Smart TV not finding apps (from Ireland to UK) I have a Sony Bravia 4K (2017) and I have moved from Ireland to the UK. While my Play Store is correctly set to UK, I cannot see/install basic apps like the BBC iPlayer. If I check the Play Store on the web, it tells me that the apps are not compatible.

I checked tutorials and they say to try "network -> refresh Internet content", but I couldn't find the button under network.

Any tips?

The TV updated itself and then managed to access the UK Google Play Store. Problem solved.


adb input keyevent 26 - Not waking device up I am trying to wake a device up using the following adb command

adb input keyevent 26

This correctly emulates the power button keypress if the screen is on, but will not turn the screen on if it was off and locked.

Can anyone suggest why?

This is an old post, but this command should wake up any device.

adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_WAKEUP

did you try keyevent for power button ?

  adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_POWER


Avoiding "my cheek hung up on you" on an Optimus T? I upgraded my wife to an LG Optimus T from a G1, and she keeps accidentally hanging up on people with her cheek. She never had this problem with the G1.

I've asked her if she's locking the screen (by hitting the power button once) and she appears to be doing that but for some reason when she's on a call the screen appears to take input.

At first I thought this was a problem with her face (heh), so I had her try it on my Nexus One and she can call, hit the power button to turn the screen off and then talk normally.

Has anyone seen this kind of behavior before, and if it's just an annoyance is there maybe an application that can mitigate this?

It turns out that by avoiding touching it with her cheek she was turning the phone a bit and moving the proximity/light sensor away from her ear, which turned the screen on and was causing the hangups.

When she presses the speaker firmly against her ear the screen locks like it's supposed to.

There is chance to experience this kind of back light turned of is due to proxy sensor got dusted. Firstly please check the proxy sensor is clean or it is not covered with your dusted phone cover, etc.


File transfer with linux pc through mobile hotspot How do I  transfer files with a PC running Linux (Ubuntu) via the mobile hotspot (not through wifi)? (Perhaps with another third-party application)

The set up of file transfer between Android device and Linux PC is similar to  Windows and can be achieved in a variety of ways.

I created  simple tutorial illustrating the simplest way to do it (without need for extra tricky terminal commands in Linux, or installing additional packages)

Requirements:

Mobile hotspot
Linux PC (running any linux distro eg Ubuntu, Mint, Kali etc but for this tutorial I used Zorin OS)
with Wi-Fi functionality
Android file explorer capable of FTP/SMB/SFTP protocols (I used ES explorer for this task)

Instructions

Connect Linux PC to hotpsot.
Open ES File explorer and go to Networks >> Remote Manager (FTP protocol) and turn on service. See screenshot.

Open terminal Ctrl+Alt+T and type ifconfig (just to be sure the PC was assigned a correct IP by the DHCP) The dhcp range is  192.168.43.xxx

Using File manager from Unity Launcher head to Connect to server under Other Locations and input FTP server details and port number (ftp//192.168.43.1:3721/)

Enter login details or leave as anonymous:

From now you can access files in your android device on Linux PC, and can perform various actions e.g copy,paste etc (some names hidden for other reasons)

There are many FTP clients for android in play store, you can use that to create a FTP serever on phone, and access the server from computer,


Does anyone know, or know how to determine, the dimensions of the Samsung Galaxy S6+ screen in pixels? The reason I want to know is because I want to make a wallpaper for my girlfriend that exactly fits the screen

Samsung devices allow, under Developer Options, the ability to mark screen locations.

See Settings > Developer Options > Input

Select
Show Touches,
Show pointer location

Move to the points desired, and note their coordinates.

If you find the constant coordinates undesitreable, turn OFF the options after the operation is complete to your satisfaction.

To turn on Developer Options if needed:

Go to app drawer and open Settings
Go to bottom and tap About device
Tap repeatedly Build number 7 times. Starting at 3rd tap, you'll see a toast saying You are now X steps away from being a developer.

@GreedySkull

I think what you mean is the resolution

The screen is 5.1 inch high resolution
Quad HD 1440×2560 pixel display
 with 577 pixels per inch.

Ensure the wallpaper you're making has a size of 1440×2560 so as to fit screen correctly


How to disable desktop scroll wrap? Samsung Galaxy Ace 2.

Let's say I have 3 desktops, I can scroll from 1 to 2, from 2 to 3 and... from 3 to 1. The last one is undesired by me, so how I can disable this effect?

It is likely that the option does not exist on your stock phone launcher (can't confirm that, I have a different phone), but if it does, it should have the keywords "looping", "wrap around", "circular scrolling" in the settings.

I would recommend installing one of the following 3rd party launcher instead, which do not wrap around by default, and provide other useful functionality:

Go Launcher Ex
ADW.Launcher
LauncherPro

Go Launcher Ex appears to be in active development though so you'll probably have better support going with it. There are other launchers as well but these 3 are the ones I have used before.

Just use your fingers in the main page.
Place one finger on the top of the screen and the other on te bottom.  Then,  diagonally,  slide them untill the middle,  joining them.  That should expand all the pages you havr.  After that select the one ypu want by long pressing it and slide it to the bim to remove it.  Good luck!


How to enable SD MSC mount in Jelly Bean? Since upgrading to CyanogenMod 10, the dropdown notification when I connect my phone to the computer no longer appears. How do I mount the SD card via USB MSC in Jelly Bean? Note that the drive still appears to the computer, just empty. My phone is an Xperia Arc S.

Update: I see no mass storage mode under USB connection settings:

Settings screen (click image to enlarge)

Seems as if Google is evil¹ and removed that option from Jelly Bean to enforce their DRM schemes². I found however a tool which restores it: Automated Framework Kit

¹Like we didn’t already know that.

²I have no idea what was the rationale behind it, but remember it’s the company which has a mail service that’s immensely popular despite not properly working with any major mail client.

I don't know whether it will work for your device, but the XDAs have a tool supposed to work with several LG devices at least. You can find it in here, and it looks like this:

You might want to browse through the linked thread at XDAs. As far as I remember, there were some people trying it on other devices, and had success. No guarantees, however :)


Accidentally set radio to USA band Accidentally set radio to USA band
I was playing around with ##4636## and accidentally set the radio band to USA Band. Now there's no way of changing it back so now I can't even connect to a network, let alone use data. I've searched for this issue and it appears that there were other people with the problem but all of them didn't have answers. The only possible answer was to flash the ROM again, but there was no confirmation of it having worked. And anyway my phone isn't rooted, and I don't want to root, since it is new, as well as the fact that it's not an easy for the Moto G4+.

I guess, you have three options here:

Bring the phone to service center if your warranty is active. This is the most harmless way.
Flash the stock radio or complete stock image.
Hard reset the phone with ##786# code. However, you need MSL (master security lock) which you should obtain from seller/carrier, which makes this way a bit cumbersome. More on this here.

Just flash Moto G4 QCN file using qpst tool and it will be ok. Neither your warranty will be void as you have to change your baseband as your older baseband has by default take USA band so it won't be possible to rectify it without changing its baseband by flashing proper QCN file of Moto G4.

Remember if your phone is in Nougat then you have to manually downgrade it to Marshmallow and then again upgrade with ota, the process is a bit tricky as QCN will change your IMEI number and you have to write your original IMEI with hex editor in QCN file which you have saved and you have to reflash it to restore original IMEI and SIM functionality,


How do I view apk information in Mac OS X? On windows, I have Android Commander installed so whenever I double click on an APK file, the information about it (ie: package name, version, etc) is displayed. I'm looking for something similar for a Mac OS X. What are my options?

The best and quickest way to use it is to obtain the tool from the Android SDK, called aapt and invoke it from the command line like this:

aapt d --values badging some_apk_name.apk

An example of the output is shown:

package: name='foo.bar' versionCode='1' versionName='1.00'
sdkVersion:'7'
targetSdkVersion:'16'
application: label='FooBar' icon='res/drawable/ic_launcher_icon.png'
launchable activity name='foo.bar.activity'label='FooBar' icon=''
uses-permission:'android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE'
uses-feature:'android.hardware.touchscreen'
main
other-activities
other-receivers
other-services
supports-screens: 'small' 'normal' 'large' 'xlarge'
supports-any-density: 'true'
locales: '--_--'
densities: '120' '160' '240' '320'

This will extract certain but limited values and parse the encoded AndroidManifest.xml (which is binary encoded upon compilation from Java source to APK binary).

You might want to try apktool. This will run on your Mac.

And as @Izzy mentioned, you can try APK Multi Tool to get the APK properties.

One last thing you could try is viewing the contents of the APK. This can be done by renaming your apk file to .zip and extracting its contents. You will then see a file called AndroidManifest.xml, this will show app version, package name, etc.


Droid X Turns Itself on Automatically I turn off my Droid X (now running Gingerbread) to conserve the battery.  However, every morning when I wake up, it is turned on.  Has anyone else been having this problem?

I don't know how long it waits to turn on, or what time it is that it turns on, but it's quite a pain (especially because it drains the battery).

Any suggestions?  This has only started happening when Verizon upgraded me to Gingerbread.

I have the exact same problem. I have confirmed that my phone is powering off (I get the "powering off" message and then the screen goes blank). But some time in the night, my phone turns on by itself.

At first I thought that I was accidentally just setting it into the new (with Gingerbread) sleep mode. But I'm careful and I'm definitely pressing "power off".

Lots of people are reporting this same problem. Other forums have suggested changing the timing of the backup assistant. I've tried that, but to no avail.

It seems clear that this is a new issue with Gingerbread.

Most devices turn on when they have reached a fully charged battery state. If you're charging it overnight and you turn it off right before you go to bed, it probably reaches a full charge in the middle of the night and turns on.


Cannot flash factory images to Google Pixel 2 XL Device: Google Pixel 2 XL (taimen)

Carrier: Unlocked (purchased from the Play store)

Image: image-taimen-opm1.171019.011.zip

Ultimately, I'm trying to root the phone by flashing a batched boot.img to the stock image, but I'm unable to flash any images, whether that's the patched boot.img, TWRP, or even the stock factory images themselves. I've already unlocked the bootloader, using fastboot flashing unlock_critical.

I am running the newest version of adb and fastboot, downloaded yesterday:

$ fastboot --version
fastboot version 0.0.1-4500957
Installed as [REDACTED]

$ adb version
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.39
Version 0.0.1-4500957
Installed as [REDACTED]

Here's what happens when I try to flash the stock factory images, downloaded straight from Google:

$ adb reboot bootloader
$ ./flash-all.sh
target didn't report max-download-size
sending 'bootloader' (36344 KB)...
FAILED (remote: Requested download size is more than max allowed
)
finished. total time: 0.000s
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [  0.000s]
finished. total time: 0.201s
target didn't report max-download-size
sending 'radio' (60428 KB)...
FAILED (remote: Requested download size is more than max allowed
)
finished. total time: 0.000s
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [  0.001s]
finished. total time: 0.201s
extracting android-info.txt (0 MB) to RAM...
Warning: Could not determine slot for secondary images. Ignoring.
extracting boot.img (40 MB) to disk... took 0.289s
target didn't report max-download-size
archive does not contain 'boot.sig'
extracting dtbo.img (8 MB) to disk... took 0.039s
archive does not contain 'dtbo.sig'
archive does not contain 'dt.img'
archive does not contain 'recovery.img'
extracting system.img (1936 MB) to disk...
archive does not contain 'system.sig'
extracting vbmeta.img (0 MB) to disk... took 0.000s
archive does not contain 'vbmeta.sig'
extracting vendor.img (349 MB) to disk... took 4.445s
error: Failed to identify current slot

Other commands fail with inconsistent error messages or failure modes. For example:

$ fastboot flash boot boot.img
target didn't report max-download-size
sending 'boot' (40960 KB)...
FAILED (remote: Requested download size is more than max allowed
)
finished. total time: 0.000s

If I retry with -S

$ fastboot -S 512K flash boot boot.img
Invalid sparse file format at header magic
sending sparse 'boot' 1/51 (508 KB)...

which hangs indefinitely, never sending the first segment.

I can try booting directly, which yields the same problem:

$ fastboot boot boot.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
# hangs indefinitely

Similarly:

$ fastboot --set-active=_a

will just hang indefinitely as well. I have to restart the bootloader to kill it, at which point it just prints the cryptic error: Device does not support slots (the Pixel 2 XL does support slots!).

The error messages aren't always consistent; sometimes the first fastboot flash boot boot.img command will appear to hang (requiring a restart, similar to --set-active) instead of printing the error message about max-download-size. I've let that run for about fifteen minutes before having to kill it. Unlike system.img, boot.img is only about 40MB, so it shouldn't take that long to flash - something is clearly wrong.

I've also tried this with multiple cables on different USB ports, with the same results.

Ultimately, I solved this by using a Macbook Pro with a USB-C to USB-C cable.

Previously, I had tried it with two different USB-A to micro-USB cables, using two different micro-USB to USB-C adapters, on a Linux laptop with two different USB-A ports and the then-latest version of fastboot/adb downloaded. Unfortunately, I can't be certain what the issue was, but since it happened consistently with multiple cables (and those cables still appear to be working), my guess is that there was a bug with the Linux version of adb/fastboot.

did you ever solve this? I have exactly the same issues top to bottom.
thanks.

EDIT: wow tried my 5th cable and it worked. Used a USB 3.0 to C (Anker brand)

Used this...
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2-xl/development/tool-deuces-bootloop-recovery-flashing-t3704761

Made sure to install the Google USB driver


Restore Google Nexus 5 IMEI that reads 0 I bought a Nexus 5 on Ebay. It came brand new with all the packaging, but having bought a previous Nexus 5 (directly from Google) this packaging seemed a little suspect (I think it might be a very well made imitation, or a modified LG version of the device. Seemed legit on the website though).

Anyhow, when it arrived i put in a local SIM, but it wouldn't connect to the cellular network, or it would connect intermittently (5-10 seconds and it would drop off). I went into the settings and noticed that the IMEI read '0'. It was on Android 4.4.4.

It seems that if the IMEI is 0, the device would fail security checks (either with the MEID or the IMEI zeroed) and thus not register on the network.

After Googling quite a bit, I came across these answers on StackExchange, however they're not entirely clear:
Nexus 5, IMEI 0, how to restore IMEI? (Refers to a Russian website, and you need to translate to English ... so it's kind of messy)
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/96397/nexus-5-imei-0-shows-how-to-restore-original-imei

None of these was actually clear and after quite a bit of fumbling about, nothing seems to have worked. So how does one get this fixed?

Finally i found this post on XDA which seems to be a better translation from the Russian page above to English: http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help/imei-0-efs-backup-t2769023/post60421668#post60421668 . All the files necessary are also attached to the post.

However not all of it is useful, i'll copy-paste the useful parts below, and add comments to things that were important:

Download all the ZIP archives from the post
Install the LG driver
Install QPST
Copy the entire folder EFS Professional to C:/ drive (Not sure whether
it necessarily has be be the C:/ drive, or you can just have it in a folder somewhere on your machine)
You'll need to root the phone and get shell access through adb.
Either:

Unpack the archive Nexus5 the root of drive C (this is only necessary if you don’t use WUG);

Or:

Use WUG Nexus Root Toolkit (a lot easier):

Make sure you're running stock Android 5.0.1 (Very important, I tried with 5.1.1 and it failed). Depending on which Android version you're on, you can either upgrade normally till 5.0.1, or use WUG to downgrade to 5.0.1
Root the device using WUG
If necessary, you can reset the IMEI using backups zero IMEI from the archive. To do this, simply make a backup of your EFS in TWRP, then replace in the folder's backup your files on the distribution of similar make and restore EFS. (Mine was already zeroed, so i had no chance of making a backup) If it is already erased and reads 0, then just skip this step.

Still using WUG, click on the Launch the Advanced utilities:

Install boot [kernel] 5.0.0_diag_BOOT.img from folder "restore_imei_files" (Remember that you were on version 5.0.1 ... if you happen to be on 5.1.1, you may end up in a boot loop like i did ---> So 5.0.1 is very important)

Open a command window (Windows prompt) at the location where adb and fastboot are located (You can do this by navigating to the respective folder, hold "shift" on your keyboard, and right click. In the context menu click "Open command window here").
Type:

adb shell
su
setprop sys.usb.config diag,adb    (notice the comma between diag and adb) This activates the diagnostic mode on the phone and will avail operations with nvram through the com port.

Open EFS Professional:

(a). Click on Qualcomm NV Tools, Hit connect and go to the Secure Ops tab.
(b). Hit Check off IMEI and MEID and hit 'Read' ... if it's zeros then you know you have to enter the IMEI and MEID
(c). Remove the SIM card from the phone (Note: If you had already removed the SIM card earlier, then you can skip this step)
(d). Enter IMEI and MEID (Note: MEID is just the IMEI without the last two digits). (Note: I found my IMEI laser-burned on to the SIM-card holder)
(e). Hit Write

Reboot the phone and check the IMEI by typing *#06#
If the IMEI still reads 0, repeat from 9(b) above again, then Read (note ESN now appears), then Write again (ignore the errors) > Reboot and check, it should work. This did it for me

Have you ever did any flashing on your previous phones? If you did, try flashing the official factory images from here.


How does antivirus find the files accessed by an application without root access? I haven't rooted my mobile phone, but an antivirus is running. Without rooting, how will the antivirus come to know about the files accessed by an application?

Normally, in Linux distributions, it can be found from
/proc/"p-id"/fd, but in Android root privileges are required to access that folder, although it is not the case in normal Linux distributions. So, without rooting, how does the antivirus come to know about the files accessed by an application? Is there any other way other than accessing /proc/"p-id"/fd?

It's simple - It doesn't. Antivirus on android has very limited access. It can't check what the given app is doing. It's not very useful. It may warn you if it finds something suspicious on sdcard/externalsdcard or one of your installed apps is in their database marked as bad. It can't scan the app data files, it can't scan the main system, so it's pretty pointless to use it.

Anti-virus programs run in sandbox mode like every other application.
They can access your storage.
And they can also scan installed apps because apk are like zip files.


Can't save proxy settings after installing AdBlock Plus I installed the AdBlock Plus app and I need to modify the proxy settings, but the "Save" button is disabled and I cannot do anything. Could you please help me out? I have an LG P970 running Android 4.0 ICS.

Screenshot (click image for larger variant)

Its not about adblock i guess.
Its is just that you have to give proxy server ip instead of hostname ( it looks something like 10.X.X.X ). it will enable save button.
So you put that ip in proxy hostname and save button will be enabled.
( It worked for me in my android)

Simply put do this....
host name : LocalHost
Proxy: 2020
Proxy reason: adblock.com
Proxy setting DHC25 (or watever just not static)

Click save and re-enter ur wifi password and ur done


Remove google accounts from Android Market I have 2 accounts synced with the device, lets call them Account A and Account B.

When I got the device, I first entered A to be the account for the market, for gmail and everything else.
Then, I added B and selected "Sync with Google Calendar" only.

Lately, I've started getting notifications about application updates for B, and when I go to the market each time I have to make sure I selected A (And I did pick A in the market settings).

Can I delete B from the market? I don't want it to exist in that list when you select "Accounts" in the menu.

(Market version 3.3.11)

Thanks in advance.

I don't think so, probably only way to block it would be deleting it :(

What you describe is a bug in the later versions of the Android Market. I believe it has been acknowledged by Google, and they are working on a solution.

Yes, you can delete the second account. You can normally remove any Google account expect for the FIRST one you added. However, you have to remove it completely, not just from the market. So, you will lose access to calendar and contacts etc.

From the homes screen, press "menu", then go to:

Settings -> Accounts & sync

Choose the account you want to remove, and then choose "Remove Account"


How can I change the default app that opens when double tapping the screen of my Galaxy note with the S Pen? I would like to change the default behaviour of S Pen so that instead of using the (not so good) memo app from Samsung I can use the note taking app of my choice (right now Papyrus).

How can I change the default behaviour of double tapping the screen with the S Pen while holding its side button to open my app of choice?

Thanks!

I use the app Pentastic for that.
https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.samsung.android.pentastic
I was actually looking for a way to disable this shortcut. This can be accomplished by combining the above with the app "Do Nothing".
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=i.donothing

Get "S Note Helper" from Google Play Store


How to check if a new Android phone/tablet has got no factory reset yet? I would like to buy a factory-new tablet (Galaxy Tab S6) so I would like to check if the device has ever turned on (since the production date) and also how to make sure no factory reset has done yet.

You can use ##786#. You can check RTN status of mobile. But you need to access hidden menu then you can use this code.
You can find uptime of mobile Go to setting / about phone / uptime. Compare it with date of purchase.


Missing 'Contacts' sync App Am running Android 4.2.2 on a CUBOT smartphone, but cannot sync my contacts from Gmail as the ONLY sync adapters showing in the Settings-Accounts-Google section are 'App Data' and 'People details'.
Both these apps, if un-checked then checked pretty much instantly come back with a 'Last synced 14/10/2013 09:38' (or whatever time date-stamp is accurate), but nothing seems to have changed.
I seem to be missing just a plain old 'Contacts' sync option.
Being new to Android - I haven't a clue how to progress, or where to download/install 'contacts'. Advice greatly appreciated.

Try haxsync. It's the best. It's working on Android 4.2.


How to connect soft bricked tablet to pc without USB debugging enabled I tried rooting my Galaxy tab a 9.7 using Odin and soft bricked it. I went into system recovery mode and clicked wipe data/factory reset thinking it would reset back to stock. My tablet is still bricked and usb debugging got turned off so now I can't connect to pc to install the original firmware. Is there anything I can do to connect my tablet to my PC so I can reset my device? Can I use ADB to turn USB debugging back on? I can still get to Odin mode and recovery mode on my tablet. My main problem is connecting my tablet to my PC. Thank you.

These firmwares are for the Galaxy Tab A 9.7 Wifi and are mirrored for faster download speeds. This is also an pit file collection incase of any person who has messed up their partitions.

What Do These UnBrick Firmwares Do?
Basically, if you ever have an soft-brick or any sort, these firmwares will help get out of that. What makes these different from the rest for say like sammobile or samsung-updates is that these are separated into different tars which the SamFirm Tool provides an option to include binary nature aka PIT and separate tars like Bootloader, AP, CSC and so on. These should help you unbrick your Tab A in most cases and even somewhat worst ones. IF you are in an minor bootloop and just need to get back to stock, use sammobile and download the firmwares from there. Those are the regular ones. You can still use these if your doing the same also but these can help in desperate situations.

How To Use/Flash These Firmwares?!
Simply just download the one for your Tab A model and in the zip it contains different tars. Place the tars in the appropriate sections in odin. Example: Put the AP bla bla bla Tar in the AP Tab Of Odin and the BL tar in the BL tab in odin.
In most cases for say like you flashed a bad rom or in a bootloop, you will only need to flash the AP and BL Tars Only. Most times you dont need to flash CSC. Flash the CSC Tar if your Tab A is not booting up after flashing BL and AP Tars. Make SURE YOU GIVE IT 30 Minutes after flashing in odin if it doesnt seem to boot.

Firmware Downloads (Fast Servers):
SM-T550 Tab A 9.7 Inch
Version: T550XXU1AOF5/T550XAR1AOF5/T550XXU1AOF5/T550XXU1AOF5
Region: XAR [USA]
Download: https://mega.nz/#!usxzTJTI!r9vhUbTO_...dhqSanCI00sZOU

ODIN DOWNLOAD:
Odin 3.09 Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/028kidvc9q...v3.09.zip?dl=0

Source: xda-developers.com

No you cannot use adb but most phones do have a com port open where you can push factory OTA images through.


Fail to transfer whatapp chat - no option to restore I want to transfer my whataspp chats from my galaxy s3 mini to my new galaxy A3.

I followed the guide (I think!)

I backed up my chats and then copied the database file over onto my pc. The files all look like msgstore.db.crypt.crypt8 or with a date msgstore-2015-03-26.1.db.crypt8.

When i installed whatsapp on my new phone there was no database file so i created one.
I then tranferred the msgstore files into it.

When i went though the verification process... i didnt get any option to restore and i have none of my chats...

now ive seen that my first overnight back up is in a new folder logs and is backed up as  whatsapp-2015-03-29.1.log.gz

what have i done wrong? what can i try?
Thanks in advance

According to this link :

How to transfer WhatsApp conversations to new devices: the easy way

When you have a backup, just you need to install WhatsApp on new device and,

  Do not start the app in new device !

and then, Copy Database files in WhatsApp / Databases and finallly,

Setup your number in WhatsApp , and then go to Restore. or follow above link.

If you don't get a prompt to restore back up, make sure you have the backup file already in your computer, then reinstall WhatsApp and you should see the prompt to restore backup once you set up your WhatsApp account again in your new phone.


How can I install apps from unknown sources using my Google account on the web? I was wondering whether or not I can somehow remotely install applications from "unknown sources" i.e not having to copy the .apk file onto my device and then installing.

For example, using the Google Playstore on the web, I can manage all my apps using a browser on my laptop or pc. However those are in-store apps. How would I go about installing out-side the store apps remotely on my device using Google account (if that's even possible), or perhaps any other way without having to physically connect my device or having the .apk on my device.

Note
*Since it obviously isn't possible to do it from the playstore using a browser as it only allows playstore apps to be installed, any app would do. *

If your device is rooted, you can create Install Job in SureMDM.

Step 1: Create an free account here.
Step 2: Install Mobile agent here.
Step 3: Login to Web admin console here.
Step 4: Click on Jobs on Utility panel.
Step 5: New Job > Android > Install program > Job name > Local File path.
Step 6: Apply the job.
Step 7: You can verify the status of Install Job in the System Log.
It works

The way the Google Play Store works is that they simply tell the device to download the app from the playstore. The device then initiates the download directly from the play store.

It is difficult to replicate this, so instead what applications tend to do is send the apk itself rather than just a link to the apk. AirDroid is one application that lets you install apps from your desktop computer directly to your remotely connected phone.


Nexus 7 (2012) won't charge or start after a series of problems A year or so ago, I bought an old Nexus 7 that was very slightly used (I took it off my girlfriend's hands). Everything worked fine, but I barely ever used it.

Two days ago I broke it back out. I charged the battery to full but never ran anything. The next day, I opened it up again and noticed that there was an update - 5.1.1. Not researching beforehand, I went ahead and tapped the notification, and then the problems started flooding in.

First, the tablet became locked in the loading animation after the Google logo. I let it do this overnight just in case, and it was still stuck in the morning. So I held the power button and volume button until it turned off and tried to reboot it.

At this point, it booted to a 'No command' screen. I did a factory reset from here, and rebooted. Now the tablet became stuck in a reboot loop of the Google logo.

After some research, I flashed it back to version 4.4. Everything worked fine with the fastboot and everything was working great. I ran a few updates from the tablet and got to version 4.4.4. Again, it loaded fine.

I tapped the envelope icon in the top-left corner to view my e-mails. As I was reading the first one, the screen froze. I let it sit for a few minutes and it was still frozen. So again, I powered off by using the power and volume button. My battery was around 30% at this point.

Now the tablet shows absolutely no signs of life. I have tried holding the buttons with all of the combinations that are online, I have tried doing combinations of buttons while plugging/unplugging the charger. I have tried using a regular micro-usb charger as well as a 2A charger. I have tried reseating the battery. NOTHING has worked. The tablet shows NO signs of life - no flashing, blanks, anything at all.

What else can I possibly do?

Looking at your issue related to battery and charging (which may not be the sole cause- I am not familiar with Nexus devices)

Since you barely used it for an year, it would not have been charged either and the battery could have discharged to very low levels. Li Ion batteries have a protection circuit that kicks in when the discharge falls below a certain level. It requires certain current to be applied to it before charging can happen. This is called "Boosting". How to awaken sleeping Li-ion explains it. Fix: Nexus 7 Refusing to Charge, Try This Trick mentions steps getting into the bootloader to revive it

  Plug-in your dead N7 to a wall charger. (Jump immediately to step 2.)
  Immediately after plugging it in, press Volume Down and Power at the same time.
  Once in the bootloader menu, use Volume Down until you see “Power Off Device.”
  Choose that option with the Power button.
  Once your device is off, unplug the charger and then plug it back into the device.
  You should now see the battery meter  with your device returning to life.

You could also try to change the charging cables- I would suggest is to use a 20/22 AWG cable for charging (if you don't want to buy, look for a short thick charging cable-it may help). See answer here for my details. Nexus 7 is more choosy: It will stop charging if voltage levels drop and resistance comes into play again. Google Nexus 7 Charging goes into details and says

  Nexus 7 will stop charging if the input voltage is less than the internal battery voltage plus 0.2 volts.

There are other drastic methods, which you could try if you are comfortable, involving jump starting

I have a Nexus 7 which has not been charging over 20%. Today I put it in the oven at 50C for 30 mins then took it out and knocked it sharply on the bench  a few times. After 3 hours on charged now have 100% charge


No apks will install I have been repeatedly trying to install an apk on my moto g lte (1st gen). Nothing will install. Apks worked initially, but it stopped working at one point

su
pm install [apk]
Returns invalid URI.
The name is all standard chars.

su
pm install -r [apk]
Returns container error.

SOLVED
I had managed to corrupt my SD card which meant the apk files could not be installed upon my phone. Taking out the SD fixed it.

Corrupted SD card meant I could not install anything.


What are the risks involved in unlocking the bootloader? A locked bootloader is one that will only boot an OS and recovery that it "approves" of. Vendors digitally sign the recovery, kernel and kernel modules and unsigned binaries are refused to flash and boot. This is same as Secure Boot provided by UEFI.

In PC, one can simply disable the Secure boot by choice if one wants to boot unsigned binaries. But on Android devices, every vendor has its own lengthy process to unlock the bootloader like providing unlock tool, unlock code and device registration. Vendors are making it even harder like HMD initially refuses to unlock Nokia bootloaders and Huawei will stop providing bootloader unlocking for all new devices.

So how does a locked bootloader strengthens the security and privacy of end user or  does it serve some other purposes too?

Locking you bootloader is really telling your device to check the signature's of specific files to find if it's a genuine image.

If it's found to NOT be genuine, it will not allow booting, as well, it won't allow flashing of the image.

If the signatures all check out, then it'll allow the flash or boot ..  If you used the "Universal Signature Vulnerability" you can bypass nearly all signature checks on many models.

Some applications that you can install on your device don't require anything other than an internet connection to connect to a database of vulnerabilities, the application will run through the vulnerabilities until it gets a successful hit on your device and then exploits your system using the vulnerability...
These applications can install modified image's and ultimately makes locking bootloaders a thing of the  past...
KingRoot is one of these software's, it doesn't require unlocking the bootloader and specifically states that you are not voiding your warranty if you remove king root prior to returning the device.

The main thing about locking bootloaders, is it's a little too late... Software has gone far beyond using Fastboot to do flashing, most the time, Fastboot has size limitations and NEW devices have massive image's that can't be flashed without splitting the image..  It's almost never used anymore, most companies use their own software to connect to the bootloader now, like Odin, SP Flash Tool, LG Recovery ( something like that ) ...

The fact that you can flash a custom recovery without ever touching Fastboot ( OEM Unlock - go )  and that recovery can flash all your partitions, makes unlocking bootloaders the prehistoric way of doing thing's if you care about your warranty.

Bootloader locking in my opinion is to improve users experience with the default system, People are starting to preffer systems like CyanogenMod and Other popular custom ROM's ... Could you imagine if one of these custom ROMs become the most popular OS, above Android that it's built on...

If you ask me, it's all a bit touch and go with the legalities of disclosing kernel sources, As android is an open source project, you are meant to follow the open source licences..  This means it's technically not legal to withhold some of the Open Sourc Licensed code ... meaning to fully disable the ability of others to have access to the source code would be a violation of the Open Source license's that Android uses...

Some companies thought they had the right to withhold the source code to stop people making modified boot inages for the device, but they soon found out the opposite and released the open sourced code for others to have the same access.

It's all a bit up in the air at the moment because Android is built on Linux, Java, XML Layouts etc... None of these things are owned by Android, android is simply a concoction of other systems, therefore most of it can not be claimed as the ownership of Android and therefore Android MUST be an Open Source Project to comply with the open sourced licenses of Linux, Java, etc.....

Ok so, most companies would need to build an OS on top of Android and call it something different to ever have the rights to withhold access to the bootloader source code ( kernel )  and then probably still not.

I guess I'm saying, Unlocking the bootloader has now been bypassed and therefore the purposes of locking it are now ...  none.


What if I erase an undelivered message My questions are concerning Whatsapp.

If I send a message, there are three indicators - one tick,two ticks and two blue ticks. If I delete it when it's still being sent (one tick),will the second side still be able to read it?

By the way, is there an option how to change or delete a message in a short period of time after sending it? (As it is possible at gmail?)

Thanks a lot.

Axessa

1 tick = server received the message. After this you can't stop the message to be sent.

You can stop messages to be sent if you delete them before the first tick appears. If you get lucky you have time for that...or you can try to quickly turn off WiFi/3g but most of the time messages get sent to server too quick for that

1 tick means received by server
2 ticks mean received on other phone
2 blue ticks mean read by recipent.

hope this helps.

and no there isn't a way to change a message after sending it.


SD card not detected after re-partitioning it, FAT32 + EXT4 I followed the steps here to add an EXT4 partition on my 8gb sd card:
http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/properly-partition-sd-card-for-app2sd-android-roms/

Now I have 6.xGB FAT32 as the primary partition, and a 1GB EXT4 logical partition.
But my Samsung Galaxy Ace (running on CyanogenMod-7.2.0-C1-cooper, official nightly build) doesn't recognize the sd card anymore.

Please help. Thanks.

Update: I gave up and reformatted it back to a single FAT32 partition, copied my backup into the sd card, now the apps don't get recognized. Please, please help me. :(

If your phone is rooted and got ClockworkMod installed, then try formatting and creating an EXT partition in ClockworkMod. Its the most simplest and easiest way to do it. It will automatically take care of your Fat partition too.

For more info, read this article

I had the same problem. Use minitool partition magic and set your card partition to primary partition. Apply changes and that's it.


lost apps after backup and restore on Samsung Kies I downloaded Kies because there is a software issue on the phone.  So I backed up the phone to Kies on my laptop then did a factory reset on the phone.  Then I restored the phone from the laptop but seem to have lost all the apps.  Help!

I say go to play store, when you will open my apps section the backed up apps will be downloaded automatically. Make sure that you are connected to WiFi or 3G .


How to prepare touchscreen-based Android device for [emergency] calling using only hardware buttons? If my touchscreen Android phone gets smashed I expect that it can happen that only touchscreen is broken (as it seems to be the most fragile part) while the device itself able to function somehow; and I maybe need to call somewhere using only hardware buttons (without screen at all).

Are there any programs to place and/or answer [emergency] calls by entering some pattern of hardware buttons without using screen as input or output? This can also be helpful when you are using the device in frost, in gloves, etc. so using touchscreen becomes problematic.

Having wet/cold/cracked_screen phone and not being able to call for help just because of touchscreen is not working can be unpleasant. With hardware buttons you can type the "sos code" sometimes even if both your and your phone's HP is low...

My device is SE Xperia X10, but I expect the thing to work one way or another with all devices with at least 1 hardware button.

I started implementing my own solution for my device.

Here (source) is a program that (started as root) will allow you to start shell scripts using series of button presses. Currently having started this monitor ( andrhard 66 /h/andrhard < /dev/input/event2&) I can easily toggle the flashlight without unlocking the phone (using /sys/class/leds/lv5219lg:fled/brightness)

Now the problems is how to call/answer from shell scripts...

In phones with cyanogenmod ROM you have voice dialer facility. Launching it will vibrate the phone with a beep informing you that it is ready to receive your voice input. Speaking to it like "Call John" or "Call 911" etc will make the device to call.

To enable this to work without the touchscreen you may have to configure the hardware keys. To do so, go to Settings->System->Hardware keys.  Enable the custom actions and you can configure the search key's long press event for launching voice dialer.


How to backup broken screen phone when USB debugging IS NOT enabled? I dropped my Samsung S3. Now I cannot see anything, just a white screen with purple, black, and green lines. Before it blanked out, it wasn't recognizing my finger touch. Any idea on how or what to repair? I want to save my phone so I can backup all my data.

Screen has a small crack on the lower right part of the screen:

the colors are all messed up
can't press anything
can be turned on and can hear the starting sound
can still receive calls and text
USB debugging WAS NOT ENABLED

install kies and connect your phone with usb cable.  Then go to backup/restore and you can easily backup your important data from there.


Why are heads up notifications not showing after an update in Samsung Galaxy E7? I've recently updated my Samsung device to Android 5.1.1 lollipop and as I have been playing around with it I noticed that I wasn't getting any heads up notifications. Is there a certain option to turn it on or I just don't have it?

Go to settings>sound and notification > notification on lock screen>show content hope it work for you


How do I "unroot" my android device Now with Pokemon GO pushing the new update and not allowing rooted devices in the game, I want to reverse that.

So how do I unroot my device

Bonus: How do I manipulate the app into thinking I do not have root access

Edit: I used SuperUser's Full unroot option but it does not remove root access. Either SuperUser has a problem or my phone's jacked up

If you want to unroot only to play Pokemon Go, you don't need to do so.

Just root with Magisk:

Download the magisk installer from the official post on XDA-Developers
Flash it with the custom recovery.
Install the Magisk app (also in that post on XDA)

Now, to hide root from Pokemon GO:

Go to Magisk Hide and enable Pokemon GO
Go to Settings, and press on Hide Magisk Manager

It will take a while, just let it work.
When it finishes, reboot your device and open Pokemon Go.
If it still detects root, clear the data of Pokemon Go.

First How to Just Unroot the Device

You can unroot the phone by opening SuperSU app and choosing full unroot (or just removing /system/bin/su is sufficient usually, and can be done with a file manager like ES File Manager (left hand tray has tools header and under that is the root access toggle and Mount R/W tap that and select /system to be rw) you can then delete the su binary in /system/bin (sometimes /system/xbin though this is more rare)).

More Detail and possible solutions [First Guest Account]

I do not know of any direct ways of hiding SU from apps, but you could try a guest user and if you leave the multi user option in SuperSU unchecked then the guest user account may be able to run the app and the app may not see the root.

More Detail and possible solutions [Second Unroot then use Custom Recovery to Apply Root when Done]

You can lose root and be OK if you maintain the custom recovery.  Then what you could do is do full unroot from inside SuperSU app and restart device. Now install and/or run Pokemon GO!.  When done restart to recovery and flash SuperSU.zip and restart again.  Now you will have root access back until next time you wish to play Pokemon GO!.

Editorial [some Concern for Users from the Author]

Now you do realize Pokemon GO! was done by an NSA contracted company and is used by the government as a general spy tool (think about it a bunch of people running anround with phone cameras and mics running is a wet dream for those guys), so you may want to re-think what games you play and what permissions you are allowing apps running on your devices to use (same guy that designed Google Earth Originally for the CIA/NSA before Google Bought it and same guy who wrote the Game Ingress that was originally done by a company under direct CIA contract before Google bought them).

Reference [I'm not just a conspiracy theory nut without backup proof ;-)]:
https://www.corbettreport.com/the-cias-pokemon-go-app-is-doing-what-the-patriot-act-cant/
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3099092/mobile-wireless/the-cia-nsa-and-pokmon-go.html


One chat for 2 number I've got a Wiko Iggy on 4.2.2 Android and try unsuccessfully to bind both numbers of a workmate on one sms chat.. what should I do?

As far as I know there are no chat/SMS applications which will support two numbers of the same user/contact at the same time.

If there are two numbers, there will be two threads/conversations.

Contacts+ will do that for you.

It will also let you have one fixed primary "to send" number.

It's great if you only want to send to one of his numbers and he only wants to send from the other. Your workmate texts you from number X and you just have to write and send and the sms will be sent to number Y automatically.


No text message notifications on Android 4.4.2 I just upgraded my Note 2 with 4.4.2, and since then I stop receiving notifications from text messages, voice mails and emails. I do not see the LED blinking on any text messages or voice messages.

Everything is active in my LED indicator, everything in my "messagings notification settings" is enable, all my volume are at 100%

What can I do to fix thiS?

sorry but I have to ask, did you restarted your phone and checked if that fixes the problem, if so then go to System Settings->Notifications and check there if everything is set there.

You could as well uninstall your phone launcher.
Most of these launchers might interfere with your app notifications by listing them as junk.

All the best.


Huawei Y210d Firmware Flashing Failed I have an Huawei Ascend y210d on which I installed CWM recovery. After that I installed a custom ROM, but now I want to flash its official firmware.

But its official firmware is not installing. It got told using Huawei firmware Indian version downloaded from Huawei. I am using this procedure:

first copy dload (in dload folder update.app file is present) folder to the root of the SDcard
then turn off your device pick out battery then again insert battery
then press buttons volumeup+volumedown+powerbutton
then its start unpacking the update package But in step 2 it failed on installing.

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

This is the error.log I get in SD Card :

{filename = /mmc1/dload/update.app
call RCV_MODULE_END_EVENT failed,module = OEMSBL_VER_LIST
CMD=0xf,moduleaddr = 0xf0000000, len_tmp=0x2c54
filename = /mmc1/dload/update.app}

What can I do to get this fixed?

Following the instructions, flash each UPDATE.APP in order:

Transfer > put the UPDATE.APP file in a new folder sdcard\dload and run forced upgrade (vol up + down)
dload (main) > overwrite UPDATE.APP in sdcard\dload, run forced upgrade again
vendor > overwrite UPDATE.APP in sdcard\dload and run forced upgrade for the last time

Note:

the UPDATE.APP needs to be copied from each folder to sdcard\dload\
phone should reboot after each forced upgrade

Install Any Recovery Like CRM or TWRP....

search for "Room original del huawei y210D" in youtube. Exactly as given.... u will see one HD video link in search result.. downlaod the file mentioned in description of the vdo...
Download the rom file mentioned in youtube vdo description

Wipe the OS of ur mobile. wipe cache.. and others. Keep downloaded zip file in SD card.
Install using recovery....
Enjoy....


How to deal with link2sd? I installed link to sd and moved apps without creating the 2nd partition , do I must unistall my apps (I can't move them to internal storage),If I can do a recovery please tell me how!

Download DU Speed Booster. It has some handy features such as move to SD and Safe Uninstall and will help you out.


can't get monitor mode for my galaxy alpha's wifi in stock rom so i am trying to do the monitor mode for my phone's wifi
which is samsung galaxy alpha sm-g850f running stock 5.0.2,
and i used the bcmon app and it says no firmware detected .

also i installed kali linux through linux deploy app,
and whenever i try to do the monitor mode for my wlan0 using airmon-ng command,
it just says an error there is no such device (-19)

and i have no idea where to start to know the problem,

i thought maybe i the chipset if the wifi doesn't support that thing,
so if i bought a usb external wifi card and connect it via otg , would it do the job as wlan1? or is there a way to fix the wlan0?

You might try this, i want to try that too: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2338179


Get rid of setting bar above Gboard keyboard How do I get rid of this bar above the Gboard keyboard?

I checked all of its settings, cannot seem to find it.

OnePlus One - Android 6.0.1

Older Gboard doesn't have the setting bar above the keyboard, so downgrading is one of the options.

Here's what Gboard v5.1.18 looks like.

You can make it disappear if you set the height of the keyboad to small.


Samsung Galaxy Ace Internet showing network problem I have bought a Samsung Galaxy Ace few days back. And it's showing network / connection problem or error, or connection time out. Whenever I try to open a page it shows "Webpage not available". And just to check whether the Internet is working properly or not, I have activated the 'net pack, still it's loading, loading, and loading but not opening the site. Google home page is opening but after Google not even a single page is opening. Samsung applications are also not opening. It shows network error.  Google play store is having the same problem. Please help.

Don't worry as the device is new you have warranty, do a factory reset and see.


Reduce minimum in call volume I find that the minimum in-call volume on my HTC Desire is still far to loud on some calls.

Since I got the phone, I have flashed several different custom ROMs, radio updates, etc, and have had the issue throughout.

Do you know of any way (setting, hack, app, whatever) to reduce the minimum volume?

My device is rooted and I am currently running one of the CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread) nightly builds.

Place a single layer over the speaker.*
Repeat Step 1 as needed.

*Works with Wii-motes too.

I'm pretty sure Tasker can do this.  I've seen references to people doing it, but I haven't found a specific profile/recipe for it.  They have a 7-day trial you can get to fool around with it.


What can I do with an Nexus One with a broken LCD? I've managed to acquire a Google Nexus One, that had an unfortunate encounter with a car door.  The screen still accepts touch input, but the LCD itself is broken - no display at all.  What is something "cool" I can do with it?  My main concern is, is it possible to root it and get a remote shell without being able to see the screen?

You can get a remote shell with it, without the screen working. You will have to install the android SDK on your PC.

Another thing you can do is use Android ScreenCast to view the screen remotely. It doesn't have the best frame rate, but at least you will be able to interact with the screen. You may have to use this to get the remote shell working, as you may have to turn on USB Debugging in Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB Debugging

You can also get a replacement screen, I found a couple on ebay, ranging from ~$50 - ~$100. Some are just the LCD screen, some include the the touch input panel too.

Just go to a store and say that it was an incident.. Pay the fee and get a new display


"Couldn't move app. Not enough storage space." I have factory reset my phone, inserted & formated a new 64GB MicroSD Card As my wife bought an Android Phone last year, she has been using an 8GB MicroSD card, recently she wanted to increase more storage space due to having more music and photograph files. As such, I bought a new SanDisk 64GB MicroSD card Class10.

I have successfully formatted the 64GB MicroSD card using the phone's Format function and copied all her photos and music files into the card, I can view all the photos and play the mp3 with no problem. I can also successfully install Apps from PlayStore.

The problem comes when I start to move Apps from Internal to SD using the "Move to SD" function, which will prompt me "Couldn't move app. Not enough storage space."

So I thought there might be some residual apps data somewhere in the phone memory, hence, I factory reset the phone, reformat the 64GB MicroSD, and copy all the photos (folder name: Pictures) and mp3 (folder name: Music) back into the MicroSD. Although I have nearly 50GB of free space in the MicroSD, unfortunately, I am getting the same error again.

Details of the phone:
Model number: e1901_v77gq2008
Android Version: 4.1.1
Build Number: e1901_v77_gq2008_20130131

Appreciate advice for any kind soul.

With some models of phones there is a difference between "internal SD card" and "external SD card", where the former is just a link to the phones internal storage (whyever). The latter is your real SD card.

It might be that you are not able to use your SD card in the way you like due to this limitation. Using a file explorer, can you see a difference between /storage/sdcard0 and /storage/extSDcard (or similar entries)?

What puzzles me most is that you said the problem occurs after a factory reset. So not even the smallest app is movable?

If the phone/tablet can only handle 32gb of free space at a time partition your SD card... its just a shot in the dark as many android builds are not capable of seeing two SD cards... and the filesystem you can use are dependent on the kernel, fat filesystems seem to work on most is vfat fat16 and fat32... also ext 2 through 4 are native to Linux which android uses a moded Linux kernel, so you might try those... and in rare cases I've seen android not be able to see two partition of the same fs but could see them if they where different and I've seen the exact opposite too... they had to be the same in order to be recognized....


Docx document is read-only in LibreOffice I created a docx file in LibreOffice on my computer running Debian 9.1 with KDE and copied it to my Android phone. On the phone I try to open the file with the LibreOffice app. However I can't edit the file and just read the document as it's read-only - I get:

  This file is read-only, saving is disabled.

I already tried a couple of other formats and doing File->Save a Copy on my computer.
How can I get it to be editable?

In your computer open terminal and cd to the directory where the file is located, then type sudo chmod 777 PATH_TO_FILE, then send it to your device.


Using Apple Lossless with Google Play Music I have a lot of music encoded in Apple Lossless (ALAC), but Google Play Music doesn’t seem to support it.  Instead Google Play Music supports FLAC, but iTunes doesn’t support it.

I don’t care how encoded my music are, but want to encode these without any loss.  How do you guys manage your lossless music using iTunes + Google Play Music?  I believe it’s not only my problem.

Edit: Okay, I finally gave up, and encoded my all files encoded in ALAC/FLAC to normal AAC.  There seems no way to use both at a time as of now.

First are you talking about storing the music on your Android device or on the Google servers?

If you are planning on streaming music to your device from the Google Music Play servers then you can't store your music in a lossless format see this page about formats on Google Play Music, and notice this line:

  FLAC, ogg, and aac files are transcoded to 320kbps mp3

However, if you want to store the music locally on your device then your question makes more sense.

There are a few ways to put ALAC music on your Android device in FLAC

Keep your library in ALAC and convert songs to FLAC as you want them. Then move the new FLAC files to your device.  A program like Max should be able to handle the conversion for you.
Convert all of your ALAC files to FLAC in place and then use fluke to enable FLAC playback support in itunes.

What option you select depends on how much you like to keep your OS free of plugins like fluke and how ofter you are moving music to and from your device.

Where do you got your music files? If you rip them from a CD you can rip again to WAV. I think both iTunes and Android Player support it
and WAV is better than FLAC or ALAC, though is bigger size.

If you insist keeping your current format, you can always try another player
like FLAC Player or Golden Ears for iPod/iPhone/iPad, or Poweramp for Android.

I personally use FLAC Player in my iPod and Poweramp in a Sony NWZ-Z1060 (Android walkman).

My current format for portable is FLAC and for Desktop is WAV. I'm an audiophile, so I'm very sensitive about file format. I still prefer FLAC for portable because the size difference between FLAC/ALAC and WAV is very huge.


2G versus 3G: Does it really save battery? I often hear the recommendation that fixing your device to 2G saves a lot of juice compared to using 3G.

Is that true? Or is it really a myth?

Fast answer:
Nes. Yo. Well, it all depends... on how you use your device.
Detailed answer
Self-Experiment
I just did a self-experiment to find out. Until now, I had all my devices fixed to 2G -- as that should "save juice", like the question suggests. So for 4 days now, I have 3G enabled. Surprisingly: No difference which could not be explained by measurement errors or slightly different situations (after all, I had a. no lab conditions and b. just tested with a single device). Humm. Time to go for some facts, and do some calculations.
Hard data
I already posted some hard data on battery consumptions of components as answer to the question What can I do to increase battery life on my Android device?, more than half a year ago. So now I picked the relevant values, made an average over the two devices, and -- I admit -- slightly adjusted things to reduce differences:

I took the best GSM (2G) speed possible to make 2G seem faster
I took worse conditions to "slow down" UMTS (3G) to conditions which should be met even in areas where it was not improved to the "the latest cutting-edge" (oh, speaking of "edge": 2G assumes EDGE here).

And now I've got some surprising answers: Whether 2G saves more juice than 3G, or vice versa, depends on how you use your device. I created 4 different "usage-groups", and added a 5th special case at the end. Here are my results:

Few phone minutes, few data
Yeah -- that's me: 150..300 minutes talk per month, that makes not more than an average of 5..10 min per day. I have a 50 MB data flat, and hardly ever use it up (which makes for ~ 1.5 MB/day). So I'm mostly left with "standby":

~UMTS StdBy 15 mW
~GSM StdBy  10 mW

Consider that your screen uses 400..800 mW on average when turned on, a difference of 5 mW can safely be ignored. Besides, the little data even compensate -- but I get ahead of myself.

The 24/7 caller with no time for data
...better switches to 2G:

~UMTS Tel   800 mW
~GSM Tel    400 mW

As you can see, when on-call, 3G uses about twice as much juice than 2G would use (and you don't speak faster on 3G -- a call is a call, and will take the same time). So if you spend a lot of time in calls, and have only little data traffic, you're much better off with 2G/GSM.

Few phone minutes, but big data sucker
Here comes the big surprise: This group saves a lot when sticking with 3G/UMTS:

~UMTS XFER  1200 mW
~EDGE XFER  1000 mW

Doesn't look like a huge difference? OK: looking on "how much does it suck per minute" might not make the big deal. So we need a second component:

~UMTS speed dl/ul   7/1 MBit/s (HSDPA/HSUPA)
~EDGE speed dl/ul   200/100 kbit/s

You see I assumed max speed for EDGE, but not the state-of-the-art (20 MBit/s downstream) for UMTS. UMTS coverage might differ between areas, but the 7+ MBit/s should be available everywhere. Now let's look how long the download/upload of 1 MB data takes, and how much juice that corresponds to:

~UMTS 1MB dl/ul     1s/8s ~ 1200/9600 mWs
~EDGE 1MB dl/ul     40s/80s ~ 40.000/80.000 mWs

That's about a factor of 1:7 for upload, and even more than 1:30 for download!
So yeah: This group is definitely better off sticking to 3G!!!

Multi-Tasker: 24/7 on call while using full data
This now very much depends on what "full data" stands for, and if you're really a 24/7 on-call-boy (or girl). No clear answer for this, you must put your own data into the equation and do the calculation. It's rather 50:50 -- as with group #1, you might run a "zero growth" -- or tend to either group 2 or group 3.

Special case: The "hopper"
Especially in rural areas, coverage might be, humm, "slippery". Your device might be permanently toggling between 2G and 3G, always on the hunt for the better signal. Here all the above might become relative, as the toggling itself is drinking the juice. If you are in such a situation: Check to which of the 4 groups above you fit best, and fix your device to either 3G or 2G, depending on.
Btw: A similar situation would be if you've got the idea to toggle between 2G/3G whenever you switch your display off/on. As the toggling requires up to 10s full-power (to find the corresponding stations; 2G and 3G use different frequencies), you wouldn't really "save juice".

Epilog
Yepp, I completely forgot about 4G/LTE. But incidentally. First: I have no 4G/LTE device for a self-experiment. Second: I have no "hard data" on 4G/LTE. So all I could do is guessing. Doing that, OK, OK: It most likely will be the same as above -- just increment the numbers by one :)

Specs of Xperia SP according to Sony.

Talk time (max.):

2G: 625 min. (10.4 h)

3G: 1133 min. (18.9 h)

Stand-by (max.):

2G: 635 h (26.5 days)

3G: 734 h (30.6 days)

4G: 709 h (29.5 days)


Google Play Services crashing constantly My wife has a Samsung Galaxy Note 4, she didn't install any new apps on the phone today or yesterday, but now her Google Play services is crashing constantly (like every 5-10 seconds).

We tried the obvious stuff:

Uninstall a bunch of apps she's not using
Close all the apps
Reboot lots of times

So my next step was to enable USB Debugging and Connect with ADB.  This gave me this clue when the error dialog shows up:

07-17 19:14:05.078 18130-18130/? E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
   Process: com.google.android.gms.persistent, PID: 18130
   java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to create service com.google.android.location.internal.server.GoogleLocationService: java.lang.SecurityException: !@Too many alarms (500) registered from pid 3620 uid 10015
       at android.app.ActivityThread.handleCreateService(ActivityThread.java:3817)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2100(ActivityThread.java:221)
       at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1882)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:158)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7225)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1230)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1120)
    Caused by: java.lang.SecurityException: !@Too many alarms (500) registered from pid 3620 uid 10015
       at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1620)
       at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1573)
       at android.app.IAlarmManager$Stub$Proxy.set(IAlarmManager.java:217)
       at android.app.AlarmManager.setImpl(AlarmManager.java:484)
       at android.app.AlarmManager.set(AlarmManager.java:466)
       at irq.a(:com.google.android.gms:162)
       at irq.a(:com.google.android.gms:210)
       at irq.a(:com.google.android.gms:199)
       at idq.e(:com.google.android.gms:457)
       at idq.<init>(:com.google.android.gms:164)
       at com.google.android.location.internal.server.GoogleLocationChimeraService.a(:com.google.android.gms:107)
       at com.google.android.location.internal.server.GoogleLocationChimeraService.onCreate(:com.google.android.gms:85)
       at com.google.android.chimera.container.ServiceProxy.onCreate(:com.google.android.gms:151)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.handleCreateService(ActivityThread.java:3807)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2100(ActivityThread.java:221)
       at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1882)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:158)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7225)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1230)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1120)

I keyed in on this portion of the error:

Unable to create service com.google.android.location.internal.server.GoogleLocationService

So I revoked Location permissions from a few more applications, and changed the Location Mode from "High Accuracy" to GPS Only.  At that point the error message became manageable when not in an application that needs it, but still comes up very frequently if I open Google Maps.

What else should I be trying to resolve this issue?

As a last resort before resetting her phone, I saw she still had "Pokémon Go" on her phone.  I uninstalled that and the problem went away.  It must have some background services too, because the app wasn't running in the task swap view.

When I reinstalled the app, I picked her profile, and it reloaded.  The phone worked fine for the last few hours, so it seems to be resolved.

Google Play Services stopped may be due to various reasons.I would recommend you to try out these steps-
1. Check for enough memory on your Phone.
2.Try to Check the Play Store. Is it working fine? If not then try to force stop and clear the Data.
3.Try to update your Play store Services.
4.If you want to get rid of this error that pops up on your Screen.Just Go to Settings>Apps>All>Search for Play Store Services and Press the Disable Button to stop this error screen forever.
Hope this helps!


How can I find obb folder in a rooted device to copy a game's sd data files and play game? I have a Samsung Galaxy S2. Before I rooted my phone and I played games like Modern Combat 4, Virtue Tennis, Need for Speed Most Wanted and The Dark Knight Rises. These are games' sd data, I copied in obb folder.

Now I've rooted my phone and I want to install those games but I cant find obb folder in my device. Where do I copy the game's sd data? Can I play these kind of games in a rooted device?

Here is a backup tool by Koushik Dutta (aka Koush) : Helium Backup

Using this you can backup complete app including data and restore it back. Just backup on your device, copy the files to your other device and restore it back.

I've tested it personally and it works flawlessly on non rooted devices.

Try this and let me know if you face any issues.

Create that obb folder in Android folder.


Google Play Services Sync problem on Android 2.3.6 I have a phone Samsung GT-S5302 it has stock ROM and root.

When it connects to internet it started to sync as always (sync icon appears), but the icon doesn't disappear even after 8 hours and I can't enter Google Play Store, Google+ account, Hangouts, I get an error "Google Talk authentication problem" and it reduces all phone performance.
Then I try to freeze Google Play Services with Link2SD problem disappear: sync works fine, error disappear, I can enter to Android Play Market, download and install app...
But in this case Google+, Hangouts of course don't work because they need Google Play Services to work fine.
What I've already tried:

I tried to erase cash, app data of the next processes: Play Market, Google Play Services, Google Services Framework and reboot device.

I tried to erase userdata and add only my google account again with no changes.

I tried to reinstall gapps for gingerbread using CWM unsuccessfully again.

I tried to switch off automatic date/time settings and after reboot turn on again - no luck.

I tried to delete Google Play Services and reinstall it with Play Market - the same problem.

So the question is:
Is there any way to solve the problem with Google+ or may be one know where do I need to look or what do I need to do further?

After looking through verbose log of my mobile phone I noticed that Google Play Services (GMS) can't find class "android.os.UserManager" and it has another dead codes connected with Google Play Services (gms).

And this blocks of errors apear over and over again so Google Play Services restarts them self. Class "android.os.UserManager" require API level 17; my phone has API level 10 so I decided to install the older versions of Goolge Play Services.
After that I find out that problems appear with versions of Goolge Play Services greater then 8.3.0. With 8.3.0 and below there is no such problem. Google+ works fine with this version of GMS.

I install all programs that I need using Play Market and after that I delete all data and updates of Play Market to prevent updating Goolge Play Services (I find out that Play Market respones for updating Goolge Play Services).

I too had this problem. I think you too have noticed that the Google Play Services app crashes as well. So I firstly uninstalled it.

Then after rooting my phone, I factory-resetted everything (lot o f times) and after that, now it works smoothly. And no problem in synchronization either.


How to prevent MoboGenie popups in Chrome? I browse around with many tabs open. Frequently, an ok/cancel dialog "MoboGenie - Play Now" pops up for attention. The host (of the popup) site keeps the dialog hidden till it pops up for attention.

I find it difficult to single out sites which host this popup. None of them host suspicious or intrusive advertisements otherwise.

there is an application you can download for rooted devices called AdAway.
 it's not in the market, but if you don't have a problem with installing third party apks, this is a complete advertisement blocker for both in-app and browser.

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.adaway

you can use popup blocker "Ad Block" in chrome or "ABP- AdBlock Plus"
for firefox.


Phone won't boot/start after successful flashing through QFIL My phone was bricked, so I decided to flash my phone LYF f1s with the stock ROM through QFIL, but after after successful flashing it won't start !! Nothing happens, no matter which combination of volume and power buttons I press, only the charging light blinks or keep flashing when I connect it to my charger or laptop. Please help !!

Looks like some of the images are incorrect for your phone?
or maybe you can try to remove the battery, then put it back and try again.

Just unplug your battery and wait for 5 to 10 min until phone get back to its normal temperature. Then plug the battery as it was earlier and start your phone.


birthday duplicates after removing google account and adding it again After removing my Google-Account on my HTC One S and adding it again, i recognized that all birthdays stored with contacts are in my calendar twice. When i change birthday at some contact, there is only one, which changes. The information is not from another calendar like Facebook or Google.
After removing my account once and adding it, i had two birthdays for each contact, only one changes.
After removing my account another time and adding it, i had three birthdays for each conatct and only one changes.

So why this happens or how can i delete or avoid this?

I would like the delete either automically or manually (prefering automatically) but i found no solution to do this.

I made a screenshot to make it clearer.

Meanwhile, the only thing that helped was a softreset.i wanted to do it fast. And after the new HTC Update i switched to some Custom Roms anyway.

"Online version of GCalToolkit" may help.

http://gcaltoolkit.net/

  Follow these simple steps to remove all duplicates from Google
  Calendar, clean up failed Imports and Sync Sessions, delete events
  based on text or date ranges, and more... If that's not enough -
  please try the Windows Desktop Software version of GCalToolkit.:


Xperia J becomes little unresponsive after I make or receive a call My Xperia J becomes little unresponsive after I make or receive a call. I have to restart the phone afterwards. I did a factory reset and it worked for 3-4 days, but the problem comes again.

Do a general reset all will be well. If you still have trouble, do a factory reset by holding the volume down and power buttons as you turn phone on.


Archive SMS messages, without extra permissions Answers to the following question list a number of Android apps that can be used to backup SMS messages:

How do I backup and restore SMS Messages?

However, all of the applications mentioned in the answers seem to require lots of permissions that are not strictly necessary; examples include "receive SMS", "edit SMS or MMS", "full Internet access", "read contact data", "write contact data", "write contact data", "read phone state and identity", etc.

Is there any tool that

simply copies all SMS messages to a local file on the SD card,
does not require any irrelevant permissions – as far as I can see, permissions "read SMS or MMS" and "modify/delete SD card contents" should be enough.

Edit: Based on the answers, I had a closer look at SMS Backup & Restore Pro. It is better than nothing – at least it does not require any kind of Internet access. However:

It cannot copy messages stored on the SIM card, only messages stored in the inbox.
It does not work on Android 3.2 tablets.
It still requires far too many permissions for my needs.

TxtArchive does not seem to work on Android 3.2, either.

As you don't ask to restore them (just to backup): Did you take a look at TxtArchive SMS Backup? Yupp, costs a few bucks. But hence it needs no ads, and no internet: Read SMS/MMS, Read Contactdata (both are connected -- you surely want to know who wrote the SMS ;), and store to SD.

Similarly SMS Backup & Restore Pro for about the same price (2 Euro), which also wants to write SMS/MMS (to restore them), and keep the phone from sleeping while it does the work.

Oh, plus the requirement mentioned by Flow: "read phone state and identity" is also required. -- though the app states Android minversion 1.6 (this requirement was removed with Android 2.0 AFAIK -- for all previous versions it was a "must").

Simple search for SMS Backup on the playstore, both on page 1 -- not too hard to find. Hope you like them ;)

"Backup to Gmail " is an app am using on my S3 (don't have any other Android device to try it on)


Help identifying tablet manufacturer and model to get specs I received a 7" tablet as a "gift" when I attended a presentation recently. I'd like to find out some specs about it (processor details, who the manufacturer is in case I need support, etc.). I hope someone can help point me in the right direction...

The device came in a white and blue box that said "Android" and "Tablet PC" on it. There is no mention of any manufacturer, so my guess is I got an extremely cheap Chinese tablet. The instructions seem to indicate so...the English in it is horrible.

Based on the "About tablet" section in Settings, it seems to be running stock Android 4.0.4 and its model number is "TWD_MID". I did some searches but couldn't find any conclusive manufacturer/specs.

It has 1GB of internal storage, another "internal storage" worth 1.71GB, and it has a "TF Card" slot...which takes MicroSD cards.

Thanks in advance...

Kevin

Super easy:

Go to all settings
About Device (in my case About Phone)

Then you should see where it says Model Number that is your device. Mine says:

  DROID RAZR M

as the model number (not really a number but whatever).

A quick google search will give you the specs you want. Just search for your model + "specs" and you should be able to find it pretty easily.

Edit:

If the model number did not give you enough info, try searching the Model number along with the System Version, it might give you more information. You could also use the screen size specified in the Hardware Information to narrow your results.

Download the app cpu identifier, it will tell you all thee info about your device


My Nexus 4 always recognised as ADB device instead of MTP I plugged in Nexus 4 to my windows machine(XP Service Pack 2) and it didnt recognise or install any software automatically. I downloaded some ADB drivers from google and now it shows up as recognised device(that is ADB device) in the Device Manager, but it is not recognized as MTP . because of this i am not able to tranfer data into my phone or vice versa...

Uninstall the device from Device Manager, then plug it out and in again :)


How to stop Viber running without uninstalling it? How do I stop Viber running, without uninstalling the app? When I go Menu→More options→Exit it just comes back. I want it to turn it off completely, so it's not waiting to come on in the background.

This is an official rep. of Viber.

Due to the C2DM feature, you are always available on Viber, there is not way to  "log out" and "log in".
Please note that if you "exit" Viber, it will open again only if you get a msg or call.

Let us know if you have any additional questions.

Thanks!
Viber Team

AFAIK you can't stop the process in the background without unistalling it. You can logout from your viber account, then it won't display you any notifications
// I must add to here, that once you logged in Viber has no known way to log out


Cannot connect my Galaxy Ace to my Google account I have 'Market' and every time I attempt to log into it using my Google account it says that it 'Can't establish a reliable data connection to the server.'

Any idea what could be done to get it working?

Setting the correct System date and time.

It turns out authentication requires establishing a secure connection with Google’s server. The SSL certificate contains a expiration date which would be compared against the system date of the Android system. If the system date is too far in the past or in the future, the validation would be failed, thus the connection cannot be established. This is a security measures of the HTTPS connection, so check your system date next time encountering such strange error message.

OR

If that above fix is not working for you then you can try out ‘YouTube Connection Trick’ to rectify this problem.
Follow the below steps –

Add YouTube app and login into your Gmail account.
Go through the Gmail asp and add account if needed.
Sign in to your Gmail account with your user name and the password.
Go through your login process and now try to check Menu > Settings > Account & Sync.
Select “Add account” and add a secondary account.

This solution will work out if the above doesn’t works.

Go to your google account and turn off 2 Step Verification . . I had same problem not being able to add google account to Galaxy Ace 8530i and only solution I found was to turn off 2 Step Verification, log into my account, then turn it back on.


Turn off vibration notification for ALL apps at once In my stock, unrooted Android 4.3 on a Nexus 4, if I uncheck the feature Vibrate when ringing under Sound Settings, it only turns off vibration for Calls. This does not turn off vibration notification for individual apps (Whatsapp,FB etc). Therefore what I am looking for is an option to turn off vibration system wide, which means the phone should not vibrate for anything, be it calls, text messages or app notifications.
It's like this feature on iOS...when Vibrate on Silent is Off, switching the phone to silent mode turns vibration off system wide.

Is there any app that enables me to toggle this setting?
If Tasker is a suggestion, please provide a detailed description as I am still on the learning curve.

Update 1
Currently (until Oreo) there's no way to do this without having root and installing the application marked as answer below. For Xposed users, there's a free alternative: VibrationTuner

Update 2
It should not come as a surprise, but MIUI has this. Tested on MIUI 9.5.

Update: Android Pie (9.0) finally allows you to disable all the vibrations. Go to Settings app > Accessibility > Vibration. Some ROMs still don't have this option, in which case you may want to check out my old solution.

Old solution - applies to Android Oreo or older (<9.0):
Stock Android does not have an option to disable all vibrations. This frustrated me as well, so I made an app that can turn them off system-wide - https://blade.sk/projects/global-vibration-toggle/
A rooted phone is required, as there is no API for disabling vibrations.
The app is basically a user-friendly wrapper for this shell command: chmod 444 /sys/devices/virtual/timed_output/vibrator/enable.

Messaging > Menu (bottom left button) > Settings > Notification Settings > Uncheck Vibrate


Sony Xperia M4 Start Screen almost black After a reboot, my new xperia always starts with this screen:

I have the same problem in 'Safe Mode'.

What can I do? I want to fix this problem without a factory reset.

Edit:
I found more people with same problem on Sony's forum. I fixed reseting to factory using PC Companion: https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Xperia-M4-Aqua/M4-Aqua-won-t-start/m-p/1025996/thread-id/1311


USB Debugging in Brick phone Is it possible to enable USB Debugging in a bricked phone? my phone is not started so for Fastboot mode it requires usb debugging mode enable. but i didn't enable it. Is it possible?

Its impossible...

Everyone should enable debugging mode....
Otherwise if anything happens to your  phone its impossible to recover.


How can I get Kies to detect my Galaxy S GT-i9000 on Windows 7? When I connect my phone to my Windows 7 PC the Kies application opens and displays "Connecting", but it does not connect. Why? How can I fix it?

This answer doesn't seem to apply if you have a Galaxy S running the official Froyo, and the latest Kies as they seem to have fixed many of these issues now, this is mainly for if you're running an older phone OS or Kies version.

For prior versions of Kies and the Galaxy S (I don't know which upgrade is the one that fixes it) there were quite a few problems Kies had seeing phones.

Some of these problems were driver problems, you can generally fix these by using the reinstall drivers option in the Kies menu at the top-left of the Kies screen.

Kies had problems connecting properly to phones that had files on them with long file extensions (I think the problem was  if they were 16 characters or longer, but I couldn't be sure).

To get round this problem, firstly if you have an SD card in your phone, unmount, eject and remove it for the moment, this saves a lot of messing around with the contents of that card, you can plug it back in after you've done everything you need to in Kies.

Next attach your phone to your PC in Mass Storage mode, and have a hunt round on the internal SD card and internal memory for groups of files with long names and long file extensions (one particular culprit is often the pictures' thumbnails cache which sits under Android\Data\com.cooliris.media on the internal memory; you can safely delete everything in that folder, it'll get automatically regenerated next time its needed). Once you've done this, disconnect from the PC, run the My Files app, and go in and re-delete that folder if it has regenerated (if you haven't got My Files you should be able to find it in the Samsung Apps listing, if not you can use something like Astro File Manager).

Finally make sure you are actually connecting to the PC in Kies mode. depending how your phone's set you may get a list appear on the phone's screen when you plug it into your PC asking what mode to connect in, make sure you select Kies mode. If you're not seeing that menu and its automatically connecting in one mode or another, then you can go into your settings and re-enable that menu. On a Froyo Galaxy S (it was somewhere slightly different on Eclair but I can't remember where) go into Settings -> Wireless and Network -> USB Settings, and select "Ask on connection".

Of course this all depends what you want to use Kies for, if you want to backup files from the phone, look up contacts, send/manage text messages, etc then it might be worth trying out the Kies Air app that Samsung released into the Samsung store recently, this runs a website on your phone that you can connect to from a PC using your web browser over the wifi connection, this smooths out almost all of the connection problems and is actually quite a nice, handy piece of software.

I have discovered after a lot of experimenting that not all supposedly compatible USB to micro-usb cables will work with the Galaxy S.
Even though your PC may make the connecting sounds and KIES will say connecting, the connection is never completed.
The Samsung original lead (Marked U2 APCBU10BBE KD1ZC08TS E) works every time for me. However of two unbranded leads one (the longer one) works perfectly whilst the shorter one seems only to work to supply power.
As USB is a four wire system +ve, -D, +D and ground I suspect that some of these cheap cables are possibly only wired to supply power or have the +D and -D lines transposed.
So I'd say it's worth ensuring you're using the genuine Samsung cable as a first check.


How do I stop Android to auto enabling allow unknown sources? Every time I restart my android 5 lollipop phone It auto enables allow installation of apps from unknown sources option. I switch it off manually then in a few seconds a pop up for an unknown app to install shows and on the behind the unknown sources button automatically toggles. This keeps on going forever. I haven't rooted my phone and have factory reset it many times. My phone is Xolo Era 4g.

Please tell a method to not allow any app to toggle the unknown sources options on without rooting the phone, thanx.

Update: I first installed Antimalware app and when I run it, it found around 16 malwares, of which I deleted 14 but the there was no option to delete the last two. Then I installed the notification app. I restarted my phone. After that the internet automatically started. I immediately switched it off. Then I went to settings and switched off to allow unknown apps installation.

Then I opened menu and slide it a few times and the malware attacked again. Opening the settings disclosed that unknown apps installation is switched on. Many apps promoted for installation. After pressing cancel around 50 times I went to menu again and many new apps were installed. I have repeated this scenario two times once I switched internet on. But with internet off I saw apps installation prompt too. I don't remember with internet off whether the apps got actually installed or not.

Now I opened notification app and it showed one process having some text similar to Andriod UI lolipop 5.0, it had a lollipop icon to its left. On clicking on that it further showed one process the process was related to notification app itself and had text toaster or may be toasted. Now I have factory reset my phone again and have uninstalled all default apps like flipkart, snapdeal, payTM, UC browser etc. Now if I'll again restart my phone the virus will start again.

This also happened to my phone. Even after several flashes, the torrent of annoying self-install apps keeps happening. Malwarebytes I used can't touch the last infected file; the system settings itself. Even right after flashing the third time, apparently the settings app which is the backbone of everything has been compromised from the get go.
My findings suggest that this was a known vulnerability issues and Google acknowledge it. Alas, there are still no solution nor updates to rectify it other than suggest user to stop using the phones that use 5.1 altogether. FML.
So, out of rage, I took drastic measure. I delete the settings app with the help of Root Explorer. Of course, I've made certain preps before I did, since I'm fully aware the consequence once I did.
Now, I can't even connect my phone to my PC via USB, nor I am able to log in a new Wi-Fi spot. A price I pay just to save my data cap from being drained by involuntary app download.

Switch off make passwords visible button as well as unknown sources. This stops unknown sources opening by itself.


How can I install Skype on my NexusOne phone? I search for Skype in Android Market application and cannot find it. I live in Vietnam.

Skype publish their app directly into specific country's Android Markets, they don't publish it to the "Rest of the world Market", Vietnam doesn't have its own Market, it uses the "Rest of The World Market".

Skype's FAQ says:

  Why can’t I download Skype from the
  Android Market?

  The Android Market only distributes
  applications in certain countries, so
  it’s possible that your location isn’t
  supported. To find a full list of
  supported locations, please visit
  Android Market Developer Help.

  If you live in a country that's not
  listed,  then you can still download
  Skype for your Android phone from
  GetJar.com. Simply search for “Skype”
  and download it for free.

You can search for Skype on the Android Market or you can download the APK file directly from the Skype website, click here.


Disable Touch Input Tracking Bubble on 4.4.2 CM 11 About a week ago my Samsung Note II started tracking all touch input with a bubble. It acts sort of like mouse trails, although there is only one bubble. I don't remember turning this feature on, and after looking through all the settings and applications I can't find any way to disable it. The phone is running a CyanogenMod 11 Nightly (Build cm-11-20140222-NIGHTLY-i605.zip) but I noticed it on previous builds of CM 11 as well.

Here are some screenshots of the bubble tracking touch input in various applications:

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

Does anyone know how to turn this off?

Found it. I remembered installing a beta app from Cyanogenmod called Screencast which can be used to record the screen if you have a CM 11 ROM. When you start recording there is an option in the notification bar to Show Touches. I had enabled this when playing with the Screencast app, and it continues to track touch input even after you stop the recording. Disabling the Show Touches option fixed my issue.

Go to Setting -> Developer Options -> Show touches -> Off


How do I remove images from the Downloads folder that are visible from within certain apps, but not visible from any file manager? Background: I used to use the Share with another app button on Google Chrome to send images from Google Chrome App to my Text Messaging App. It would go to my text message but not be seen in the Downloads folder.

Now, if I have a file stored in the Downloads folder that I want to attach to either a Text Message (via Messaging App) or an Email (via Gmail App), when I go to upload that file from the File Explorer within one of those Apps, all of the images that I have ever "Shared" in the method described are listed there, and can be clicked and uploaded as though they are stored in the system. However, when I use a File Management App, they are not there.

I simply want to remove the images from the Downloads folder, or from appearing as though they are in the Downloads folder to certain Apps (i.e., Messages and Gmail). Also, I'd like an appreciation of what is going on, but I think that would be clear upon a solution being presented.

I am not interested in rooting my phone.

What Has Not Worked:

• Clearing cache of Google, Google Chrome, and Messages Apps

• Deleting the Downloads folder in its entirety.

• Downloading multiple File Explorers and Hidden Image/File Apps to Search for the Locations of the Files

• Granting storage permissions to Google Chrome Apps

That's because those images are still in the servers of those particular apps and not in your device. They will be removed eventually.

Edit: The problem has been solved by the OP himself. I did not quite understand the situation when I wrote this answer. Please refer to the comments bellow.


Vibration- Samsung Galaxy Ace Can anyone guide me or advise on how to disable the in-built vibration for holding down on the screen whilst copy/paste to the clipboard?

Have searched in Settings and cannot find it.

I've checked the settings in my devices as I knew I've seen it somewhere.

On my Tabbies with 4.1.1: nothing found.
My Wildfire with 4.0.4 running CyanogenMod 9.1 has it in the Audio/Tone menu as Vibrate on touch
my Milestone 2 (CM7.2/Gingerbread) has it at the same place as haptic feedback
LG Optimus 4X (aka LG-P880) running stock 4.0.3: Again same place, Vibrate on touch

So the location of this setting seems to be quite clear -- but some manufacturers seem to have the setting removed/hidden. If your device belongs to that group, take a look at Spare Parts Plus! (no ads), which offers this setting at the end of its main screen as haptic feedback (the app is free and has no ads).

If you dwn load the nq smart booster app when using the app to optimize the battery ,the haptic appears and u can enable or disable it accordingly, its does not appear in d settings.


Grey ticks of whatsapp My friend does conversations with me on whatsapp and respond to each and every message I sent to him yet grey double ticks on my messages do not turn blue. Even in the information pane of message I cannot see the "Read time" of the message. However whenever I asked him to tell me what had I sent to him he replied correctly as if he were reading. How is he able to do that? Is there any trick or my mobile's fault? I have attached an screenshot also

he maybe simply reading them from his notification panel and replying.
This is in case if u guys are having short conversations ... else it might be either  1) he is using lucky patcher.
        2) he has simply unticked the blue ticks in privacy settings.


Calculator WiFi usage on Marshmallow, Nexus 5? What? I have not used the calculator app.  I also don't know why it would be using the wifi or any kind of external data.  Yet behold, below:

I flashed 6.0 recently and restored some apps from an old backup, but nothing that looked like calculator.  Should I be concerned, or is this a known thing?

First off,
   They no longer uses Floating point arithmetic al which I read from a blog.
Second,
    Marshmallow have introduced a lot of new features in its calculator which does uses internet for floating/decimal calculations for user-friendly UI and other touch gizmos. Currently its a kind of prototype, so it'll be downloading a bit for the updates but you can always disable the app from system settings.
You can see the new features from this site - http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/06/12/android-m-feature-spotlight-the-stock-calculator-app-has-been-overhauled-no-longer-uses-floating-point-arithmetic/