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Locked out of S-Color K60 Android
I recently purchased an Android phone that i sent to my mom. But my little brother put some gesture password and forgot it! My mother dont know the gesture, kid is unable to recall and starts weeping whenever asked about it. As far as i remember USB Debugging was never enabled. Below are the options i have given a try to.

Now when connected to my laptop, i am unable to detect the phone as it is in locked state (Detected but not accessible).
Tried the wipe data/factory reset option through Android system recovery <3e> menu and once rebooted, it again asks for the gesture key.
In Recovery mode, it shows apply update from ADB but unable to find TWRP recovery zip file for my device (S-Color K60)!
In Recovery mode, it shows apply update from sdcard, i tried sideloading Pattern-Password-disable.zip from xda, but it said Installing System Updates, then it said Error and later showed Installation aborted.
Tried calling from other number and click back button multiple times to get back to the same lock screen!
Tried going to Emergency call dial pad and click numbers randomly with no luck.
When connected to my laptop and run adb devices command, it shows List of devices attached but the list is Blank, however when i got to apply update from ADB on phone and try to list the devices connected, it gives a sideload menu on phone with a serial number followed by sideload on my cmd screen.

So after too much internet search i could succeed in unlocking the phone yet. Are there any other ways to unlock my phone?
Device Details:
S-Color K60 (Something i got at a cheap price tag, link below for reference only)
https://www.wins4.com/s-color?product_id=15718&page=2

When you perform a factory reset if can not ask for the gesture key afterwards because that gesture is saved in used data that is erased when performing a factory reset. It can ask for the Google password (Factory Reset Protection). If your device is not a used device and it really asks for the gesture key after a successful factory reset it is defect. In such a case give the device back and get your money back.


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How can I remove contacts from a phone without removing them from my Google account?
I have a 2nd phone (LG Stylo 6) that I will only use for some specific things & do not want all my contacts on it.  I hadn't realized sync was on when I entered my email. I shut sync off but when I go to remove contacts on the Stylo 6 I get a message "This contact will be removed from Google Contacts & all your synced devices."
I don't want to remove the contact from my Google contacts, I just want to remove it from this particular phone. Is this possible? Or do I have to come up with a new email for this phone so my Google contacts aren't effected?

This is not a good answer, but it's how I ended up doing it:
Settings > Accounts > Google > select account > Disable contacts sync
Then delete all the contacts by clicking selecting one for example and then on the three dots and select all -> delete.
Disclaimer -> do not sync the contacts again.
If you want to then you will have to go back to an older version by using the web view contacts.google.com

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


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Xiaomi Redmi 4 Malfunctioning
I have been using my Xiaomi Redmi 4(running on miui global 11.0.2, android 7.1.2) for almost 2 years now and never have I experienced such strange issues. Here's a list of some:
1)Play store: Cannot download any apps from play store. It says the app could not be downloaded, please troubleshoot. So I read the solutions, cleared cache and data from play store. I even uninstalled updates. When I tried to download or update any app, firstly the download did not start(it said downloading and never downloaded anything). Then I closed the app, cleared cache and data and opened it again(keep in mind this is the old version of play store as I uninstalled updates). This time the download started, but it reached around 13.60 mb/30mb and stopped. Then it said downloading again and restarted the download from 0 mb, reached 14.74 mb and stopped again. It kept looping like this 3 or 4 times and then I closed the app. I tried again, this time it download the whole 30 mb but gave me the error -506.

Chrome: I figured if I could not download apps from play store I would just download the APKs from chrome, but this didn't work either. When I clicked the download button chrome said "1 download pending" and waiting for network when I had a full strength connection. I tried again, cleared app cache and data, restarted the phone but again it showed download pending(I assure you it is not a connection problem). However browsing on the chrome app is completely fine, its just that I cannot download any files.

YouTube(app) keeps signing me out for no reason. It gives me an error and tells me to remove my account and sign in again. I go to settings and try to remove my Google account the remove account button is broken. I have tried to open the app again after rebooting,   but instead of giving me the error the app crashes and it says YouTube has Stopped(and keeps stopping). I have cleared cache, cleared data and rebooted but none of that works. Whenever I clear data or reboot and try to open the app, it crashed and says the app has stopped. I have tried to update the app but I cant- both my play store and chrome are broken.

When I reboot the phone the system tells me "android.acore.process" has stopped. I looked up this error on the internet, it said to clear the contacts data and cache. Did it. But this didnt fix the first 3 problems. I have no clue what acore process does.

I tried to play the "among us" video game(i had installed it before all these bugs started coming up) but whenever I open the game it says "insufficient space to download resources". I have tons of space left and this has never happened earlier.

WiFi not working: I click the WiFi button by scrolling the menu from the top of the screen but it doesn't turn on. I go to the WiFi settings and it says "turning WiFi on" but it never turns on. I rebooted my phone and by luck, somehow, the WiFi turned on and I haven't dared to turn it off since.

7)Settings search has stopped: I've been getting this error for quite some months now, and I don't think this is what's causing all the above problems. But I could be wrong, I have no idea

Never before seen strange system issues: I had a game APK saved from before. I tried to install it, it said "problem parsing the package"(I had installed the game from this same APK earlier) . Then I cleared the cache and data of package installer and tried installing, this time it said "insufficient storage space available" when I had plenty left. Please, why is every app malfunctioning? These are my storage stats btw: oh never mind, I tried to click a screenshot, it said "could not capture screenshot". Wow. Anyway, I have 2.39 GB free out of 16gb on internal storage and 25 GB free on my SD card.

I also have McAfee Antivirus Plus(the paid version) on my phone. I scanned and found no viruses. I also scanned with the Xiaomi built in security centre and found no issues.
The only real cause I can figure is that I might have deleted some system files. A few days ago I was on the drives app to clear the "other files" which are a huge mess on Xiaomi, and I deleted a couple of them. Is it possible I might have deleted an important file?
However I saw YouTube tutorials before deleting the "other files", they said it is alright to delete the other files as long as they're not named obb or backup files. Or is this a system bug? I have been on the miui 11.0.2 for about an year and I've never seen this happen before.
I've already posted this question on the Xiaomi forums as well but they have no clue what's going on. They told me to factory reset the phone but I don't want to lose my data. They also said that if the system has been corrupted, factory reset will do no good but they told me try it anyway.
Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on? Maybe some computer experts or software developers know which file I might've
deleted by mistake, or is it some other bug. Please help. My phone is a nightmare!

no, not possible you deleted important files. do a backup of your pictures to PC. try to backup some apps to micloud and google drive. some apps allow adb backup to PC. do factory reset and check if problem persist

Is there any other way to fix these problems? If I factory reset I am going to lose my MIUI updates as well and go back to miui10. And since redmi 4 updates have been discontinued since last year, my phone's security will be in jeopardy. Is there any particular app or file in MIUI you know which might be malfunctioning?

you can enable usb-debugging and run 'adb logcat > log.txt' open log file with Notepad++ and search for nearby lines mentioning android.acore.process maybe there is some useful information

Will solving the android.acore.process issue fix everything? Like I said I looked it up and the android troubleshooting site said clear the data of contacts, will that not solve the problem?

Does this answer your question? What is android.process.acore?

The android.acore.process seems to be working fine I guess, haven't seen any more popup system alerts. However this hasn't fixed anything. Downloading is still broken in play store and chrome

I did what you told but all I saw was lines of code which made no sense to me

Can you tell me why all my system apps are malfunctioning? The WiFi won't turn on, it doesn't let me capture screenshots, it says insufficient space when I have plenty left, package installer stops working, and all these Google apps are also bugged

maybe someone can tell you if you show us "lines of code which made no sense". the > operator is for redirecting terminal output to some file. once you have it you can share log.txt via pastebin.com (make it valid for 1 week autodeletion because may contain sensitive data like serialno, mac address etc)

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v7.9.5

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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ANDROID apps installed on my phone without my permission- i think my flatmate is controlling my phone?
Can someone you live with install android permissions to your apps on your phone and control your phone. Strange things are happening on my phone and I can't change permissions on apps and other apps are installed and and I never installed them and I can't uninstall them.
It's making me paranoid and I just want proof who installed them- can anyone help?
I have a Samsung s21 ultra and a Google account which sometimes I get logged out of and password changed. I did factory settings but the same thing happened again. I'm really stressed. Wifi and Bluetooth get turned on and data is being used. Once wifi calling was on when I switched my phone on and sim 2 was in use- I don't have a sim 2! Help me please.

there will be no proof who installed them. is Samsung Knox Secure Folder still working - then your phone is secure. just remove all google accounts and samsung accounts from phone, factory reset phone from settings and never use the same accounts again

If someone has access to your Google account installing apps via Play Store web site to your device is simple. Consider activating two factor authentication for your Google account. But make yourself familiar with the consequences of two factor auth and keep the backup codes in a safe place.

okay there is one way to proof.. write some whatsapp to any of your (dedicated) contacts your flatmate is your swarm or other stupid things which will confuse your flatmate.. things only the suspect can know.. socialscam the hacker :D


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Recover Draft Emails from Deleted Account
I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone and use the native, built-in email app for two corporate/ActiveSync accounts.  Recently something went wrong with the settings of one of the accounts, which caused my contacts to disappear.  Removing the account and adding it back fixed that issue.  Since the account syncs to the server (Outlook 365), I didn't think there would be any loss taking this approach.  I was wrong.  Evidently draft emails are not synced, and I lost several very important ones.  I am desperately trying to find a way to recover the contents of these draft emails that disappeared.
On the recommendation of a friend, I tried using a full-text search program (Astrogrep) to search the phone while connected to my computer, but the program wouldn't allow me to search the phone folders.  I also tried using the Wondershare Dr. Fone DataRecovery program to recover messages, but this just keeps getting stuck at 99% during the scanning process (stayed there at least 30 minutes before I backed out) and doesn't bring any results.
I've read in a few places that these emails might be stored in an SQLite database, but I'm not sure how to browse, search, or access this.
I'm grasping at straws at this point, hoping there is some way to find the old draft emails in a file or database of the phone.  I'm probably "moderate" when it comes to being tech savvy...so by now I'm looking for some good advice and step-by-step instructions from anyone who might know 1) if these drafts could still be in the phone and 2) how I can locate them to access the content.
Thanks to anyone who can help!

The default Samsung mail app is com.samsung.android.email.provider.
Unfortunately backup is disabled for this app (the app's AndroidManifest.xml contains the entry android:allowBackup="false"). Because of this you can't access the app's private data directory /data/data/com.samsung.android.email.provider on a non-rooted device.
As the mail storage database is placed inside this app-private data directory you can't extract the files for manually searching the data base e.g. using a hex editor or a different data recovery software.
As your device is pretty old (it is from 2014 and should be running Android 6?) any thus have not received Android security updates for years there may be the possibility to temporary root the device using an exploit. Unfortunately I don't know a reliable and trustworthy rooting app that would work on your device. Note that using such rooting apps may be dangerous as you never know what the app is actually doing in background.

So, if I am able to root the device, then what?  Does that suddenly give me access to the protected directories and database files...and how would I then go about accessing them?
It looks like the Dr. Fone program can root this phone, among other possible options.
Thanks!

@Luminocity Then you would be able to access the SQLite database files on RAW level. Often databases still contain deleted content (which is only marked deleted). Using a hex editor you may be able to recover some draft message texts.

Once the phone is rooted, would I be able to use Windows Explorer to find the database files, or would some other program be needed?  (I'm not sure what you mean be RAW level.)  If you can recommend a hex editor that would be much appreciated.  Finally, do you know where I should be able to find the database file with deleted content -- in this com.samsung.android.email.provider location...?  Thanks!

@Luminocity No Windows Explorer uses MTP which will never make use of root permissions. Use adb from Android SDK and then execute the exploit to get root for a temporary root. Otherwise simply execute su. The database location path is already contained in my answer.

I have no experience with rooting and I'm not a developer...so any layman's step-by-step instructions and commands for getting to these sqlite files would be immensely helpful.  I really want to make sure I can do this without screwing something up or spinning my wheels.  For instance, can you suggest the ADB commands to use and/or how to "execute su" for locating and copying the database files?  Can this be used to actually search the sqlite files for the deleted draft emails?

Further note: I've found a video about rooting this device at https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xdvl-YBnZHU. There is a root file for the SM-900V version (https://download.chainfire.eu/1097/CF-Root/CF-Auto-Root/CF-Auto-Root-kltevzw-kltevzw-smg900v.zip), although I saw a few comments that people had trouble with this version. It'd be great to hear from anyone who has successfully done this with a Verizon Galaxy S5.

Note that I have tried the CF-Auto-Root and Towelroot methods found online and neither have worked to root this device.

com.samsung.android.email.provider -- This does not appear to be the default app on my phone.  I say this because, when I follow the Play Store link you provided on my phone's browser, it tells me "This app is not available for your device."  (Mine could be an older version that they no longer update.)  So, I wonder if the directory location you mentioned before is actually correct in this case.

Additionally Kingroot didn't work.  I basically need a good solution for rooting at this point.  I see how to use ADB now, but I can't do anything with the data directory due to permissions...which I think goes back to getting root access.


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Writing Scripts For Android
So I recently downloaded ScriptRunner for android and was wanting to learn how write a basic script to open an app click at a certain x y coordinate and perhaps take a screen capture at a given time. So if anybody could get me started in the right direction id very much appreciate it.

There are a number of apps with "ScriptRunner" in the name. You should edit your post to include a link to the website/Google Play Store page. Also it would help to know if you intend to run scripts on a rooted device or not.

Have a look at UI Automator https://developer.android.com/training/testing/ui-automator
If you want just something very simple, you could create a shell script with adb commands instead. E.g.:
Click on coordinate 500, 500:
adb shell input tap 500 500

Launch an app:
adb shell am start com.package.name

Take screenshot:
adb shell screencap -p /sdcard/screenshot.png

So with those commands do I need a hash bang first if I'm using script runner for these particular commands?

What is this script runner you're talking about?

it was this scripting app I download but this UI automator you speak of is that also a scripting app for android although I can't seem to find it in the App Store


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Is there a reliable way to know which is the home dir of the phone?
I'm making a program for termux and i need to access to the home directory(where are the Downloads, Android, DCIM, etc directories).
The problem is that i know that not all the phones have the '/storage/emulated/0', for example an old phone of mine had '/sdcard' instead
Any help is appreciated :)

The answer is it depends on the phone... There is no real "home" directory like Linux, but kind of, and in some devices it's /sdcard, others /storage/emulated/0, and in many /sdcard is just a link to the storage path (my Pixel for example). I think almost all phones have /sdcard as a link to the correct location for compatibility with older apps, but I don't know how long that will continue to exist, maybe a long time maybe not... Google is fickle.

/data/data/com.termux/files/home or $(realpath $EXTERNAL_STORAGE)?

Read (completely and patiently) my answers to Is it reliable to save some app files in /storage/emulated/0/? and What is /storage/emulated/0/?.


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Samsung mini data recovery
I'm trying to do a data recovery on a Samsung mini that was dropped in water (I think). The phone won't boot past splash screen and developer access isn't enabled. The best idea I've come up with so far is to do a hard resent and then try to some data recovery software on the phone after it's reset.
I just wanted to try and double-check before I did something stupid?
Many thanks,
Niall

Samsung has built slot of "mini" devices. Which one are you talking about and how old is the device (or what Android version is installed)?

Hi, it's the gt-s5570. I'm not sure which android version it is but I'm fairly sure it's stock. Many thanks

Quite an old phone from 2011. It should run Android 2.3 at least device encryption shouldn't be a problem on this device as it so old. What data are you trying to recover?

There's a very small possibility that I've some bitcoin in a wallet app on there, probably not much but I thought I'd give it a punt

flash this zip from recovery mode https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2595705

Great, I'll give that a try. Many thanks!


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Ringtone volume keeps turning off
Using Samsung Galaxy A41 on Android 10, my ringtone volume is automatically resetting to 0 all the time - which means that I'm missing phone calls. I don't have any apps installed that should be doing this automatically.
What could be the cause and how can I debug this?

Have you checked whether "Do Not Disturb" is on or has its schedule too broad?

I do use "do not disturb" permanently because the notification noises from trivial things are annoying...

The context suggests that Vadim meant to say "I do NOT use 'do not disturb'"


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How can I turn on notifications on phone speakers when earphones are plugged in?
Phone: Redmi Note 8 Pro, MIUI Global 12.0.7.0 Stable (QGGMIXM), Android 10QP1A.190711.020
I can't seem to find a way to get notification sounds through my speakers if I have my earphones plugged in. Ringtones seem to be the only thing to work.
Apparently there's a petition going around for Android 9.
And there's mention of an option for audio routing on Android 10, which is the one I was able to update to, but I don't seem to find the option.
Is there a way to do this natively?
And if not, could I use ADB to solve this?
Assuming it's an Android property.


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How to install XAPK packages on Android 4.4 (API 19)?
There is an Android 4.4 (KitKat, API version 19) device, that should get some external programs with XAPK packages. These XAPK packages does not contain any OBB files, they just have a "main" .apk, then a lot of configuration APKs.
How to install that mentioned XAPK files? If I install the APKs manually, then the app simply fails to launch. The XAPK Installer app, which could handle this, is available from Android 5+, so also not an option.
Updating or upgrading that device is also not an option. So, no need the comments like "that is outdated" etc.

Hi, please try the solutions on How to install xapk, apks, or multiple-apks via adb? and let us know if it helps. Thanks.

Thanks @AndrewT., can You please let me know, how to use the adb on Linux?

An XAPK package is basically ZIP files containing the different split APK files. Before trying to make an app work on your device I strongly recommend to you to extract the base APK files from the XAPK package and check the minSdkVersion in it's AndroidManifest.xml. You can do so easily by opening the main APK file e.g. in Jadx or any other tool that can decode and display the AndroidManifest.xml.
If this entry is 19 or lower there may be a chance to install the app on your device.
If I remember correctly the possibility to install multiple APK files as one app was introduced with Android 5, therefore the XAPK installer is limited to Android 5+. Also installing multiple APK files as one app via adb will not work. The only option I can see is building an universal APK from those multiple APK files inside the XAPK package. See section Re-Building an universal APK from my answer Creating universal APK form multiple APKs without having *.aab:

On the Internet you can find a tool named "SAP (Split APKs Packer)"
which seems to allow to combine multiple split APK files into one
universal APK file (if you have all the necessary split APK files)
This "SAP" tool is available for Linux and Windows, however it is
closed source and contains a lot of binaries. I am not sure if it is
really trustworthy - I would not recommend to execute it outside of a
protected environment (e.g. a virtual machine).
The following blog post describes the SAP tool and provides download
links.


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Messages App keeps merging two people who are in different countries but same number?
So this is literally one in a million, but I have two different contacts in two different countries who incredibly have the same last 6 digits of the phone number i.e.:
Contact 1 in Australia: +614 123 123
Contact 2 in New Zealand: +6421 123 123
The messages app keeps merging the conversation trails and replying on it it is unclear who will receive the message. E.g. I just replied on it and it went to the wrong person (embaressingly).
This happened after upgrading from an old crappy Android Go phone to a brand new Android 10.0 phone and cloning all the information over. However even if I delete both contacts and recreate them with thoes numbers, it still merges the conversation thread!
How can I separate the message threads?

Interesting +1. Couple of things to try 1. Add one contact to a separate account and of course add that account to your device 2. Try a different messaging app 3. Instead of country code try using 0 (if permitted) //1 and 3 are guesses (no logic)

.4 clear cache messaging app before trying another app. Next backup your messages (using apps from Play Store) and clear data too to rule out messaging app problems


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Unknown "keyhole gallery icon" sometimes appears on lock screen?
Sometimes on my lock screen, an icon with what looks like a keyhole and some sort of gallery-related image appears for a few seconds and then disappears. It happens randomly when I turn on the screen on my phone. It shows among the other notification icons in the middle of the lock screen, and it always disappears by itself after a few seconds even if I don't unlock the phone.

The phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10.
I can't find any settings or apps that seem related or that have this icon, and I can't find the icon when Googling either.

The mystery is solved - apparently it has something to do with the "dynamic wallpaper" feature.
I'll leave this answer here in case someone else sonders about this icon.


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Why does an Android phone with Snapdragon 732G run slower than an Android phone with Snapdragon 678?
I am comparing the two phones:
Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC - Snapdragon 732G (8 nm) - Adreno 618 - Android 10, MIUI 12
Redmi Note 10 - Snapdragon 678 (11 nm) - Adreno 612 - Android 11, MIUI 12

For both of them, if I dual open Pokemon Go using MIUI's dual app, Redmi Note 10 has smooth graphics on both apps, while Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC is more like 15 frames per second: the graphics is quite lagging.
It was quite strange that I checked the specs of their CPU and GPU, only to find that Poco X3 is supposedly at least 50% faster than Redmi Note 10. The only difference is that Poco X3 is  Android 10, while Redmi Note 10 is Android 11.
What is the reason for such drastic difference: a slower CPU and GPU but faster? Is it just due to Android 10 vs 11?  It seems Poco X3 won't update Android officially but I have to rely on some 3rd party installation.

is it real benchmark or just a feeling? both phones are running on same storage fill level, same google play services version, same internet speed, same amount of pokemon cache files, same list of installed apps, and running same amount of background processes at time of benchmark? if you can eliminate all kind of side effects and ensure that the "only difference" is android version, yes then it probably is related to android version and/or updates

Yes, the Poco X3 NFC recently came out with an Android 11 update, and after that, both phones run at similar speed, so it seems Android 10 and 11 made a difference. What might be unknown is why the Poco X3 NFC not noticeably faster then the Redmi Note 10. If I use the Xiaomi 11i, it is noticeable faster then the Redmi Note 10


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Rootdir meaning in Android
So here these are two quotes which I think describe well what the root dir is :

rootdir: the root directory (/). All files/folders/filesystems are stored in or mounted under rootdir. On Android, the filesystem may be either rootfs or the system partition.

From here
And the second one from superuser forums

That means it is the ultimate parent or grandparent or grand grandparent of any file or directory you can find on your system.
It contains all the files necessary for the system to work such as boot files, libraries, packages, essential binaries, system configuration, user files and temporary files.

But I am a bit confused : if I am correct the rootdir is the place where all filesystems are mounted. But in Android that does not happen (at least Android 10+) : the root dir is /system however some directories are not mounted in the system directory. Example : data which is mounted... well under /data (and not /system/data) or also the vendor partition, mounted under /vendor. So I deduced that not all directories are mounted in the root dir, here /system. Why ?

Well from multiple sentences in magisk repo docs. See
SAR: System-as-root. That is, the device uses system as rootdir instead of rootfs
because rootdir is in system

Are you referring to system_as_root systems? Then this is a misunderstood on your side, because on such systems the system.img is not mounted to /system instead it is mounted to / -> the mount point has also changed. See https://source.android.com/devices/bootloader/partitions/system-as-root#sar-partitioning

/ is always the "root dir" within a context of concern. The fact that Android has its system stuff placed in a filesystem/partition that gets mounted on /system/ doesn't make it the "root dir". It's just a taste / preference of file hierarchy.

@Robert oh I didn't know that. So, a system_as_root device mounts the system.img to / and then other partitions such as data or vendor are mounted under that mount point of system.img ? And just another question : since system files are under /system I guess that the system.img file is actually made of a system dir which itself contains system files and that these system files are not in the root of the system image since otherwise all system files would be mounted to /. Am I correct ? Sorry for my bad English :/

In other words, the "system filesystem" in "normal" Linux is usually (if not always) mounted on /, while on Android, the "system filesystem" is usually (if not always) mounted on /system, while its "root filesystem" (i.e. the filesystem that is mounted on /) is often a tmpfs (IIRC) that has several directories (system, data, etc.) created on it that are used as mountpoints for the various partitions/filesystems of the OS.

As you can see, it's mainly due to the fact that Android adopts the system / data / etc. "separation" hierarchy / partitioning. Actually even in "normal" Linux setup, some people would have the content of /usr/ or /home/ or some other placed in a separated filesystem/partition. (So "system filesystem" in "normal" Linux is just a loose analogy, the hierarchy design is simply different in them.)

Ok so when Android boots basically, it mounts a tempfs on / and then mounts system.img on it, alongside with other partitions and assign a usually assign a directory per filesystem. Am I correct ?

I'm not gonna write it as an answer since it's usually a wasted effort in case of technical topics. But if you are familiar with C/C++ syntax, start reading here what Android's init does after the kernel hands over charge to it on boot. If not, read at least the basics of switch_root. You'll get a very clear picture of what's happening.

As a bonus, you may want to read Android device partitions and filesystems and Android boot process

you can mount any partition to any directory, location doesn't matter. what you have quoted is just a description of google's choice for android (which has changed between versions) not a law. rootdir meaning is not different from linux it's always /

Thank you all for your answers. I understood everything


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Backup and restore file-based encryption keys
Android File-Based Encryption is implemented via fscrypt. How do you backup and restore fscrypt encryption keys? Both the master keys and the per-file keys would need to be backed up.

From your first link 1.Keymaster/Keystore and Gatekeeper must be implemented in a Trusted Execution Environment 2.Hardware Root of Trust and Verified Boot bound to the keymaster initialisation is required to ensure that Device Encryption credentials are not accessible by an unauthorized operating system // TEE is something that cannot be accessed directly and calls to TEE information are severely restricted ( I am not technical enough to elaborate on this ) and it's virtually impossible to get information from TEE // So, IMO, you can't

Master keys are stored by TEE. You cannot clone them. Some key material that is used with master keys can be found in /data/system. As long as you are not doing factory reset or wiping /data through TWRP & reinitializing the OS, TEE will not flush master keys.


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Nokia 7.1 recovery mode adb shell
Recently, my Nokia 7.1 stopped booting properly. When I turn it on, it just goes to the "android one" scree, then stops. I managed to boot into recovery mode, and I got the following options:
Reboot system now
Reboot to bootloader
Apply update from ADB
Apply update from SD card
Wipe data/factory reset
Mount /system
View recovery logs
Run graphics test
Run locale test
Power off

When I try to connect to my phone with "adb shell", I get the following error message:
error: no devices/emulators found

Is there a way to connect to my phone from ADB, running on my Linux computer, so I can recover data from it?

Stock recovery built under "user" mode doesn't have ADB enabled. If your bootloader is still locked (which is likely given yours is a Nokia), I don't see a way out.

instead of desoldering emmc one could just dump emmc in edl mode. but it's pointless because of encryption https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/05/demystifying-android-physical-acquisition

The stock recovery can only make use of ADB for sideloading of packages under the "Apply update from ADB" option in recovery. You cannot perform any other adb tasks.
Also, the issue that you are facing is mostly related to emmc which has gone into a r/o mode probably due to its lifecycle being all used up. As such, it is impossible to mount the emmc and recover any data. There may be some possibilities with desoldering of emmc and advanced read/write tools, but that's some advanced engineering thing.


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Amazon Alexa app prohibits disabling of Amazon sidewalk
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GZ4VSNFMBDHLRJUK
gives instructions on how to disable Amazon sidewalk from within the Alexa app. But on my phone following those instructions does not show the selection.
My phone is a stock Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite:
Model name  Galaxy Note10 Lite
Model number  SM-N770F/DS
One UI version
3.1
Android version
11
Google Play system update
May 1, 2021
Baseband version
N770FXXU7EUC6
Kernel version
4.9.191-21082235
#1 Fri Mar 26 21:29:05 +07 2021
Build number
RP1A.200720.012.N770FXXU7EUC6
SE for Android status
Enforcing
SEPF_SM-N770F_11_0008
Fri Mar 26 21:42:21 2021
Knox version
Knox 3.7
Knox API level 33
TIMA 4.1.0
Service provider software version
SAOMC_SM-N770F_OLM_XXV_RR_0007
XXV/XXV,XXV/XXV
See the screenshot below showing that the entry does not exist.
Is this a defect in the Amazon Alexa app, or a defect in my phone?


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Why does Sound Search Widget Keep Disappearing?
Ever since I got the phone and continuing to this day, if I reboot the phone the Google Sound Search widget disappears from my home screen. I reinstall it from the widgets menu, and it's all good--until next time the phone restarts, and then it's deja vu, gone again!
Sometimes I don't notice until I need the widget. That's usually when I'm driving and hear a song I like on the radio. I can't safely reinstall a widget while driving so this is not good.
Is there any logical reason for this? Any way to prevent it?
I'm using a Nokia 7.2 running Android 10. I've had the phone about six months.
Currently the phone has build number 00WW_2_400_SP02 based on the "about device" info in the settings menu.
Other widgets I use do not have this behavior.

I was having the same problem. All you need to do is clear the data of Google play services and redownload it.

Thanks for the answer! When I go to clear the data, should I hit "clear cache" or " clear storage" or both? Any idea why this works?

Hit clear cache and try, if it does not work then clear storage. All Google apps work through Google play services. These services store server and user data. Sometimes these play services get bugged because of corrupted cache, you just need to clear it from time to time

I appreciate your suggestion and thank you for your time. Unfortunately this did not work for me. I cleared the cache from Google Play services, and rebooted. Widget disappeared. I reinstalled the widget, and then cleared the storage from Google play services. Rebooted again, and the widget was gone again!


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How to make Private DNS unchangeable?
Are there any way to make android private dns settings unchangeable?
I need app locker for android that password-protect private dns activity or class


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How to set which options appear on the text selection toolbar?
I'm referring to the menu that appears when you tap and hold on some text to select it. How do you change which options appear by default and which appear in the extra (. . .) menu?
I have to translate text regularly, and Google Translate used to appear on the text selection menu without tapping into the extra options. As of a week ago, Google Translate has been moved to the extra options menu, and a regular Google search is in its old place, so it's an extra tap for me to translate text. I feel this is a system setting somewhere but cannot find anything about it.
Thanks in advance!

As an end user you cannot do anything about it. As an app developer you can handle android.intent.action.PROCESS_TEXT in one of your app's Activities. That Activity's label will appear in text selection context menu in all installed apps. You can get your own app developed to add any custom options in the menu.

Thank you @IrfanLatif! It's a bit frustrating that end users cannot customize the menu, but please add this as an answer so I can mark it as the answer. Thank you!

Duplicate of How to edit the Android context menu?


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Is it possible to install Android Gingerbread on a Galaxy Nexus?
I have an old Samsung Galaxy Nexus from years ago and I was wondering whether it's possible to flash an older Android version like Gingerbread on it using a custom ROM. Since it was originally launched with ICS, I'm not sure if there are any Gingerbread ROMs for it and whether it's even capable of running Gingerbread.

I vaguely remember seeing a render showing a GNex on GB, but I reckon that was made way before its release. The only example of running a lower Android version than stock that I know is Nexus 4 (4.2) running a ROM ported from Optimus G (4.1) due to their hardware similarities, and it was buggy as hell. Generally it shouldn't be possible.

Ah I see. Thank you for the info @AndyYan


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Boot image header fields are invalid
I want to install TWRP on Redmi 5 (Rosy), during installation everything works normally. But when I want to boot into TWRP,
fastboot boot TWRP.img

a failure message appears on the ADB command line.
FAILED (remote: bootimage header fields are invalid)

Previously I was on the EU MIUI Custom ROM. All happened after I tried to flash the MIUI 11 Global firmware

So you are trying to boot the twrp-3.5.2_9-0-rosy.img? Have you checked the SHA256 hash that is also provided on that page to make sure the download is not corrupt (or alternatively verify the PGP signature)?

try this one twrp-3.5.2_10_r1-rosy.img

Thanks, all is done. I have to install TWRP base android 9/10. Maybe the boot image header on my phone is stuck in the boot image header for Android 9/10. How do I change back to the original version?

don't understand


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Force light mode for specific app
I use my phone on dark mode, but there is a specific badly done app that uses black text on dark background when using dark mode. So, I want to use light mode only for that app.
How do I do that? I'd like something that isn't an app constantly running in the background, so something like an XPosed module would have the best performance. However, I'm open to non-root solutions, especially for anyone who's reading this question and doesn't have root.

Have you tried to contact the author of the problematic app? Often "delegating" the problem solution development to the developer is the easiest solution.

It would be good if you mention the device and Android version you are using. Xiaomi devices running MIUI offers a way to exclude user installed apps from dark mode. Have you tried searching your Settings to see if your ROM has this feature to exclude an app from dark mode?

@Robert I will but I have not yet. Firelord I have a mostly stock Android ROM


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Accidental Whatsapp privacy breach
I exported my chat history with my friend, JJ, to my Google drive. Somehow a chat history between JJ and someone else (Meg) was exported. I have no idea who Meg is and i have no record of her in Whatsapp or anywhere on my phone.
I tried again and my chat with JJ was exported and saved. However,it did export Meg's a few more times as well.
It seems very wrong that i have a stranger's chat history with my friend saved on my drive.
Any ideas how this happened? I'm on Samsung Note 8.


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Is it possible to feed sound from bluetooth source through phone to bluetooth headset?
We use 2 way radios for communication at work. It's often difficult to hear the radio over background noise, so I ordered a bluetooth adapter to plug into the radio to go to an earpiece so I can hear the radio better. I already often wear a bluetooth headset connected to my phone to make phone calls or listen to music when appropriate. What I want to know is would it be possible to link the radio adapter to my phone, and then route the radio sound to the headset linked to the phone, so that I could both make phone calls and talk on the radio with the same headset?
I have an S21 ultra, and the two bluetooth headsets I have are an aftershockz trek air or an axil gs extreme if that makes any difference.

Some headsets support being paired with to sources at the same time. And switch between both. I think it is called "Bluetooth multipoint [pairing]" .

I was under the impression that the multipoint would put a priority on the devices, and while it would be connected to two devices, it would only recive sound from the higher priority device?


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using adb command for Samung Galaxty A51
I have a samsung galaxy A51 i already had the developer mode on my phone but i forgot to allow usb debugging on it before my screen broke. The phone still works but the screen wont light up & wont come on. I download the android debugging bridge. I dont even know how to work the commands. Can anyone please help. I am trying to get everything off the phone & save it to my comouter. I am currently running a Windows 10 program. I habve the acer spin 3 computer

kindly check broken-screen questions


text:
How to hide Youtube homepage and sidebar?
I want to remove Suggestions in YouTube homepage and sidebar as it is distracting. In PC, there are extensions to remove this(like "YouTube rabbit hole" and "DF YouTube"). But how to do this in YouTube mobile app?

Have you tried NewPipe? https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/

@AbhinavPB I have fixed the link in Robert's comment. Try it again. It should load in English language. The app he mentioned can do what you want. I have set it up to not show me garbage called "Suggestions" whenever I open it. To be clear here, it is an app in itself. It doesn't change anything in your YouTube app per se.

@Firelord Thanks. But,It seems that you cannot upload videos with this app.I have a YouTube channel and i open YouTube to post my videos.That is when i get distracted. Anyway it's still usefull when watching videos...

Is there any way we can hide these in YouTube app itself?

@AbhinavPB unlikely, since it's YouTube's own app and we can only use what settings that Google provides.


text:
Android TVs and LINUX 4.9.118+
Perhaps an obvious question for some, but, is my Kogan brand Smart tv using Android and google play pre-installed apps running Linux 4.9.118+

Can you please check your posted text, I think you forgot to include the question. Please edit it and add your question. Stack Exchange is an Q&A system, therefore without a question we can't do anything here.

I'm guessing your doubt is about how an Android SmartTV have some info about Linux...
Surely you have saw this Linux info into Settings>About TV and this info is about the Linux Kernel version built-in the device.
BR


text:
Rooting a phone that doesn't have stock rom download on the internet
I've posted here here earlier about me needing help to restore a system application that I uninstalled using adb. After trying for the entire day with no solution I've decided to download Bromite as webview, however since I have an unrooted android 5.1, I can't change the default webviewer to Bromite (I had uninstalled the google webviewer). I've got two choices left now, which is rooting my phone and hard resetting, and I would rather risk it rooting my phone since I got a ton of important 2fa on it.
As reference, my android version is 5.1
My phone model is Coolpad porto S E570,  in numbers - CP8722_U00
I've looked up a couple of guides on how to root the device but most of the legit rooting methods require having a stock ROM of your device that is going to patched, and later, installed. However, after searching the web for a while I just can't seem to find any stock ROMs that are for CP8722_U00, only for CP8722_S00 which I assume is probably incompatible.
The less legit looking guides said to use tools like Kingoroot, however the public reception on them is mixed to say the least, some outright saying that it's malware.
So my question is this: Are there any other ways to root, maybe obtain stock ROM for my device without root? Or do I have to sell my soul to those one click root applications?
Thank you in advance.

The default webview component can be set in the Android Settings Developer Options menu. For accessing this you don't need root.

Worst case, there's a guide to manually root an Android device

There is no option to replace the default webview component in android 5.1. AFAIK that feature got added in Android 7.0+. And I'll definitely try out the manual root method, Andrew.

Does this answer your question? Smart Phone flash tool - Readback - EMMC_USER backup

Does this answer your question? Backup/dump kernel image (and full ROM) without root for Mediatek Devices

Yeah, this actually was the solution I ended up going with, thanks. I'm still a bit worried because my processor isn't supported by the sp flash tool, but fingers crossed.


text:
How do I make Line Pay app functional on Blue Stacks
I assume I have to do some control mapping but I can't see what and how to do that. I used the custom controls to make game work but I don't see what is needed for this map. What custom controls are needed for Line Pay App?

Could you explain more about the problem with Line Pay? Cannot be installed? Crash? Warning/error message? I'm not sure about the control mapping, but payment apps usually disable themselves if run on emulators for security reasons (similar to rooting).

It doesn't give any messages. It was installed.


text:
How to prevent an app from sharing its data with Google?
The changelog of a popular SMS/MMS app, Textra, states:

Textra is now backed up automatically [emphasis added] using the built-in Google Backup service. Makes it so easy to swap devices or uninstall / reinstall without losing your settings and any customization! Supported from Android 6.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210519012025/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.textra
What does this really mean?  In Android 7.0 is there a way to disable a single app from sharing private/personal data with Google?  If not, how about all apps?
The app itself does not appear to have any options regarding this unwanted functionality.

You can completely disable GDrive Backup in Android settings then it doesn't matter if the apps allow cloud backup.

That's what I'd recommend as well: disable it (you have close to no control about it anyway and never know what's backed up and will restore and what not), and take care for backups yourself. Note that LineageOS started adopting Seedvault as replacement for that G-Backup; with Seedvault you not only can define where your backups end up (local SD card, Nextcloud etc) but also see what is backed up, what not, and control it. So if such a custom ROM is an option… ;)

look into TrackerControl - you can get it from F-Droid

See Data backup overview. Since changelog is talking of Android 6 compatibility, it is referring to Android auto backup (see table).

Enabled by default. Apps can opt out by disabling backups.

Contextually, it implies Textra had opted out of back up earlier and now has it enabled.
There is no option for the user to choose which apps can be backed up or not. Either they backup or not (search settings for backup to see the toggle switch). If backup is enabled, apps that are enabled for backup are backed up.
Developers can choose to exclude some parts of app data even if backup is enabled. Backup data size is limited to 25 MB and doesn't count for your drive storage usage. Users have no control on what is backed up, so if you don't trust Google (good idea) look for custom ROM options as suggested by Izzy in comments or turn  off backup in settings.

Thanks.  I do my best to send as little as possible to Google.  I regularly go through Google's settings, and turn everything off.  Then a month later, I'll go through the settings again, only to see they created a new setting with a default of "on". I want to ensure I have this particular setting off.  Exactly where is this setting? [comment moderated by a mod]

I don't have a device running Android 7 to tell you the location. Sorry, but you can search in Google accounts maybe or ask another question with this linked as background


text:
Root Android with no apps
I want to root my Android 11 on Samsung A72 without using any third part app. Is their a way?
I cannot find anything on google on duckduckgo that mentions a terminal or a manual root.

A rooted device needs at least an su binary and and typically an app that handles su requests, therefore rooting without e.g Magisk is not possible. But if you are referring to those only on ancient Android versions usable apps like Kingroot and so on, then it is possible. Just unlock the bootloader and install Magisk.

To piggy-back on @Robert's comment, Magisk is trusted and opensource, so there's no reason not to use it (AFAIK, stay away from SuperSU as it's no longer opensource as of a few yrs ago)


text:
Smasung Galaxy A51 stuck in bootloop, recognized by adb, not responding to adb commands
I have a Samsung Galaxy A51 that is stuck in a Boot-loop. Phone was originally water damaged, but worked until my Dad tried to charge it. I replaced the inside part of the phone with the USB port. When I run ADB (I have drivers) my phone shows up under ADB devices. But it does not respond to ANY ADB commands, I can't root, or push files. I also tried ODIN but I get "Odin Protocol version ERROR".
MAIN PROBLEM: phone shows up under ADB devices but does not respond to any ADB commands.
Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

how exactly it shows up in adb, is it authorized? adb kill-server might be required on each reboot loop cycle. try to spam prompt with adb logcat during boot


text:
Is it possible to corrupt the bootloader from within the System / ROM?
I had a previously working Pixel 3XL, running Dirty Unicorns (flashed in December).  I hadn't touched the bootloader / fastboot since then, but just a couple of days ago, I rebooted the phone and it refused to boot after that.
The issue is that fastboot cannot determine the locked status of the phone (Device-State: error!), and therefore behaves as if it's locked (and therefore cannot continue with AVB).
I was curious if something in the system / boot / userspace was able to corrupt the bootloader, or if it was simply a failing battery / emmc.  It seems that other people have been struck with this issue, some of them with stock ROM.  (I've tried the battery method.  It didn't work for me)
(More details in the XDA post linked above.  Also any data recovery help would be nice)

you mentioned EDL mode, where did you get google firehose programmer from??

I didn't.  I was asking if someone had the files for an EDL rescue.

ah.. no no, google did not leak anything for it's devices for security reasons ;)


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how can i boot Oppo a12 into fastboot mode
I am not able to boot my oppo a12 into fast mode. Because i want to root my oppo a12 withot going fastbbot mode it is not possible .so please help me

you can't unlock bootloader on Oppo A12 because Oppo does not support unlocking. There is however some hack but i doubt it is for A12 https://easy-firmware.com/index.php?a=downloads&b=file&id=338154


text:
Are the IMG files in the AVD data directory really encrypted?
If I enable phone encryption with password or PIN on my Android Virtual Device, will that actually make the raw NAND images (*.img / *.qcow2) encrypted?  Does it render the data in those files inaccessible?
If the *.img and *.qcow2 files are really sector-level-encrypted, is there a script or program to decrypt them outside of the AVD?
I'm not referring to the sdcard img and qcow2 files, but rather the userdata-qemu img and qcow2 files.
Reference:

https://developer.android.com/studio/run/emulator-commandline#data-filedir

Sector level encryption would be in Android Full Disc Encryption which no longer used for modern devices. Usually now File Based Encryption is used. If it is used in your case you should be able to mount the image but file names and data can be encrypted.

@Robert, so the belief is that if encryption is enabled in AVD, that the image files will have their data encrypted.  If not by sector, then by file.  But with either case the data at rest is not decryptable without the decryption keys and tokens.

The Android encryption has been designed to work with a hardware security element as it can be found in ARM CPUs. Such a hardware element is of course missing in the emulator. The main purpose of the emulator is to provide an environment for app development. I would not use it for security critical data.

@Robert, good point about the missing SE.  But my understanding about the android keystore is that both the PIN and SE are mixed to provide the initial entropy for the encryption.  Even if there is no SE (null SE), if mixed with a sufficiently complex PIN (password really), I would think reasonable security could still be achieved.  For example Oreo allows for 17 char passwords providing ~102 bits of entropy.  102 bits is "pretty good", if my assumptions are not totally off base.

originally the user password was used via key derivation to encrypt the user data. But on modern devices the architecture is more complex and user password is use for authentication against Android Gatekeeper. If I remember correctly the user password is not used for data encryption anymore. Security of encrypted data mainly depends on the hardware security based keystone...

@Robert, good points.  A strong passphrase to unlock a trivial keystore does no good.  I just noticed that the AVD emulator command allows me to pass -qemu commands.  I'll look at converting the image files to qcow2 encrypted images and see if I can solve this problem that way.  If I get it working I'll report back.

You may also check the Genymotion emulator (free for private use). It bases on VirtualBox and VirtualBox has the feature to encrypt virtual drives by a  password. I am not sure if disc-encryption can be used with Genymotion but it would be worth a try.


text:
New firmware (with bug fixes) is available on the official website of the manufacturer - do I need to update via PC?
I have Cubot KingKong Mini 2 (Android 10 smartphone) and the new version of the firmware is available on the official website of the manufacturer: https://cubot.net/Support/id/60/cid/16.html#hh

It contains "minor bug fixes". They also gave instructions on how to update firmware: via PC, using SP Flash Tool.
My question is: does the "standard" update from Android app settings (System > Advanced > System update) also include the same bug-fixes? If so, then I don't have to do anything via PC & SP Flash Tool.
I tried to find the answer by searching on Google, and on some sites it says that "firmware update = Android update" (which means that I don't have to do anything via PC?), while on others it says that it is not (which means that I would have to update firmware via PC/SP Flash Tool?).

Usually device are getting updates as OTA update (Over The Air) and the on-device System update retrieves and installs them. But we are here talking about a Chinese manufacturer of cheap phones, there is everything possible. Check your system version and build number, may be you already have this "2020-11-13" update installed.

Thanks @Robert
If I understand correctly, OTA & System update should also include "firmware" updates, not just updates for OS?

On Android firmware == OS. It is a common misunderstanding that there is a difference between firmware and OS, on Android they are more or less inseparable.

OS is system partition. firmware is other partitions like vendor, tee, secro, nvram, modem etc


text:
Why isn't my phone recognized by my computer in Fastboot mode?
I have recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S42 5G, and was messing around with boot combinations. While I was doing this, I found out that the phone had Download mode, but also a Fastboot mode. I was trying to get this to work with my ADB and FastBoot tools on my computer, but it doesn't seem to be recognized by Fastboot, and in the device manager, my phone shows up as "Android" With a yellow warning mark. Anyone know what is happening?
I can't really find much info on this device.

I think I have came across a fix.
I disabled window's protection against unsigned drivers, and opened google's android drivers, and added my own phones Hardware ID into the list.
I Installed the driver and it's working fine!

Where do you got the fastboot drivers from? The original Google fastboot drivers that are contained in the Android SDK are signed so no necessity to disable Windows driver signing.


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How can I set up DNS OVER HTTPS in Android 8?
I am using android hotspot as wifi for my devices, and I want to set up DOH on my android, how can I do it?
PS: I have tried to install Intra or other APPs that can only change dns for internet access directly from Android, not from other devices that using the Android hotspot.

According to this post the central DNS setting (including the private DNS feature) on Android was introduced with Android 9.

Run dnscrypt-proxy. Root method is here: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/207647/218526. But it's also possible to run it with Android's built-in VPN feature, without having root.

@lrfan  do you know if dnscrypt-proxy is also working for sharing hotspot wifi from carriers cellular data?  It seems the hostpot pretend a wifi and I not sure if this wifi dns still use the android system dns.

@Robert Have you tried in Android 9? try to enable hotspot and let other device connect this hotspot, then test your dns in the device to see if the dns is what you set in the Android 9.

@novice it depends on which method you use to redirect DNS traffic towards dnscrypt-proxy. In case of root it's the robust iptables. So not even a single packet can escape from it. In case of VPN based redirection, it's not very likely because network traffic doesn't go through VPN connections. See explanation here (though the question is different).


text:
Is it possible to build an Android conformant calendar app which stores its data as shareable file?
Or is there already one?
I don't know Androids calendar infrastructure so maybe my question sounds a bit fuzzy.
I dislike (non self hosted) cloud services but I like the ability to share my calendar among devices (and even people). Since I'm not alone I wonder whether someone already built a calendar app which stores it's data (encrypted) in a way which can be shared via Syncthing, Sparkleshare, Dropbox, ...
This app would have to 'monitor' changes on this file in order to update itself, notify the user about changes and not overwrite changes 'from outside'.
So my question is actually two questions: is (are) there such apps already (and how are they called, so I can search myself) or is this possible in the first place (or why not?).

A typical combination would be a self-hosted Nextcloud + a CalDAV Android app (AFAIK the good one cost a few bucks)

You may find success in finding out if such a software exists by asking a well-written on-topic question on Software Recommendations SE: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/


text:
Is there a way to group notifications by app?
So, my phone is running MIUI 12.5(rooted if it matters) and some apps just push individual notifications so each notification I get, shows up in its own bubble instead of showing them all under a group of notifications for this same app.
It's really hard since it takes up all my screen and if I want to search for notifications from a certain app I have to go over all the other notifications from the other apps..
Is there a way to force notifications from the same app to be grouped together in my notification bar?
Thanks

There are lots of notification history/recent notification apps that do exactly this.

This works for me on Pixel 4a running stock Android 11 (YMMV on MIUI)
Download and install from Play Store Notifications Organizer  . App description includes

Organize notifications by app

Grant the permissions asked and optionally toggle unread badge count and tool bar fixed (not sure what this does but I enabled it).
On getting notifications, a tiny bell icon flashes in status bar and you see notifications by app in the notification bar (relevant portion of screen shot below)

You can access the notifications through the app also (for easy access, drop app widget to home screen)

Note that only 5 apps are supported (in the notification bar, while no such restrictions apply to app interface) , so you would need to add apps to exclusion list to exclude them.
P.S. The app is being well maintained with last update of June end. In case it doesn't work as advertised, maybe you should approach developer. I am not affiliated with it.

not very comfortable.. I'm looking for something that would replace the shading...

What do you mean by shading? In any case, I will let the answer be, it may help someone else, because it addresses the core concern of organization by app

by shading, I mean the menu of notification which rolls from top. There are applications which replace the shading with their own(like power shading for example) but none seem to force group by app..

Got it. But then, this requirement should have been a part of the question, especially a bounty one. If that was the case, I wouldn't have answered at all! Anyway, do post your solution if you get one and in future please make your question as complete as possible so that you get what you want and the time and effort of one who answers isn't wasted. Best

shortest possible working solution : switch to a stock android based custom ROM. Stock android by default behaves the way you're talking about

Are you sure? Twitter is pushing each tweet as individual notification, and they cannot be grouped by end-user, even on stock Pixel 3a.

pixel 3a stock isnt running aosp androd either : by 'stock' i meant AOSP


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Lost text recovery
I have 3 months of lost text messages from 2019 , they were not deleted by me , how can I recover them ? I have a new phone , but the new phone has text from 5-5-2019 to 5-10-2019 then 8-2-2019 to final text 1-10-2021

how did you transfer to new phone


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How to suppress the welcome note and sign-in form on freshly installed chromium(for android) browser startup
I have created a script for modifying the chromium browser's behavior when it starts. If the browser is freshly installed and if anyone opens it for the first time, the user will get a welcome note and sign-in form, which I want to suppress.
According to my findings, the solution is to replace the /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs/org.chromium.chrome_preferences.xml file with a version that is generated after skipping the welcome note and sign-in form. The script changes the folder's permission successfully, replaces the file, and again changes back the folder's permission.
But when I open the browser after reboot or without rebooting, that file is overwritten again and I still get the welcome note and sign-in form in both cases. But if I manually replace that file through the Android device monitor and reboots the device, it works.
The browser I am using is Chromium v73.0.3674.0 for android.
And here is the script
#!/system/bin/sh
su -c "chmod 777 /data/data/org.chromium.chrome"
su -c "chmod 777 /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs"
su -c "rm -r /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs/*.*"
su -c "cp /mnt/internal_sd/MokiMDM/org.chromium.chrome_preferences.xml /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs/"
su -c "chmod 660 /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs/org.chromium.chrome_preferences.xml"
su -c "chown root:root /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs/org.chromium.chrome_preferences.xml"
su -c "chmod 771 /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs"
su -c "chown root:root /data/data/org.chromium.chrome/shared_prefs"
su -c "chmod 751 /data/data/org.chromium.chrome"
su -c "chown root:root /data/data/org.chromium.chrome"


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Samsung phone with PRELOADED Google items - "Google Play Services keeps stopping" popping up on phone. Have used help centre!
Tried all ways within Google Help Centre to correct this problem.  Google Play Services now shows "Disabled" and "Force Stop" buttons now both greyed out and cannot rectify this latest problem.  Also Google Play Store App will not open at all to show available app.  I don't want to lose any information from my Samsung phone, so I have loaded photos to computer and made a written list of my contacts.
Any help please to rectify the problems with Google on my phone.

Thank you but no longer require assistance. Have been advised to delete Google Account and reinstate.

Hi, looks like you've found the solution by yourself, which is great! Consider post it as a proper answer since self-answering is not only allowed, but even encouraged!. Thanks!


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My storage keeps increasing drastically despite not downloading anything and freeing up lots of space (4GB>200mb??)
I am using a Huawei P10 Lite.
This is absolutely insane and I desperately need a solution, I can't even begin to imagine what's causing this.
I've been getting the whole "storage space running out" message for a while now, so yesterday I went ahead and I ported 4GB worth of space to my SD card, leaving tons of free local space on my phone. The message dissappeared after this.
And yet today I suddenly get the same "storage space running out" message, I go look up the amount of storage I have in settings, and suddenly it says there's only 400mb left, and a few hours later now there's only 200mb left. How is this possible?? I freed up 4GB and now suddenly there's only 200mb left?? Something's very wrong here.
I DID NOT DOWNLOAD A SINGLE THING IN THIS TIME PERIOD, NOT ONE THING
Some things worth mentioning:
-I have auto-updates off, so that's not the issue here
-When I check my local folders it all amounts to about 5GB, not even close to 32GB which is the total internal storage of my phone
-I already uninstalled updates of built-in apps I don't use, it didn't change this problem
-I use Clean Master to delete cache and free up space, but it keeps increasing more and more regardless
-Due to certain circumstances I cannot do a factory reset right now and need a different solution
If there is any other information you need please don't hesitate to ask
This is a massive problem for me and I am desperate for any solution or just fidning the culprit behind this for that matter... thank you all very much for your attention.

Identify what's eating your space and try to recover. See this Q&A for both

moving stuff out of Android folder is pointless as everything will just recreated inside origin location, android doesn't know about your external MicroSD Card. if you think some app caused this, check your data usage statistics you will figure out which app. clear data of this app.

Some apps can create extremely large log files even from just running in background (usually if the developer for git to disable the verbose mode from development).


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How to make specific app connect only when VPN active and make it's traffic only go with VPN tunnel
I use VPN for some apps that's banned my country, but when the VPN stop sometimes that apps keep working in background so the servers discover my real country based ip then they block my account.. I need to know if i can find some way that prevent the app making background connection while the VPN tunnel not active.

Is your device rooted?

If your device is rooted you can use Afwall+. It allows blocking apps on mobile data, wifi, vpn, tor, etc. Disallow your apps on everything except the vpn in it. You have to enable vpn related setting in AFWall+ settings first.

Thanks for your useful advice


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ADB screen record command to mirror Android screen to PC via USB
I am trying to mirror android device screen though ADB commands from the command prompt for quite a long time. Recently I saw a post in stackoverflow with the following command which mirrors the screen when executed in the command prompt.
adb exec-out screenrecord --output-format=h264 --size 540x960 - | ffplay -framerate 60 -framedrop -bufsize 16M -
From what I have read is that this commands stores the Frame buffer somewhere in a file, and my question is where is this file stored and how can I access this file(Frame buffer) in a desktop application for example written in C#.
Any help or hint will be greatly appreciated.

Do you know scrcpy? From my perspective this project is what you want to build.

To know where the file is stored (if any) then you can use Process Monitor (on Windows) to see where this file is created.


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SM-T350 Micro-USB port charging but not transmitting files
My belief is that my SM-T350 (Samsung Galaxy A 8.0 from 2015) has a corrupted port which can only charge, not transfer files. Is that possible? Has anyone found any fixes short of taking the device apart and replacing the micro-usb port? Have I done anything wrong on the software side (see info below)?
Info:
I recently bought the SM-T350 off ebay as a cheap tablet to install ROMS, root, and generally do things on that I can't do with my daily driver phone. When I went to flash TWRP from my computer (Ubuntu 20.10), I found that the device was not recognized by adb. Specifically, running:
adb devices

returns the output:
List of devices attached

implying that no devices are attached, even though the SM-T350 is in the MTP mode in developer settings and USB debugging is enabled.
Seeing this, I figured that I'd run into the age-old problem of a cable which only charges and doesn't transfer data. It had been the cable from the box, so I tried connecting with a different cable (which I know to work both transferring data and charging). adb devices still didn't recognize it, so I know something is either wrong with my computer or the tablet at this point.
To eliminate variables, I borrowed my nephew's tablet (coincidentally, a Samsung Galaxy A 8.0 from 2019) and hooked it up (with the working cable, to the same computer) to see if adb devices registered anything. Sure enough, it outputted:
List of devices attached
R9WMA0N3LCJ device

My nephew's tablet (the 2019 one) also was recognized by Ubuntu as a removeable filesystem, whereas no such thing happened for my SM-T350. This is why I believe that the problem lies in the port's file transfer capability.

did you change your usb cable. Some usb cables are specially made for charging your device that can't help you with FTP.

I tried to touch on this in the post, but maybe it wasn't clear. I tested the same usb cable with a different device, and file transfer (and adb) worked correctly.

try switching mtp to ftp if available. still if it don't work it might be a hardware issue.

have you restarted your computer after installing adb it could be an issue too. because adb installs it's driver to kernel machine requires a reboot to load those drivers. So reboot your computer and try to detect your using adb devices.if it still doesn't work try switching mtp to ftp if available. still if it don't work it might be a hardware issue. It too have an SMT-350 1.5 gtwifi tablet which have custom rom installed and working with adb too.

I installed adb many moons ago, so I don't think rebooting is the issue. I've tried killing and restarting the adb daemon too; no dice. FTP isn't available in the device settings. I'm thinking it's a hardware issue right now as well.

yes, physical issue is absolutely possible. imagine some dirt on data pins would block any rx/tx but voltage is still available. try to clean with toothbrush and alcohol (nail polish remover). btw he meant PTP (not FTP)

PTP is available, I think. Will report back later today.

@alecxs the issue is that one of the data pins has been bent upward out of its slot. Three of the data pins are still in place. Any ideas on how i could bend it back down?

if you can find such flex cable with right board according to your device model it will be DIY replaceable. otherwise soldering required you should give to professional repair shop

okay, thanks for your help!


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Google Voice typing punctuation - how to have it?
I'm trying to use Google's voice typing, but it is not able to punctuate my sentences.
No matter I say "point", "dot" or "comma", it always writes it into my text.
Earlier I though this is only because I wanted to use the voice typing in other languages (not English). But now I'm trying to reach this functionality in English.
Is there any hidden tricks to enable the punctuation on Android 11 (Samsung)?
I found someone used the Swype keyboard which is obsolete now (since 2018). So really what are my options?

On Android 12 with a Google Pixel 6 and Gboard keyboard:

This works great for me.

I don't have the GBoard, only the standard "Google Voice Typing": https://imgur.com/FQOu8lt

No matter I say "point", "dot" or "comma", it always writes it into my text.

I'm using English (US) and for me the voice input for punctuation works fine. It also works for me in German.
I noticed that you did not have the word "period" -- (aka "full stop" for brits)
These work fine for me:

Period .
Comma ,
Colon :
Semicolon ;
Dash -

Check the language input settings, and try experimenting with different ways of pronouncing the punctuation.
This "faster / more accurate" setting might help as well:

PS: 99% of this answer was written with voice input.


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Second instance of Instagram on Android 11
Does anyone know if I can install 2 different instances of Instagram on Android 11 (like you can do with some other apps?
I know that I can have up to 5 account on Instagram, but I would like to separate my work and personal accounts separate to manage it more effectively.

There are apps like "Parallel Space" that allows to run some apps in a second instance. See also https://beebom.com/best-parallel-space-alternatives/

How to use two different numbers in the same phone via WhatsApp?


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How to pull app data from the phone (without root)
I'm trying to pull down app from the phone, and see the files within
First I used App Inspector to get a package name.
Then few options to get the actual apk down, but no luck.
So I"ve done
adb shell
pm list package health

so it listed Samsung Health  as com.sec.android.app.shealth
Then outside the shell I tried backup
adb backup -f SamsungHealth.ab com.sec.android.app.shealth

Provided PIN on the mobile, so it downloaded but the file is tiny 500b.  I tried to tar it but no luck.
dd if=SamungHealth.ab bs=24 skip=1 | openssl zlib -d | tar -x

or
dd if=SamungHealth.ab bs=4K iflag=skip_bytes skip=24 | openssl zlib -d > SamungHealths.tar

but either say that zlib error  (Fedora 32, with zlib and openssl installed and tar works normally otherwise
140635897317184:error:29065064:lib(41):bio_zlib_read:zlib inflate error:crypto/comp/c_zlib.c:400:zlib error:data error

I tried other option within adb shell
adb shell
run-as com.sec.android.app.shealth

error - run-as: package not debuggable: com.sec.android.app.shealth
so I couldn't even continue to go and see the folder
cd /data/com.sec.android.app.shealth
ls
cp ....

to list files...  I tried for several application not systemic, user installed but same issue

1.) So, Is it possible to see files of particular app at all if not rooted?
2.) Why backup so small even though each app had 150Mb + data?
3.) Any other way to open backup file, as it looks like is not a tar archive convertible?
Thanks

"Is it possible to see files of particular app at all if not rooted? ". No. See details here: Why are superuser permissions needed to acess /data partition?. What you are trying is not a genuine solution, but just a workaround which may work only on apps built with allowBackup attribute set. If it doesn't work, there's no other way.

Thanks @IrfanLatif I was curious how come is possible to uninstall apps without root privileges, but it seems to me that apps don't actually get removed.  They are however not listed any more via adb shell, but on the mobile still seen (probably just reset to factory default).  So this USB debugging - via adb  don't give you much extra permissions.  I presume that other applications also can't have access to another existing application on the mobile.  New app normally has to request some system permissions via API calls, but not actual access to files also.

User (non-system) apps' data is completely removed if -k options is not passed to adb uninstall. APK file is also removed if the app is not installed for any other user (e.g. a work profile). // App installation is not handled by ADB or the app itself. There are privileged system components which perform [un]installation of the app. Explained in the already linked answer. // Yes, apps cannot have access to other apps' private data.

try again with -system + -keyvalue flags (usage: adb backup [-f ] [-apk|-noapk] [-obb|-noobb] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|nosystem] [-keyvalue|-nokeyvalue] [<pkgname...>]). just a hint, leave password blank. this way you get unencrypted backup, plain zlib deflate which can be extracted with gzip (no java, openssl). another related issue https://android.stackexchange.com/q/143367


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What method does Monospace use for encryption?
This application has the ability to encrypt.
What method does Monospace use for encryption?

A well designed security application would have a public documentation where the used encryption scheme is presented.

Looking at the decompiled source code I would not call it "encryption".
Instead "encrypted" texts are simply the markdown text encoded using base64 plus the SHA-256 hashed password appended to it:
From com.underwood.monospace.main.MainActivityFragment.encryptText() :
 this.mEncryptedText = Utils.base64Encode(new SpannableToMarkdown(
    new WeakReference(getActivity())).toMarkdown(this.mEditText.getText())) +
    "\n" + this.mHashedPassword;


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Can I edit an Apk for removing Ads even getting updates?
There are various sources for downloading an apk.
After installing an apk, Play Store detects the app. And it shows updates, if any update is available.
After updating the app, the app starts ads.
Can I edit the apk such a way so that even after updating the app from Play Store, it shouldn’t start ads?
If yes, please let me know and elaborate steps.
I’ll be thankful for giving your time.
With Regards
FewL

Editing an APK destroys the signature and you have resign using a different key. Afterwards you can't install updates from Play Store.

Alternatives are using an Ad-Blocker – or get your apps from F-Droid whenever possible. Both approaches can be combined, of course.


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Can't reinstall apps from SD card after reboot
This is the first time my phone randomly rebooted, I didn't think much of it until all my apps disappeared. The apps in the internal storage is still there but the apps that was moved to the SD were all gone. I went to the play store to try to get them back but it won't install.
Please help
LG - SP320

clone the (broken?) sdcard to another one and try to reboot until your sdcard is detected again (loose tray?)


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How do I compile and install USBguard on android?
Is it even possible to compile and install linux packages on android, if it is possible how do I install usbguard into android?

you can run static command line binaries from linux arm/aarch64 packages but no linux software, except you are running linux on top of android (linux deploy)

You should better ask such question on the USBguard mailing list. There they know better what requirements (kernel and other) have to be present for USBguard to run. As it requires a special service intergrating USBguard at least require root permissions on android plus various system modifications. Or directly develop a matching customROM with integrated USBguard.

As Robert said it won't simply work on Android since it relies on components like systemd, D-Bus based IPC and polkit, which are specific to Linux distros, not available on Android.


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Recovering files after accidental reset
My father has done a reset to factory by accident.
We are trying to restore photos, videos and other if possible.
It seems that the recovery programs for android are not as good as the pc ones so I thought:
Is it possible to make a byte-by-byte copy/image of the smartphone and afterwards use pc programs to recover the files?
If you have any recommendation of such program to create the copy/image please share.
Thanks!

What Android version is running on that device? Check Android Settings if the device is encrypted. If it is then recovery programs should not be able to recover anything because a factory reset resets the encryption key and without that key all saved data turn to cryptographic glibberish.


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How to stop screen from coming on with intermittent charging
I know we have this very old question and answers
How to keep screen turned off when plugging charger?
but why isn't this implemented by Android?
My scenario is that I use my phone for navigation on my bike, and it's connected to a hub dynamo charger.  The charger output isn't buffered so it will stop charging if I go too slowly (a hill or traffic lights, etc), and then start again when I'm up to speed.  This can cause the screen to come on a lot.  Ideally I would like to disable this behaviour.
What's the current best solution and why doesn't Android have a check box to disable this annoying behaviour?

One of the earlier answers on this recommend using Snoozy. However it's no longer on Google Play, so you have to load the APK directly from the website mentioned.


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SFTP and Yubikey
I want to access my sftp server using a private key stored on a Yubikey 5. How do I do it? The internal file browser requires me to provide a local file with the private key. My system: Android 10, Samsung A71 (NFC support).

According to the Yubikey documentation some keys support the OpenPGP interface and in ssh OpenPGP can be used as private key source. On Linux and Windows collaboration between those standard programs is easy but on Android neither ssh nor OpenPGP is available directly and collaboration between apps does not work the same way as on Linux. Therefore the used sftp app has to support everything including the Yubikey support. Also the Yubikey documentation does not mention Android for ssh authentication which can mean that this platform is not supported at all in this scenario.

I see, thanks a lot, I was afraid of that.


text:
Open Chrome URL home screen shortcut in incognito mode
I have a shortcut to a Google Form on my home screen. For a couple of reasons I would like for it to open in incognito mode (to prevent the option of editing the form, and so that once the Chrome app is closed the tab will not still be there the next time I open Chrome), however there doesn't seem to be a straightforward way to achieve this.
I do also have Tasker but I'm completely unfamiliar with it's capabilities, so if it can help in any way that's fine.

An alternative way would be to install a different web browser like Firefox, Opera, ... and create the link using this browser where you are not logged in.

Not looking positive. https://android.stackexchange.com/q/148326/96277

Disappointing but not the end of the world. I've taken the suggestion of @Robert and just installed a different browser, and configured it to close tabs on exit.


text:
How to remove or find details about malicious "unknown" app that causes suspicious DNS requests
Using RethinkDNS firewall, I observe suspicious requests for the router IP 192.168.2.1 that is labelled by RethinkDNS as comming from an "Unknown" app (whereas RethinkDNS displays the proper app for all other non-suspicious requests).
After blocking requests by the "Unknown" app, this app massively tries to connect to various IPs.
Is it correct to assume from this observations, that there is malware on my phone? If no, what else could I do to become sure about it? If yes, how to remove it?
Please excuse, that this question is possibly broad, I am egaer to learn, but I found no systematic information on how to do tackle this problem.
I am on a Google-Service free LineAgeOS with an old Android version 7.1.2 (due to their drop of support for my device Xiaomi Redmi Note 3). I am very picky about apps, and so far I have only installed OSS apps from FDroid-Repositories, but if there is a good recommendation I would also use Google store apps to solve this problem.

Get the UID of the app and run pm list packages -U to find the app's package name. Relevant details: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/204022/218526


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Disabling Samsung battery management from putting my apps to sleep when the phone screen is turned off and running on the battery
I'm looking to disable Android's battery management.
On my Samsung S10 Plus running Android version 11 are several apps running in the background,
but they only run when the phone's USB port is connected to a charging source such as the mains adaptor or to my computer or when the screen is turned on regardless of being plugged in or running on the battery. The apps fall to sleep within a minute or two when the phone is running on the battery and the screen is turned off. All of these issues started after I upgraded to the current Android version on the S10+. Also this phone is not rooted. We also have older Samsung phones like the S9 and S8 running Android 10 without any app battery management issues.
I have done the following:
I wiped the cache partition.
I have the "Adaptive battery" setting under "More battery settings" turned off.
I have the "Put unused apps to sleep" setting under "Background usage limits" turned off.
I have added the apps to "Never sleeping apps" screen's list under "Background usage limits" turned off.
Despite doing all of the above, the current OS seems to be ignoring all of the settings I have set. Do any of you know of an app or any additional settings that will stop my apps from being put to sleep like that? This never happened when running Android version 9 and below.
All help will be appreciated.


text:
TWRP 3.3.1 help
I'm using TWRP 3.3.1 right now with device with dead screen. So I need to use adb commands to do backup and wipe. I did read the commandline guide available at https://twrp.me/faq/openrecoveryscript.html. I believe client side/script is supposed to be used in recovery adb shell right?
Given that it is correct. I am trying to backup and wipe my partitions. Problem is wipe command, format command, and backup command does not work. I checked that mount command works.
Help me with the solution and if the available commands differ in 3.3.1 please let me know what are all available commands.
note: it seems like shell script use script in /sbin/sh if this is incorrect shell script to be used tell me which shell script i am suppose to use and how to chroot to it (is that even correct term?)

what exact command did you type, and what is the error message? 'adb pull /tmp/recovery.log' will tell you

@alecxs i tried backup and wipe  both command were "not found" it means either it is not available in 3.3.1 or different in 3.3.1 So I need to know the way around.

that is not exact command, you are missing prefix twrp and arguments

@alecxs well that worked like a charm. The guide at TWRP was not clear enough for me. Thanks.


text:
Can an app still send notifications if running in the background is disabled?
I have some apps which show me promotional notifications of new features, deals, etc. I know I can turn these notifications off, but I tried disabling the app running in the background altogether instead (Android 10), so it does not run at all by itself unless I start it explicitly.
Apparently, some of these apps still send me suprise notifications from time to time. How is it possible? Can apps still work and send notifications even if they are not started by me and  cannot run in the background?

That depends on which pushing mechanism your app uses.
In China, many applications use some pushing sdk, as long as there is one application using the same pushing sdk running, the pushing sdk will use the running application to launch stopped-running app(even force-stopped)  and make it running;
however, recently many chinese customized os has been modified to prevent this behavir
According to Google FCM(Google's pushing service), FCM won't send push message for forced-stopped application, but will do it for other situations.
So, according to this , you won't receive any notifications if you diable your application by force-stop

OP hasn't explicitly asked about push notifications. Notifications might also be local, not necessarily coming from a server. Apps can show scheduled notifications even from background.

@KevinDing Can you please link where you found the info about FCM and force-stopped apps?

https://groups.google.com/g/android-gcm/c/1J6XNVOzCcE?pli=1

why i mention pushing message not ordinary notification ，because every app company uses pushing message to send some news to users to trigger them openning the app，so they can get well look marketing data . and by using pushing messages as a trigger ，they can train users like a dog，let users get used to use their app ， aka get addicted. that's why pushing message is more important than native notices，because thery are targeted to youe habit
toktik is the typical one，by learning what you like ，keep send your likes， so your time is wasted.

That's absolutely correct. But only push notifications scenario partially answers the question. If you address the other half too, it'd be perfect :)

Not only in China: I have the same problem on lineage 20 (android 13) with a french app (I still get notifs even with background disabled)


text:
Replicant in QEMU virtual machine
I need an Android virtual machine to run an app I don't want to install in my device. I managed to install Android-x86 in QEMU, but I'd like to use Replicant instead. So, the question is: is it possible to install Replicant in a virtual machine with QEMU?
Please consider that I have nearly no experience in virtualizing Android and I have never used Replicant before.

Based on their supported devices, Replicant doesn't seem to provide Android for PC/Virtualization, so I'm afraid what you want is not possible now...

What is wrong with the standard Android Emulators provided by Google (Android SDK) or those that come pre-installed like Genymotion? Those emulators are well adapted to their run-time environment which makes them run much better than any custom Android-X86 installation.

@Robert I'm not using Android SDK because I prefer to avoid Google products as much as possible, but I might consider it if I can't find any other solution. About Genymotion and other emulators, I have a personal rule to use only free software on my device and I couldn't find a free Android emulator.


text:
How to debug GPS problems on Android 11
I recently bought a Realme 8 Pro Phone with Android 11. To track my running course, I am using the app “Caynax Sports Tracker”. It did work for about 2 weeks without problem, receiving the GPS position. But after a while, the GPS signal was lost for more and more times. The last run lasted about 30 minutes, and GPS reception did work maybe for 2 minutes! On the same evening, no GPS signal was found whatsoever.
To fix this problem, I tried to use the following apps:

GPS Aid - Fix GPS Problems (TechRCS)
GPS Reset COM - GPS Repair, Navigation & GPS info (DS Software)
GPS Status & Toolbox (MobiWIA Kft.)

These apps seem to reset the GPS, clear GPS data, download GPS data, etc. Yesterday evening I tried for an hour to fix the GPS problems, also restarted the device, but I was not able to get a single GPS fix.
On the next morning, without any change, it seemed to have worked again.
Is there a way I can see where the problem is? Is it a hardware problem, software problem, a realme problem or a problem with android? Maybe there is an app which can debug a bit more?

One action most users forget is still available: Shutdown your phone for a minute. Do not reboot, really shut it down. Then the GPS chip will be cut from power which is like a hard reset for it. On my phone I had the case where GPS wasn't able to get a fix with any of the 24 available satellites with clear view into the sky. Only a shutdown was able to fix this problem.

Ah thanks, I surely will try that.

I'm too facing the same problem (Realme x2 pro), really anoying and random, it only started after the android  11 update. Tried several times to get help from realme, but they didn't care to help! I regret buying a realme


text:
how do i make phone default to transfer files when plugged in to computer usb?
i have developer options set to transfer files but every time i plug it in it only charges.
i have a motorola e5 play running OS 8.


text:
Hide the ETA screen in Waze when starting a new navigation
When starting new navigation in Waze, I want to drive right away: I don't want to have to click on Go or wait ~ 13 seconds to remove this screen:

(Click the image to see its larger variant)
Is there any way to automatically bypass / hide / remove that ETA screen?


text:
How to always boot in recovery mode?
I'm using Magisk and, because my device (lavender with Android 11) does not have ramdisk in the boot images, I have to boot in recovery mode (not to recovery, only in recovery mode) every time I want to have root enabled.
So my question is, is there a tweak to automatically boot in recovery mode every time ? Maybe a script or something (I am not very familiar with these) ?
Thank you for your help !

i think you have rooted wrong. you can use magisk in boot

No, It's pretty common : https://topjohnwu.github.io/Magisk/install.html#magisk-in-recovery

this section is for samsung, and there is special note that instructions not valid for xiaomi. root magisk in boot


text:
how to get data from Android phone internal memory in downloading or recovery mode
My Yotaphone 2 started to boot loop (can not finish booting). I can only reach "Downloading mode"
or Android system recovery with options:

"reboot system now"
"apply update from ADB"
"wipe data/factory reset"
"wipe cache partirtion"
"reboot to bootloader"
"power down"
"view recovery log"

reboot or wipe cache partition didn't help.
I tried "ADB devices" but it can't see the phone and shows only  "List of devices attached" (downloading or recovery modes).
The Windows_7 can see "Androd bootloader interface" in downloading mode or "Linux file-CD Gadged USB Device" in the boot loop state.
I was also unsuccessfil with the "go-mtpfs" to reach MTP file transfer in Linux.
Before I do the factory reset I would like to save photos and some datas.
Is there any other way how to save datas from the Android phone with boot loop problem?

if your bootloader is unlocked you can 'fastboot boot twrp.img' custom recovery and decrypt your files

after trying (four different ROM) and spending many hours with

fastboot boot boot.img  (some finished OK but still boot loop)
fastboot boot system.img (finished with errors and still boot loop)

I gave up trying to save datas and did "wipe data/factory reset".
The mobile phone started after few minutes and works, unfortunately without my photos a files.


text:
Fine Bluetooth Volume Control
I connect my Pixel 3 to JBL Flip 4 via bluetooth. The volume rocker buttons don't increment the volume in equal installments, which is very noticeable at the lower volume range. I installed the Precise Volume app to get the actual numbers and it looks like the bump from 12% to 13% is barely noticeable (which is how it should be) whereas from 13% to 14% is quite significant (which is annoying, hence this post)
If I use the Flip 4 via an aux cable this isn't an issue as the two volume controls become decoupled - the speaker's volume buttons affect the speaker's volume without affecting the phone volume, and you can get much finer control over the volume with small, equal increments (leave phone on 5-10% and play with the speaker's volume until it sounds good)
Basically, I am interested in being able to make fine adjustments to the volume coming from a bluetooth speaker, but it looks like it's just a bluetooth limitation that I can do nothing about.
Can anybody comment on with any thoughts or workaround ideas (other than using aux)?
ps: the actual use case i am after is that i like listening to audiobooks at night, don't want to deal with a cable in bed, really want to find a fully wireless solution where I can set the volume exactly right, but I kind of feel blocked by the technology and don't see a way around it

Found the answer:
To decouple phone volume and speaker volume enable what's now called Disable absolute volume in developer options (looks like used to be called Disable max volume)
Taken from here

Well, I found that option but it did no difference at all. I have a charge 5 and a moto x4 btw. Is there any extra step that I have to follow?

This made all the difference in my case, very loud at the low end. Brilliant.

@user349394 try to unpair and pair again device.