronics/LEDs/LED_101_How_do_dimmable_LEDs_work.aspx


How to view iTunes U without iTunes? I want to view Stanford's iOS programming course.

How can I see it without installing iTunes on my PC and on my Android mobile device?

There's the free and open source Tunes Viewer which is sadly not available in the Play store (Apple probably doesn't allow it):

The easiest way is to install the FOSS market F-Droid which hosts such apps and install Tunes Viewer from there (search for "TunesViewer").

It's also directly available as an .apk installation file here, but I'd prefer the F-Droid market installation because you get updates. The project's homepage is on SourceForge.

PS: The F-Droid Repository is an easily-installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The server contains the details of multiple versions of each application, and the Android client makes it easy to browse, install them onto your device, and keep track of updates.*

Unfortunately , you'll have to download iTunes.. then drag the downloaded courses over to your mobile device..


Market / catalog for free non-ad apps? Is there a market or catalog dedicated to apps (open source or not) that are free and don't contain ads? I find them hard to search for on the standard markets.

Please note: I'm not looking for a way to block ads in apps, or some other way to circumvent ads that the app developer wants to show. I'm looking for free apps that don't have ads by design.

F-droid is an open source (and free) market of Android apps. As far as I remember, they are ad free (or there is at least an in app option to filter the apps).

To get ad free apps you should either pay and buy that app or pay and upgrade as a premium user..
Only the premium users get ad free experience..


How can I install swype on HTC Wildfire S? I have an HTC Wildfire S and want to install Swype.

I understand from a bit of searching that I need to download it.

When I search for "swype" in the marketplace there are dozens of results which all don't seem to install the Swype functionality.

Some forums even mention that this is not possible.

How do I install Swype functionality on my HTC Wildfire S?

Swype uses a "closed" beta system to distribute its app rather than using the Market. You can register for the beta and get a download link for their installer by simply visiting the Swype website.

Disclaimer: I have no idea if the Wildfire is "officially" supported, but QVGA screen support is noted for v3.0. The forum thread you linked to in your question is about 5 months old, and QVGA was not supported at that time.

go to new message, put your finger on text input box and hold, it'll bring up 'edit text', choose 'input method' then 'swype'.


Android keyboard resizes when changing letter casing I've Nexus 4 with latest update. When I type something, when typing capital letters, keyboard size is almost twice bigger than when typing small letters and it's confusing because when I start the sentence, I have to type first letter (capital) and then wait a little to click on small letter (because its position changes as key sizes change). Is it possible to "fix" the keys sizes?

UPD: This ONLY happens with Russian keyboard... Attached screenshots.

I've the same problem suddenly with UK keyboard quertyuiop. Nexus 4 latest android.

The solution was to power down the phone and start again. All back to normal now.

Use Hacker's Keyboard instead it's the best I've used.


How to use Pie manual rotation on a phone with physical buttons? Apparently, since Android Pie the screen can now be locked to landscape orientation (hurray! CyanogenMod (and WP8) has had this since like forever).

However, my device (Nokia 5) has physical buttons, so the method presented in the linked article does not work — and when disabling auto-rotate from the MultiCollider SuperDropdown, the screen reverts to portrait mode. How do i lock my phone into permanent horizontal orientation?

the default launcher for my phone had this as well try and install lean launcher

edit it appears that on Nokia phones with the default launcher you can't have it be in landscape
permanently if you set auto rotate off it will just go back portrait mode but lean launcher will allow you to use your home screen in landscape if auto rotate is off
lean launcher will force apps to work in landscape mode

turn off auto rotate hold your device in a horizontal position then click the button highlighted in the screen shot

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hdeva.launcher&hl=en_US&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dlean+launcher&pcampaignid=APPU_1_l9KQXPfzGoHoxgPQrKfwDw


Play audio of flash video while screen is off? I want to listen to the audio portion of flash on my Droid preferably with the screen off.  Sites like InfoQ.com have great interviews in flash that I want to just listen to.

This may be a silly thing to say, but have you tried loading a site with flash, and letting it play? I would have thought it would just continue even if the screen goes blank.

If it does stop when the screen goes blank, can you download it and play it using one of the audio players that supports .flv and has the option to continue playing in the backgound? Is there an app that can play .flv?

Regarding playing non-MP4 or H.264:

Chinese app called Wuzhenhua Player
RockPlayerBase
CorePlayer, but doesn't seem to support Android (it's got a mobile version :/)
DroidACIR says it supports .flv-based audio streams
Another flv player

Here's a SO question about having trouble stopping flash when leaving the browser.

HTH


“Insufficient storage available”. Ok, but where? When I upgrade an Android application from Google Play, it gets downloaded, then the upgrade stops with the message “Error: Insufficient storage available.”

Yet none of the partitions seem to be nearly full. The app is about 10MB, and I have about 100MB free on /data. Here's the output of df (omitting /mnt/asec):

Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
/dev                   171M    32K   171M   4096
/mnt/asec              171M     0K   171M   4096
/mnt/obb               171M     0K   171M   4096
/cache                 469M     2M   466M   4096
/efs                     6M     3M     3M   4096
/system                503M   329M   174M   4096
/data                 1007M   895M   112M   4096
/storage/sdcard0        13G     4G     8G   4096

This is happening on a rooted stock 4.1.2 image from Google.

I've read other questions on this site, such as Why can't I install apps when I have enough storage?, insufficient storage error while updating installed apps [duplicate], and others, but they all concern situations with only about 10–20MB free, whereas I have a 100MB safety margin. Unlike Something is secretly eating up my Acer Iconia A500 internal memory and I need help finding it and What can I do to manage my phone's internal storage?, I'm not trying to figure out which files are filling up a partition, I'm trying to figure out which partition is filled up.

So how can I figure out which partition this “insufficient storage” message is about?

A common problem on android devices is that android will keep and safe all applications which are in your system directory (system apps/apps installed from the factory). This is exactly the same problem I had with my Sony Xperia arc s.

I've fixed this by rooting my phone and install "system cleaner root" (note: only rooted devices can use this app and you'll probably lose your warranty when you root your phone) and run that application. It will search for saved update files on your phone which are system apps, and then delete these old update files.

The problem should be fixed. As long as you run "system cleaner root" once in a while.

use this method to remove dump files and get rid of this error. I found this useful.

From your phone dialler, dial *#9900#
You will see sysDump screen on your device.
Tap on Delete dumpstate/logcat and it will show you dump result. Click okay and exit.

Source : http://www.theandroidportal.com/fix-insufficient-storage-android/


Nexus 4 won't upgrade to Lollipop Bought a factory refurbished Nexus 4 today. It started with jellybean on the first boot, a few updates later it gets to 4.4.4. Now it tells me that my system is up to date. I have another Nexus 4 running Lollipop 5.0.1. I am on T-Mobile if that maters.

Not matter. But not a sw upgrade uploaded on nexus user center for nexus 4. All u can do that is wait for sw release


1GB/8GB advertised versus 967.5 MB / 5564.6 MB actual .HELP just recieved new android phone which should be 1GB ROM AND 8GB RAM.
ANTUTU tells me the following

memory               840.2/1008.3 MB
RAM                  175.7/967.5 MB
Internal SD card    5558.3/5564.6 MB

I'm new to Android and smartphones and am not sure exactly what these figures tell me nad if they are correct or acceptable for an 1GB/8GB phone ? Can anyone help me with this ?

Thanks .John.

It is a general rule of thumb that all phones have less space than their advertised capacity. Can't be helped. It's never that big of a difference though.


Android HTC One SV App storage full of unknown data I have an Android HTC One SV (Android 4.1.2, HTC Sense 5.0, not rooted). It's recently been struggling for storage space to the point where it was reporting low and then critically low storage. Note this is the app storage, not anything to do with the built-in or external SD cards.

  tl;dr: Is there a known issue with "dead files" cluttering up App Storage? Is there any way to clear said storage out, or at least view the app storage and see what's taking up the space?

Steps I took as space became more and more scarce:

Moved apps that don't care about being on the App Storage to the SD Card
Cleared all the caches I could find
Cleared all the data I could find
Deleted all text messages
Moved apps that really don't like being on the SD Card to the SD card
Uninstalled all uninstallable apps except the ones I was actually using on a daily basis
Uninstalled updates to the non-uninstallable apps
Uninstalled apps that were actually on the SD Card out of sheer desperation

Whatever space was regained by this was in the 10-50 megabyte range in total and was "mysteriously eaten" over about 2 weeks of normal usage (e.g. web-surfing on Chrome, checking e-mails). By the time I'd got to the bottom step, the automated storage tool was informing me that there was nothing to uninstall/move.

When the phone finally started reporting "less than 0Mb" and crashing the basic phone functionality, I took extreme measures and "Power+Vol'Down'd" it, selecting "Clear Storage" from the BootLoader. That got me back almost 1Gb of space, at which point I was finally able to install Android 4.2.2 (up to this point, it couldn't even download the necessary update). I also updated all the built-in applications to current.

I then installed my core application suite:

Note Everything
BeyondPod Pro
NoteEverything Pro
Amazon MP3
Audible

My phone currently reports that it has 355MB of "App Storage" available; out of 3.85 Gb. Of the used, 673MB is Apps, and a staggering 2.85 Gb is the mysterious "Other".

I want that Other back. The space reclamation tool merely suggests I uninstall the 5 apps above for a grand total of 66.7 Mb, which is... irritating.

Is there a known issue with "dead files" cluttering up App Storage? Is there any way to clear said storage out, or at least view the app storage and see what's taking up the space?

When I researched this same thing, all I came across pointed to that data being used for the HTC sense software along with other preinstalled apps.


Access phone without SIM PIN Sometimes I want to access my phone without unlocking the SIM cards (yes, two of them, so two PINs). It may be that I just want to play some games, and I know that there is no coverage so I do not care about missing calls.

How can I avoid entering the PIN but being able to unlock the phone itself?

Note: removing PIN for normal SIM access is not an option.

You can simply remove the SIM cards. Then you will not be asked for a PIN. Some phones will show a "No SIM card"-dialog.

On my Samsung Galaxy SIII, holding the power button displays a window which can be used to power down the phone. Then the battery can be safely removed, and then also the SIM card. Upon rebooting the phone I get the No-SIM-Card icon in the top-left notifications area, but I can still dial emergency numbers and access the Internet using Wi-Fi. On my phone it is also possible to disable having to enter the PIN from Settings -> Security.

Regards.


How do I turn off Stories to Read in Google Now? I do not want to see the Stories To Read cards in Google now. Is there any way to turn this feature off? I can only see an option to turn it off for particular websites.

Since Google's redesigned Feed as a replacement of Google Now on July 19, 2017, there's no easy way to remove Stories to read but to block every single source/topic.

James Wald commented:

  I was able to defeat the "Stories to read" section by blocking every single source using "Not interested in stories from ..." on each card. The stories section is now gone from my Google Now feed. There are hundreds of sources, so it took a while.

However they also mentioned,

  The only addition worth mentioning is that Google matches additional story sources over time, so the Stories section tends to reappear, requiring more manual blocking. It may not be such a great solution after all.

(Note: not tested personally)

Long press on Desktop, press "Settings", press "Your feed", Turn on the feed "Yes/No".


Will "hiding" contacts on Google Contacts affect other apps' behavior? I manage my contacts on my Google account. There is a feature in Google Contacts where one can "hide" selected contacts, as follows. If you go to contacts.google.com, click the three dots to the right of a contact, then click "Hide from contacts" in the menu, the contact will be moved to Other Contacts.

I prefer to keep my digital data organized, and shortening my contacts list will help. However, I'm not sure what the effect of hiding a contact is (other than it not displaying in the contacts list on a contacts app).

We're talking about a contact that I'm not likely to communicate with in the future, but it would still be better for me to save their details, for example in the unlikely event that they phone me. If a hidden contact phones me (on my Samsung Galaxy S8), will my stock phone app show me who is calling?

The name of the caller will not be identified if the contact is hidden in Google Contacts.

The contact will be removed from the contacts list in the stock Samsung contacts app.

I tested this by calling my mobile with my work phone. I hid my work phone number in contacts.gooogle.com, and I also had to remove the number from my personal information in my Samsung Account, as well as my Samsung Account in my secure folder.

"hiding" means hiding the contacts from the contacts app only , it will tells who's calling. I'm saying that it is only used by the app


Are there any Marshmallow-compatible bluetooth styli? I've bought a Nexus 9 as a gift for my daughter for Xmas.  After reading that Android M added native support for Bluetooth styli, I'm looking to purchase one as an additional gift. I'm looking for a stylus that is highly accurate and supports varying levels of pressure and palm rejection, like the Wacom Bamboo Fineline 2 or Intuous 2. Those products only list Apple device compatibility, though.

I realise that apps need to be updated to accommodate the new APIs in Android, but can I pair either of these with the Nexus 9 in the meantime?

Try the Adonit Dash. No palm support on Android device though.


Durable settings of Screen timeout I often set Settings -> Sound & Display -> Screen timeout to never timeout. When I turn off the device the settings is 1 minute again.

Do you know how to make the settings durable? My version is 2.2 (Froyo)

Try this if you added apps and somehow changed some obscure setting. Nothing to do with firmware, whoops.

Setting > About device > Repair and formatting tools - Delete device configuration and installed applications

Failing that or if you're using it for reading & something similar. You should try one of those apps like "Tasker" where you can prevent screen dimming events during other apps of your choice. There's dozens (possibly hundreds) of apps that will keep your screen active.

Screen On Toggler
KeepScreen
Setting Profiles
Profile Scheduler
FastBright (if you're having trouble with it routinely waking up and using power, once you've got it working right that is)

If you haven't already, go here to Customer Service & contact the professionals that are paid to provide you with support. Perhaps this is a defective tablet.

Good luck.

A Verizon Customer Care person had me power down, power up in safe mode, then power down, power up normally. Now the timeout works as expected: 2 minutes is 2 minutes.


HTC One X soft keys not working for 4hours now The soft keys of my HTC One X aren't working for 4hours now. I've restarted it many times but still the problem persists. The screen is normal, just the back, recent app and home key aren't.

Could it be the screen? What can I do to get it back to normal?

I believe this is a pure software issue. If you have custom recovery installed, try to wipe cache/davik-cache. If not, try reseting the phone to default settings.

(Are you on a custom ROM? If so, have you tried asking in the developer's support forum? What software are you using for the soft buttons? Have you tried another ROM?)

Try Button Savior (non-root version, root required version).


Battery Issues-Moto E I am facing battery issues from days,the battery does not survive even a day even without using the internet.
Tried uninstalling some apps but there is no effect. It is happening 10 days after 4.4.4 Kitkat update.

Are there any solutions?

Use battery monitor in settings to see what's causing the battery drain. Uninstalling apps is not the solution, until you've identified that as the problem.  You can either access your battery stats in settings or in notification shortcut.

Diagonise apps with any antivirus or security app and see what is the reason for fast draining of battery.usually the apps which use more RAM are the reasons for less backup of battery. Uninstalling those unwanted apps is the solution


Birthdays and wedding anniversary dates I would like to know how to insert birthdays and wedding anniversary dates into contacts in my Android phone book.

Contrary to what another answer implies, you can't add any field you want when you tap the Add another field button in the stock contact editor. You can only add from a pre-defined list of fields. Unfortunately, the stock contact viewer and editor don't support custom fields.

The good news is that you can add birthdays and anniversaries, though it's not immediately obvious how, because they're not independent fields, they're categories of the Events field.

In the Add another field box, check Events and tap OK. You'll then have an Events field that works much like the Phone, Email, and Address fields: you can add multiple entries (by tapping the green plus sign), and for each one you can select the category from the adjacent drop-down list.

More good news is that you can add custom categories for events, just as you can for addresses and phone numbers: select Custom from the drop-down list, and enter your custom category. In this case you won't need to do that, though, because Birthday and Anniversary happen to be the two pre-defined event categories.

Open your contact. Select "Edit" from the options menu. There you will see several fields for that specific contact. If you don't saw the birthday field there the there will a button in the end saying "And another field". Click that button and add whatever field you want.

By the way if your phonebook is synced with your google+ account. Then google has already fetched all the information of contacts including birthdays. You can see that in your google calender app.


Corrupted files on internal storage (now readonly), how to repair internal storage? I have an GT-I9100 with Chameleon.3.0.4 ROM (and ROOT).
Android-Version is: 4.1.2

Since few month, my internal SD-Card (internal storage, not external SD) became readonly.
I cannot add/edit/delete any files on it anymore.

I noticed corrupted files in /storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/
(wrong filesizes (each > 3GB) and wrong/unreadable filenames),
which I am unable to delete or fix.

So, I tried to execute fsck_msdos -y /dev/block/vold/259:3 (as root) via ADB-Shell, which shows me:

** /dev/block/vold/259:3

Boot sector contents:

sectors per cluster:..........64
number of reserved sectors:...2236
number of FATs:...............2
number of sectors are in FAT:.2946 (1473 KB)
cluster mask (bit):...........32

first cluster offset..........8000
cluster size(bytes):..........32768

hidden sectors:...............0
number of clusters:...........376963

volume serial number:.........407a-07d3
volume label:.................NO NAME    { 0x4f 0x20 0x4e 0x41 0x4d 0x45 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x20 0x46}

** Phase 1 - Read and Compare FATs
Attempting to allocate 1473 KB for FAT

Attempting to allocate 1473 KB for FAT

** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains

** Phase 3 - Checking Directories

Invalid long filename entry for /Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/�ILES

Remove? yes
check_dot_dot: '.' absent for /Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/�ILES.
check_dot_dot: '..' absent for /Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/�ILES.
Remove? yes

FSNext block (322159) is correct, NumClusters (376963)

12387 files, 646240 free (20195 clusters)

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

Which looks good.
But when I re-run this command, I always get the same result.
Which shows me, the file system was not modified, cause it's readonly.

So, I tried to re-mount the storage in RW-Mode.
Fixing the file system, did not work for me. (fsck_msdos couldn't repair the fs)

Question:
How to repair the internal storage?

This is an answer to my own question:

I managed to fix this problem (until now), by doing following:

(NOTE: Do this at your own risk!)

01.  boot into Android and enable USB-Debugging
 02.  backup data from SD
 03.  update busybox via PlayStore
 04.  reboot into recovery mode
 05.  mount system partition (via recovery tools like CWM)
 06.  connect to device via USB + ADB(-Shell)
 07.  get internal SD device name (via mount which is for me/dev/block/mmcblk0p11)
 08.  format internal SD (via mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/block/mmcblk0p11)
 09. check new formatted partition (via fsck_msdos -y /dev/block/mmcblk0p11)
 10. reboot into Android and check if internal SD is writable again

Until now, my internal SD became writable again!
Of course, all data is gone.

Cheers!


How to move data to a bigger SD card (internal storage)? I have a Moto G5 with Android 8.1. My 128 Gb micro sd card is formatted as internal, and I want to replace it with a bigger one (and I want to still use it as an internal storage).
Is it any way I can migrate my data to the new memory card?

Your new memory card will be wiped anyway when you insert it into your phone for the first time. So I would recommend copying the data to the new memory card after you insert it. You can copy it using OTG or via computer.


Automatically runs Dolphin Browser on boot up I am new here.

I have some android sticks. I use them to run a kiosk. That is some kind of newspaper on a big screen.

I runs in the dolphin browser.

I want that my clients just have to power on the screen and stick without having to click once.

Is this possible in adroid.

I use 4.2 and 4.3.

you cant make dolphin run on startup, but you can use an app called Kiosk Browser Lockdown

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


How to reply to an ics invitiation without using googlemail I'm using the htc mail widget/app with an email account other than googlemail.com.
When an .ics invitation is attached to an email I can import the event into the phone's calendar but apparently I cannot confirm or reject the appointment.
Is there e.g. an app that you can recommend to send such repsonses - and maybe even display the list of participants (minor issue)?

It looks like this is a known issue. I'm using K9 mail and, while I would swear I've replied to meeting invites in the past,but I just tried sending my non-gmail IMAP self an invite from my google calendar and I get an ICS attachment and K9 Mail complains that it is "Unable to find a viewer for application/ics"

It looks like there are a couple of apps in the market that will handle this, though. Take a look at iscer and ICS Bot -- I haven't tried either but both profess do to do what you need.


Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone? I usually disconnect my cellphone from the charger some time after it's fully charged because I'm afraid the battery could lose capacity over time if I don't. However, I believe modern electronics should be able to handle this kind of scenario and automatically stop charging the battery once it's full. Does this apply to modern Android phones? Or do I need to continue disconnecting it all the time?

As njd pointed out, most cell phone batteries are Lithium Ion now.
Although constant charging cannot hurt, it looks like you may want to periodically run the battery all the way down so the digital circuits can correctly calibrate:

Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate.

As for battery life, temperature is apparently a factor -- the hotter the environment, the more capacity loss over time. And storing the battery at 100% charge is actually unhealthy for Lithium Ion batteries!
Great set of Lithium Ion battery use tips here: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.

Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.

Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level.

Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)

Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing dates. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.

If you have a spare lithium-ion battery, use one to the fullest and keep the other cool by placing it in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the battery. For best results, store the battery at 40% state-of-charge.

Modern electronics will not overcharge battery, and phone should be able to handle being constantly plugged in.
However keeping battery constantly in high state of charge and charge cycling in high voltage will increase battery degradation. It's best for battery when phone is minimal time in full charge.
My personal experience is that my android phone SGS1 handled overnight charging all well so it's not wise to get too worried about this, but if your battery never last long keep eye on that.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

Some portable devices sit in a charge cradle in the on position. The
current drawn through the device is called the parasitic load and can
distort the charge cycle. Battery manufacturers advise against
parasitic load while charging because it induces mini-cycles, but this
cannot always be avoided; a laptop connected to the AC main is such a
case. The battery is being charged to 4.20V/cell and then discharged
by the device. The stress level on the battery is high because the
cycles occur at the 4.20V/cell threshold.
Chargers made for operational readiness, or standby mode, often let
the battery voltage drop to 4.00V/cell and recharge to only 4.05V/cell
instead of the full 4.20V/cell. This reduces voltage-related stress
and prolongs battery life.
To minimize stress, keep the lithium-ion battery at the 4.20V/cell
peak voltage as short a time as possible.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Most Li-ions are charged to 4.20V/cell and every reduction of
0.10V/cell is said to double cycle life.


Android uninstall app before boot completion A strange one this. I have got myself into a situation where I think that a single apk is causing boot to fail. I have the same situation on a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 running 4.4.

Running adb install <com.myapp.package> would hang - then the device would reboot - then would get stuck on Android is upgrading...Optimising app 1 of 1.

I can list packages through adb shell at this point - but uninstalling with

pm uninstall <com.myapp.package>

will just hang - presumably as the current process is doing something with that apk already.

If i try to boot into recovery at this point i get a dead android with a "no command" message.

Fastboot is locked on the device and its not rooted.

My only option at this point i think is to unlock fastboot but was wondering if im missing something.

EDIT: I just wiped via fastboot on one device and it works again - dont really want to do this on other device if poss

Thanks!

The application apk will be stored in /data/app/ or system/app/ you can navigate there and rm .apk, then reboot


Wifi connects for sometimes then disconnects and then never connects Their is a big issue of WiFi in my phone when i first bought it...

My phone is a Spice Stellar Mi-439, Android KITKAT v4.4.2, 1GHz Processor, 512RAM, 4GB Internal, currently 16GB Expandable.

The problem is that Wifi connects when i switch ON the Wifi and enter the WiFi network but disconnects after sometime of browsing and never connects again even by switch the WiFi ON-OFF-ON and not even by disabling Data Connection. Neither it disconnects when in Sleep or StandBy Mode, it disconnects during browsing or any time. Whereas other users on that WiFi network don't complain about any issue like that. I have no control over that WiFi Network.

It only works when i reboot the set but again disconnects after sometime.

I didn't got any solution from internet for it.

Any knowledge about this issue?

I have been testing one of my app on spice stellar phones. The problem seems to be with the phones as the Mac ID keeps changing (yes, that right). It starts with a specific Mac and then suddenly the Mac ID exposed to the network changes and the phone is dropped from the network. If I Forget the wifi connection and reconnect, the same behaviour is observed at random intervals.

Go to your phone dialer
Dial *#0011#
When you see the "ServiceMode" screen, press the left menu button
Select "WiFi"
See that "Wifi Power Save Mode" button that is "ON" - well turn it "OFF"
Exit this menu, turn off your Wifi and turn it back on.

If you already entered all your wifi credentials, forget your network info (remove it) and re-enter it again.

This should fix your problem. Had the same problem with my S4 but it's fixed now.


How to put all your android photos to google drive? I want automatic solution. Basically I want every picture I take go to google drive once I have wifi connection

Is there any app that can do that?

In iphone every photo I took go to iCloud automatically. I want something similar with android.

Once it's synced to google drive, I'll just copy it to my other drive

I used Google Photos now. That seems to be the solution I want.


Disable notifications for subsequent messages from same sender Is it possible to, either through the OS or third-party app, to disable subsequent text message notifications from the same sender? For example, Sender A sends four text messages in the span of 30 seconds. I would like to receive a single notification rather than four separate ones.

Give Tasker (Found in the play store) a try! It's a great app for things like this.


How can I make sure I've quit a specific app? As far as I know, some apps quit by pressing the Back button while on the main screen of that app; and some quit by pressing the Menu button and selecting Quit. Should I always first check the Menu button? How can I make sure that I have quit a specific application? I don't want my battery drained by unquit apps running in the background without my knowledge.

By the way, I'm on HTC HD2 with Android 2.2.

That's the thing about the Android OS. A "quit" or "exit" button is not really necessary.  Why? Because the operating system automatically kills applications that are no longer used. For this same reason, there is no need to install a task killer or similar. When you're done with an application, the OS will clean things up for you so you don't have to worry about it.

I'd recommend Advanced Task Killer, which does a great job of showing you which of your apps are currently running and giving you a one-button solution to stopping any that you want.


Trying to remap my hardware buttons Since I have a broken back button I have remapped my buttons in such a way that my original volume up button functions as a menu button, and my original menu button as the back button. I've done this by changing the key values in /system/usr/keylayout/generic.kl.

The problem is, I've flashed a new ROM so I had to do it again, but now it doesn't work anymore. The changed values are persistent but my phone ignores it, it seems.

And yes, of course I've rebooted after making the changes again.

Anyone have an idea?

As you wrote you've modified a system file, it's safe to assume your device is rooted. There are several apps available promising to remap keys (see my list of key remapper apps), one of them might solve your issue. I have not tried any of them (had no need), but what sounds promising is Xposed Additions, see this screenshots:

Xposed Additions (source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)

On the first screenshot (the module's main screen), the last item reads "Buttons". Tapping that leads to the second screenshot – again look at the very button, and you see it even includes hardware keys (here: the power button). The item just above that would be your back button (soft or hard). So no need to directly tamper with system files – just let Xposed deal with it :)

I would guess that the keymappings are only read at the first boot after flashing the ROM and will be stored in a database on the /data partition. This database won't be updated when the values in generic.kl are changed. You can test this thought by doing a data wipe. This will trigger reading your changed values from generic.kl (AFTER DELETING ALL YOUR USERDATA!). Another way would be finding this database and editing it by hand or just removing it and rebooting for a re-read of generic.kl.


Recovery mode not working in Samsung Galaxy Fit I have a Samsung Galaxy Fit to which I installed Clockworkmod Recovery. When I put my phone into recovery mode by pressing home+power only the Samsung logo appears; the phone is not booting into stock or Clockworkmod Recovery.

My phone is rooted with Superoneclick.

How can I restore it back to stock or Clockworkmod recovery?

I installed Clockworkmod Recovery before rooting my phone using Odin.

Don't know if I understand the question correctly, but the phone is working but you are not able to enter recovery mode, right? If the phone is working just try again installing Clockworkmod.  If the phone is not working, installing a stock rom, or any other rom, witch you can find searching here, will remove clockwork(assuming you don't chose a custom rom that comes with clockwork).

Hope i answerd your question, if not just leave a comment with what you would like to know and I will reply.

The same thing exactly happened to me. Whether you install CWM before rooting or vice versa is not the problem. Try to install CWM again will solve it.


Historical data usage on Android Pie I'm trying to check my historical data usage on my OnePlus 6 (OxygenOS 9.0.6).

I used to be able to go to the Data Usage settings and use a drop-down list at the top to select different time periods, but trying this just now it only shows me the usage since the start of my current billing cycle, with no option to show any other period.

This is not the behaviour I was expecting, so I wonder if this specific to Android Pie on my OnePlus 7, or has Android Pie (or earlier) removed the ability to display data usage history.

Noticing that my billing cycle start date was wrong, I corrected it and found that the usage data shown now goes back to the start of the new billing cycle start date, so obviously it stores more data than is displays.

If more history is still recorded somewhere, how can I get access to it, and how far back would the history go? I'm comfortable with using adb if necessary.

My device is not rooted, nor can it be, but I'm comfortable with using ADB if necessary.

I use this apps to monitor my data usage I found it useful. You should try if you want.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.internet.speed.meter.lite&hl=en&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dinternet+monitor+android&pcampaignid=APPU_1_6egZXfunKIv6wAP8_ovoCA

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glasswire.android&hl=en&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dglasswire&pcampaignid=APPU_1_segZXchYxdb5BvHunLAF


How can I minimize Applications in Android? In Android, is it possible to Minimize applications and continue using them again from the same point?

When I press the middle button, the application closes, I see the application as "Running" in the Task Manager but when I open the application again, it does not resumes from the same point. I have tried this for various applications.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Y.

Pressing the Middle (or Home) Button does "minimize" the App. This is a design idea of Android.

If the App does not get resumed at the same point, then that is the failure of the App's developer and source code not using the relevant API calls or a general flaw in the App's code.

Not daft at all. You can't "minimize" an app in android, but you can leave it running in the background. If you are on a web page, hit the home button and do whatever else it is you need to do, then long press the home button and the last 6-8 apps you've used show up in a pop up, click your browser and you should be back to your web page.


Send SMS instead of MMS when texting multiple people When I put more than one person as the recipient to my message my Samsung Galaxy S3 vibrates and says it's converting to MMS. When I send my message I know at least one person is not getting the message. However that person can send me a group message and I can see it is as a SMS instead of MMS.

I can't find any options to prevent it from becoming a MMS. I set the delivery report checkbox and sent another one out. I know one person got it and that person did it. I get no report on who got it. I'm using Android 4.3.

I was facing the same problem for long time on my Galaxy S3, at last i figure it out

by default android SMS allow you to send same message to multiple people without converting it to MMS.
But when you Select the option Group Messaging under the multimedia message (MMS) setting
it now set group messaging only for MMS

try un-checking the option

hope this will help ( am using default sms of android)

Screenshot (click to enlarge)

I found that too.  Group text wasn't checked to start with so I checked it then unchecked and now it's back to normal.  Thanks for your help


How do you disable autoplay in the youtube app when you are watching a playlist? I have set autoplay to off in settings, but when I enter a playlist video, the next video still starts when the one I am on ends.

No, you can't set Autoplay to OFF for playlist.
Since it is a playlist, so the concept of Autoplay doesn't lies here as you are playing a list and not a single video.

Turnoff the loop option. Check the image


Unable to associate company's Wi-Fi certificate with our Wi-Fi network I have a tablet running Android 4.0.3 that I'm trying to connect to my company's Wi-Fi that uses a security certificate.  I've obtained the certificate and successfully installed it on my tablet but when I go to the Wi-Fi settings to connect to the cooresponding Wi-Fi network, there is no where for me to specify to use the certificate for authentication.  Is this an issue w/ this version of Android, am I doing something wrong, or is there something wrong at the cert level.  We use the same cert on iPhones/iPads (converted for ios use) and the cert specifies which Wi-Fi network to connect to so I assume that is what's supposed to happen on my tablet.  Any help would be appreciated.

The option to choose a certificate is available with enterprise encryption (802.1x).

Judging by your comment, your android thinks it is using a different encryption method than it should, so have you attempted manually adding the network, and specifying the encryption type?

Please bear in mind that not all wifi cards and devices support that encryption method.

Try ProxyDroid from the Play Store. It might solve your problem.


Play sound from two apps simultaneously Is there a way to play sound from any two apps (or more) simultaneously on Android? For example I have Audible reading a book. I'd like to play sound from a relaxation app at the same time. Or from my music collection.

i have the similar situation on my note9 running android 10 kernel version 4.9.118*
and using OneUI 2.5.  I noticed that my phone was doing this when I was listening to spotify and then i launched another music app expecting the spotify to stop but both keep playing music.  It seems any music or audio app can multiplay with other music/audio app simultaneously.

In Android, there are some things called tasks and processes. Whenever an app is opened, processes are started, threads are created, and these run and together make a task. Android system is multi-tasking, no doubt on that, because you can switch from one app to another through the tabs option in your phone.

But, Android system runs only one main task. When you open an app, and you're currently using it, then it becomes the main process at that point of time. Other apps, which may be open, continue to run in background, but only one app and its processes run in foreground.

Playing music, that is, accessing the speaker, can be done by foreground processes only. If you start a music to be played by some media player, and press the home button, then also the music keeps playing. You might think that the music is playing in background, but that is not the case. In this case, even if you've come to home screen, then also the app processes are running in foreground, although you're not able to see the app window.

If you try to open any app at that moment, immediately the media player app processes become background, and hence the music is stopped.

In Android, threads and tasks cam be killed by pressing the back button.

Two main processes cannot work in foreground together. Many processes may run in background, but only one foreground main process.

In this context, you cannot play sound from two different apps together.


Can't play multicast using VLC application on Amazon Fire TV settop box I have downloaded the VLC application to my Amazon Fire TV settop box. I want to use the VLC application to play a multicast video that is streaming on my LAN but it does not play.

I have noticed that-

A wireshark capture does not show any IGMP messages from the Amazon Fire TV settop's IP address
If I remove the routers between the Amazon Fire TV settop and the streamer the video does play

I'm not sure if the problem is with VLC or with the Amazon Fire TV kernel. Any ideas would be appreciated.

The FireTV box does not support IP multicast as the config flag CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST is not set.

However, the FireTV Stick do support it!

CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST=y

Looks like multicast support is not included in the AmazonFireTV kernel.
From /proc/config.gz ...

CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST is not set


App not detecting sdcard data I have recently downloaded NFS Most Wanted on my Samsung Galaxy Grand i9082.... the problem is that when I copied the data folder I downloaded into Android>>> Data>>> and I installed the apk file and when I check the app status it shows sd card data-0.00 B

dont put the data files in obb.
instead put it in the sd card/android/data folder
it works

First install game and play it once.  Then paste your downloaded data folder to Android-Data.  Hope it helps


Get rid of virus that downloads apk My android tablet, a zoom, has started to download apk's at random without any initiation on my part. I have the don't allow foreign apk's to be installed thing checked so they can't get on to the tablet. Has anyone else caught this? I don't see anything else on the internet about it and I have done a search with Avast to no avail at finding anything.

I suppose that the easiest way to remove it is factory reset. If I do that does google remember all my apps and download them instantly?

Anyway any I'm grateful for any information.

Go to Settings -> Backup & reset. Then check 'Backup my data' and 'Automatic restore'.
An alternative is to use an app like Ultimate Backup or Titanium.

the Google does not saves your apps.
I have tryed that.
I was downloaded 380 mobile security and it detected 40 viruses.
I pressed clean all and a rescaned:
The viruses wasn't removed.
I performed a factory reset and the viruses was removed.
This is the solution when you have many viruses on android.
My tablet model is:Maxwell maxtab H10


How do I decrypt files on SD card that I encrypted on a different device? I encrypted my phone and SD card on my Note 2. I broke that phone, but recovered the SD card. How do I decrypt the SD card to get all files out (I do have password for it) with the new phone?

You are asking the same question that you can find at How can I decrypt an encrypted SD card (HTC Evo 4G) on a different device? - In summary of that answer, you can't. Your password only decrypts the key that is used to decrypt your files. The key is stored on the device and is NOT the same as your password.

Encryption involves two parts:

Mechanism to generate key and storing it.
Actual encryption method.

Now both of these might differ from OEM to OEM based on their implementation. Remember Android AOSP does not support external sdcard encryption.

Now to answer your question:

If your new device is having the same firmware from same OEM, in this case Samsung and you are using a new Note 2, then there is a possibility of decrypting the sdcard with the same pin, provided mechanism to generate encryption key is same. However in case the PIN that you enter is just used to encrypt the encryption key and encryption key is generated through some other mechanism then your sdcard is as good as useless now. But it is worth giving a shot.


Number of available cores To find the number of cores available to you in Termux you run:

grep Cpus_allowed /proc/self/status

This number of cores is limited in a similar way to running taskset on GNU/Linux.

I am trying to be able to predict what that will return.

According to the app CPU-Z my phone (Huawei Smart P) has 1 HiSilicon Kirin 659 with 8 cores. According to the app CPU Info 4 cores are running the same speed (480-1709Mhz) and 4 cores are running the same speed (1402-2362Mhz).

After booting the phone and waiting 5 minutes to make sure all startup tasks have been started/completed I started Termux, login through ssh and got:

Cpus_allowed_list:       0-7

Which is exactly what I expect.

But if I press the home key, I get:

Cpus_allowed_list:      2-3

I thought this might have to do with how hard the cores are loaded, so I switched to Termux again, started 16 bzip2s. This does not change the number of cores I get immediately. But after 30s I get 4 cores:

Cpus_allowed_list:     0-3

And yet later I get bumped back to 2 cores:

Cpus_allowed_list:      2-3

This behaviour happens through ssh whether Termux is in the foreground or background.

The effect of the home key is only when running Termux: If I run CPU Info, then press home and then start Termux, then Termux still has 8 cores:

Cpus_allowed_list:       0-7

Only when I switch away from Termux using the home key, the app-list key, or the back key does the number of CPUs change.

Software controlled big.LITTLE could explain going from 8 to 4 cores if the limit was not enforced immediately after boot, but only activated later. Since the limit is not activated 5 minutes after boot, I think it is safe to reject this as the explanation. Also it does not explain limiting to 2 cores some of the time when running 16 bzip2s.

What is causing the phone to limit me from using 8 cores? How can I tell the phone not to do so? What is causing the limit to jump between 2 and 4 cores at seemingly random intervals?

(On top of this I had expected the cores to run at 100% speed which also does not happen).

The limitation does not happen if not run through ssh or if run in a tmux session where the tmux session is started.

Summary: the more cores you use the more battery you consume so CPU hotplugging turns off the other cores, and the others do the work which makes them at 100% CPU usage, which also give the best performance and the most balanced one.

It's CPU hotplug It turns on and off the cores when needed or not.

It's running 100% CPU usage because it's like this. Imagine, there's a 4 car, and let's assume the drivers are the cores. You have four lanes and 4 cars of course. Each one of them will take 100 pizzas. You can let one  core to do all the work and that's what hot plugging do. Knowing that a car with 50 pizzas consumes a lot less fuel than a car with 100 pizzas you can now see how we can have the same performance and save on fuel: load two cars with 50 pizzas and let them accelerate as quickly as possible to the destination (performance governor). They will get there as quickly as one car with 100 pizzas (same performance), but burn less fuel (battery saving).

If you want to make your phone run at 8 cores then you need to install a custom kernel, use an other CPU governor, use a custom CPU hotplugging, or without installing a custom kernel use an interactive governor, then tweak its parameters.
You can search on XDA for Advance Interactive governor tweaks.


Is it possible to return back to jelly bean OS after upgraded to cyanogenmod? I am using samsung galaxy Star Pro 7260 (rooted). I would like to install cyanogenmod on my phone. But, I want to know is it possible to return back to jelly bean OS after upgraded to cyanogenmod ? If it is possible then tell me what I have to do before installing cyanogenmod on my phone ? Do I have to take any backup (OS) from my phone ?

Usually, this is possible the very same way as you put CyanogenMod on your device: by flashing a ROM. So before you start, make sure you either...

have a stock ROM available to flash (see: Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?)
have created a nandroid backup of your device immediately before you start flashing (requires a custom recovery, see recovery-mode)

In both cases, you can return to stock ROM: either by flashing a stock image (and then start like after a factory-reset), or by restoring the Nandroid backup (and take off at the time you've created it, including all your apps and data).

Two things to consider:

there might be dependencies between device-firmware (ROM) and radio-firmware. So if installing CyanogenMod (or any custom ROM) goes along with a different radio image, a return might be different (you might need the original radio image as well) or difficult (in case downgrade of the radio is not possible). However, cases where this applies are rare.
Nandroid backup doesn't take care of your SDCard. So if you have apps installed on SDCard, you need to deal with them separately.

First of you need to be clear that Cyanogenmod is a custom ROM based on Android. So versions of Cyanogenmod are based on versions of Android.
e.g. CYANOGENMOD 10.1 is based on Android 4.2

So now straight to your question.

Yes you can basically do that . Once you have downloaded and flashed Clockworkmod or Twrp recovery for your phone, go in recovery by pressing a combination of hardware keys( check Samsung website or search on Google).
Go to Backup and Restore option and do a backup of your "Stock ROM" i.e. the original software of your phone. Each and everything will be backed up. But also consider doing a backup in Samsung Kies of your user data.

Now after backup you are set , go to Cyanogenmod website and select the ROM for your device and Install or Flash it as per instructions.
( besides rooting you will also need unlocking your bootloader which will void your warranty)

And anytime when you wish to remove Cyanogenmod and go back to Original ROM go in recovery and select backup and restore and press restore and select the backup file.

Your ROM will be restored as you left it.


Flashing CM 11, I get `set_metadata_recursive: some changes failed`: ClockworkMod Recovery v6.0.2.3 gives me the folling error when I try to update my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (GT-P5113) to Cyanogenmod 11:

Restarting adbd...
Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Installing update...
set_metadata_recursive: some changes failed
E:Error in /tmp/update.zip
(status 7)
Installation aborted.

Being desperate I tried the same thing with Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) v2.6.3.0 -- also the latest for my platofrm,

Checking for MD5 file...
Skipping MD5 check: no MD5 file file found.
set_metadata_recursive: some changes filed
E:Error: executing updater binary in zip '/data/media/0/sideload.zip'

In short, if you want to flash KitKat Android 4.4, you'll have to upgrade to a version of CWM greater than v6.0.4.5. Or, use an alternate bootloader. For the Galaxy Tab 2 GT-P5113 or GT-p5110 you can find the instructions here.

Make sure you enable "USB Debugging" under "Developer options" on your rooted phone. That worked for me.


How to fix "Google Play Services won't run unless you update it"? My device is a Sony Xperia Z and it's running Android  5.0.2. It prompted me to update my Google Play Services, and when I followed the notification it delegated me to the Play Store to update it. However it would seem it is already updated.

My current version of Google Play Services is 7.8.93.

(Click image to enlarge)

The notification keeps coming back and I can't seem to find a solution. How do I get rid of this notification permanently?

Here's a look at the notification :

(Click image to enlarge)

Each time I have reset my phone, exactly the same thing happens. I cannot update individually only Google Play Services as it goes into an infinite loop of popups saying that you cannot Update until you Update.

The solution which worked every time is to go to the Google Play Store into the Apps and Games (sometimes called differently depending on the version) and doing a Update All. Obviously, it may update more than you want but that is the only reliable way that worked on Android 7.0. Hopefully, this can work (or some similar steps) for your version too.

No 'guru' here, running LG tablet w/Android v5.0.2, updated software yesterday and was unable to 'update' Play Services, altho I was constantly reminded to do so.  Finally, for some reason, I decided to move Play Services App button to a different location and, when I did, it updated automatically and (I hope!) OK. Notification is gone.


How to block all android application installation? Is there a way to block (by a password/PIN code or what else) all kinds of software installation on an Android tablet/smart phone by third-application or codes? I want to customize a android OS for my parents, but many apps may install other apps in background. So I try to install all apps for their need and disable all kinds of further installation.

Is there any way to do this? I can write code by myself, so if there is some code can do this, it will also be good for me.

To Implement this feature you need to set the device management policies

Also you have to install the Google app for it from the link : Google Apps Device Policy

Set device management policies

All Google Apps domains have settings for mobile devices that you can apply to groups of users. There is a full list of settings in the Google Apps Administrator Help Center. Here we recommend settings for general device management and settings that are specific to Android tablets for education. To set up separate organizational units for teachers and students and place different restrictions for each group, see Manage tablets in the Google Admin console.

Device lockdown

When you configure a tablet for student use, the device is locked down. Google Play is permanently disabled on that device, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth® settings require the administrator PIN for any changes. Additionally, the Device Policy app is automatically installed and activated on student tablets, which enforces all the device management policies that you set (except for the Password policy), regardless of whether the Enforce policies on Android devices setting is set for the student's organization. You can disable apps from the Admin console, and the following system apps are disabled, by default, on student devices:

Play Games

Play Movies & TV

Play Music

Play Newsstand

Google Currents

Wallet

YouTube

Important: Due to these restrictions, we recommend that any tablets you give to teachers are NOT configured with the Android Device Enrollment app, but instead are clean tablets, out of the box.

General device management settings
In the Admin console, at Device management > Mobile > Device management settings, you'll find the following settings which apply to any device with an account on your domain, including students' or teachers' personal devices if they add their domain accounts to their personal devices. See the individual settings for our recommendations for schools with managed student tablets.

For more information on this refer the first link in this answer.


How do I use my phone as a WiFi hotspot without using my data connection? I know it sounds strange, but what I want to do is use my phone as a WiFi router to create a private LAN that doesn't use my data connection.  Basically, I'm at a hotel and need to do some testing using a HHC that is designed to connect to a LAN and talk to a database over that LAN; I'm hosting SQL Server on my laptop, but I'm not comfortable connecting my customer's HHC to the hotel's network in such a way that I can test.  I know that I can create and host a wireless LAN from my phone, but the option is disabled when I have data turned off.

I'm using a Galaxy Note 3 with Android 5.0

Turn off your mobile data. 2. Turn on your mobile hotspot.


How can I create a Google Account? I have a new Android 4.0 device (d2pad), and I have installed Google Drive and Google+ but neither one works.  When I try to start Google Drive it gives me the message "No Google account found, exiting".  I poked around and tried to find where to create a Google account, but on the account screen I don't see a Google option.  How can I create a Google account, or what do I need to install to create one?

I see the following options on the add account screen:

Facebook
Corporate
Email
Dropbox

Corrective actions tried:

Installing "Google Play Services" from the marketplace.
Resetting to factory defaults
Installing "Google Play Services" again

I also can't log into Google for my marketplace login.

I'm afraid the hardware you have bought isn't an official Android device, and so won't have google account options available to you.  I'll try and find a work around for you.

Once you have an active Google account, which you can create here

https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&hl=en

On your Android ICS device, go to:

Settings>Accounts>Add Account

you'll see many options from which you can choose, among them Google.

Generally you can add an account by running a google app, such as reader, play or gmail, and it will ask you to sign in with your google account.


Locating My Files in Android 4.0.4 I have bought a new Android phone (Intel Yolo Smartphone) and it runs on Android 4.0.4. However I can't seem to locate the My files (It is called that way in Android 2.3.6) folder so as to access the internal memory storage files.

In Android 4.0.4 the folder is called by which name?

You can download ES File Explorer. It's a free file explorer for android.

Download from Google Play

It's quite easy to use and doesn't require root access.

Look for a folder named sdcard using a file explorer app.


Only one account showing on Google+ Android app I have two GMail accounts active on my Android 2.2. Let's call them Acc1 and Acc2.

Acc1 is the default account I set when I got my Android. I didn't know then, that I can't change the default address. My Acc2 is the main Google account I use everywhere.

When I launch the Google+ app, it only shows the default account but my 2nd account has Google+ activated. All other apps show me both my Acc1 & Acc2 accounts to select. I don't understand why Google+ app doesn't see my other account.

Is there a way set Google+ app to see my Acc2 account or a way to change the default android account without losing all my local data?

I hope I've been clear, thank you!

Version 1.0.2 is out, and appears that it's going to fix your issue.

From the release notes:

  What's in this version:

  Spiffy new profile icon on the menu screen
  Handle multiple Gmail accounts on first sign in
  Minor UI polish

(emphasis mine)

Unfortunately, I don't have my own invitation to Google+, so I'm not able to test this.

It's not seeing the default account, just the first one listed, alphabetically.  It's a limitation of the app.  You can work around this bug by temporarily removing Acc1 account.

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Accounts & sync screen.
Tap on your Acc1 account, and tap the "Remove account" button.
Launch the Google+ app and it should see your Acc2 account and allow you to sign in with it.
Go back to Menu -> Settings -> Accounts & sync screen.
Re-add your Acc1 account.

Edit
Google just update the Google+ app to handle multiple GMail accounts.


Dialer app becoming too slow and less responsive It takes almost more than 5-10 seconds to open the dialer application in my phone.

This has been happening for a while now and is especially critical since during incoming calls, when my phone snaps back from standby to show me who is calling, I actually have to wait sometimes more than 10 seconds to see the caller id and its like the phone is stuck during that time.

It has been the case before (stock) and after I've put a custom ROM in my phone. Though I noticed this became more severe after I installed a lot of apps etc.

Since I suspect that this is because of low free RAM (I have a low-end Android phone), I recently installed optimization apps, kept my homescreen free from widgets and running apps etc. and it did help to an extent. However, I feel like it still needs to be lightning fast and always accessible feature like in conventional handsets. How can I achieve this? How do I lock the dialer in my RAM or is there some super light dialer apps that can replace this stock dialer?

Also, could it be because I have around 150 Facebook and Google contacts synced in? (I don't think that is a big number)

How about finding a way to turn off the picture data in contacts? Will that reasonably reduce memory footprint?

Very same situation : Can I set it so the "Phone" on my phone takes priority over all other apps? (tried all the answers)

UPDATE:
I found something called "FUSIONboost" on the FUSIONideos custom rom that seems to set the priority of apps or something. This seems to be exactly the solution, but I don't want to switch roms now and would really like if someone can tell me how I can get this..

This is likely a combination of two things: a) stuff that the dialer has to load on startup and b) possibly shortage of memory (RAM) created by loading those things. The biggest gains are to be had by resolving (a) however, this will also have the side effect of resolving (b)

You might like to try clearing the following:

Call log - this is loaded each time the dialer is loaded.
SMS messages - Some users have reported that a large number of SMS messages can cause the dialer to slow down, though I'm sceptical that this makes a difference.
Contacts - finally, the number of contacts does have a bearing. Not only the ones you can see ("My Contacts"), but anyone you've ever emailed (i.e. Other contacts in GMail contacts).

The last point can be quite important. I have about 130 'real' contacts but nearly 1000 people I've emailed at some point while using GMail. There were all being synced to my phone, just not always shown.

It is important to make the distinction between RAM and persistent storage. For example, clearing out your trash, deleting emails, uninstalling unused apps, or moving them to SD storage is unlikely to help, because these are using up persistent storage, not transient RAM.

Having lots of persistence storage free means just that apps can't use it to run any faster. RAM, however, can make them fly.

You might also like to take a look at Superdial and Dialer One, two dialers that I've found most agreeable. They also have T9 contact lookup, which can be a dream to use.

If you have installed any call blocking apps, uninstall and see if you get an improvement. (It worked for me.)


Combine/merge/concatenate/unsplit long SMS/text messages? I've Googled and searched the market and can't believe there's no such app. Maybe some other SMS management app has this simple function, to unsplit messages longer than the 160-character limit that were broken into more than one part? Handcent and GO SMS Pro don't mention it.

For some reason (see the answers posted before Feb 17, 2013) people don't quite seem to "get" the problem. Here's a screenshot:

For whatever reason (incompatibilities between carriers in following the Concatenated SMS protocol etc.), I receive messages split in parts of <160 characters. What I'm looking for is a very simple app that would let me select two messages and join them into one, specifying which should be first.

SMSes are stored in a SQLite database, and it would be pretty trivial to append to one field the the contents of a few other fields based on a drag-and-drop interface. I'd code it, but I'm not experienced with Android development, and others could make such an app far faster.

I posted a request on xda-developers but the bozo admin there moved it and nothing happened.

SMS message concatenation seems to be a function of your phone's network technology (CDMA/GSM), the SMS application's support for the standard, and the message's origination/destination carrier combination.

Some carriers don't like long messages (over 160 characters) coming from other carriers and will not allow the correct message headers through to your phone, meaning your phone can't piece things together. A quick pulse of opinion  on the issue also seems to indicate that CDMA networks are worse at transmitting concatenated messages, although the facts look to lean more toward the idea that CDMA was just behind the standards adoption curve. Your phone, of course, also has to know what to do with a long message when it sees one; mileage will vary.

Personally, when my dinc was stock it was very obviously up to Verizon to decide to give me a long message in one big piece - long messages from friends on other carriers were the only ones not concatenated. Now that I'm on MIUI the built-in SMS app seems to do better at it, but I don't text like I used to so I can't say for sure. I recommend trying various SMS apps, but you may be stuck under forces you can't control.

tl;dr - Many factors play into how long SMS messages are displayed on your phone.

(Info gathered from Wikipedia, research, blogs, and forum posts, among other places)

I am confused what you are looking for. SMS messages are no longer then 160 characters. If you type a message longer then that, SMS apps, like the "core" sms app, or handcent show then like they are 1 message, but, in the background, they are still sent as multiple messages.

If you send a message that is 170 characters, you are sending 2 SMS messages. One that is 160, and one that is 10.


Why doesn't Android compass react to magnet? I downloaded Compass program for Android and tried to bring strong magnet close to it. The pointed remained stable, as if there was no magnet nearby.

Here is the video proof on YouTube.

I have checked other devices, including iPad Air 2 and they showed similar behavior. This is drastically differs from conventional compass behavior. Also, neither device show correct cardinal directions, except conventional compass.

Why doesn't Android compass react to magnet?

UPDATE

Note, that magnetic field value definitely increasing when magnet is approaching.

So, the actual question is how do they try to distinguish between Earth magnetic field and magnet's magnetic field?

Also, note, that direction shown by compass is INCORRECT relatively to conventional compass.

The sensor algorithm people worked hard to make sure that the "compass sensor" is not affected by stray ambient magnetic field. If you want to see magnetic field data, use the magnetic field sensor instead.

The common way to know that the device is subjected to an external magnetic disturbance is by comparing the magnetic sensor data with motion sensors (accelerometer and more importantly the gyroscope), if there is no motion, the algorithm will suppress any change to compass heading, because it is trying to reflect reality that compass heading did not change. For more details, look under the subject of "sensor fusion."

Android compass works using phones sensors and gps not magnet or any kind of compass integered inside your phone. So, it is not possible to make any kind of deflection using magnets.


How do I disable the popup when I connect my phone to my PC via USB? How do I disable the popup (the one asking me if I want to mount my SD card) when I connect my phone to my PC via USB?

I've been told it's a feature of CyanogenMod but I can't for the life of me find it. I'm using CyanogenMod 7.0 RC, with Android 2.3.2.

If you enable USB debugging in the Developer options, the phone's "USB Connected!" screen doesn't popup anymore :)

It's usually under Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB debugging


How do I get the Google Plus app to ignore videos I loaded onto my phone? I recently loaded some videos from my PC to my phone (running Jelly Bean) and got the most recent Google Plus app. I was going to turn on 'Instant Upload' so that it backs up my photos quickly, but realized that it also wants to upload the videos I put on my phone.

Is there a way I can get it to not upload videos from my phone (or have it ignore things in a certain directory on my phone)?

I don't think there is any way to stop the Google Plus from auto uploading video if you have instant upload turn on.

The work around I can think off is to use a file manager like "Astro" to move all your video file from /DCIM/Camera folder to a different folder in your sdcard.  I believe Google Plus will ignore the folder outside of /DCIM/

EDIT: Re-read your post, looks like you were uploading video from your PC to your phone which you probably just placing those under some folder in sdcard.

You can try this app StudioKUMA .nomedia Manager and set the folder that contains video with .nomedia and perhaps the entire folder will be ignore by Google+

There is: open photos app (Google's one of course), go to 'on device' menu and tap right-hand side cloud icon on any folder you want.


Can I find which app is making certain DNS requests? So I've been using pihole and my Android 7 phone is making some unexpected requests to DNS for a particular domain. Is there an app or technique I can use to find which app is initiating those request. It seems the Java level DNS cache won't have that info.

I'd guess one needs to intercept requests to the phones DNS service (*), recording the requested domain and the requesting app; are their hooks in Android to do that?

I don't have root.
Any help appreciated.

(* - yes I know what this acronym means!)

Try Net Monitor!
It shows network connections of installed apps.


How to have my phone guide me through a specific route Every weekend I go out and ride my bike through the exact same boring old route.
Now I've decided I want to start exploring new parts of the city, but I need my
phone to help me that.

Today, using google maps, I decided on a new route I want to follow next weekend
(and I'll probably have a new one each week). The problem is that I've never
been to these streets, so I need my phone to guide me through it.

Specifically, I need something very similar to android's GPS navigation. I'll
define where I want to go, place the phone in my pockets (with earphones), and
just listen to the turn-by-turn "driving" instructions and follow them.

The reason I don't just use android navigation is that the route isn't a simple
Go from A to B, it's more like Go from A to B, then to C, ..., then back to A.
That means I would have to re-type these destinations one by one in the phone, which is far from ideal.

Ideally, I need a system that allows me to do something like:

plan a complex route on the computer,
send it to my phone,
have it guide me with turn-by-turn voice instructions.

Is there an app for that? Or is there a way to do that with standard GPS navigation?

The solution I use for similar situation is Trekbuddy.  I am sure you will discard the idea of using this app if you didn't understand it well. Hence, read through its description in its Play site and their forums. It requires little homework before any such serious use. But once you know your way (pun intended  ) through the application, it will be a breeze.

With this app, you can plan your route on computer export it as GPX and together with few MP3 files you can create a turn-by-turn pre-planned navigation.  Be aware that if you miss your turn this will not reroute you back. You have to see the map that and continue either on the new route or try to join the pre planned route.

To know about its other uses, take a look at my answer for the question "How to import GPS coordinates track for using offline"

You may also try OSMAND. You can create a pre planned route and export as GPX file. OSMAnd can be configured to use this pre defined route. I could not get my head through the options and configurations to make this work. But from reading its help, I understand that this can do the above and even reroute in case if you miss your turn.

Personally, I like Trekbuddy for its simplicity and its many features as I described in my answer to the other question.

If you happen to succeed with OSMAnd, please share your procedure with us.

Update:
After reading through the forum pages of Trekbuddy,  I finally figured out how to use a pre planned turn by turn navigation feature and I tried today to ensure it is working.

The steps involved are (from scratch):

Install Trekbuddy either from PlayStore or from their download link.
Run the app with GPS switched on. Press Menu and press Start and wait for GPS fix. If GPS fix is a success you will see the cross hair at your location in the World map.
To display a map, you have to download raster map tiles from the service provider.  These tiles are to be placed in a particular format and an application called Mobac comes for rescue. This app creates such map tiles, indexes and even compress. Various map sources like OpenStreetMap, OpenCycleMap, Google Maps*, Google Terrain*, Google Earth Satellite*, Yahoo Maps etc can be used. Explaining how to create a map will be bit out of scope here, and I will leave it to a rare tutorial available here in German.
Assuming you had successfully created a TARred atlas (collection of map tiles as said above), you have to place the .TAR file and its subfolder inside \mnt\sdcard\Trekbuddy\maps folder. To load the map, press Menu button and touch Maps option and select the *.Tar file. Depending on how you had layered the atlas, layers might appear in the next screen and if so, select a layer. Trekbuddy might prompt you to mark this as default atlas. If acceptable click Yes and you will save all this step doing again.
One map is loaded, you can ensure it by tapping any where in the screen, which will show the cross hair on your location in the map as identified by the GPS.
In your computer plan a route and mark turning points as waypoints. As an example, in this following image
 six waypoints are marked as WPT1..WPT6.
In computer, using a text editor, create a GPX file with following template.

Place the GPX file created as above in \mnt\sdcard\Trekbuddy\wpts folder.
Place sound files in AMR format (MP3 not tested) in \mnt\sdcard\Trekbuddy\sounds folder. The file name of these files should be as mentioned in the GPX file.
And finally, in Trekbuddy app, press Menu, Navigation, Waypoints and choose the above GPX file. Then choose the final waypoint, in this case WPT6 and press menu again and choose NavigateTo.

When you start moving approach WPT1, the sound assigned to WPT1 will be played. The setting Settings->Navigation->Wpt Proximity determines the proximity radius. The value is in meters and when the current GPS position is within this imaginary circle, the sound will be played.

  I believe it has been discontinued since Mobac version 1.9 onward due to legal pressure. Old versions are not officially available but are still at large.

I have found a very promising app to solve this problem. OsmAnd. I have been looking for a wa to import a gpx of a  trail system to know where I am while dirtbiking. So far I have been able to import a gpx showing a pre-recorded map of the trail. I was also able to download the entire state road/trail map easily from the app for offline use. OsmAnd has many other features I haven't explored yet.


15 Min my battery goes to 97% to 17% Yesterday I was watching a video on my andorid GTP3-100, and my batter was at 97% after 15 min I looked at my battery it had gone to 17%,  and it was draining battery fast and after 5 min its went to 7% so and  I had no  application running in the background I usually charge with my usb wire in my office . I have also noticed something strange since I  have started to  charge with my usb wire suppose the battery is at 77% if i plug in the usb wire to my pc within 1 second it goes to 100%.

I believe it is your battery which is at fault. I've seen this problem as well. How old is your phone?

Also, you may try charging the battery separately once from an external charger. If the problem you mentioned persists, then you should get yourself a new battery.

By process of elimination, i would try a different charging cable, failing that backup and factory restore? If still not working you probably have a worn out or faulty battery, replace if removable. All else fails could be your charging socket or board related, in that case bin it and seek replacement.


three sets of headphones not plugging into brand new lg optimus g phone I have 3 sets of headphones, being he exact same size. They all fit and even click into my old phone's head jack, where as with my new phone the lg optimus g they go in midway and the only way for the headphone jack to read the headphones I have to hold it in. There isn't dust in it or anything I don't know what is happening. This is ridiculous

Take it to the shop you bought it and get them to work out what's going wrong. This isn't the sort of problem you can easily fix over the internet: you need an expert there to see what's up with the jack. In addition, if it's a common problem, the people at the shop will already have heard about it from other customers. Maybe the jack is just too tight and needs some more force, or maybe there's some fluff stuck inside where you can't see.

If you're using a smartphone case, it could be caused of it's in the way, preventing the jack to fully plug-in.


Will rooting my phone improve its battery life? I've had an HTC Desire HD with HTC Sense for about a year and I'm quite happy, except for the battery life. After upgrading to the latest version, it lasts about 24 hours with moderate/low usage.

I was wondering 2 things:

If I root it, will i gain some significant battery life?
After a phone is rooted, can it later be returned to the factory state?

I dont know much about rooting.

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

rooting android saves up to 25% of battery compared to factory state.

I would suggest you use Kingo Android Root & framaroot.


What storage data does keyboard apps on Android accumulate? On my Android phone I have installed the Gboard keyboard. After some small use, I see that it has accumulated 20 MB of data!
Why can a keyboard app accumulate 20MB of data?

Keep in mind that GBoard provides a lot of language specific functionalities like automatic word correction or offline speech recognition.
It seems like GBoard downloads these language specific data on first use. For example the directory com.google.android.inputmethod.latin/files/superpacks/delight seems to contain the offline language specific speech recognition data file(s).
Therefore a user data of 20MB seems to be reasonable even if GBoard has not been used for a long time. Most of this storage space seems to be occupied by language specific downloaded data.

Depending on its detailed content, a keyboard app could accumulate every stroke you make.


Cannot download apps from Play Store on mobile data I have LeEco Le 2 mobile. I am trying to download applications from Google Play Store - when I click on Install, it displays "Waiting for WIFI...".

I am on mobile data, but it is not downloading through mobile data.

How can I download apps through mobile data?

First, go to your settings and under Data usage select Cellular data usage. Check whether the Google Play Store, Google Services and Download Manager are allowed to use background data.

If this doesn't help, go to Apps and find the Play Store. Tap on Force Stop and then tap on Storage. Tap Clear Cache (you could also clear all the data with the second button). Lastly, tap on Permissions and make sure that all of them are granted to the app.

Finally, reboot the phone. Hope this helps.

You can press the "Download" icon, click Settings, and choose "No Limits".


WIFI not Connecting on my Samsung S Duos My home networks says Saved, Secured but when i open internet it says no internet connection

First check whether its just the Wi-Fi on your phone or the LAN on your System.

There are many possibilities with the Wi-Fi not working properly.

Either the key is not matched with the key you configured under your modem Wi-Fi password.
Signal might be weak. ( if signal<=10% then some devices Wi-Fi
connection is disabled to save power)
In-appropriate configuration of your modem due to which although the
connection might be established you might not be able to browse
thereby showing no internet connection.

For this reason Wi-Fi is termed to have very least preference because of heavy loss of Data during the transmission or disturbance.

Solution:-
If you signal is weak try to get more strength by getting near to
    you Wi-Fi or having an external hardware that could boost your
    signal strength.
If the key is not matched then you need to enter the appropriate the
password as set by you.
If the connection is not configured then you need to check your
manual and Configure the Wi-Fi settings properly and click forget on your old Wi-Fi network to re-configure the network on your device.

Try changing settings to static IP address. Here is a video where you will find out how to do it in ICS 4.0


how to have two applications play sound simultaneously? I want the music to keep playing in the background while I practice Spanish on this DuoLingo app.
The music player stops while the duolingo is trying to play sound as of now. Is this possbile?

As for my device, whenever I play duolingo and music at same time then the audio fades slightly with CM 12 built-in player

Now if you are OK with any third party application. Here is it what you need to do.

Install Poweramp Music Player .
Go to its settings.
Then click on audio.
Select Audio Focus.
Uncheck Short Audio Focus Change.

(Click image to enlarge)

You can play multiple videos in youtube, or stream audio in multiple tabs, in mozzilla firefox. but it gets closed after some time, mybe 15 minutes, maybea ram issue.


What's the fastest way to transfer files from PC to Android? I'd like to know which method of transfering offers the highest speeds. It happens once in a while that I lose my data while making ROM updates etc. as my phone is encrypted and that sometimes makes issues.

I'm using a OnePlus One with its fast charging cable. I wonder if I'm faster transfering files using adb push instead of using Windows Explorer. I reckon that I read that somewhere. Or are there WiFi apps that can transfer quicker?

Thanks!

The best answer is

It depends on the situation.

Let me explain: Some solution make work better than others for some files than others. For instance, use Bluetooth to send a picture, or Wi-Fi based FTP for small files. For larger files, you may want to use a cable and transfer them manually, or even load these files onto a high-speed SD card and plug that into your PC. It really depends on circumstance. For me, I send files by Wi-Fi to my laptop for anything smaller than 100mb, then cable it for bigger files.

I am using an APP Web PC Suite to wireless transfer files between mobile and PC.  It's very easy and fast to share files when your phone and pc are in the same Wi-Fi network. Most importantly, it's totally free.


What is the advantage of making f-droid a system app? F-droid (0.7) has two options:

One to grant it "root" powers, and another to give it "system-app" powers.

Just using it as a "root" app will let it install apps without going through the whole "Are you sure you want to install this app" page.

What does System-app give it?

I can't test it as it crashes on my phone

I believe this was/is a planned feature for F-Droid, which would essentially give it features similar to the play store where it can auto-update apps, install them and remove them all by itself, without needing user interaction. See this as an explanation - it's the extension which was meant to give F_Droid these priviledges, but as it says in the description:

  Note: This is still in a testing phase. Current F-Droid versions do not yet interact with this extension.

Information from the F-Droid Site:

This is for an app called System App Mover, but it's description is correct.

  System apps can get more privileges, so some apps get more
  functionality when installed as a system app.

  On the other hand, system apps can not be uninstalled. So this app can
  also be used to convert system apps to normal user apps by moving them
  from the /system/app directory to /data/app directory.

  WARNING: Uninstalling important system apps might result in a unusable
  device! Use this function at your own risk and only if you know what
  you're doing!

See What do android application permissions mean. There are some permissions that have a "level" of "system". Those can only be used by applications that are "system" applications. I do not know why f-droid would need them. Maybe the INSTALL_PACKAGES permission. This would allow f-driod to install an application, like Google Play does, instead of sending the Install request off to the Package Manager application.


Why app updates download entire app instead of only "updates"? I find it rather strange that for updating an app in Android (or even iOS) the entire app is downloaded instead of only the actual "Updates".

The reason I find this strange is because in Windows while updating an app, only the update files are downloaded -- not the entire app -- which is more practical as it saves both time and data usage.

This would seem trivial to most, but when you need to download a huge app just for a tiny feature addition/bug fix it becomes a real PITA.

Does anyone have an explanation as to why this model was implemented?

As far as I know it does download just the updates (referred to as the "delta") on Jellybean 4.1 and above. Obviously the initial install is the full app but updates only download the data that has changed from the current installed version (i.e. the "delta" of it).
You won't see anything different when updating most app, it will still look like it's downloading the full app but on some larger apps you will see if 'jump' parts of the download which indicates that it is just getting the delta.

Engadget and AndroidCentral both have articles indicating that the Play store does provide delta updates

Basically Android application package file (*.apk) file is created after the app code is ready to publish,
This file is created after compilation and building and from DALVIK conversion process,

This file contains all of the resources i.e your images, audio, layouts, classes,

And As far as windows concern the .NET framework and Linux framework both works in different manner...

If you want to replace only certain code of the you can do so in android but for security you need to sign that app again..

What DALVIK do is irreversible process, so if new function is added how the old version will access it without knowing it??

That's why it requires to update whole app so that it can work and function properly..


Is it possible to enable bootloader unlocking on C6603 (Yuga/Sony Xperia Z)? I was following Sony's official guide for unlocking the bootloader. However, upon entering *#*#7378423#*#* into the phone App and navigating to Service Info -> Configuration under the Rooting Status category, it said Bootloader unlock allowed: No

I tried Googling on how to solve the issue, but I mostly hit dead-ends. A few of the guides claimed that flashing a stock ROM would work, but it was often met with negative feedback from other readers. There are apparently some paid services that do this, too, but I'm not in the position to resort to them. Some people said it's virtually impossible to do it.

The main reason why I want to flash the ROM is because my operator/carrier (T-Mobile) has loaded the phone with bloatware and there's this one application that just keeps giving me grief with notifications. Also, I've grown very familiar with Cyanogenmod with my previous phone, and I miss it!

You can flash a stock Sony rom on to your device by using flash tool just Google it, then you  find a stock ftf rom and you can flash it without unlocking the bootloader.

Got unlock code from safeunlockcode .com within an hour, and could successfully unlock my Sony Xperia Z on the first attempt. This, after even Sony Xperia Z customer care couldn't find an unlock code for my device since apparently, my mobile's IMEI number was not in their system!


Uninstalled apps still show up on "Apps installed on" in Google Play Store I already uninstalled the unwanted applications from my device, but they still show up  on "Apps installed on"  in my Google Play account.
Does it mean that the apps I got rid of are still stored in my phone?

In the Play store there is a 'installed' tab which as the name implies is of currently installed applications. The 'all' tab shows apps which have ever been installed on the device.

If you don't want a application to show up in this list, then from the phone open Play store, go into your My Apps and on the All tab you can click the circular remove icon to the right of the app will remove it from your Play account.

This is what it should look like.

Go to settings > accounts > google, and click the synch all button at the bottom.


How to suppress these “Application needs installed” notifications from Google Maps? Since the last Google Maps update, it periodically shows an “Application needs installed: Request of install from Google Maps” airpush notification begging me to install Google Play services.

I do not want it installed, since i do not have enough disk space on my phone, and Maps seem to function normally (aside from the usual graphics glitches) without Play Services installed. I do not use other Google apps aside from Maps.

How to get rid of these notifications?

If relevant, i am using Android 4.1.2 (Cyanogenmod unofficial) on Sony Arc S.

The only way possible is to root your phone and install Xposed Framework.
It has a module, This App Will Run Without Google Play Services, which makes Play Services installation not compulsory for certain apps (including Maps); it's compatible with Android 2.3 – 5.0.

What I recommend you do is, if you're on Android 5.0 or up, there is a simple to use notification manager, where you can block apps notifications. Go in and block the Maps, then enjoy.

Otherwise, I will recommend you forget using Maps app on your phone, and use the Maps in the browser instead (Chrome is your best bet). Since maps is the only Google app you use on your phone, it definitely wouldn't make sense to grab play services, aside your not enough disk space issue. So go ahead and enjoy the Maps app in the browser. It works flawlessly too, and might give you better results and speed compared to a Maps app running without Play services.


How to enter password for decrypt without system keyboard on android I was trying to release some internal memory on my CUBOT GT-99, so I started disabling  some system apps using one rooted app. One of apps I was disabled is system keyboard because I don’t use it beside Swift Keyborad. I was totaly forget that I use system keyboard whan I turn on my phone, becouse I encrypt my phone, so I need system keyboard to enter the password. Now phone ask me for decrypting password but don’t show me the keyboard, so I can’t enter password and can’t system run.

One of my idea is to use Android SDK, if there's some tool or something (?) to use PC Keyboard instead of disabled system keyboard (I don’t know anything about Android SDK).

If there is no other option I'm ready to do hard reset, but I don't know how to do this in this situation.

Please can someone give me any other idea and tutor how to solve this.

I don't think that the above answer is quite correct as when you enter in "recovery mode" (on an encrypted device) the /sbin/sh pm command can no longer be used since the device needs a password for decryption. (I even decrypt my phone and still could not perform the command :(

Also thinking about it more running that command to re enable a package would open up a security hole for encrypted devices so this command would of run useless on an encrypted device (which is not "decrypted" in the first place)

If you have TWRP installed as your recovery they have their own keyboard layout which you can enter in your decrypt password and then use one of your backups to revert back (which I hope you have done) to recover your keyboard layout.

Otherwise you'll need to install/flash back to your stock rom :(

I think that if you entered in recovery mode (any of them) you can use Adb to enable frozen apps. It can be done throught the command "adb pm enable packagename" where packagename the app of the keyboard . if you dont remember the exact name use the command "adb shell pm list packages -f" to return all the installed apps and find there the disabled keyboard. An excellent tutorial of how to use adb can be found here http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/AndroidCommandLine/article.html by Lars Vogel.