Android failure to boot on LG I need to recover data from my AT&T LG Thrill Android Phone

Background:

My AT&T LG Thrill phone's battery died a couple of days ago because I forgot to charge it. When I charged the phone and tried to turn it on, it showed the LG logo followed by the dropping balls and the AT&T "Rethink Possible" screen. I then get a mesage that the Application Google Services Framework has crashed and the phone goes into a loop with the dropping balls showing again followed by "Rethink Possible" screen. This sequence repeats itself over and over and the phone does not get out of this loop.

I have been able to go into the recovery screen (both Safe Mode and the Android Recovery Service) and have cleared cache, etc. However, I DO NOT want to wipe user data and restore to factory settings as this will wipe all of my data (pictures, application data, etc).

Solution Needed:

I need a suggestion to a way of accessing my data so that I can back it up onto an SD card/computer. I DO NOT want to root the phone as this may void the warranty. What I'm looking for is a way of perhaps putting the original flash image on the micro SD card and then have the phone read that image. Or some other similar solution that will get the phone out of this loop and allow me to get to the data.

When you are in recovery mode you should be able to use adb to get your data.

There are two suggestions I have for you, both of which involve installing the Android SDK on your computer:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

This is sort of overkill for you, because there is a lot of things in there that you don't need, but the most important thing is adb. If you don't want the SDK lying around, you can install Virtualbox and install the SDK on a Linux VM.

Once you have adb installed, you can do:

Post the output of adb logcat online. This will give you some insight as to what is causing the crash.
Do:

adb pull /sdcard
adb pull /data

This will pull your data off of your phone and onto your computer. Once your stuff is safely off your phone, you can do whatever factory wiping you need to do.


Available memory of a 16GB microSD card? Out of my newly bought Class 10 16GB microSD card I am getting only 14.71GB. Is this normal?

Gigabytes are base 10, but Android uses Gibibytes (base 2)
See: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=16GB+to+GiB.
This is needed because binary data is written in base 2, but SI units are base 10.

Also, all disks have 'bad sectors' which are not reported in the user available space.

Another thing that takes up space in a drive is the file structure inherent in the device itself.

A good way to understand this is to measure the exterior front wall of your house, then go from room to room, measuring the inside dimensions, omitting the interior walls and total up THOSE dimensions. Not the same, are they?


LG DoublePlay: Boot looping after replacing framework-res.apk I modified and replaced the original framework-res.apk on my LG DoublePlay (C729) and now it keeps bootlooping on T-Mobile logo. Even the recovery mode didn't help - the recovery mode displays only a unpacking icon and then it reboots the phone. I have the original framework-res.apk but I'm not able to get it into my phone. USB connection with PC is stable. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

I don't think anything can be done at this point, you should've been more careful when you messed with Android System itself. If it was SystemUI your phone would reboot into system, but unfortunately that ain't the case. The only reasonable thing to do would be flashing a new ROM.

ADB won't work until your phone reboots to system. I don't think fastboot will help you either, so that leaves only one option, flash it.

Next time you try to change either "framework-res.apk" or "SystemUI.apk" try this script.
It will get the job done without any mess.
Remember to run the script as root and put the apk files in external sdcard(extsd).

#!/system/bin/sh

mount -o rw,remount /system

if [ -f "/extsd/framework-res.apk" ]
then
    cat /extsd/framework-res.apk > /system/framework/framework-res.apk
    chown 0.0 /system/framework/framework-res.apk
    chmod 0644 /system/framework/framework-res.apk
else
    echo "Error: File(s) not found."
fi

if [ -f "/extsd/SystemUI.apk" ]
then
    cat /extsd/SystemUI.apk > /system/priv-app/SystemUI.apk
    chown 0.0 /system/priv-app/SystemUI.apk
    chmod 0644 /system/priv-app/SystemUI.apk
else
    echo "Error: File(s) not found."
fi

reboot

Have a backup of your system in case of problems.
Root your tablet if not already rooted.
Install a file manager with system r/w capability.
Copy the framework-res.apk from wherever you have it stored to \system. Do not copy the file to \system\framework at this point or you will cause the system to bootloop.
Change the file permissions to rw-r--r--.
Move framework-res.apk from \system to \system\framework, letting it overwrite the original. You will have been successful if the phone does not instantly reboot upon copying.
Completely power down your phone, then power it back up.


LG L3 : difference between system memory and internal memory I'm using LG L3 E405, and when I see memory usage in App Manager. I see there three sections: First is system memory (just about 200M), second is internal memory (1 GB) and last is my sd card (8GB).

I know difference between internal memory (is internal sd card) and normal sd card. But I don't know purpose of system memory. It's too low, and often applications are installed to there. After install, I must move those apps again to internal memory, but not all I can do this.

Please help me figure out this point.

You better go to Cellshopes, get "Root" on your Adroid device, but it's too risky and oftentimes warranty will be voided once it happen.


How to force Google Photos to sync photos to the cloud? I just took a picture with my phone and a few seconds later I refreshed Google Photos on my computer and the picture was there.  But then I took a second picture and five minutes of refreshing later the picture is still not there!  This has basically ruined what I was trying to do, as I was relying on being able to quickly download pictures between shots.

I was on WiFi the whole time.  There was less than one minute between the first and second picture.  I don't see any indications that anything is uploading or that anything failed.  I have looked in both the Google Photos app and the web site looking for anything to force a sync and haven't found anything except for "Back up all" which did nothing.

How can I force my phone to sync to the cloud immediately?  In the Photos app the new image already appears, but on my PC only the first picture I took showed up.

In Google Photos app select Assistant and then you can choose (or view the current backup status/progress) to force backup photos. Be sure to set the different image maps to cloud: the folder will then contain a blue cloud icon with an arrow in it.

In Photos, select the photos and choose "Backup now" from the menu.


How to determine if my device supports USB Ethernet controller? I'm about to purchase USB-OTG Ethernet controller, but I read what it doesn't work on all devices. Furthermore, I've read what this functionality depends on Linux kernel been compiled with Ethernet driver or without it. So my question is in the title: how do I figure out the presence or absence of Ethernet driver in kernel?

Please feel free to correct if my logic above has any flaws.

I know already what my device supports several classes of peripherals via USB-OTG, namely mice, keyboards, mass storage.

Connect a USB 3.0 thumb drive (USB Mass Storage Device) to one of the Intel USB 3.0 ports
In Device Manager, click View, and click Devices by connection.
In Devices by connection view, you can easily see the USB Mass Storage device under the Intel® USB 3.0 extensible Host Controller category.


How to send a text to multiple recipients with personalised details filled in from their contact information? Is they a way to send a text message to multiple recipients but include details taken from their contact card and have them automatically inserted into the text when it's sent? Something like the following:

  Merry Xmas [contact name]!

Where the name of the contact is filled in automatically. I'm aware that there are apps that allow mail merging of e-mails but I couldn't find any similar functionality for texts.

I am not aware of any stock messaging apps amongst any of the ROMs that will do that, but it looks like there are a bunch of apps in the market that will (Like SMeSsaggia bulk customized SMS or Group SMS, or Group SMS and Scheduler.)

To send a test to multiple recipients, just press the comma , button after each phone number. Once done, just send. All recipient numbers will line up on top of the phone number window after each comma.


Where can I find my device product ID using ADB shell commands? I want to unlock my device (Huawei G610-U20) bootloader but I'm unable to retrieve my product ID from common way

  *#*#1357946#*#*

Product ID is required by Huawei website to provide the unlocking code for bootloader.

I want to know where the product ID is stored in the android and is it possible to read it from adb shell? the device is already rooted.

I'm afraid that Product ID from lsusb is not what huawei is looking for.

I found this link after hours of searching and trying to unbrick my phone. Just type here https://imei24.com/ your IMEI number and it will show you all the info, hope it helps :)
BR!

Try changing phone language to english uk and dial up that number again.That worked.for.me


htc desire z keeps restarting on its own My HTC Desire Z keeps restarting on its own continuously, how do I stop it and how can I switch on my phone now? I tried removing the battery but that didn't work.

Can anyone help?

Pull the battery, put it back in press volume down +power , it will boot into Hboot, then use volume to scroll down and select recovery, then restore a backup or flash rom again.


What options do I have to purchase a play store app for another account? Recently my wife gave birth to our son and I purchased the tinycam pro app to use with my d-link DCS-932L as a baby monitor.

After some tests I was satisfied with the results and decided to buy the app for my wife's google account, so she can monitor our child with her own phone. It was a surprise when I found that google provides no simple way to achieve such a simple task.

My wife has no international credit card, and even if she did I would be reluctant to associate her google account with one, since she's very careless regarding account/password security

What options do I have to install the app on my wife's phone without adding credit card information to her account?

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

There are various ways through which you could buy a premium for other users you wish

You can buy some credit through the Google Play Gift Card as John has suggested although its availability is limited (i.e. If Google Play gift cards are not supported in their area then it would be waste of buying the credit).
Some applications also have the "pay for other's" feature like in whatsapp. Through this if both the users are using and you wish to make another user a premium then you can go in for this option. This option is normally available under the settings.

Good part - this feature is not geographically limited.
Bad part - both the users need to use this software.

Download BlueStacks on any desktop or laptop. Login with the other person's account (your wife's Gmail account). Select the app from my apps and you can purchase it.

Good part - You don't at all require any android operating device. You can download it on any windows operating System.(correct me if I am wrong on this )
Bad part - Although Blue Stacks works perfectly for almost all the apps some applications may not work properly(depending on your machine's hardware limitations) and does not support any OS other then Windows
Update:-here when A has downloaded the blue stacks he will install
the tiny cam app for which he has to purchase it. As A has signed in
using his wife's account all the purchases will be made in the name
of the account holder i.e. his wife not on A so on doing so
automatically the purchase is made on the wife's email id. Later when
his wife will open the play store the application will be
automatically installed/updated as a premium.


local headphone enabled FM radio app for nexus 5 (no internet needed) I just moved from S3 to nexus 5, and there are a couple of things that I miss from my s3.. one is the prepackaged FM radio app.. all i needed was my headphones and I could connect directly to the local stations.. is there such an app for nexus 5 (and other android devices in general)? apps like tune in require wi-fi or 3g, which isn't what i'm looking for. I'm looking to be able to connect to the local radio on the go without 3g.

AFAIK, Nexus 5 does not have a FM radio (just checked the specs at GSMArena.com).

So, you cannot listen to your local FM broadcast and should rely only on online radio stations.

Best option is to get a Bluetooth with FM ( Sony MW600). Once paired to yr Nexus 5. When you will get calls the FM will stop and resumes after yr call is disconnected.


Stop Hangouts sending message when enter is pressed I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 and installed Hangouts (version 2.0.122) recently.  It is a great tool to organize all my messages together. However, it is quite annoying that it sends messages when I accidentally press enter, causing me to send unfinished messages.  Also I don't know how to insert a new line.  I looked into the settings but could not find any relevant options.

The iphone version treats enter as inserting new line so it does not have this problem.

Thanks for any tips you may have.

You can't change this. In Android, the app can tell the keyboard (or input method) what extra actions to show (such as Send). The app can also specify that the text field can only hold single-line text, as in this case.

What you could do is switch to a different keyboard app. You might be able to find one that puts the action in a different place (not in place of the enter key) that's harder to press by accident, or that completely ignores the action that's hinted by the app.

It would be enough, Probably, to just go to Settings, ‘Language & input’ and to the specific submenu for each keyboard, Android or Swiftkey, we’ll find all the options, for "Text correction” and “Typing & Autocorrect” respectively.


Samsung Galaxy Tab, charging technique through USB Cable From Galaxy Tab is not being charged through USB Cable

@Chris Stratton

  Tablets have larger batteries than phones and may be unable to
  sufficiently charge from the half amp limit of a USB port, especially
  while they are fully on (screen on and full speed processor clock).

  Some will barely charge if the screen is off but come with high
  current 5v "usb-like" wall chargers, others use a higher voltage
  charger on a custom connector - typically something round. Sometimes
  the "usb-like" ones are actually special cables with extra pins that
  tell the tablet that a special high-current charger is being used.

@NobbZ

  The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a loading current of 2 A, but the
  USB-Specificication only allows 500 mA for the whole bus.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus

@USB 3.0

  Battery Charging Specification 1.2 released in December 2010. Several
  changes and increasing limits including allowing 1.5 A on charging
  ports for unconfigured devices, allowing High Speed communication
  while supplying a current up to 1.5 A, and allowing a maximum current
  of 5 A

So, What kind of USB Cable should be used to Charge Samsung Galaxy Tablets, for example Samsung Galaxy Tablet 2 (GT - P5100)

I don't think the cable is particularly important.  Its the jack that the cable plugs into that makes a difference.

Basically, if the tablet can tell that its plugged into a special (high amp) jack, then the tablet will charge more quickly (at 2A), otherwise the tablet will assume its plugged into a standard USB port and charge at the specification limit (500 mA).  The best way to get an adapter that the tablet can identify is to use the official wall adapter.  I believe there is no "standard" way of doing this, so different manufacturers may do different things (e.g., using an Apple USB charger may not work).

You should be able to see what your tablet is doing based on the battery icon in the system tray (assuming its similar to the older Galaxy Tab that I have).  On my tablet the icon will have a small red "X" if its being charged through a "normal" connection, and should have no such "X" if its being charged through a high-amp connection.

See How much power does a Galaxy Tab 10.1 charger need to supply?

And Do Samsung tablets have the same USB connector as Apple's iPad?

And Why is charging from computer using USB slower than using an outlet?

Samsung tablets are impossible to charge without the right charger.  The charger was given to you with your tablet and if you lose it you have to buy a new one that will fit because there are many chargers that are wide but don't fit into Samsung Galaxy Tabs. So if you don't have a charger you have to buy one or else your tablet will not be charged until you do so.


“Android is upgrading… Starting Apps” on boot My phone is still stuck on "Android is upgrading.. starting apps" on boot.

Earlier, my phone said "Unfortunately, Google Playstore stopped working" and I am unable to use my apps which needed Internet access so I turned off my phone and removed my sd card before doing a factory reset. The reset was successful however it's been booting for several minutes already. I tried removing the battery and putting it back on. I rebooted the device and it is now stuck on "Android is upgrading.. starting apps." I tried removing the battery again and started wiping cache partition, doing factory reset again and rebooting the system but the problem is still the same.

Olá (hi)

You can recovery you device by installing again its original stock rom.

See more about it at the following website: (it is in portuguese)

http://smartmundo.com/brick-matar-aparelho/


HTC Dream keeps on showing power options screen I have an HTC Dream cell phone which was working fine till last night. Today morning I woke up to find that the cell phone battery had completely discharged. So, I replaced the battery with an extra one.

I powered on the cell phone and I am surprised to find the "power options" screen turn up every few seconds. Pressing any button also makes the "power options" screen turn up. I tried resetting the cell phone to factory settings. I even tried a hard reset but still this problem persists. Any idea how I could solve the problem?

Thanks in advance.

If you're running a stock ROM, I suggest you root the phone (the warranty's way gone) and upgrade it to CyanogenMod 4 (Android 1.6) or CyanogenMod 6 (Android 2.2).

Battery life is very good on 4; 6 is more recent version of Android -- however there are some additional hoops to jump through to get it installed.

The first step in most Dream rooting instructions is to downgrade it to a vulnerable version, so you will lose data stored on the phone. You might have luck with one of the "one-click root" programs but if you can't kill the "Power Options" dialog every few seconds, you may just need to flash it with the RC29 DREAIMG.NBH.

Disabling fast boot may resolv the problem as it did for my brotrher


rooting Smart Tv (Skyworth e69 6369) I got a Skyworth e69 6369 smart tv.
kernel 3.1.10
android 4.2.1
model full aosp on skyworth 6369
cpu arm cortex a9 dual core
other specs http://specdevice.com/showspec.php?id=de85-dcab-0033-c5870033c587

It does not come with any data cable. It has 4 usb ports though I don't think I can use any for rooting.

I have tried several no pc solutions like framaroot 1.9.3, kingroot 3.4.1.157, poot, romastersu 2.0.3_140926_100, vroot 4.3, z4root 1.3.0 etc but not successful.

What is the best way to root this if any? Or is this sadly unrootable?

Thanks for any suggestion.

After a long time trying I managed to finally root it

In summary, I think these are the steps to make it work:

Try to root with rootmaster. Check if it gives you root. If it does- check if it persists on reboot. If it does not do 2 and 3.
Try to root again with rootmaster then delete /system/app/kinguser, /system/app/superuser.apk, and /system/app/Superuser.apk (using a terminal)
Install SuperSu

Only thing missing from this smart TV that I want it to have is Google Play Store. I really cannot make it work. I also don't have YouTube because of this.


Unexpected reboot during app install has left phone with no space My wife recently went to install a game on her phone (Sims Freeplay) from Google Play. She tells me the phone had enough memory for the install (~15MB free for a 13MB app), which is why she tried.

(As an aside, I'm assuming it downloads the package, then installs from that, so you need at least twice the final space to unpack the thing correctly.)

It downloaded successfully, but when the phone tried to install the app the phone unexpectedly self-rebooted.

After booting, the game wasn't installed and the phone is reporting low memory, with <1MB of phone memory free. She's using an app to check this usage (called DiskUsage), which is reporting "System Data" as using 28MB - she's sure it was much smaller when she checked the space before attempting the installation.

Assuming she's right, I'm thinking maybe the downloaded package is still sitting around somewhere consuming space. Is this possible (given it crashed mid-install)? If so how can we get rid of it?

You can delete the cache for Play store and download provider.

Settings - > Applications - > All (tab) - > app name - > Clear Cache

The space requirements vary app by app but all of them take up more than they package size.

The package which the game downloads (after installing from Google Play that is) is downloaded to the SD Card.

Your best bet is to remove the app from 'Manage Applications' option under Settings.


APK file keeps getting deleted after receiving via SHAREit My APK files are getting deleted automatically from QieZi folder after receiving them via SHAREit app and this is happening when I don't install them instantly.

Why this is happening? Is it Clean Master that deletes all the apps while cleaning the junks or something else?

I faced similar issue with Clean Master when using Share Apps. CleanMaster was removing regularly the received APK's.

To fix that you can:

Uncheck the option to clean APK's in CleanMaster.
Or uninstall it completely if you don't really need it.

Please uncheck the last option "install" under settings in the ShareIt app. This option reads as 'delete apk files after installation'.


How can I factory reset my Android Mini 7100 Phone? I'm unable to go to recovery mode to factory reset (wipe my cache/data) my Android Mini 7100 Phone (Android GingerBread 2.3.x) because I forgot my phone lock combination.

I tried resetting it using:

Vol Down + Power,
Vol Up + Power,
Vol Up + Vol Down + Power,
Vol Up + Vol Down + Home + Power,

and the phone starts normally

When I press Home + Power, it goes to 'Test' mode.

I checked out this YouTube video but it did not work for me.

How do I go to recovery mode?

I think the easiest (and non-sketchiest) solution for this will be to help your sister recover her Gmail password. Once you have that, you can use the Android Device Manager to reset the phone password, or erase the phone memory from the computer.

This is the only solution I will post here because resetting an android without access to a gmail account is often done with less-than-ideal intentions.

Did you try ADB?, there may be a chance your device can be recognized by adb although its locked.

If adb can see your device than run the below command and wipe data and factory reset

adb reboot recovery


How to get rid of duplicates in my telephone agenda? After installing Skype a week ago, my telephone agenda duplicated a lot of contacts, for many of them I have seven duplicates - therefore eight entries for each contact.

After installing WhatsApp, I had this problem too - many contacts had one duplicate.
But after installing Skype, the telephone agenda is a horrible mess. For each such contact, Skype added five or six more duplicated contacts.

I tried to delete one such duplicated contact and I got the message "This contact is read-only. It can't be deleted, but you can hide it." - and below this message I get the buttons "Hide" and "Delete", but I tried the "Delete" button and it works, so it actually can be deleted! Which is really inconsistent.

So the question is: how can I get rid of all those duplicate contacts? (without having to delete them manually, one by one, of course)

On other phones, you can access WhatsApp from the main contact, it doesn't have to be duplicated in order to send a WhatsApp message from the main telephone contacts list.

My phone is Honor 7s.

The Android version is 8.1.0

I am using the Nova Launcher but it acts the same with the Huawei Home launcher too.

in the contacts app, untick the "whatsapp, skype, etc.." from the "contacts to display" options, select "customize" and done!


Why can't I use my iPhone Headphones with my HTC Thunderbolt? I am trying to use my white in ear iPhone/Apple headphones with my HTC Thunderbolt.  I can hear, but the mic does not work with the thunderbolt.  Any suggestions for a fix?  A specific app or setting I should use?

For clarification. . . my headphones work fine with my Apple iPhone.  But when plugged into my android phone, the mic does not work.  A guy from BestBuy said, that Apple iPhones doe not work with Android devices.  This seems odd (and likely incorrect). . . hence my post here.

They both may have 3.5mm jacks, but if you look at it you can see the the insulating plastic bands around the metal jack. The problem is that Apple wire these sections of the jack up to different inputs than other manufacturers, so that different sections of the jack carry different signals than normal.

I have heard that as long as you're happy with getting mono rather than stereo sound out of the speakers, then you can get the microphone to work by pulling the jack out of the socket slightly. RIM used to do the same thing with their 3.5mm jacks on Blackberrys, but I believe they use the same configuration as most manufacturers (except Apple) now.

"I was told my a bestbuy guy, that apple headphones do not work with android devices." thats not true you can video chat with someone on qik or tango and it works fine plus i have a pair of sony and bose that also dont work with it. and it has three rings at the input part of the headphones. I also have the HTC Thunderbolt.


Photo recovery from a MotoX phone with black screen I have a MotoX (1st Gen) phone. A few days back my display went black and I am not able to see anything once the phone boots. The notifications are getting displayed on the locked screen, but when I am trying to unlock, the screen is getting black again. The voice command is responding sometimes, but that's about it. I have cleared the cache partition, but that did not help either. Please tell me some way to recover the photos/videos in my mobile.

Your phone still works, so you got lucky.

Plug the device into a PC/Mac and navigate the phone's file directory. Look for the root folder "DCIM". All of your videos and photos should be in there.

I think this will work.
just go to this website.

https://www.fonelab.com/resource/moto-x-data-recovery-recover-videos-from-moto-x.html

just download the app.

app is only for apple and windows.
this app recovers media.


What does "hand with small restricted icon" status icon represent? Can anyone help me identify this icon that looks like "a hand with small restricted icon", and how can I remove it?

Click image for larger version

It means you have interruptions disabled. When your device is in this mode, you will not receive any visual, audible, or vibration notifications except for alarms you've explicitly configured to be allowed.

On vanilla/Google Android, this setting can be found in the "Sound & notifiation" category, but ASUS may have moved it elsewhere. Alternatively, if you press the volume button up when not in a media app (music player, video, etc) it should display the ringtone/notification volume overlay, and you can use that to adjust your interruption settings.

this is the sign for glove touch sensitive. if you turn on glove touch sensitive it will be appear on notification bar but when you turn off it will not be appear.  for solution in Asus go to-setting-asus customized setting-glove mode and off the mode


pendrive was working well on tablet, before formating..but now not showing data My 8 GB pendrive was working well on my android 2.3 tablet, before formating..but now not showing data on usb through tablet(but showing all files on PC/Laptop); Yesterday I've formated that pendrive in NTFS file system after that it is not showing usb data(detecting usb-but no data; I again re-formated using FAT32 file system then also tablet is not showing data through USB/pendrive...
Need your help ...

use partition manager. make partition in un-allocated space of pen drive then save the same. now pen drive works.


How to set MAC address on (HTC Desire) Android terminal emulator? I typed into the terminal this:

  ip link set eth0 address
  XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

the XX for my numbers and so on.

But it says permission denied.

Source: http://androidforums.com/incredible-tips-tricks/78668-how-spoof-mac-address.html

This seems like your terminal doesn't have root access. Is your phone rooted? and did you type su to get to the root user first? On my phone you can tell if you're using root privileges by checking the prompt, $ = no root, # = root.

Check http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1525230

You actually need to change some stuff in the bcm4239 driver to allow it to read the mac address from somewhere else. The above kernel reads the file /data/local/mac.dat.


Why is suggested to OEM unlock when LinageOS can be installed without it I have a "LENOVO Tab 2 A10-30" which got frozen after the update in the startup loop - did not start after displaying the Lenovo logo.
I decided to reinstall it with the LineageOS, and for that I needed (according the articles) to do oem unlock.
According articles I should get the OEM unlock key from settings or allow it in the settings - which I can't access as the device won't boot up.
So I tried bunch of commands from the commandline (ubuntu 20.04), I could not OEM unlock, but I was able to install LineageOS just fine.
My question is - how come that it worked, even though it should not be able to unlock the OEM? What happened there?
Started device with holding vol up:
$ adb devices
List of devices attached
0123456789ABCDEF    sideload

Then I am not sure now what I selected in the menu, but then I went:
$ fastboot devices
84afc61e    fastboot

$ fastboot oem unlock
...
FAILED (remote: oem unlock is not allowed)
finished. total time: 0.002s

$ fastboot oem unlock-go
...
FAILED (remote: oem unlock is not allowed)
finished. total time: 0.002s

$ fastboot oem get_unlock_data
...
FAILED (remote: unknown command)
finished. total time: 0.002s

fastboot oem device-info
...
(bootloader)    Device tampered: false
(bootloader)    Device unlocked: false
(bootloader)    Device critical unlocked: true
(bootloader)    Charger screen enabled: true
(bootloader)    Display panel:
OKAY [  0.007s]
finished. total time: 0.007s

But I tried to flash in the TWRP recovery image anyhow:
$ fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
target reported max download size of 262144000 bytes
sending 'recovery' (11700 KB)...
OKAY [  0.446s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [  0.947s]
finished. total time: 1.393s

$ fastboot boot recovery.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [  0.449s]
booting...
OKAY [  0.023s]
finished. total time: 0.471s

After that, with volume up on boot I got in to TWRP menu; where I installed gaps and LineageOS zips, and after reboot it was just there.
My research links:

https://www.getdroidtips.com/unlock-bootloader-via-fastboot-on-android/
https://www.howtogeek.com/239798/how-to-unlock-your-android-phones-bootloader-the-official-way/
https://www.theworldsbestandworst.com/2020/08/how-to-use-adb-sideload-to-install-roms-updates-restore/
https://www.hardreset.info/devices/lenovo/lenovo-tab-2-a10-30/faq/faq/bootloader-moto-unlock-lenovo-motorola-root/
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/flash-custom-rom-lineage-os-lenovo-tab-2-tb2-x30l.4175085/

The official way does not always work, if your phone and flashing are ok, don't touch them is the idea.
Official way to unlock a bootloader, its different for different phones, but it I post a general overview:

Back Up Anything You Want to Keep
Use Android SDK or the light verision of the SDK called platform tools and the IMEI of your phone to get an unlock key for the bootloder. The unlock key or the procedure to get it can be found on your manufacturer's site.
Go to fastboot mode and enter:
fastboot oem unlock UNLOCK_KEY

Read more here:
This is for Sony devices.
Unlocking a locked bootloader will wipe all user data (but not the ROM) from the device. This is a security mechanism, so you can't get at the data on a phone by installing your own ROM on it.
Its locked for security reasons, because it controls all the hardware, independantly from the operating system.
You can read more about bootloaders here.


Disable "Upcoming Alarm" Notification (without disabling alarm) I'm fairly new to the Android platform so hopefully this is a silly question, but since I've had my Pixel (Pixel 1, Android 8.0.0), it's been giving me notifications for alarms I set in the Clock app two hours prior to their occurrence (disregard actual time in the screenshot). Note that I do not want to delete the alarm, just this notification about it.

 .

I know this isn't a huge issue, but it's just more annoying notification clutter that I don't want. What's weird is, I've apparently found the settings to change this behavior - but the toggle is disabled and I can't modify it.

Is there another way to do this that I'm missing, or a way to enable that toggle?

After spending an hour on the phone with Google tech support (don't know why I didn't think of this earlier) their representative was able to replicate the issue.

At this time there appears to be no way to disable this notification on a stock/unrooted Pixel. I'll update the answer if I get any further information.

https://www.androidsage.com/2018/08/09/how-to-enable-system-ui-settings-on-any-android-device/
Install a System UI Tuner launcher, then go to Status Bar.  Scroll down to Alarm and turn off.  Now the Alarm icon will be hidden from the status bar.


After enabling some xposed modules, my LG G2 (AT&T) is stuck in a error loop Whenever I boot it up it says "Unfortunately, System UI has stopped.". It does allow me to hit ok, however when I hit ok I have about 1 second before it pops up again. Due to the passcode lock on my phone I am unable to get past the lockscreen as it wipes the input box everytime the popup box pops up. Despite the System UI apparently failing everything does seem to be functional behind the pop up. In the 1 second periods between pop ups I am able to interact with it. The status bar and the buttons on the bottom are not visible, however the rest of the lockscreen (including widgets) is.

The phone is rooted, however I had not gotten around to installing a custom bootloader yet. Debugging is enabled, however the device is listed as "offline" according to "adb devices". Due to this I am unable to install TWRP so as to flash the zip to disable xposed.

All of the above is still true in safe mode, the exact same thing happens.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I would prefer to keep the data on it, however if nothing else a factory reset would be fine.

Follow these two threads

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2432476

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2475045

If u still have Problem post here Will Help u .....

EDIT:

1.Turn off the G2 by holding down the power button and keeping it held down until the screen goes black, then continue to hold it for a few seconds after it goes black to make sure it shut down.

2.Plug the G2 into the computer via the USB cable while holding Volume Up at the same time to put it into download mode.


Where can I get more information on the sm tool (command) used in the Terminal I have seen the sm tool used a few places for example here.

The way I understand it, it is a storage management tool but I haven't been successful in finding any more info about it.

Where can I find more information on this tool?

The sm tool is not an Android tool, it's a linux shell command.  Android devices have some shell commands located in /system/bin - the variety of these usually vary by version, OEM, and platform.

You can issue this adb command to see what tools are available:

adb shell ls system/bin

You can ask for help on each tool - for example, with sm:

$ adb shell sm -help
usage: sm list-disks [adoptable]
       sm list-volumes [public|private|emulated|all]
       sm has-adoptable
       sm get-primary-storage-uuid
       sm set-force-adoptable [true|false]
       sm set-virtual-disk [true|false]

       sm partition DISK [public|private|mixed] [ratio]
       sm mount VOLUME
       sm unmount VOLUME
       sm format VOLUME
       sm benchmark VOLUME
       sm fstrim

       sm forget [UUID|all]

       sm set-emulate-fbe [true|false]


Auto-Tether when another phone nearby (in car) I have an android phone in car for Spotify purposes.
I'm trying to set up the system so the car phone tries to connect to my own phone once car power is on (phone starts charging) and start playing music:

My phone would notice that the spotify android is nearby (bluetooth) and automatically start up tethering for the spotify phone to connect to.

Music would start playing as soon as the spotify android notices it's charging and start downloading new songs once it's connected to my phone's wifi.

Does anyone know how to do this?

As I've never tried exactly that (and more specifically, never worked with Spotify), I cannot give you exact steps. But I can outline how this should be possible using tasker:

On your "Server" device:

Condition: State → BT Near (specify the BT MAC of the "Player" device)
Task: Launch App (whatever "server component" is needed)

On your "Player" device:

Condition: State → BT Near (specify the BT MAC of the "server device")
Task:

Launch App (the music player used to connect to the other device)
Either one of the "Media Control" actions, or "Play Music" should start playing

Of course, this assumes that – once the devices are paired, which should happen automatically once they are in reach of each other if they had been paired before – the app on the player-device automatically selects the "server device" as source to play from. As most players on a re-start resume where they stopped before, this should be the case unless you've used a "different source" in between – which might be avoidable using a specific app for this task.

On the other hand, my Collection of Tasker Resources a.o. lists the Media Utilities, dealing with Tasker as well as with Spotify, and thus might prove helpful in the process. And in fact, you can find a comparable process e.g. described here – explaining how to make Tasker launch Spotify when you plug in your headphones, then raise the volume and play the last played track.

Also see:

Is it possible to get Tasker to play the next song in Spotify
This is how I use Tasker in my car [VIDEO]
Tasker + Media Utilities + Spotify


What's causing my games to sometimes exit to the homescreen? I have a Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray.

When i first bought the phone, it came with a 4GB class 2 microSD without a brand name.
I could play games without problems and it was pretty stable.

Then I bought a cheap 32GB microSD without any class. I moved my files from the old card into a new one by copy-pasting them. When I play games (mostly big-sized games) the games will sometimes suddenly crash to homescreen without any "force close" option.

Then I thought it was maybe because of the cheap microSD so I bought a new Transcend  32 GB class 10 microSDHC.  It is fast enough for HD games, and I'm satisfied with it, but the same problem happens - games will sometimes crash to homescreen.

Is this because of my storage space? Maybe I installed too much stuff on it? I have 80 MB free space. Maybe this is the cause?

My phone condition:

Rooted
No other modifications applied.

If your foreground app is being closed without warning, the suspect is no other than Kernel. It generally happens when Kernel runs out of memory. In such case, Kernel reclaims memory by killing other apps, otherwise the device would be crashed. In such situation, Kernel doesn't respect multitasking (apps with background services, apps having icon in status bar etc) and in some cases, even foreground apps (when its very critical). When Kernel fails to do it due to CPU unavailability etc, the device really get crashed. This is how it works.

In your case, one or more reasons are responsible:

You've a load of lots of background running apps which draw lot of memory even during game play.
The game requires more resources than your device hardware provides. Its less likely because game runs most of times, but its possible that game does a lot of memory caching which outruns currently available memory.
There's memory leakage bug in atleast one of your installed apps.

When it comes to fully filled big storage, system requires somewhat more resources to locate a file in it, but it doesn't cause this type of problem. You can reduce memory card size or files in it to lower down performance impact, but its not recommended. Its better to hunt down and remove always-running apps which are not extremely useful. Even if its useful, you should find its alternative which doesn't always run in background.

In the last, you can always install CatLog to see what happened after game crash. If you find it as alien language, Google it or ask here.

Download Advance Task Killer from Android Market. Then, open it, go to Settings and select auto task kill.


"Update unsuccessful" on all apps running on SD card I know this problem has been reported before, but man, I am really, really getting tired of it. I have not been able to update any app running from the SD card on my HTC Evo since I got it nearly 6 months ago. I just went through all of my apps and documented which ones are on SD storage and phone storage. I was then able to go through my list of updates and select just those that are on phone storage and then all succeeded (11 apps). I then went through some of the ones on SD storage and they all failed (tried 7, but I probably have 10-15 more).

I have tried many of the "fixes" I've seen online like clearing the cache on the Market app. There is not enough internal space for all my apps. I refuse to accept some of the "fixes" as true fixes like deleting the app and reinstalling it or moving the app to the phone storage, updating, and then moving back. Those are not acceptable fixes in my book. This is a major black eye on the Android OS to me. When people ask me if Android is as good as iOS, this problem is front and center in my mind when I tell them that its good, but I'd rather have an iPhone (but, I'd rather have this than my old Blackberry). I get my phone through work, so rooting is not an option. Has anybody else had any success resolving this issue? I'm using the SD card that came with the phone but has anybody had luck with a different brand?

How many internal space do you have (check on Settings > SD card & phone storage settings > Internal phone storage > Available Space)? Make sure to leave at least 15-20 MB of internal space (probably larger if you have a large number of large apps) so you can safely update apps. If you have little internal memory left, then updates will fail and "Update All" will fail en masse. The solution is to update the apps one by one, or to clear up some space in the internal memory.

I never had problems with updating apps installed in SD card except when my phone's internal memory reaches about 5-10 MB.

I had the same issue for awhile running Bugless Beast ROM on my Droid and I couldn't get rid of it and finally gave up. Then one day I moved to CyanogenMod 6 (wiped, etc) and the problem stopped.

Wish I could give an easy answer, but, for me, it didn't go away until a wiped everything and started over with a new ROM.


Root Nexus 7 with 4.2.2 I'm trying to root a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.2 (1st generation). I am following instructions here:
http://honai-android.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-root-nexus-7-on-android-422.html?showComment=1377379346836#c8791363668077143555
I get to Step 4 in which it says to wait until windows has finished installing drivers. I am on OS X. The Nexus 7 is in fast boot mode. It has an image of the green Android lying on its back with a panel open, in the upper right is "Start > corresponding to the on/off button" and just below that up and down arrows corresponding to the up/down volume buttons. I plugged in the USB and nothing happens, ie no indication of drivers being installed.

I watched this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0MyTvgfO7s
Which was somewhat helpful. Following the instructions enable me to see that the Nexus 7 was connected to the Mac in fastboot mode.
So I continued on to step 5, Running root-mac.sh resulted in this error in the terminal window:
... FAILED (remote: (Nv3pBadReceiveLength))
downloading 'boot.img'... FAILED (unknown status code)

Then from here [GUIDE][MAC/PC/LINUX][4.2] Unlock, Root and Flash Recovery at Android Central (sorry it won't let me put 2 links), I did the commands:
./fastboot-mac oem unlock
./fastboot-mac oem reboot

It did a clean install and reboot, but it is not rooted. When it was rebooting, the padlock icon was showing that it was unlocked. I test for root by trying to run the app Z-ScreenRecorder, which required root access.

I got it. After the unlock and reboot commands, then I went back to the original instructions and ran CF-Auto-Root-grouper-nakasi-nexus7/root-mac.sh.
Now the Z-ScreenRecorder app starts.

If you want to unlock the bootloader, root and add a custom/stock ROM, then you want to use Wugs Toolkit for Nexus. (Try to borrow or use a Windows PC or laptop, its not for OS X)

Here is XDA forum link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1766475

Here is the download link (this is for Windows, not OS X)
http://www.wugfresh.com/nrt/

Its pretty self explanatory, but try to read it all anyway.

As far as I know there isn't a version for OS X

I have used this method on my 2 Nexus 7s and my friends Nexus 4 & 5!!!

Happy rooting everyone!!!!

Try to install framaroot, it's support many devices :) :)

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2130276


HDR camera and stabilized video on Galaxy S5 neo I have a rooted Samsung Galaxy S5 neo (SM-G903F). The phone runs original Android 5.1 (only rooted). The camera app does support neither HDR photos nor stabilized video recording.

Is there a way how to do do HDR photos and stabilized video recording? Maybe some 3rd party application that could do it? I would prefer single app for both HDR photography and stabilized video. Post-processing is not an option for me in both cases.

Try Open Camera. It's free also on playstore. Open Camera is based on camera2 API and supports 4K recording (if you're hardware support it too).


How does emulated storage actually work? I recently bought a Xiaomi Note 4G. An amazing piece of technology. I transferred the apps I had on my previous device to it.

The reason I bought it was partially to have a good gaming experience. But what I witnessed is after you have filled your internal memry with apps and games you cannot free up space: there is no option to move apps to SD, a big disappointment. Even third party apps with root permission don't seem to work, but they hinted that my device uses emulated storage and that it treats both the storage spaces as one.

My question is, then: why can't I install apps anymore if I have 23 GBs of free space? Is there any workaround to this problem I am not able to see? I will be grateful if someone could help out here. Thanks!

This does not depend on stock Android, it depends on Xiaomi. Your system is only installed in a partition (system), it does not alterate the whole partition table on your device.

I had the same problem with my MI2S. Only recently I repartitioned the whole phone, giving 10 gigs to the apps' section. It seems like it's the only way. Here are the detailed instructions.

http://xiaomi.eu/community/threads/mi2s-extending-size-of-storage-partition.21391/

Obviously you have to do the opposite, as stillka is removing space from the data partition to give it to the storage one. Giving that you basically have to delete both partitions and recreate them with different size, the procedure is the same, you just have to make your own calculations as you have to give startpoint and endpoint, not size.

I did this procedure twice in a row, because the first time I also removed system1 partition to get another 500 MBs, and I didn't brick my phone nor the first neither the second time so, even if the procedure looks scary it is quite safe. Obviously it means losing every single data you have in your phone, both apps and such and personal data. So, you must use some backup app to save your apps and data and then copy the whole sdcard (including the backup you just did) to your PC, restoring once you recreate the partitions.

Note about chache and system1: you can also delete these partitions (really, shrink them to 3 MB - the minimum to make them ext4 filesystem - as you shouldn't change the original partition table) to gain even more space, but there are consequences.

Cache: some people say this partition is used by Google's Play Store to temporarily store (pardon the play on words) apks files before installing the app to your phone. That means, if you remove it you won't be able to install apps from there anymore, and if you shrink it too much you will be able to instal small apps only. If you use other sources than the Play Store (or, maybe, even Xiaomi's official market) you should be good.

System1: this is for the fake dual boot MIUI uses: every time you update your system through the built-in Updater app, the new ROM is written to the system you were not in, alternating between the two at every update. This is to have a correctly functioning system in your phone, not overwriting the previous system while updating (so, it is like a system backup). If you remove it, you won't be able to use the Updater app anymore, you should every time flash the newer ROM when you want to update. I did not do this as I use MI2S' Sepcial Edition MIUI 6 ROM, and the only easy way to install it without third party tools is installing the regular v5 ROM and update with the Updater app. Your choice.

@Jeffrey Lebowski
the cache is used for storing shell script like commands file while rebooting to recovery mode to do a particular task (eg. Data Reset)
if you shrink it too low it would never be able to store these scripts

And as per as I know  Google's Play Store to temporarily storage is in the Data Partition I maybe wrong though


.thumbdata files maxing out internal SD memory I have an 8GB Nextbook7 running Android 4.0.4. Recently, I discovered that I have 2 files named .thumbdata3... eating up all my internal space of 5+GB. These files are found in the .thumbnail folder under the DCIM folder. I have read on the internet that these files are produced by Android Gallery, but there is a bug in the OS that causes these files to grow so large and max out all the available internal storage space.

I have tried deleting the files, but they come back. I have tried writing small text files and saving them with the name .thumbdata3... as in the problem files, but that does not work either. I have downloaded an app called Thumbnail file deleter, which deletes the problem files, but the files will rebuild themselves again until the space is maxed out.

Does anyone have a permanent cure to this .thumdata3... problem? Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

If your SD card is using ext4 filesystem

There is no need to do anything here, since these files, despite reporting massive sizes, actually use very little space, as they are so called "Sparse Files". I left more details on the android ticket about this issue:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39546#c79

If your SD card is using FAT/exFAT

Then the problem is real, since FAT has no support for sparse files and their apparent and real sizes would always match. In that case you should resort to trickery described in the other reply - create the folder with the same name as an offending file after removing the file.

This Cyanogen fix sheds some light onto the problem:
http://review.cyanogenmod.org/#/c/36850

It looks like .thumbdata3 consists of sequence of records indexed by integer ID associated with a picture (not sure which app is in charge of assigning them). If file is deleted and is being recreated, and the minimum ID is, say, 10000 then 10000 empty records would be skipped over in .thumbdata3 on the assumption that sparse file handling would do its job and these 10000 records would consume no actual space. Except that on FAT there are no sparse file support and you end up with 10000 records worth of zeroes in you file which suddenly becomes couple of Gb big.

Delete the .thumbnail folder (this has all the camera caches, and is useless for us), then create a new file called .thumbnail.


How can I tell if my phone is locked? Thanks to a helpful commenter at a previous question, I now know that Starting February 11, 2015, All Four Major US Carriers Will Let You SIM Unlock Your Phone.

But that just raises another question: how do I know if my phone is locked in the first place? Is there some place in the phone's settings menu I can go to determine this, or do I have to get in touch with my carrier and check with their records?

You could try putting another SIM card in your phone and see if it works, if it doesn't, it's locked.


Huawei P8 Lite 2015 soft-bricked and won't turn on or charge I got a Huawei P8 Lite (ALE-L21) model that I received from someone. The issue was that it kept booting into this recovery mode phase that kept asking to flash software update again showing two errors.

At first, the phone would charge perfectly, and as soon as it could power on, it quickly jumped to the recovery mode. After a few days later, I decided to come back to the phone but unfortunately, it wasn't powering on. Every time I put it on the charger, it just shows red blinking light once, then nothing happens. Sometimes it would blink red and green on the LED light, but still nothing happened.

I have the full stock ROM of the phone on a memory card (SanDisk class 10) and it's been on the phone for some time but still no luck. I tried leaving the phone on PC all night but I didn't respond.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get this phone powered up?

Easiest answer

https://huaweiflash.com/how-to-flash-huawei-stock-firmware-all-methods/

Basically = press the right buttons to get into bootloader or flash mode.

HiSuite = easiest.

SDCARD FILE MODE = meh...

SP Flash Tool
is the most difficult - But you essentially leave everything as it is, but select the "scatter file"

That file is in the correct firmware for your phone.


How to disable the assist input when the home button is long pressed? I have removed Google Now in order to assign long press on home button to open another app. But recently it comes back with a different interface I'm familiar with. I guess the phone just has updated it.

However I'm unable to disable or uninstall it. In Google Play I can't find which app has just been updated. In the setting of the app there is no option to disable it.

These are some system Google apps that's under my suspicion: Google Services Framework, Google Partner Setup, Google One Time Init, Google Play Store and Google Play services. But I find no evidence to against them.

It turns out that it's actually from Firefox, not Google. To disable this, go to Setting › Apps › Configure apps (the gear button) › Default Apps › Assist & voice input and change to none:

Try installing a launcher, like Nova. It gives you a vast amount of options for customisation of your device, including long press home.

Hope this helps


What are the alternative Android app markets? How many competing Android markets (other than the Play Store itself) are there and are they any good?  Which ones do you use and why?

There are actually several alternatives to the 'official' Google Android market (aka Play Store).

I personally like to search for new apps from my PC browser, and a bit less from my phone. Most (all?) of the markets nowadays offer both, via a dedicated phone-app that you'll have to install, except from the official one which is already there.

Until, well, yesterday, the 'official' market would not have been available from your PC (meaning: on a PC web browser). Now it is, with a neat push-to-your-phone one click installation that is taking away one of the advantages of the competition (see AppBrain). The alternative markets, though, have still their peculiarities. I'll make a short summary but don't expect it to highlight all of the differences. Some markets (e.g. AndSpot) do not offer very specific features to users, but try to gather developers by offering advanced features such as easy stats.

Amazon AppStore: latest big entry. countries limitations; catalog looking very promising with some (exclusive?) good pay-for apps; also features special offers and daily freebies. Def worth checking out
AppBrain: born to let you install Android Market applications directly from your PC web browser, also allows you to discover new apps based on the ones you have. It's a meta-store (my favourite before the official market update)
APKPure: don't need any registration to use it
SlideME: they provide applications to niche markets, based on geographic location, payment method or even types of applications that users can't find in traditional channels
Samsung Apps (must be installed on Samsung Galaxy devices, or else you can't use this): Samsung app store, which of course requires you to own a Samsung Android device
F-Droid they distribute FOSS open source packages that pass audit and verification to ensure that code have no malicious parts.
GetJar: my latest discovery. Quite a lot of apps, and they have specials ("GOLD") commercial apps for free. Extremely interesting platform for developers, since they seem to offer above-the-average marketing and PS activities!
TorrApk: it's free and it distributes only free Android apps through their apk files. If you are a developer you can get your account and publish your apps. (NB. Not sure how legit the apps there are, though)
appsfire: used to be yet another app for discovering official market applications (iOS/Android), now an app advertising agency

I'll add that there's a market for Adult Apps too now; and a lot of review/forum sites will link to one or more of these markets, e.g., AndroidTapp or AndroidPit AndroLib.

I suggest you click on some of these links and see for yourself if the look/applications suit your style!

Thanks to various sources, in particular this thenextweb.com article, and a lot of other stackexchange editing!

For neverending memory, the following are no longer available:

AndSpot: focused around an app for sharing and discovering apps
Handango by appia.com: a huge, cross-platform (Symbian/Android/Java/Winmobile...) market
aproov: a quite different web look. Register to download via a specific phone app.
MobiHand OnlyAndroid: more focused on (expensive) pay apps, but offers discounts and free deals

AppsLib claims to be the application marketplace specifically for Android Tablets.


Stream music from Android phone to PC over WiFi I've been searching on this site and can't find exactly what I'm looking for:
I have a PC (can run Linux or Windows) that's connected to my surround-sound speakers. When my friends come around they can listen to their music by connecting their phone to my speakers using a standard 3.5mm jack.

Is there a way that would let them connect their phone via WiFi to my PC and they could just play their music like they are connected directly to the speakers via a 3.5mm jack? One of the main requirements would be that they could use the standard music player in their phone.

Also does anyone know if this software or configuration this would require on the PC side to work?

There is a program that does this for the iPhone call shairport4w.  It basically uses the air play feature of the iPhone to play all audio through a wifi router to a pc running this software.

Edit: Ok so download Airstream. Then go to the PC you want to play from, and download Shairport4w.  You'll need the bonjour service from apple installed for this to work and if I remember correctly there is a way to install only the service without installing all of iTunes. I think it is get the iTunes full package installer and extract it as if it were an archive and only install the bounjour package.

After installing bonjour start shairport4w since it is only a small program running in the background. Then start Airstream. It should find your PC that has shairport4w running on it and then start playing whatever you want. It will go over wifi and play on the PC. I tried is using Amazon Cloud player and it worked great.

Edit: I've just added the links to the mentioned software. Though Kevin explains it the other way around (streaming from PC to Android, so he's probably rather referring to this Airstream app), the app I've linked above is the one for Android → PC streaming.

Edit (2):  This actually is stream any music player on the Android Device to your PC via WiFi.  The new name for the app is Allstream.  Look for it in the Play store.  Unfortunately for it to work, you're phone or tablet must be rooted.  I use it all the time since my Sound system is hooked up to my PC as it is a Media Center, and listen to Pandora, Google Music and Amazon Music from my tablet through the PC.

Squeezebox by Logitech. Allows you to play your music as well as pandora remotely to PC. http://www.mysqueezebox.com/download


Reset huawei Ascend P7 I'm trying to reset my phone, but It doesn't work. When I try to reset it via android settings, it restarts, shows the Huawei logo and shutsdown. When I manually restart it its back to its original state before the backup.

I cant boot into recovery or fastboot, it justs shows a black screen. My phone is rooted, but I don't have root acces because of immutable.list. Help would be appreciated.

As I don't have this device, I can't say too much. Also, I can't comment because of my rep. But whatever.

Try to flash recovery even if your flashboot returns blank screen. It might not work, but hey! give it a try!

Also, try to look Here or Here, it says about flashing firmware.

Shutdown your Phone and then press and hold Volume down + Power.
Normally should your Phone reset then.
If this doesn't work, you may have destroyed the recovery.


Getting call options such as skype/viber again My question is similar to this :

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s2-international/473947-calling-dialer-viber-skype.html

But not quite the same. I've chosen phone as my default calling options, and I'm ok with that. Now my question is that, what do I press when I want to call a contact via Viber/Skype/Other app again? What do I press to get asked again?

Without resetting the default calling option, is there a such option ?

The option to choose what application to use when making a call (or anything else, such as open a webpage) happens when you don't have a default set. So if you want to get asked whether to use Dialler/Skype/Viber when you try to call a contact, then you need to clear the default settings for Dialler. You won't get the prompt otherwise.

There is no way to set this up on a per-number or per-contact basis in the Dialler.

Go to setting, manage applications, press the ALL tab and scroll down to Dialler/Skype/Viber go to options then select CLEAR DEFAULT button.

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/590961-dialer-default-search-settings.html


I don't want my Whatsapp Media to restore (Google Drive BackUp)! I recently uninstalled and installed whatsapp on my samsung galaxy s2; and it started to restore my chats. I'm fine with my chats but after being done with the chats, it automatically started to restore the old media too, which would cause my phone to download a data of 2 gb. I want to stop it, but i cant find how to stop it. (It used to restore only messages before having the google drive backup)!!!

Thanks for any answer.

So disconnecting the whatsapp from the google drive didnt exactly work out because my chats were also in that google drive backup.

However, here is how I was successful in restoring only the chats. (No media).

Install Whatsapp and verify the number.
Make sure your Data connection is active. WIFI should be OFF.
Click on restore backup (Entire backup. Including Media).
It will restore the chats first.
Then it prompts that the media will be downloaded over Wifi. Click yes (or next) and it takes you to your profile name and then you have all your chats.
At this point, go to google drive and disconnect whatsapp from the setting- manage apps.
Connect wifi.
It would try to restore the media but it would fail.
It would ask you if you want to skip it.
Click skip.

There you go. Only chats restored. No media.

Why dont you delete the media after it has been restored?

Media is located in WhatsApp\Media


Unable to download apps from google playstore via wifi Is there any possibility to block app downloads from google play store via WiFi? I tried all the steps like

Clear cache data from playstore app
Delete google account and recreated it
Factory reset
Rebooting device.

I assure that the problem is not with the device. It have lots of memory space, so its not insufficient-memory error. And apps can be downloaded in mobile data. I followed the steps which is provided in trouble shooting page for "495". But no luck. Anyone give me a clear idea why the apps are not able to download via WiFi only?

I faced this same problem a while ago. I could think of two things here.
1. In my case, I had problem with my router. Other devices connected to the same router had no issues. I had to reset the router and everything worked fine after connecting the device back to it.
2. Then, you say you have 'Clear cache data from playstore app' but have you cleared the cache of all applications? try something like 'cc cleaner'. May be some old installation files/folders of the app you are trying to download, in this case chrome browser, might be causing this problem.

Even I faced the same problem while using WiFi
U can try these

Restart the router
Restart the device
Contact ISP
Going to settings and uninstall the updates of play store. As it is a system app, you can revert back to latest version after sometime

Hope it helps


Is there a list that explains the risks involved with each granted application permission type? Usually an installed android app will request permissions such as

Phone calls
   read phone state and identity

or

System tools
   prevent phone from sleeping

But the actual consequences from a privacy stand-point is often a mystery to me. Is there a resource that explains the risks involved in these permissions in a greater detail? Especially regarding privacy and personal information security.

(Pros would be such as one with practical examples, analysis, pitfalls, providing complete a lists.)

General information
You might want to take a look at What do the permissions that applications require mean? -- our "community wiki" which hopefully becomes such a ressource one day. Next to that, you might want to take a look at App Permissions Explained – What Do They Really Mean?, a blog article at AndroidPIT giving at least some short explanations.
TechPP's article Use Permissions to Secure Your Private Data from Android Apps goes a little deeper into details (recommended reading!). Another nice overview is provided by BinaryDroids.
Edit: I've tried to sum up information from all kind of sources I could find, so the probably most comprehensive collection can be found at Android.IzzySoft.DE: Permissions. Don't be afraid of the ".DE": it serves its content in English as well. (Disclosure: I'm the owner, creator, and maintainer of that site.)
A last direct recommendation is How App Permissions Work & Why You Should Care -- and for more, please visit our good old aunt Google :)

Edit: I could not resist to add more valuable hints, as this is a very sensitive topic. So I will continue updating my answer:

Android permissions explained, security tips, and avoiding malware, a very thorough article on more than just permissions (seemingly similar article here)
What Can a Zero-Permissions Android App Do?
Android OS: Malicious apps can steal permissions (including a chapter on How permissions work)
The ins and outs of scary Android App Permissions (a general introduction into permissions and the "abouts")
Not directly an answer, but an interesting ressource on our sister-site: Studies on Android users' attitude to security. Names a lot of further sources, studies, etc., including "permissions"
How to find those permission-grabbing add-ons in Android reveals another interesting fact I was not aware of, as obvious as it might look once you know it: advertising networks get the same Android-permissions as the installed app they’re associated with. Ouch! A paradise for profilers... and, There are more permission-grabbing add-ons...
Smartphone apps: Is your privacy protected?
Use Permissions to Secure Your Private Data from Android Apps (while already from 7/2010, it still has good explanations on permissions existing back then -- and still there today)

Advertizement inside apps
Also keep in mind that many permissions some app requests might not be required by the app itself -- but rather by some ad module that app uses. So according to TechRepublic14, MobFox and AdMob, two of the biggest ad networks, require the following permissions: INTERNET, ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, and READ_PHONE_STATE (so they can know who you are [READ_PHONE_STATE: phone number, IMEI/IMSI], where about you are [ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION], what networks you are connected to [ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE], and whom you are communicating with [again READ_PHONE_STATE, while in call, for the "remote number"]). Does this look a bit too paranoid? That doesn't mean nobody's after you, see Deep Dive Into Ad Network Behavior on Android.
Which means: if you don't feel well with some combinations, you might simply check if the app on your wishlist also has a paid version -- which might do without those permissions, as it does not carry the "ad module". Speaking of this: Addons Detector will help you figure out which of your apps carry such a module piggyback. In this context, also consider: as trustworthy as the app developer might be, (s)he might not be aware of and has no influence on what those "ad modules" do with your data. Remember: advertising networks get the same Android-permissions as the installed app they’re associated with.13
On this topic, also read:

Android apps and advertising: A bit too cozy
Android ad networks found accessing users’ private data
Free Android apps often secretly make calls, use the camera
How to Curb Aggressive Mobile Ad Networks (interesting to read for users, recommended reading for developers!)
Android Adware abusing permissions, Collecting more than they need
Reports Show Aggressive Mobile Apps Want Many Permissions They Don't Need
Mobile Ad Networks Accused Of Invasive Apps (with a "real life example" -- or rather "live example"?)
Top Mobile Ad Networks: Check out the networks on what permissions they want, how developers rate them, and more

Was this shocking news for you? Did I infect you with some "paranoia" -- and now you fell "left alone" with your bad feelings? I won't leave you without some recommendations. First, you might want to know which potential "data thieves" you already invited to your device, unaware of those risks. It's usually no bad intention of the developer (you know: "No money, no honey" -- the devs have to make a living as well). So having identified some "bad guys", you might want to confront the dev and give him the option to switch to a different, less "dangerous" ad provider (after all, the dev might have been unaware of the risks involved as well). If he's unwilling, you can still decide whether to kick the offender from your device. Or to "go pro", if there's a pay version available which comes without an ad module inside -- and honor the dev's work while safe-guarding your data, which I'd say is a typical win-win situation.
So: What options do you have? I will give a few examples below.

Addons Detector knows a lot of those modules. High rated (4.7 stars at more than 3,000 ratings), it not only detects ad modules, but also analytics, development, and licensing modules
Lookout Ad Network Detector -- nomen est omen -- concentrates on the ad modules. Its additional value is the ability to tell you exactly what data is being collected, and by whom. Comparable rating (4.4 at > 3,000 ratings)
TrustGo Ad Detector offers comparable features, and also gives you details on the ad networks' behaviour and backgrounds. Currently 4.5 at ~ 2,000 ratings.

"Root users" might also have heard of several ad-blocking apps (e.g. Adaway, Adblock Plus -- the latter not even requiring root), some of them able to not only "block by host/IP", but directly de-activating the ad modules. Well, those are no longer available on the playstore, as Google has banned them. But you certainly will find them in other places on the web. Make sure to select a trustworthy source, if you plan to make use of those. I recommend F-Droid, which has its own "market app" with the same name, so you get updates as well. All apps there are open source and thus free of charge. And no, obviously no "hacked pro versions for free", all fully legal and lawful :)

i try my best to explain..

you was install the other program that need to synchronize the function..
for example is your phone book..it need to get information automatic from your phone book..the number phone and name you was put on contact..

hope u will understand the 1st explanation..

for system tool
the application is need the line internet..example is the facebook..when the phone into the sleep mode..it will cut off the internet line for save the batery power state..you will not being disturb when phone in the sleep mode when u was on sleeping..

the easy word is the phone will function only with the original setting..u can receive the normal sms and phone call using provider line..but not the internet line..

i hope you can get the information more by google..i try to get easy n simple word here..

thx.


How to delete Images on Android 8.1.0? Android is complaining of dwindling storage space. I regularly delete personal files to comply with its demands and can now use but 20 Gb of a 32 Gb storage unit. Recently I noticed an item called Images in the Storage -> Photos & videos dialogue:

The trash bin of the Photos application is empty, and so far I could not identify these "images" in the system. How can I delete them?

Update: I have wiped the system cache, follow the procedure described here. This had no effect, the phone still reports 3 GB of images that are nowhere to be found.

These are the caches Images which Android stores it in itself. To delete these Images, go to your File browser and allow the File browser to show Hidden Files and then Go to

Phone Storage > DCIM > .thumbnails

There are image more than 100 image and some waste files stored under this folder. Delete whole folder. Doing this can help you in some Manner to get out of dwindling storage.


I have to triple tap everything on Galaxy Tab 10.1 I don't know how the settings were changed; my young daughter may have done it. Also, I just got the new update this morning. I have to touch, then double tap every time. Also, there is a yellow line around the screen and everthimg. I've checked all settings I know of, but I can't reverse this.

Sheryl found the answer herself. Quoting her comment:

  I finally found it.. My daughter must have been in the accessibiltiy settings. She had the talk back on. But I didnt realize because she also had turn off all sounds on. I dont know how that makes the tapping weird, but is fixed now.

If one has a similar effect (e.g. red borders shown), and it's not the accessibility settings, another place to look for is the development settings, which also has switches to highlight certain areas for "developer feedback" when testing an app.

Go to settings >> accessibillity >> explore by touch
see if that is turned on or off, if its on , turn it off  and everything will be normal.


Cannot change wallpaper on Samsung Launcher I want to change the wallpaper on Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge's stock launcher (Samsung Launcher) but it fails. I can change the themes, but not the wallpaper. When I try to change it from System's Settings or Samsung Themes, I press the "Set wallpaper" button, but nothing happens. When I try to do it from Gallery, it says "Unable to load photo".

I've checked that Samsung Themes have Storage permission, tried clearing the cache, clearing the default app, but it still fails.

How to fix this issue?

Use file explorer like es explorer/Solid explorer. There you can get the option to use picture as wallpaper.

I will recommend you hard reset your phone as it will turn your phone to its default state. Make sure you backup your phone first.


Choosing firmware version in CyanogenMod or LineageOS I recently acquired a secondhand Samsung Galaxy GT-I9295, currently installed with Android 4.4.2. I would like to install either CyanogenMod, or Lineage, depending on what is available. I am told that the phone is also referred to as an "S4 Active",

Before even trying to install an altenative OS, I'm facing the problem of trying to discover the correct firmware version. Unfortunately I have no background knowledge of smartphones (this being the first I've used) and I have no idea what I should be looking for in the published lists of CyanogenMod and LineageOS supported models.

The lists on both the LineageOS site and the CyanogenMod have a vast array of Samsung phones but, amongst them, should I be looking only for "GT-I9295" irrespective of what other terms might be used on the same line, or should I be looking for something that says "S4 Active", even if it does not mention "GT-I9295". And are either of the two identifiers that I've mentioned sufficient to identify the correct firmware for the phone or are there some other identifiers (e.g., something I found called "Baseband version" that is listed in the device settings) that I ought be concerned about?

Galaxy S4 Active is not officially supported by either CyanogenMod (back when it was still in action) or LineageOS. Unofficial versions of CyanogenMod and LineageOS are available on XDA-Developers, all the way up to LOS 14.1 (Android 7.1).

As for the other part of your question, contrary to the other answer, you are urged to find ROMs base on the model number (in your case, GT-i9295), and also your baseband version for optional assistance. The reason is there are a number of variants for a phone of the same name; AT&T has their own variant (SGH-i537), and Korean carriers have another very different variant (SHV-E470S). Each could affect what you can and can't flash. For example, E470S has its own array of ROMs to flash, but since the internal is vastly different (despite they look alike), you can't flash it on your own.

If your baseband version starts with "I9295" then you can be sure that your device is indeed a GT-i9295 and can proceed to attempt to flash anything made for it; otherwise, it's likely that the phone is converted from one of the other variants (by flashing a ROM, or spoofing build.prop, whatever), and you should stop and ask for assistance.

you must choose s4 active, the baseband there is only if you have buy the phone from a brand (I recommend you to choose the lineage OS)


How to move application to SD card in samsung galaxy s duos How to move application to SD card in samsung galaxy s duos.

I have tried some application from Google Play but did not succeed.

Plz help me

According to our tag wiki, the Duos comes with Android 4.x -- which natively supports to move apps to SD:

Settings→Apps→Manage Apps, sroll to the app you want to move, tapp the "Move to SDCard" button.

If the button is grayed out, the app does not support being moved to SDCard. See Unable to move few Apps to SD Card for details on that.

Questions (and their answers) you might want to check for further details:

How to install APK files on SDCARD?
Other than portability, are there any other advantages (or disadvantages) to storing apps on external storage?
Can I force move to sd card applications that don't want to be moved there?

EDIT: Googling around revealed several technical reviews stating that app2sd is not working on the Duos. Only known working solutions include either rooting the device, or using the Android SDK, see e.g. How to move almost all Android apps to SD card (no root required): here a comment reports to have successfully accomplished the task using a terminal emulator instead of the SDK. Putting things together, a How-To could basically look like this:

install a terminal app from the playstore (e.g. Android Terminal Emulator)
start the app
enter pm set-install-location 2, followed by the Enter key (if that throws an error other than "permission denied", try pm setInstallLocation 2 instead. In case of a "permission denied", you would need to root the device)

To my knowledge, this would only set the default installation target to the SDCard, but not move any apps itself. The howto there further describes one could then move apps manually. I have not tried this (I don't want to move things to SD), and so cannot confirm anything -- but it might be worth a try.

And again, the comments there are not all clear. While one claimed success, another user writes:

  I can confirm this procedure cannot be done for Samsung S Duos.
  Even checked with Samsung Customer Care and they confirmed that Android 4.0x will not support movement of apps from the phone memory to External SD.

Same is, btw., claimed by LG support (something like "not our fault, blame Google"). But as other users say they can use app2sd fine on their 4.x devices, I cannot believe that it is ICS's fault, as the options are still shown fine even on my 4.1.x devices.

study the whole answer PATIENTLY  and i am sure this will help

i will tell you how to swap your internal memory and external memory

ex. if you have a 8gb sd card, then your internal memory will be 8gb and the external will be 2gb

YOU DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK AND I TAKE NO LIABILITY IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG

HERE IS THE PROCEDURE

for this your phone must be rooted
download root external 2 internal app from play store.
allow the superuser request when you open the app.

go to settings

here

select Default SGS3 roms

select send rescan

select use per default

then go to the ext.sdcard device access

there u will see  /dev/block/vold/179:49

change it to /dev/block/vold/179.33

go back on clicking the enternal 2 internal on the up left of the screen

select at boot (if not selected)

then click on external>internal

then on **at boot if init.d....

TADA

THATS IT NOW GO TO SETTINGS AND SEE YOUR STORAGE

BUBYE

"THIS IS APPLICABLE ONLY FOR GALAXY S DUOS"


Recovering Information(Contacts,Messages) from the Android Backup file My Android Phone Micromax a99  canvas got locked due to unknown number of trials by My kid's friend.I was left with two options
- Restore factory settings
- Delete/wipe user data

I preferred second one , I also took the backup of the user data by booting into recovery mode( volume up/down powerbutton combination) and then copying the backup into my PC.
Now I did restore factiry settings and then tried to restore from my backup file but to my amazement(but thats likely as well) after restoring the phone I again got the same phone lock issue , since it was the part of my old user configuration.Now I am left with just one option
- To recover my contacts/messages on the PC and store it on My phone manualy.Oks thats not a problem for me ,  I just want few important contacts.
Is there any free/opensource tool I can use to  extract the contacts from my .backup Android Backup file.

I just need to get my Contacts !!!
Thanks in Advance !

there are some ideas to restore backup and reset screenlock without flashing anything.

if still interested please come back to forum.xda-developers.com and answer my question regarding solution C.

solution A is easiest way, but i have not tested
1. create userdata_20160208_095026.backup
2. root the phone. don't flash custom recovery
3. factory reset
4. copy /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db to /cache
5. install some shell script to copy back settings.db on every boot
6. restore userdata_20160208_095026.backup with stock recovery

solution B, tested on MT6582 Jelly Bean, works!
(because some phones dont have fastboot and its difficult to flash)
1. use my script to convert stock backup to cwm backup
2. root the phone. don't flash custom recovery
3. install stericson.busybox and jackpal.androidterm
4. insert sdcard with ext2 partition
5. mount ext2 partition
6. copy /data to sdcard
7. unmount /data partition and symlink sdcard to /data
8. mount /data partition to /cache/data
9. unpack cwm backup
10. replace settings.db

solution C (with flashing) tested on MT6582 works!
1. use my script to convert stock backup to cwm backup
2. replace settings.db in cwm backup
3. root the phone
4. flash custom recovery
5. restore cwm backup

currently i am writing a shell script for solution B. it works at moment for cwm backup only, try to fix up some errors regarding stock backup...


Differences in Geo-Location Accuracy In an application I am building I am using "Fused Location Provider". When the phone is in a WiFi network I am getting an accurate location value (within 14 meters). When the phone is in EDGE Network I am not getting the same accuracy (a value like 1895 meters).

What's the problem with EDGE and WiFi networks? Why I am getting the different values in different networks (Wifi, EDGE, GPS)?

Google has a big database of (hashes of) Wi-Fi network SSIDs. When Wi-Fi is enabled on your phone, it scans for Wi-Fi networks, and sends the list to Google (in a hashed form). In cities, networks are plentiful, and Wi-Fi networks are short-range, so the combination of networks it can 'see' gives a very accurate idea of where you are.

A similar thing happens with cellular network cell IDs, but these are spaced more widely apart. The phone itself can't perform triangulation, because it only has the received signal strength for each cell it can 'see': it doesn't know the signal's angle of arrival, the transmit strength of the cell, or what might be occluding the signal. However, it can still use the combination of which cells it can 'see' to estimate position, a little more accurately than the distance between cells.

Even if you're connected to an EDGE network, if Wi-Fi is enabled then the Wi-Fi scanning technique will still be used, so the location estimate will be more accurate.

Both these techniques are far less accurate than GPS, which computes a position based on time differences between signals coming from different satellites. When your device can 'see' enough satellites, the precision is limited mostly by deliberate interference added by the US government (which operates the system) to make it less useful to non-US armed forces.

EDGE and WIFI use cell phone tower triangulation and these have a low accuracy level While using GPS, your each device is sending the message to satellite so accuracy is high

In simple terms

For GPS consider you device is sending the signal so accuracy is high

But for WIFI and Edge is based on an average that is calculated from the towers around you so its less accurate


My icons in the homescreen are not showing up (galaxy s6 edge) I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and I bought it about 2-3 weeks ago. Its performance has been weakened lately, first snapchat stopped working and every time I open it crashes. And now none of app icons are showing in the home

Homescreen - Click to enlarge image


How to block a number in Sony Xperia J I intend to block a number that is in my contact list.
Unfortunately I can't find any option to block it. I was told that I should add it to some Reject list.

When I open the contact and press Menu, I see only 4 options:

Modify
Send contact
Delete contact
Set as default

Where should I add it to the reject list?

Shockingly, you can't block calls with Xperia phones.

  Unfortunately it's not possible to do this without installing any 3rd party software. I know that Truecaller has this function if you want to use a 3rd party app.

Source: official Sony forum

You need to download 3rd party softwares that are mentioned earlier:

TrueCaller

Calls Blacklist

Caller ID & Block Calls, Texts is one app that may work.  You can get it for free in playstore.


Why copy within or upload to ES File Explorer rename php file as txt? I am using ES File Explorer FTP service to upload php scripts, to be used with a web server on my android device.
I noticed all php files get renamed with .txt suffix, which make them unsuable.
Files with another extension do not seem to be affected.
This problem only occurs when copying or upload to extSdCard, on a non-rooted device, but allowed by a permission workaround.

Is it a bug? How could I fix this?

i guess that is a bug but you may use bulk rename utility

Section 1:
match: (.*).txt
replace: \1

section 11
remove

Section 12:
filter: *.php.txt

hope it helps


Is it possible to backup apk from an installed application? I got some huge games which I don't play regularly but don't want to delete either. Is it possible to backup those apps as apk so that I can install them offline later?
I'm not talking about backing up only the app data, many tools exist for that purpose. I want the ability to install the app again offline at a later time.
Also, this is not necessarily an app suggestion request, any method to achieve this is OK with me.

A very easy way is ES File Explorer from Google Play Store. You can browse to your

/system/app folder (for system apps)
/data/app folder (for user apps; requires root to be accessed)

and copy them to your /sdcard (or anywhere else).

Copying multiple files with ES File Explorer is very easy. Just long hold one of the files, then put check marks on all the files you want to copy.  Then browse to the folder (on your sdcard) where you want to place them.

Connecting to your computer via your usb cable will allow you to backup your sdcard content to your computer.

Update (Accessing the protected data/apps area):

I notice the /data/ directory is not readable. You can pull any of the content if you know it by name. I'll describe a command-line (cli) solution to get the names and the files. However, the backup tools suggested by Izzy are the easiest way to go.

This is a step by step method to get the list of packages and pull the packages using the commandline:

Download and Install the Android SDK package (or see Is there a minimal installation of ADB? for a solution requiring much less space, if you're not intending to develop Android apps). While you'll have access to just about everything in the world (Android), don't be too overwhimed... just focus on an immediate objective, and all the other features can be for a different day.
Add a path to these two directories of the package install ([installedpath]/tools and [installedpath]/platform-tools for a full SDK installation).
Now, with the Android plugged in via the usb, run this to get the full list of installed apps:
$ adb shell 'pm list packages'
You now have a  list the names of all your install apps.
Use the -f parameter to get the full pathname of a desired package by specifying a search string found in the previous list:
$ adb shell 'pm list packages -f reader'
Now pull the full pathname of the package you want to get with:

## adb pull [filepathname] [destination path] ##
$ adb pull /data/app/com.ebooks.ebookreader-2.apk ~/mybackupdir

The steps might appear to be complicated, but they are easier done than said.  Once you perform it a few times, you'll find it very easy to pull any app from your device.  You can also write a script to do this as your own personal backup utility.

While there are gui alternatives as mentioned in the alternate answer, I strongly recommend looking at the features of the adb commands which includes full backups... the option for users to select precisely what they want backed up and where.

Installing the full Android SDK will give fuller access to components of your android device (from the commandline).

Look at the commands:

$ adb -help

Look at the backup section (of the help screen):

adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-obb|-noobb] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|-nosystem] [<packages...>]

     - write an archive of the device's data to <file>.
     If no -f option is supplied then the data is written
     to "backup.ab" in the current directory.

     (-apk|-noapk enable/disable backup of the .apks themselves
     in the archive; the default is noapk.)

     (-obb|-noobb enable/disable backup of any installed apk expansion
     (aka .obb) files associated with each application; the default
     is noobb.)

     (-shared|-noshared enable/disable backup of the device's
     shared storage / SD card contents; the default is noshared.)

     (-all means to back up all installed applications)

     (-system|-nosystem toggles whether -all automatically includes
     system applications; the default is to include system apps)

     (<packages...> is the list of applications to be backed up.  If
     the -all or -shared flags are passed, then the package
     list is optional.  Applications explicitly given on the
     command line will be included even if -nosystem would
     ordinarily cause them to be omitted.)

You can use the Android Backup Extractor to explore the compressed backup file created by the adb utility.

Restoring the backup to the android is a simple "-restore" command:

$ adb restore <file>

The Android Backup Extractor provides a way to explore the backup and pick out individual files (such as the apk's as in the OP's objective) to store or preserve.

The explorer package includes a variety of multi-platform tools, such as Java, perl, and cygwin.

You can extract the backup with (using the java extract opton):

## this line converts the android backup into a tar file ##
$ java -jar abe.jar unpack backup.ab backup.tar

Out side of my initial cli answer, the most precise GUI app to accomplish the OP's specific question is AirDroid.  It's free, extremely user friendly and intuitive to use.

To use, run the app. It gives a local IP address for typing into a web browser.  The link will give you a UI that resembles and Android home screen.  Click on the "Apps" icon and select one or more apps to download.  You can install or reinstall the Apps using the same interface.

There are several other GUI alternatives (graphical user interfaces) available, e.g. QtADB (multi-platform) or, for Windows users, also the excellent Droid Explorer by our member Ryan Conrad (see e.g. Full Backup of non-rooted devices; for more, also see our adb tag-wiki).

You can use  App Backup & Restore application to get the backup of application as an apk file.


droid explorer device not found I have an Xperia Z C6606 rooted

Android version 4.3

I have tried both 4.3 and 7 Android SDK.

I kept getting the error message "device '' not found" as shown in the below screenshot.

Please replace the platform tools API 23 file size 9 MB and remove the previous one. And remaining the same.

Your device will be visible.

I had the same problem.
The solution is to grant root access to ADB in Developer options.
First of all you need to enable Developer options as explained on Android Studio then you enter Developer options as explained there as well.
If you run CyanogenMod/LineageOS you can easily allow root access for ADB as explained here.
Otherwise you have to do it via Terminal.


Galaxy S plus does not see files on external SD I bought a 32Gb external SD for my S plus and can upload video files from the PC to the card. They show up on windows explorer as uploaded, but I cannot access them from the phone. The /mnt/sdcard folder shows the /external_sd folder as empty apart from a LOST.DIR folder.

Any ideas?

I think if your phone is 16 gb the max you can go with ext sd card is 16 gb
any bigger and the phone doesn't know what to do so 32 won't work
that's what they told me for my galaxy s2


Can I screenshot my HTC Legend without rooting it? I've been told rooting is the be all and end all, but at the moment, I want to see how far I can extend my device without rooting it.

One thing that would be good is screenshot functionality, but I can't seem to find an application on the marketplace that does this without a ** ROOTED PHONES ONLY ** disclaimer.

Is there any way to get screenshot functionality without a rooted phone? And what is the reason for this functionality being disabled by default. The iFail can get screenshotted with 2 button pushes, why not the Android?

This functionality is available with the developer toolkit.  The post is a bit old so newer versions of Android will have different icons and slightly different menus, but it walks you through getting the tools installed and then being able to capture screen-shots.  Also the tutorial is for Windows, but it should work with any OS that you get the Android dev tools running on (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux).

How to take screenshots of your Android based phone from Windows

You can try pressing the power button and the home button at the same time.