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What's causing the pictures copied to my HTC Desire to disappear?
I'm currently running CyanogenMod 7.0.3 on my HTC Desire, and pictures copied to the SD card disappear!
If I copy an image from my computer to the phone using USB Mass Storage mode, it disappears as soon as the copy is finished.
Pictures taken with the Camera app disappear too.
Pictures copied with adb push some_pic.jpg /mnt/sdcard/DCIM/100MEDIA don't show up in the Gallery app.

Do they show up if you check with a file explorer (and are just missing in the gallery)? In this case, it might be a .nomedia file in the very same directory (or a level up), see http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/27714/why-cant-my-phone-find-pictures-or-music-files-suddenly

I can see them with a file explorer, they're just missing in the Gallery. I've searched for .nomedia files using find and found one in the card's root, but I suspect it's been recently added by a recent ROM Manager bug (I didn't take note of the file's creation date before deleting it).

I've removed /mnt/sdcard/.nomedia and /mnt/sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnails and rebooted the phone, and the pictures are back in Gallery. Let's see for how long...

For as long as you keep that .nomediafile away :) I added this as an answer, including some closer explanation -- so you might want to check and possibly even accept it, as it solved your issue.

I noticed a similar problem on my HTC G2 recently after I migrated phones.  Deleting the thumbnails folder fixed the problem.
See also: Not all images showing up in gallery

A quite common cause for "disappearing media" is not restricted to photos only, but can also affect audio and video files:
The media scanner checks each directory for a file named .nomedia (this file can be empty, its content is not checked). If found, this directory including its subdirectories is skipped from scan -- which means, this media does not appear in the gallery.
You can easily check if this might be the cause:

use a file explorer (e.g. ES File Explorer) to check whether your media is where it should be (i.e. usually somewhere on your sd card). You can also check this from your computer via USB.
if so, check all the tree along for a file named .nomedia (note the leading dot!). It may reside even in the root directory of your sd card -- or somewhere in the path to your media files
if found, just delete it (safe to do so -- you can re-create it anytime, it has no important content but is more likely even completely empty).

Check you SD card for errors, preferably by powering down the phone, removing it and inserting into an SD reader.
And always use "Safely Disconnect Hardware" in Windows system tray or unmount the USB mass storage device in Linux.


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Will Asurion charge me for my replacement phone if I've rooted it
I have an android phone with Sprint which I dropped and cracked the screen. I have insurance, and they've already sent me a new phone. However, my old phone is rooted and has CyanogenMod on it. Will they charge me for the full cost of the phone (instead of just the deductible) when they find that my phone is rooted/has CyanogenMod on it? I don't see why they would, because which ROM it had wouldn't prevent the screen from getting cracked, but I want to know if I'll have to flash it back to factory stuff before sending it back to Asurion.

Let's think about the cost/benefit here; 10 minutes SBFing back to stock could save you the full cost of a phone if it is in fact an issue for the carrier/insurance place.  On the other hand, if you SBF back and they don't check/care, then it doesn't matter anyway.

@shambleh What does SBF mean? Also, I don't have any backups of before I rooted/flashed CM7 (the tutorial I read didn't say to make one) so I'm following this post: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/7396/how-can-i-flash-back-to-the-stock-rom-for-htc-evo-4g-supersonic-using-just-the-ph/7398#7398 Would that be good enough?

From reading that post, it looks like it should be good, but do some additional investigation.  To clarify, SBF files (the file type may be native to Motorola phones while RUU may be what HTC calls them [all: feel free to clarify]) are files which allow you to get your phone back to the stock state.  A few Google searches may be in your best interest on how to do this for your phone type so you are armed with some additional knowledge.  There may even be some vids on YouTube that go through the process.

In most (all?) cases, rooting voids your warranty.  I would assume that in jurisdictions with sane laws, physical damage clearly caused by the dropping would still be covered; they can't reasonably claim that the rooting caused the damage or would prevent them from fixing it.
That said, most jurisdictions don't have sane technology laws, and most carriers seem to jump at any chance to screw people over for money.  If they find out it's rooted, I would expect them to try to charge you the full cost.  So unroot / flash stock if you can.

I doubt they're going to even look. If it's salvageable, they'll probably send it out for a refurb. If so, it'll get wiped.

Agreed.  I should have expanded on my if.

I have rooted every phone I've ever had and they never charge you for rooting it. As already commented, I doubt they even look. Here are some examples:

I used to have Assurion and they never charged me for a rooted phone.
I bought a phone one time, rooted it and returned it. Never heard a peep from them.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Mobile network: browser is OK, apps doesn't connect internet
When phone use WiFi connection, all apps can connect to internet. When it use mobile network connection, browser can connect, but apps cann't connect. Is there any settings? How can I diagnose? Phone is Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 with Android 2.1.

What's your carrier?

Orange Slovakia

I think the most interesting is you APN and Operator. It could be that only http traffic is allowed (port 80 and 443 for https) or some similar limitation. Check you operators support page for details.

Opera Mini also cann't connect, but browser can.

In my country there is one operator with whom we've same behavior. They have given us two different apn. With first only the browser works, exactly like you have said. With second everything works.
If your operator has different apn for using Mobile internet in Computer, try that apn. This works with one of the operator in my country but not sure if this will help you.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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native email client on galaxy S2 does not attach original message when I reply back to the sender?
When i reply back to the sender or people in CC, The email client shows me the original message while i'm typing my reply but somehow it gets removed/deleted when i send the email and it appears to come as a new message to the person.


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Tablet showing 0 internal storage even after flashed
My Envizen V917G just shut down one day and restarted with the factory reset.
I have since flashed it with the software from their website (several times, it fails to format the cache in the automatic mode but claims to be successful if I do it manually) but it still shows 0 space available and it won't shut down on it's own but I presume that is because it can't save any settings since it says it has no space and it restarts in it's factory setup state every time.
Anyone know of any other software I could flash it with to get it working properly, or other things I could try? Or is it just a useless toy now?
This was a gift and I can't claim the guarantee without a receipt and the original serial number intact, which was just a sticker that rolled off the back after 4 months of use.

Disclaimer - I don't have enough reputation to place comments - so here is a suggestion.
I have been looking around and found a blog from a user with the same device who has rooted it successfully here.
Plus the comment from a user here.
I suggest to get your device rooted and then install (clear some temp files before installing if you can) the disk utility from here
From the app, you can see where your data is being used.
PS: You don't necessary need root privileges to get this utility working. However, I am presuming you have flashed the device perhaps to death and may have lot of old data which may be stored from within the system data part of your Android device.

Here is what is happening:
The update somehow unmounted and mounted partitions improperly.
You will have to install (flash) custom recovery (TWRP,  CWM, or other).
Go into the mount option to toggle settings.
I don't know exactly which partition (I think it was /data?) got mounted or unmounted, so I can't help you there. But I had the same problem when I got an update on my Acer ICONIA a500. My 16gb turned into 1.2Gb! It took a little bit, but finally got it figured out.
Good luck!

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


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Change critical settings with ADB without root
I am new to Android "internals". I am looking for a way to change some settings on my device, just by using ADB, with debug mode enabled, without having root on my phone (warranty issues taken seriously).
The settings I am trying to change are:

Turn ON/OFF the unknown sources.
Add specified app to device administrators and remove it at any time.
Allow / disallow notifications for specific apps.
Optimize / do not optimize battery usage for specific apps.
Give / take screen capture permissions for specific apps.
Enable / disable google scan feature.

Unfortunately I am not a Java programmer, but, if there isn't a way to do the things above with adb but there is a chance to automate these tasks by using an app, I will try to do it. I just need some directions here. Thanks.

No, you cannot change device settings with ADB unless you have root.
$ adb shell

$ settings put system test_variable test_value
Error while accessing settings provider
java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial

$ su
# settings put system test_variable test_value
# settings get system test_variable
test_value

The settings command works fine for me on Android 10 without root.

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


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Unable to copy the files to /system/app
I am working on i.MX 6Quad SABRE-SD with Android 9. I am facing some problem when copy the some data to system/app from USB Mass Storage,
I got error, when I mount the system to write access:
sabresd_6dq:/ # **mount -o remount,rw '/system'**

**EXT4-fs (dm-0): previous I/O error to superblock detected
Buffer I/O error on dev dm-0, logical block 0, lost sync page write
EXT4-fs (dm-0): re-mounted. Opts: block_validity,delalloc,barrier,user_xattr,acl,inode_readahead_blks=8**

And also I got error when copy the some data to system/app from USB Mass Storage.
sabresd_6dq:/system/app # cp /mnt/media_rw/2A61-DD07/ota/update.zip  /system/app

EXT4-fs error (device dm-0): ext4_mb_generate_buddy:757: group 11, block bitmap and bg descriptor inconsistent: 32768 vs 0 free clusters

EXT4-fs (dm-0): previous I/O error to superblock detected

Buffer I/O error on dev dm-0, logical block 0, lost async page write

Buffer I/O error on dev dm-0, logical block 1, lost async page write

Why are you using device-mapper with /system? dm-crypt? dm-verity? Or something else?

Is there any possible to disable dm-crypt and dm-verity?

Disabling is the next step. I don't know what and why are you using. I'm asking you. From where did you get system.img and kernel?

Configuration to unmount the system,

adb shell

reboot bootloader

fastboot oem unlock

Reboot the devices,

adb root

adb disable-verity

adb root

adb reboot

adb root

adb remount

adb push adb push 'D:\VINOTH'   /system/app/

Wait until finish

adb reboot


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What does the hyphen and number that comes after an installed package name mean?
For example, if I install Google Chrome on my phone (assume it's not prebuilt), whatever the original name of the apk is, it will usually be installed to /data/app/com.android.chrome-1.apk but sometimes /data/app/com.android.chrome-2.apk and even xxx-3.apk or xxx-4.apk
My question is what the number in that case mean and how is it generated? It's often varying and I haven't found any clue.

The number has no special meanings. It is used to distinguish old and new packages during installation. While installing an app, the Package Installer first finds an available 'packageid-number' pattern, with the number incrementing from 1, and creates the directory (APK file for Android 5.0 and under). Then it places the APK file in it and removes the old one. Therefore, most commonly the number only varies from 1 to 2 because only one instance of an installed app exists. Summing up the old app and the temporary name, there can only be 2 instances. If you have, by some other means like installing 2 of the same app using a parallel container, there can be up to 4 instances of the app, thus creating com.example-4.

Here's my experiment on Android 5.1.1, using Root Explorer to install the app and Terminal Emulator to monitor directory content change.
Preparation: Use XInstaller (an Xposed module) to allow downgrade installing app (so that I can repeatedly install the same version of an app).
1. Tap the prepared APK file in Root Explorer to install it. In my case, it's Termux.
2. Repeatedly run
root@android:/data/app # ls -d com.termux-*
Output:
First: com.termux-1
After some time: com.termux-1  com.termux-2
After more time and finally: com.termux-2
3. Tap the APK to install it again and repeat Step 2.
Output:
First: com.termux-2
After some time: com.termux-1  com.termux-2
After more time and finally: com.termux-1
4. Create placeholder directories named com.termux-2, com.termux-3, com.termux-4 and set correct permissions.
5. Repeat Step 3.
Output:
First:com.termux-1  com.termux-2  com.termux-3  com.termux-4
After some time:com.termux-1  com.termux-2  com.termux-3  com.termux-4  com.termux-5
After more time and finally:com.termux-2  com.termux-3  com.termux-4  com.termux-5
Where com.termux-2, com.termux-3, com.termux-4 are all empty as they are created by me, not the Package Installer. To verify, run
root@android:/data/app # pm list packages -f | grep com.termux
package:/data/app/com.termux-5/base.apk=com.termux

If you first install the package, it will have a "-1" appended to the folder name. Every time you update the same package without uninstalling, regardless of how it's done, the number increments by itself.

Did some experiments and I'm going to answer it myself.

Looking forward to it. Dedicated experiment > occasional experience.


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No more badge notifications on Google Pixel?
I just replaced my Verizon Galaxy S4 (Android 5) with a Pixel from the Google Store. On my old phone, Snapchat and Facebook, for example, had badge notifications on their home screen icons.
My Pixel doesn't have that though, it appears that no apps have badge notifications anymore and so if I clear out my notifications from the pull down bar I have to open each app to see if they have new items.
Is there a way to change this? I'm aware gmail never supported badge notifications with the default launcher, but what about the other apps? What happened?
Facebook's options just list vibrate, LED (which LED? On the back?), or sound. Snapchat has similar options.
Or is this just a Android 7 change?

This is a because Pixel (and also Nexus) devices do not support app badges. More specifically the launcher does not. It is the launcher that must support them rather than the app itself. Your Galaxy S4 supported this because Samsung built support for them into their launcher.
You could install a new launcher (Nova launcher supports them via an additional app, and Action Launcher has recently added them).
Chris Lacy (the developer of Action Launcher) has some useful insight into why he resisted adding them for as long as he did:

Unlike iOS, Android does not have a system wide API to fetch unread badge counts for all apps. In short, unread badges are only ever going to work so well on Android. For example, unread badges can be reliably fetched for SMS messages, but there remains no bulletproof way to fetch the number of unread Hangouts, Allo or Facebook Messenger messages.

Thank you, exactly what I was looking for. I had no idea Samsung was using a custom launcher--now I realize most of my phones have been Samsungs, and so I was assuming it was the default behavior.


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What's the difference between "Voice input" and "On-device speech recognition"?
I've noticed that on my Android 13 device (a Pixel 5), in the Languages & input settings, there are two speech input related options:

Voice input
On-device speech recognition

both have the option to download languages, in order to be performed offline.
What's the difference between the two? The only context where I use voice/speech recognition is Google Keep Notes.

Just in case it matters, could you [edit] and mention the device model and whether you're using a custom ROM?

@AndrewT. done, thanks for the suggestion!


text:
Is there any way to dump the Data Usage log through the ADB shell?
The reason I would need to dump these data is because in smalls display (S5301) doesn't fit everything and data is cut. I couldn't do anything to move that graphic.
Look,

I've searched in Google but without success.

This is not quite what you asked, but does turning the device to landscape orientation help?

If not: is the device rooted?

Landscape orientation helped to guess.

No root. Would it be only possible having it rooted? I was curious anyway.


text:
Automatic power on at preset time
Is there a way or app that allows to program a schedule for automatic power on/off on the phone for android 4.x?
I know that in the settings there is a similar option, however it allows to define only ONE schedule for power on and ONE for power off, while I'd be looking for more flexibility.
Edit:
I'm using an HTC desire 310 with android 4.2, and my use case would be like turn the phone off at 11pm when going to sleep, and then having it automatically turn on at 6.50am, so the alarm set at 7am can regularly wake me up.

If I understand it right, For an example; Power off the phone at midnight, But have it turn back on at 7am? Don't think that's possible from the little bit of google searching I did. Once the device is off, its off. If you want the device to reboot at a certain time. That can be done with an app, Tasker can do it. Not entirely sure what you are asking though. Also a screenshot of your schedule app/setting would be helpful, as well as the phone make/model.

@jer3my please see my edit

Ahh I gotcha. This app is a little older but was still getting reviews til 2014 it looks like. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monocube.powerschedule&hl=en It might work for your device, but it still doesnt turn the phone off completely. You could use an app like Tasker to automatically set the phone to silent, airplane mode, plus any number of other options. And if you pair it with something like greenify, it will kill apps you tell it too that normally run in the background. Is there any reason you want the phone off at night? Just wondering

It'd be just to let the phone "rest" a little too XD


text:
Gallery pulling pics from Hangouts even when Hangouts has been disabled
I have an old Samsung Galaxy Victory running Android 4.1.2 that I want to let my son use for specific things only (camera, calculator, clock, etc.).  As such I have been disabling everything I can on it that will not be needed, and am using a lock program on everything else.
However, for some odd reason, the Gallery app is filled with pics that I sent via Hangouts a long time ago.  They were never on this phone to begin with, and the phone has been wiped.  I even made sure that I did not login with my Google acct before apps like Google+ and Hangouts were disabled.  Still, these pics appear and they do not have an option to disable.  They all appear in the gallery as Hangouts followed by the names of the people that were in the conversation.
Is there anyway to remove these and keep them off?  I hooked the phone up to my computer and located/deleted the cached pics (they were all sans extension).  Removing those kept you from browsing them in the albums (temporarily) but all the albums were still there, and eventually they came back.  I have also gone through all the apps I can think of in the Application Manager and cleared the data and cache, but the pics still remain (or immediately return).

I figured out that the pics were coming in independently of any specific app.  Instead, they were coming from the Google Account Sync directly.  To disable this, I went into Settings -> Accounts -> Google Account and unchecked all the sync options.  Then I could clear the data from the Gallery app and all the pics and thumbnails went away.


text:
Galaxy S7 edge - How do I use a sound downloaded as part of a theme?
I want to use the sounds I have downloaded as part of my theme (Blue Polygon) as my ringtone and alarm sound. However, it is not in the selection of sounds when I tried to change it.
Please advice. I have no root access.

@beeshyams Hey, the sounds might be stored in the theme folder I believe, which requires root access.

@beeshyams A theme is not an apk though.

Van you link the theme in your question?

@beeshyams http://www.samsung.com/global/themestore/index.html?appId=com.echovisuals.www.BluePolygon

I have asked the developers and found out that this is a bug caused by setting one or more of the sound settings (notification, ringtone and volume) to silent.
To fix it, follow these steps:

Start by going to Settings - Themes, select the theme named "Default", and then apply.
After this, go through all of your settings and make sure nothing is set to Silent.
Once this is verified, re-apply the theme and it should be working.


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Why phone encryption without screen lock is possible under Marshmallow?
Since phone encryption is irreversible, I'd like to ask before applying it to my phone for the first time.
I have a slide-screen unlock set under my Moto E3 / Android 6.0 Marshmallow. No PIN, no pattern. How it is possible that my phone / Android allows me to encrypt my phone in this situation?
Here are all the warnings I can see.
First screen warns me that:

I need to power up my battery to something around maximum,
I need to connect my phone to charger,
phone encryption takes 1+ hour.

Second screen warns me that:

phone encryption is irreversible,
phone encryption takes 1+ hour.

But, on both screens I can tap Encrypt Phone button without any problems.
What am I missing? Shouldn't I be rather warned that phone encryption is not possible in my case, because I failed to set PIN-lock or pattern-lock for my screen / phone? Shouldn't Android 6.0 rather disallow me to continue with phone encryption in this case?

I have a Galaxy S5 (Android Marshmallow), and when I hit the encrypt phone button, my phone stopped me and forced me to have a password or pin in order to continue. If you use finger print or face recognition, you will need to enter the password or pin on device restart. So the answer is Yes your phone will disallow you from continuing with phone encryption without a password or pin, your phone will just ask you nicely for a password as a part of the encryption process rather than send you back into the settings to make a password.


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Strange Behaviour of HTC One X battery
maybe someone recognizes my problem or has had it himself. My problem is as follows:
Normally I turn my phone of over night.
Battery Monday evening 50%, Tuesday morning 23%
Battery Tuesday evening 79%, Wednesday morning 45%
Turned of accelerated start on Wednesday as I read this might help.
Wednesday evening: 64%, Thursday morning 74%
Didn't turn off my phone tonight and the battery lvl stayed the same at 84% tonight.
As this behaviour makes absolutely no sense, I'm not sure wether my battery is going to die soon or whatever else the problem might be.
EDIT:
After a week of not turning it off during the night, the battery keeps stable over night (about 5% loss in 7 hours). Only thing worth mentioning: When using Apps, the battery drops faster than normal

Edit: Maybe someone can explain it now ;)


text:
Button to turn on Do Not Disturb
I just switched from iOS to Android.  I bought a Samsung Galaxy S9+ and I am looking for a quick way to enable Do Not Disturb.  iOS has a simple button to enable DND.  However, I cant find a way to do this on my phone.  Everything I google, doesnt seem to apply to this phone or android version.
I tried this, but it doesnt seem to apply to my phone.

This button is not a feature of Android. You can try this app or similar apps from Play Store

When you say that IOS has a simple button to do so, are you talking about a physical button, or are you talking about an easily accessible setting? And isn't putting your sound to the lowest, equivalent to DND mode?

@aBochur im talking about an easily accessible setting.  In the latest iOS, you just simply swipe up from the bottom edge of the phone and there is a soft button to enable/disable DND.  On my S9+, I have to go into multiple menus to enable it.  Also, I tried putting the sound all the way down till it vibrates and then checked if DND was enabled at that point and it was not.

@Keltari swipe the notification panel with two fingers, and you should see a setting for that. If you do, let me know, and I'll post an answer with instructions on how to move it up. It was definitely there on s7. Not sure if they removed he since

@aBochur Its definitely not there. '

Do you have similar settings like these? If you don't see that specific one, i guess they removed it. But to confirm, swipe right or left, to see if it's there

@aBochur Lol.  The settings menu does not have DND on the first screen.  I did not realize you can swipe to the right.  It is on the NEXT screen.  If you make your comment an answer, I will select it.  I guess now I need research to see if its possible to reorder that menu.

@Keltari no problem. I'll also advise on how to reorder

@aBochur I found how to reorder it.  just make your comment an answer and ill accept it.  :)  Thanks for the help.  While I am definitely liking Android over iOS, the configurability adds a lot of complexity.  Having to google how to do anything is tedious, granted you probably only need to do it once.

In the answer below, I assume that it's very similar to how it works on Galaxy s8. If that's not so, please let me know, as I don't have one to test this on

The Do not Disturb setting is easily accessible in the notification panel on most Android devices.
To find it on a Galaxy S9+, using two fingers, swipe from the top of the screen, and you'll see all available quick settings. You should see DND mode as one of the option. (If it's not there, swipe the screen to the right or to the left to find it)
Tap on the DND setting to turn it on or off. Long press on it to enter more DND settings.
Below, is a screenshot of how this looks on a galaxy S8. it looks similar On an S9+

How to move it to a more convenient place:
To move the quick setting to a more convenient place like next to the WiFi setting, all you have to do, is press on the three dots (circled with green in the screenshot) and press on button order this will give you access to changing the order of the settings.

Android 4.4.
there is such a function. in the curtain. convenient, beautiful, functional.

This button doesnt exist on my phone.  Between WiFi and the volume button is WiFi calling, not DND

@Keltari check the other answer, the DnD button may no tbe in the same location, the curtain's buttons can be edited and customized. Άνδρας I do not know if "curtain" is the official keyword for swiping down, but I love this term and hope I remember to call it that.


text:
Are launchers as stable and safe to use as stock software?
My main concern is that I do not want to modify my Android so that it becomes less stable than it currently is.
If my understanding is correct launchers like Buzz Launcher or GO Launcher significantly change how Android looks, but the changes perhaps do not stop just there.
Also, once a third party launcher has been installed, is there a way to revert the changes? I mean, sure they can probably be uninstalled, but is it going to be a very clean uninstall, or do they typically leave junk behind around the filesystem?
I'd like to try out Buzz Launcher very much, and GO Launcher probably too, but if they're going to render my Android somehow inferior in terms of causing arbitrary type of damage or just clutter the device as a consequence, I'd rather not.
Update
Incidentally, what about keyboards? Same deal?

It doesn't really seem like some of your concerns can really be addressed in a particularly meaningful manner. There are probably hundreds of 3rd party launchers out there, so it's going to be pretty much impossible to generically state that they are "safe and stable", and the fact that one happens to be stable now doesn't preclude a future update from making it completely broken later.

I understand, that is why I gave two names to use them as an example in conversation. Those are supposed to be  popular, massively used and hopefully tested/debugged enough to be considered reliable and stable... but that is just my assumption. That is why I am asking for other people's experiences and impressions.

You could look into this question for some suggestions: Is it safe to install Launchers for Android which require quite a few permissions?

The question-and-answer format of this site works best if you put each question in a separate question post. Tacking an extra question onto the end after you've already accepted an answer isn't likely to lead to good answers.

In Android, a launcher is no different to any other kind of app. The launcher just has an extra intent filter that launches it when you press the home button. If you have more than one launcher app installed, you get a chooser dialog to select one, just like any other time you perform an action that more than one app can handle (such as sharing a photo).
Android packages aren't like packages in GNU/Linux distributions. They have very limited access to the system, and can't leave files behind them after you uninstall them (except on the SD card, if they request the permission needed to access it). Except when allowed with specific permissions (which you should always check before installing), the only real problem they can cause is using the resources of your phone: taking too much power, network, or storage.
In this respect, you don't need to worry about an unstable launcher any more than any other kind of app you install.

If my understanding is correct launchers like Buzz Launcher or GO Launcher significantly change how Android looks, but the changes perhaps do not stop just there.

I think you are overstating how much a launcher can do. All it changes is how your home screen looks, including the list of apps and widgets you get to from the home screen. A launcher doesn't affect the appearance of any other app, nor does it change how Android works. It's just an app you launch by pressing the home button.

Excellent answer. I'd like to add that Nova has always been rock solid and stable for me. Note also that, while a new launcher takes up RAM, so does the Android launcher, and using Nova means the Android launcher will not be run, so the RAM it used will be available, so a custom launcher should in theory take up the same amount of RAM as using the Android launcher does.

Not sure if you guys will get notifications for the OQ edit, but what about the keyboards? Same story?

You can try different launchers without worrying about "junk being left behind" or any kind of "permanent" damage. If you uninstall an app it and all its data are gone.
I will not comment on the specific launchers you mentioned, since this is a very subjective and sometimes even heated subject. I suggest you try them out. If you don't like them uninstalling is all you need to do to get back to where you are now.

Just knowing how often Linux software, heck this happens on any system basically, leaves some junk around the system and that too, very often, it is buggy all of that makes me feel uneasy. I love Linux, but I want my cellphone to be stable, not a development/qa box that runs a poorly tested software. Hence my generalized question about the state of launchers.


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HTC One M7, "Other" storage category seems too large
It hasn't become a legitimate problem but I'm on my way there because I met a person who showed me how their HTC One ended up with really large Other category size in Settings -> Storage free disk space report.
So, currently my 32GB storage is consumed like this:
8.03GB Apps
5.64GB Music
1.87GB Photos & Videos
7.21GB Other
9.24GB Available
So, that looks insanely large to me. More than Music or close to Apps.
I'd like to be able to review somehow what takes up those 7.21GB. Does anyone have an advice as to how I could see what exactly is those 7.21GB of data? Because it keeps growing over time. I do use the Clean Master app, and it saved tens of gigs of space but still Other keeps growing and I don't want to wake up one day to a phone that is full of data I can't manage.

Have you checked with our storage tag-wiki and the questions linked from there? Should help you figure what exactly is "eating" your storage.

"Other" is everything what's not in the other category's, so for example check your download folder.

I know for a fact Downloads folder is empty. Similarly, I'm sort of aware of what I'm doing with my phone and what can potentially consume a lot of space but I can hardly come up with anything that could take up 7GB, even combined. Izzy, thanks for mentioning the wiki page. I haven't seen it before.

I am having an HTC Desire  816, and it is workig very well now. The only problem I have is that its internal storage is small (8GB). I do not have many applications, only 3.5 GB, but the "Other" storage category is taking nearly as much. With each application installation, the Other category grows. I was forced to move a lot of my apps to the SD card. My conclusion is that the HTC system does not clean up the app installation files (unless it updates the app). The only solytion I have seen so far, but I am reluctant to apply, is rooting the device and manually removing the junk

In support for my suspicion, I have compared the sizes of the "Apps" and "Other" categories on devices of my friends and co-workers, particularly a Nexus and an LG (cannot recall now the exact models). The LG was like my phone, "Other" category similar in size as "Apps", while the Nexus had about 600-700 MB "Other" storage. Both phones had their "Apps" category filled up to more than  5GB. My conclusion is that the OEM android overlays do not tidy up well after installation, while the Google's Nexus takes this into account and cleans up correctly.

After a while of paying a closer attention to what's going on in Android when it installs/removes softare, as well as also having to free up storage space on my gf's Lenovo S650, I realized that many programs do this odd thing when they install the main app, and then download (gigabytes in case of games) "data files". Those often are not accounted as applications themselves and apparently are represented by Other category. For example, I removed 111M app which freed up twice as more.

Even though it's a good enough explanation for me, controlling which app takes up how much space is still a bit of a challenge as the way things currently are the numbers are basically approximate. One has to guess if a 50M app is tied to 430M of "data files", and, trust me, the ordinary users like my gf won't even assume that it may be the case. Actually, she was stuck with a phone that couldn't upgrade its firmware or software. It's a major fail, an area that needs to see a huge improvement in Android.

My own best explanation so far, is the fact that a number of applications may cache some data during the course of actively using them. Data that can't be classified as any of the standard categories, such as Music, Video, Pictures, Applications, etc or Android's accounting methodology fails to recognize this cached data, or doesn't bother to look in places where it's located.
Also, there is another type of applications that use a specific model when the application itself remains small size which, once it is installed, downloads gigabytes of "data files" that are not recognized by Android as part of this Application. For example, a lot of games seem to be doing this but it's not uncommon to see other applications to download any type of data files (dictionaries, etc.)
So, basically the problem and a challenge of identifying what exactly eats up disk space and why Other category is so big is because Android's accounting structures are far from perfect. It just clearly fails to associate "data files" and any cached data with an installed application, which is what normally a user perceives as a logically convenient way to answer the question of "How much disk space does program X take up?". Android simply attributes it to Other category that usually looks disproportionately large on just about any Android system I've seen so far.


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“There's been a change to your Google account” message and password prompt?
I got a message on my device yesterday (2017-02-23):

"There's been a change to your Google account"

along with a prompt to re-enter my password.
I follow good security practices and have regularly run through the security wizard at myaccount.google.com. I also use two-step verification.
Could someone be using my account or is this a known issue?

It looks like this is a known issue, and Google is on top of it.
From the product forums:

We've gotten reports about some users being signed out of their accounts unexpectedly. We're investigating, but not to worry: there is no indication that this is connected to any phishing or account security threats.
Please try to sign-in again at accounts.google.com and if you cannot remember your password, please use this link (g.co/recover) to recover your password. If you use 2-Step Verification, there may have been a delay in receiving your SMS code. Please try again or use backup codes.

Essentially the same message is currently displayed at the top of the Accounts Help: Can't sign in to your Google Account page.
Also, from @google on Twitter:

We know some of you had issues signing in today. Please try again now. Rest easy -- your account's security was not affected.

See also:

Information Security Stack Exchange: Google account verification request
Google accounts are on the fritz but nobody is getting hacked
PSA: If you were signed out of your Google account tonight, don’t worry
Google is having issues with account sign-in, resulting in errors with Android devices, OnHub, and Wifi
Google Users Unexpectedly Signed Out of Accounts

Thanks a lot for sharing this, Al – perfect timing! My wife had this issue this morning, and we were afraid someone might have hacked her account. On reading your post, I just remembered another fact: For hacking, that person had to access the account – in which case an email would have been sent (as the account wasn't accessed from "there" before). So not having received such a mail should be another indicator we can "stay calm" :)


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My Nexus 6P just entered bootloop mode
While doing absolutely nothing, my phone, Huawei Nexus 6P entered a boot-loop mode (it's not going further than showing "Google" text). The only thing I can do is to enter secret menu, but when selecting "Recovery mode", nothing happens. OEM is locked, fastboot flashing unlock is not working because of this. Now I am trying to figure out what happened and I got nothing yet. Does this happened to some of you?

this happened to me you need to call android support and tell them your serial code and then you work with them from there if that does not work send it off to where it came from p.s make sure they are legit if you give them your serial code

Thank you for your response! In a way or another, the phone entered boot-loop while sending a photo through Whatsapp :)) Hopefully is not because of their app, because it's really weird. Anyway, this boot-loop thing is crazy, don't know if it is from the last update for Nexus 6P.


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Issues with SD Card "Reinsert SD Card" for Internal Storage (Adoptable Storage) Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
I have HTC One M8 GPE with Andorid 6.0 Marshmallow installed.
I used my Transcend Micro SD Card as Internal Storage / Adoptable Storage.
At morning I got the message "Transcend SD Card Missing. Reinsert This Device".
I took the card out, inserted it for many times.
Turned OFF and ON the device, etc...
Yet it seems the device won't recognize the SD Card.
If I go into Recovery Mode (I have TeamWin 3.0.01 version) in the Storage Options I can see "Transcend SD Card - Adopted Storage".
So it seems the connector, electricity wise, is working.
Now, few questions:

How can I check the SD Card is working without jeopardizing the data in it?
Is there a way to extract the data from the SD Card (A lot of personal data I'd like to extract)? Maybe some way to do so from the recovery menu or FastBoot mode?

All I care about now is to extract the data from my Phone.
Any assistance will be appreciated.
Thank You.

I guess it's either sd card dead or sd card slot faulty. However there is way to decrypt adopted sd card but if you factory reset device and wipe key you are screwed here is how to decrypt
Btw try to put other sd card in your phone and see if phone is recognize it.

When I insert it in another Android device the device recognizes it yet says it can't access it. I guess since it is encrypted. As I wrote it seems that the recovery sees the card. Though doesn't seem I can see data since it is encrypted. Could it be that the issue is some corrupted writing and can be fixed within the Android device?

Yeah that's normal. Adopted sd card can't be used with other devices. In your case I think that android just went crazy and formating sd card would fix problem (probably). In my answer you have a link to guide how to access data on adopted sd card you'll need just linux PC, it's safest way.

OK, It seems I can easily copy data and all seems to be fine. Is there a way to fix things? How do I merge things back to the way they were?

Did you copied everything you had/need from that sd card? If yes you can try formating sd card and put it back to phone to see if it works. Did you tried other sd card with your phone, try it just know what is happening.

Hi, Yes. I copied all I needed. Won't formatting it destroy all data? I meant since it seems to be working maybe just something small is corrupted and can be fixed with something like CHKDSK or something. I'm not looking into just reuse the card as storage. I want to get the whole phone t its previous state. I will try another SD Card, yet won't that make the phone forget the current one?

I may have more info useful. When I run lsblk on the terminal I see 2 Volumes (Is that the correct term?). The first is sdc -> sdc1 which is only 16MB and the other sdc->sdc2 which is 59GB and contains all data. I tried creating a decrypted map for the sdc and succeeded. Yet when I try to mount is I get wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mapper/crypt2`, missing codepage or helper program or other error. Maybe this superblock is what needed to be fixed?

Yes it will destroy all data, but since you backed up it doesn't matter, right?

Hi, Not entirely correct. I recovered all RAW data (Videos, Images, Documents, etc..). But some data is saved in applications internally and unless I will make it work as it used to I won't be able to recover those. Did you see my note on SuperBlocks error for sdc1? Thank You.

Press enter to send is killing me. I don't know if chkdsk will work since it's encrypted. Be carefull with those "health check" software it maybe rewrite whole sd card. Yeah about this with 16mb and 58gb partitions, it's ok, I remember mounting my adopted sd card and it was like that, if I remember right this partition of 16mb are like on NTFS format some part of memory is reserved for I can't remember what. So you don't need to read sdc1.

Well, I have nothing to lose. If there is a Linux command to try fixing the Volume I'd be happy to try. You thing that even if I can't mount sdc1 it doesn't mean there is an issue with that or something.

Right. Sdc1 doesn't contain actual data, I can't remember what is it for, but if I need to guess I would say it contain part of encryption key so card work only with your phone/key or adresses to all sector or something like that. I think phone went crazy because recovery doesn't have problems with sd card, and only way to fix that is acidentally or with factory reset. Try when you can to put other sd card in phone it shouldn't "forget" previous card.

So you suggest to try Factory Reset? I can give it a try. Is that basically Wipe Data in the Recovery? Thank You.

Yes, wipe data, cache. But after factory reset you will probably need to format sd card, because factory reset should wipe encryption key, however you will not be able to use app data from adopted card. I don't know why you bother with that when you pulled your data from card

Because I could only recover Static Data. Data related to applications is lost unless I get the SD Card to work as it was. Moreover, even static data on the device itself is currently un accessible (Tried even using ES Explorer).

Card failure rates increase significantly when used as adopted storage... It's seen in lots of devices. My guess is the card is failing.
Retrieving it is iffy at best, if the card is not defective, you are rooted, are familiar with Linux, and can follow this process which involves retrieving the encryption key and mounting the system in Linux (or making an image of it and mounting that), there is a chance of retrieving the data.
If the filesystem or card is damaged, the chances of data retrieval, even by a professional data recovery company, are as close to zero as you can get.

Could it happen from other reason but a failing card? Is there a way to check the card without damaging the data on Windows system? Anyway to do something like CHKDSK on Windows to the card from the recovery menu?

When I run lsblk on the terminal I see 2 Volumes (Is that the correct term?). The first is sdc -> sdc1 which is only 16MB and the other sdc->sdc2 which is 59GB and contains all data. Using the Decrypted map for sdc2 I recovered all media files. Out of curuiosity I triend working on the sdc1. Yet when I try to mount it I get the following message: "wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mapper/crypt2`, missing codepage or helper program or other error". Maybe this superblock is what needed to be fixed? What can I do to fix it?

@Royi If you have retrieved the data from the data from the card successfully, then delete the partitions on the card with fdisk/gparted and insert into the phone and reformat it or format it as a single fat32 partition in the computer and reinsert into the phone. I would not reuse the card as adopted storage, it cannot be trusted at this point. You could attempt to use it as portable storage or in another device where the storage is not critical.

Is there a way to just tell the Camera save Videos and Photos on External SD? If that can be done all is good. Thank You.

@Royi That depends entirely on your camera app and it's permissions... You may need to give it permissions.
How to - Provide WRITE PERMISSION on sd card for apps on Android Marshmallow:

Backup File - packages.xml in /data/system folder
Open File - in QuickEdit app
Search - for app name
Paste -  in/after  tag
Save - by pressing back twice and confirming Yes(Grant Root permission if asks)
Reboot

I post a workaround with no data loss, no root needed, no wiping the phone : https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/MOTO-G-3rd-Gen/SD-Card-Missing-Please-Reinsert/m-p/3751841#M9407
2 steps :

Plug the unrecognised SD card to the phone (Moto 3G) through an
external SD Card reader and female to male Micro USB. The phone
will first recognise a new usb drive and start the process to mount
the drive. It will fail and the drive should disappear from the phone memory settings.
Then unplug the SD card reader and simply put the SD
card into its internal slot. The phone should immediatly recognise it as
the "lost" SD card. Everything gets back to normal.

authors: Једноруки Крстивоје


text:
How to use tablet-only apps on normal 5 inch phone?
I want to install an app on my phone, Yu Yuphoria. However in play store it says your device is not compatible with this version and its not available for phones, it is only available for tablets. Is there any way to use it?
I tried Market Helper but it is not working either.

Could've just download APK from a trusted site and sideload it.

Yes, there is a workaround you can use. You need to change the screen dpi to match that of a tablet.
•First of all you will have to install ADB. Download the tool from here.
• Enable USB debugging.
•Now connect your phone to your PC. If you get notification. Click OK to allow USB debugging for that computer.
•Now open command prompt in ADB tool folder; Shift + Right-click in the folder and then click on open Command Prompt.
•Now you have to check whether your device is connected and ADB can detect it. To check enter the following code in the command prompt.
adb devices

Check current DPI with DPI Checker
Proceed and change the DPI using the following command. In the following code the DPI is changed to 480. Change the value as you want DPI for your tablet.
adb shell wm density 480 && adb reboot

Just check the target DPI corresponding to a phone and use that value. In this example is 480.
•If you want to go back to previous DPI. Then enter the default DPI in place of the value previously changed.
Open playstore and see if you are now able to download the apps meant for tablet devices


text:
How can I change the notification sound to a custom but non-default sound?
Ok, so the title isn't as clear as it probably could be, but here goes:
In the Facebook Messenger application you can click the profile/settings button (top right on latest version) and there is a menu option for "Notifications & Sounds".
In this sub-menu there is an option for "Notification Sound" which allows you to select the sound that will be played when you receive a new message.
This list appears to be a list of 'built-in sounds' with one exception... "Default ringtone (name of current SMS notificaiton sound)"
Basically what I am looking to do, is to change the notification sound to be different from my SMS message sound. (I actually used to have this working great somehow, but then my phone went for a repair and had factory reset).
The facebook app has a similar setting, but allows me to select from ALL my custom sounds. This is what I am hoping for.
Is it possible to get other sounds to be available in the list? How can I make it different from SMS notifications?
Samsung S7 Edge, Android 6.0.1

You'll have to add the desired tone to the /sdcard/Notifications directory (followed by a restart, possibly).
Alternately, you can install a file manager app such as ES File Explorer, which you can choose as the notification tone picker, instead of the default menu.

Thanks for the suggestions, that app made it pretty easy to do and seems to be working as desired now.

"choose as the notification tone picker", how is this changed?

Do you need a rooted phone to access the /sdcard/Notifications directory?

@Empiromancer AFAIR no. I haven't checked recently (with Android Oreo).

Except the Messenger "Storage" permission, I had to permit also Facebook App Manager "Storage" access. Otherwise it did not work. (Phone: Honor 9)

Did you try to allow Messenger to access to your storage (in the permissions of the app)? I had the same problem as you. By allowing this to Messenger all custom songs were added to the list you're mentioning.

In my Android Phone I do the following either for Messenger or Lite Messenger:

Swipe down from the top
Select your settings button
Select Sound
Select Advanced
Select "Default notification sound" or if you are wanting a different ringtone select "Phone ringtone"

You are right. I went to the Configurations, then Applications (or Apps), then Messenger, then click on Permissions. In Permissions select Storage. Then, when go back to Messenger notifications sound configuration, you"ll see the other ringtone sounds that you have in your cellphone ☝

It's Simple: Make a Directory on the phone called "Notifications" (if you dont have one) and copy your ringtone into it. It will then show up with all the Samsung ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejsUtt4FcJo

This is probably kinda late and you've likely already figured this out, but in case somebody else is coming here looking for answers, I figured out how to do it on my Galaxy.
I'm not sure if it will be like this on other versions of Android and I have no clue how it would work on an iPhone, but here's what I did.

Go to settings
Tap "Apps"
Find Messenger in the list
Scroll down to the "App Settings" category
Tap "Notifications"
Under the Notifications sub-category, tap "Chats and calls" (not the little slider next to it, but the actual option itself)
Tap "Sound"
If you have another media app like Zedge installed, it'll ask you which you'd like to use to set the notification sound. If your notification is in your media storage, just click that, and scroll down and you should be able to find it.

Hope this helps!!


text:
Inspection checklist for new android mobile devices
Many factory faults and bugs in an android device are discovered by the user long time after he/she receive it. Early discovering of faults/bugs in a device is needed when there is a short return period.
Is there any checklist of common hardware and software faults and bugs that could be inspected once the device is delivered?
I am interested in answers for Google/LG Nexus 5 ordered from Play Store, but general answers for android mobile devices could be also useful.


text:
Notification bar doesn't work anymore
I have stock (rooted) android on my acer lcona B1 A71.
My notification bar is empty since I had to do hardware reset my machine by pin pressing with toothpick above the power button.
I can't for example receive any file via bloototh - confrmation is required but there is nothing since my notification bar is 'frozen'.
There are some things that still work: input selection when keyboard is active and wifi network name is allways correct.
What's interesting i can toggle rotate/lock screen orientation but can't get into settings by pressing icon next to it.
Have you got any clues what may be the cause?
Which process is responsible for notifications? Maybe I can clean some corrupted cache files or something?
I'm tech guy but not from android-world.
I can invoke some shell commands to give you more data etc...
Maybe there is some related thread on xda forum or answered question here that I've missed.
Just point me to it if you know there is.
Thank you.

maybe your digitizer is getting damaged.

It might be the digitizer, as roxan suggested. But if it worked fine until the reset, and started broken immediately following the reset, it could well be a software issue. You could try clearing all cache (using e.g. Clean Master – though I doubt this will help). Or you might rather try a factory-reset (make a backup before!), which would also clear the Dalvik cache. If the latter doesn't solve it, it's a hardware issue and a case for the service team.

Digitizer - do you mean touch screen not working in particullar area? No no, this is not the thing for sure. This is not "can't slide notif-bar" issue. It's about the notification system itself. Notification drawer area stays empty all the time, I can open and close it without any problem.

I've got the same issue one week ago. Today I flashed an AOKP ROM using cwm and finally everything runs well.


text:
Start Skype voice call from addressbook in ICS
I have ICS and Skype 4.4. Some of the contacts in my Android addressbook have a "Chat" contact of type "Skype".
When I have Skype open, is there a way to start a voice call to this Skype contact directly from the addressbook, i.e. without switching to the Skype app?
EDIT: By voice call I mean a call via the Skype network, i.e. to the Skype contact, not a Skype call to the contact's phone number.

Have you tried to simply initiate a call? Unless you've set another app as default, there should be a popup to let you chose the app to continue with: Dialer, Skype, and whatever else you've installed. As long as those apps have registered for this, that is – but I cannot imagine Skype didn't do that, so it should work.


text:
Where is the backup location from Titanium Backup on a phone without an SD card?
I am currently using a Samsung S6. Today I backed up all of my data with the app "Titanum Backup". After backing up all of the data, I transferred the folder of Titanium Backup to my Google Drive. Afterwards, I restored my phone. Then I installed Titanium Backup. However, I don't know where I need to import the folder "Titanium Backup" for the app to restore the the data. I saw many YouTube videos, and their restore was in a SD Card. However, the S6 doesn't have an SD card. Can someone please help me? Thanks.

You can put it on the internal SD card as well (e.g. /sdcard/TitaniumBackup). At its first start, TiBu will ask you to chose a location.

s6 don't have an  sd Card. So what should i do?

It hasn't even an internal SD card? So where does it store photos etc? Hard to believe ;)

@LouisRuan, try to understand: if your device doesn't have an external SD card, then the location /sdcard will point to internal SD card (it comes with all phones and S6 is no exception). Just make sure to download the folder from Drive and put it in the heart of /sdcard/. Use a file manager such as ES File Explorer. If TiBu doesn't detect the folder, go to its settings and choose the folder manually. Then reboot optionally.

For you it may be 'internal shared storage' or 'main storage' or similar name. Check with whatever file explorer app you have. And also you can always change the location of backups from within tb setting 'storage preferences'.


text:
Will bigger Micro SD slow down mobile
I have Karbonn A5+ Android phone running (stuck at) Gingerbread. I want to buy a micro sd card for it and I want to get max speed out of it.
My mobile has 1GHz single core processor.

Will SanDisk Ultra Class 10 give me max performance?
Or are there any internal limitations/specs to mobiles that just constrain the use of all speed that micro sd card has to offer.
Also, will bigger sizes (32 GB) slow down my mobile?
And there is this another breed Mobile Ultra class 6 but with speed up to 30 Mbps! What should I go for?

You should not go below class 4. Class 6 however should be fine. I doubt that your device could really make use of the "additional benefit" of a class 10 card. And as long as your device supports a 32GB card: Size of the card should not slow it down. Just if you fill a bigger size with plenty of (media) files, you might notice the Media Scanner will take a little longer when indexing them ;)

The "mobile ultra" card's claim of 30MBps is probably referring to read speed.  The "Class 6" bit refers to the write speed (i.e. under worst-case circumstances, the card should be able to write data at a minimum of 6MBps), class 10 and class 4 mean the same, only 10MBps and 4MBps respectively.  It says nothing about read speed.

As for "internal limitations", SDHC limits the size of the card to 32GB.  64GB and larger requires SDXC support, which ups the limit to 2TB.  Also, processor speed can limit the use of the card, but that shouldn't be relevant to your device.  I've only seen older, low-end devices (e.g. HTC Wildfire S) getting bottlenecked by the processor rather than the SD card.

@Izzy so why u think my device will not get any additional benefit from class 10, when should one go for class 10? Only for Cams?

You will only see faster loading times on apps stored on sdcard as the benefit. Also, if your phone does not support class10 spec, then its just useless. I recommend you to get a class6 for compatibility and price sake.

@forums How can I know if my device supports class 10 card?If it does not support class 10, then what will happen, will it not detect the memory card altogether or just provide lower class speeds?

Class10 cards operate at 100Mhz and above unlike class6 and below (25Mhz) source. If the card does not support class10 spec then you will get lower performance or even mediocre performance if the card readers timing cant cope up as evident with the discussion here, they fixed it by hacking the driver. Fortunately new phones (particularly multicores) do not suffer this issue. How can you know if yours is supported? 2011 and newer supports it.

MicroSD cards (Virtually) do not increase performance. They only increase the amount of data you can store. Your phone can go up to 32Gb but most people will not need that. Go with the cheaper one since you will not notice a performance hit.

You are correct, but there is the possibility he is using a custom rom that has an EXT3/4 partition mimicking internal memory, then go for a faster read speed card as it will affect the OS speed. Under normal circumstances there's no apreciable difference as you said.

If you're opening Gallery & R/W speed of MicroSD is low, you'll seriously have performance issue..


text:
Why can't Android phones record VoIP calls?
I use Republic Wireless so the majority of my voice calls are VoIP.
I use a call recording app to help me recall conversations after the fact. But in order for it to work, I have to turn off wifi and make the call over the cell network.
The recording app made me acknowledge that I understand that no app can record VoIP calls.
Question: why is cell recording allowed, but not VoIP. Is it the OS limitation?  Is it for security? Is it a legal reason?

....why is cell recording allowed,...

AFAIK call recording is not a feature of stock Android, though certain OEMs and custom ROMs enable it or can be done using apps. I guess legal restrictions is the reason for not enabling  this feature, as call recording laws widely vary
VOIP recording is quite different from voice recording
Firstly, it is possible:

App recording VOIP calls  is possible, see Call Recorder - IntCall for instance. There may be others too
Non app based services that record VOIP calls seem to be more - Dingtone, for example

What is common for VOIP recording and different from voice recording is that VOIP recording is done when it is routed through the servers provided by the app (see description in both links above). Ordinary voice recording is not bound by such limitations and can be natively record if enabled on device
Call Recording Software Wiki

VoIP Recording
  is usually restricted to streaming media recorders or software developed by the softphone or IP PBX creator. There are also solutions which use packet capture technology to passively record VoIP phone calls on the LAN.

Since VOIP is using data packets to transmit voice, these packets need to be actively or passively sniffed ( see wiki above for details) and this requires dedicated setup unlike voice recording ( which can be done natively on phone (if enabled) or using apps ). Hence, VOIP recording is not simple to implement on device like voice recording-  a technology constraint

You answer sort of makes sense to me. But what doesn't make sense to me is, why can't any audio going out your phone's speaker just be recorded once it's been decoded ? On my PC, I can just tell my sound card to record audio from any number of inputs via a software mixer. Is there some sort of hardware limitation where the mixing circuits just don't exist in mobile phone architecture (perhaps as a power saving decision) ? I suppose it's equally possible that the software mixer doesn't exist on the phone OS for the same power saving reason.

That wikipedia article is a bit lacking in actual verifiable content. It says Hardware is required to make the voice signal available to the computer equipment., but doesn't cite any actual reference material.

Thanks for accepting - I am not really sure what the limitation is , and  I would go with hardware given your PC example. If I come across specifics, will update

Please don't misguide. VOIP recording isn't possible due to sound Input device restriction. If a VOIP is working it occupies the "sound input device", as a result recorders will fail to record. It is simple as that. No other guesses.

Please don't misguide? I guess the one misguiding is you. If you call through  the sip protocol,  then you can use CSipSimple. In call options,  you can activate the call recording feature. It works just fine.

VoIP calls cannot be recorded as of now in Android.
Normal Calls dont use microphone so another app can acquire microphone and record the conversation.
But in VoIP calls, the app would be using the microphone so another app cannot acquire, if it tries it fails with an error. If the recorder app tries to acquire microphone before the VoIP call then during the call the other side will not be able to hear anything.
So bottom line is, there is no such app as of now to record VoIP calls in Android.


text:
Is it possible to use a keyboard and mouse on android to control a remote pc?
There are apps like TeamViewer where you can control a pc remotely, my question is if it's possible to use mouse and keyboard otg on the android device to actually control the desktop pc?, like if you were in front of it.

I've been using Splashtop (another remote desktop app, just like TeamViewer), and mouse & keyboard works just fine, but definitely not exactly like you're "in front of it". It can recognize right clicks (Android can't natively), but lots of common shortcut keys like Alt+Tab or Win+* are absent, not necessarily because the software can't support it, but because they already have a purpose in Android itself and that's of higher priority. For example, Alt+Tab actually switches apps on the Android device, instead of the remote one.

If there's anything (mouse operation, keyboard shortcut) you need to test out, try Splashtop for free in LAN environment first, because remote across network is a paid feature.

Ok, I'll try it when I get home, will mark this as accepted answer once I test it

Tested it, my android only displayed black screen even with compatible mode, but the mouse indeed controlled the pc. So that is a solution, but didnt work for me.

@KillerPollo Weird. Splashtop has been my god to solution and has worked for me since Android 4.4 on various devices. At least I got your question answered...

You can use an external keyboard and external mouse in teamviewer, you can right click, left click but can't alt+tab, it switches Android apps to another Android app.


text:
How to disable Notifications for Github Emails on Google Inbox?
I turned the data synchronization on, and I get the notifications of Google Inbox. It works fine for "important" or "primary" emails, but it notifies me for Github emails too. How do I disable it -just because it is not really important/primary-?

You can't do it from within the app as you can read in Google Product Forums , open since last two years
Alternatively, you can try automation.  I prefer Macrodroid, being easy to learn and free (upto 5 macros)
Create a macro
Trigger: Notification → Notification received  → Select Application  → Inbox  → Text content contains  → Enter here the text common to GitHub mails like maybe yourname@ GitHub.com? ( Check your notifications to see what easily identifies these )
Actions:

Clear Notifications  → Clear all
Optional if you don't want notification sound Volume Change  → Set notification on slider scale to zero

Constraints : Leave blank

Thank you for the link and app. I am surprized that this issue has been discussed and nothing has been done yet. And for the email address: These emails come from the address notifications@github.com . I'll check the application, thank you

Welcome. Let me know if the problem is solved with macro ( should be ) and you can accept the answer on being sure

Yesterday I gave a try but I it didn't work. I guess "include" checks only the notification which doesn't have github or anything special to github. I will check more

It should work, as in this answer trigger. Another alternative is to amend action which has clear notification > text content contain > notification@github.com. Yet another alternative is to say trigger just mention the app and text any with action as suggested above

Another troubleshooting way is to see if the macro is getting invoked or not by seeing the system log ( accessible from top left menu of main interface). You should see the macro with the name you saved it with and time it was invoked. Thanks for accepting but would have been appropriate to accept once it is solved :)


text:
How can I prevent long hold backspace from deleting everything?
If I am holding down backspace to delete several words, if I hold it down for more than about a second, it will delete everything until the beginning of the line. I would rather it just keep deleting words at a constant pace. I feel like I am working around this "feature" more often than I am using it, ie, I want to delete everything except the first word on a line, and I end up holding backspace for just under a second, waiting, holding it again, waiting, holding again, etc.
The most common occurance is when I want to delete everything after a slash in a web address.

I'm now using a oneplus 9. tbh I still like the galaxy better overall, but I do appreciate that oneplus' OS does not include the long hold backspace "feature"

This is not possible without using a 3rd party keyboard, specifically SwiftKey

.. If you continue to hold the backspace key it will speed up.When Gestures are enabled:As well as the same functionality as above, you can additionally delete the last word you type by sliding your finger across the keys from right to left.

Source - SwiftKey support


text:
Android's screen is rotated by 90 degrees
So I saw this command:
adb shell wm size 1080x1920
and I wanted to try it, so I did but my screen is now flipped, and I can't even take a screen shot because it says "Prevented by security policy".
 I have tried already to run some screen rotating commands like this: adb shell settings put system user_rotation 3 , and similar commands but nothing works.
I have a Galaxy S5 not rooted and I don't want to factory reset it or root it. It boots fine (the Android and Samsung logos) but the home screen and apps are just rotated 90 degrees.

You can try the solution here. Change the Trigger to Device Boot

Are you just looking to turn it back to what it was? adb shell wm size reset

I'm making this a proper answer just in case...

If you're just looking to turn it back to what it was, use the command adb shell wm size reset.


text:
Cannot disable com.motorola.ccc.ota
Since "Motorola Software Update" decided to download Nougat OTA without asking my opinion, I declared a war. But the weapons I use are broken.
Withot su:
shell@athene:/ $ pm disable com.motorola.ccc.ota
Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial: attempt to
change component state from pid=22598, uid=2000, package uid=10009

With su:
1|shell@athene:/ $ su
root@athene:/ # pm disble com.motorola.ccc.ota
Error: Could not access the Package Manager.  Is the system running?

How can I disable this app?
I wouldn't like to rm the app entirely (if possible), have everything system-less so far. If relevant, I am using Moto G4 with Marshmallow.

Maybe you just didn't remount you system partition before disabling?

@Suncatcher Good idea, but... I can only remount system in superuser session, and pm doesn't work in it. Superusers have either separate mount namespaces or share it with init. I cannot see a way to make system rw for unprivileged user. Maybe I miss something? :\

You can try to remount inline with adb shell su -c "mount -o remount,rw /system" and then run pm, however I am not sure it will work.

It throws exactly the same exception :(

To stop OTA updates (and notifications) on Moto devices, you don't use Package Manager, you will need to "freeze" the service...
Google Play Store has many apps that will allow you to 'freeze' the OTA Update service. Titanium Backup is a common example.
Alternatively, with a 'root access' file explorer, you can delete or rename the following files:
/system/etc/security/otacerts.zip
/system/priv-app/3c_ota/3c_ota.apk
These additional files can be removed or renamed: (If you still get an OTA Update notification)
/system/priv-app/3c_checkin/3c_checkin.apk
/system/priv-app/3c_devicemanagement/3c_devicemanagement.apk
/system/priv-app/3c_notification/3c_notification.apk
Reference

AFAIK Titanium Backup uses exactly pm disable to "freeze" an app, so it  shouldn't work either. Ended up making a backup and just renaming the OTA app :( I guess I just won't find a nicer solution. Neat idea with removing the certificates btw.

Looking at

With su:
1|shell@athene:/ $ su
root@athene:/ # pm disble com.motorola.ccc.ota
Error: Could not access the Package Manager.  Is the system running?

I've noticed that there is a spelling error in the "disable"  The original statement says "disble".  This message is just FYI.


text:
Need help installing Whatsapp on a new phone
I recently upgraded my phone to a newer model. My old phone was rooted (using Kingroot) and I had somehow installed a program that allowed me to force moving an app to the SD card, which is what I did with Whatsapp since it used up the available space extremely quickly.
On my new phone (which I installed the same SD card, but wiped it), when I try to open up Whatsapp, I get:

Unfortunately my device doesn't even have 2.6 GB total free space after all the system apps eat up most of the storage, however the SD card is empty and has plenty of space.
In my Whatsapp backup on Google Drive I have lots of things I don't even want backed up. Is there a way to manually edit the backup in Google Drive and remove some of the large files to reduce the size and be able to back it up with the space I have on my device?
If not, if I root my device again (which I would really prefer not to do) and move Whatsapp to the SD card again, would that fix the problem, or is it still going to keep looking in the internal storage to restore the backup?
Or let me know if you have an easier solution. I simply don't want to lose some of the photos and videos there as well as chat history.
Note: I tried doing https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout, however the archive created when I select Google Drive is only about 150 MB - nowhere near what my Whatsapp backup is.

Possible duplicate of I don't want my Whatsapp Media to restore (Google Drive BackUp)!

@xavier_fakerat That doesn't answer my question. That's only about deleting the entire backup. My question states that I want to only delete some, but not all files from the backup so that it will fit on my phone.

If you want to download your whatsapp application data from Google Drive, here's a tool for that. You can then delete any media you wish and restore your messages and the remaining media back into WhatsApp.


text:
Skype cutting out on Samsung Galaxy Ace III
I've had my phone (Samsung Galaxy Ace III) for around 3 weeks now. Ever since I received it I instantly installed Skype and for some reason, when ever I'm calling any of my friends their voices cut out.
I have borrowed several other devices in my house to try and see if it was a local/generic problem but that was inconclusive as Skype worked fine on all of them.
It's really quite irritating when I'm trying to talk to my friend and when he replies I don't hear him, either at all or only a little bit. What's my problem?
Also I've tried re-installing Skype several times as well as cleaning caches etc.

Bump, needs a reply.

I guess that's what bounties are for, but first you should earn more reputation points... maybe answering someone else's questions?

Alright, I'll give it a go.


text:
Why do I need more than 200 megabytes of disk space to install an APK?
I started to get not enough space errors when updating or installing APKs, but I have 200 megabytes of free space on my internal storage, 2,68 gigabytes on my internal sdcard, and 3,62 gigabytes on my external sdcard. I can't imagine what could use more storage than 200 megabytes in the process of installing a 4 megabytes APK. I'm constantly deleting apps, moving them to sdcard, but I only end up having less and less space remaining. How does this work? I want to understand the inner mechanism of how storage is handled when installing APKs, or in situations that can affect it, so maybe I could write an app to help this procedure.
Edit: I'm using BAM Android on a Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100).

internal memory space is required to store app data and cache, it doesn't matter much if you move your apps to sdcard app data and cache still gonna be in internal memory.
this problem can be solved by rooting.
if not willing then try some apps playstore which delete cache and auto move apps to sdcard


text:
Syncing fails after changing Google Apps user's email
A few days ago, I changed the primary email of a Google Apps user from user@domaina.com to user@domainb.com
Ever since doing so, Android refuses to sync using either the new or old email address, but I can still log in on the web using both.
Both domains are controlled by my Google Apps organization, and attempting to reconnect the accounts after a factory reset gives me an incorrect password error.
The device is running Android 2.3.3 if it makes a difference.

Have you tried changing the password, and trying to log-in again with the new password?

I realized last night that since I have 2 factor auth enabled for my account, I might have to generate a new application-specific password in my google account settings.
I generated a new one and successfully synced with my new email using it.


text:
How does Samsung Wi-Fi password sharing work?
Every article I find mentioning how to share a Wi-Fi password between Android devices either mentions using a QR code, or clicking a "nearby share" button.
But when I enter the password for a new Wi-Fi network on my Galaxy phone, my Galaxy tablet connects automatically to the same network, without any action on my part. No QR code nor button pressing. And this happens while the tablet has no internet access.
What mechanism is making this happen? Is this something that I enabled and I don't remember, or does it happen by default?

What accounts (Google/Samsung/other) are setup on both devices?

Both devices have the same Google and Samsung accounts.

Maybe by Wifi sharing creating a hotspot that is specific to Samsung devices? (I don't own any)

If this is the case, you can write up an answer

Note: this answer was based on the original revision with an assumption that the other Samsung device already had an internet connection through another method.

Samsung Cloud provides several sync features to all Samsung Galaxy devices linked to the same Samsung account, including Wi-Fi profiles.
From Samsung Support - Sync data across all of your devices using Samsung Cloud,

You can make sure your phone's data is up-to-date with Samsung Cloud. It will sync data on multiple devices, so they'll have the latest information. For example, if you added a new Calendar event or contact on your phone, they will appear on other devices that are signed into the same Samsung account.

From Samsung Support - Back up and restore data or files on your Galaxy device

Content types that can be backed up using Samsung Cloud

[...]
Settings: Accessibility settings, ringtones, Samsung Keyboard options, Wi-Fi settings, and Always on Display settings (your default ringtone won't be backed up)
[...]

From Samsung Support - Access your device backups in Samsung Cloud

Access and manage the Cloud from a Galaxy phone or tablet
Samsung Cloud is integrated directly into your Samsung account, so you can access it easily from your phone or tablet's settings.

Navigate to and open Settings.
Tap your name at the top of the screen, and then tap Samsung Cloud.
From here, you can access the following options:

Sync: Choose which apps or settings you'd like to automatically sync to Samsung Cloud, such as Contacts or Samsung Notes.
[...]

Access the Cloud from a web browser on a PC

To access Samsung Cloud on your computer, open your desired web browser, and then go to https://support.samsungcloud.com.
Click Sign in, enter your Samsung account information, and then click Sign in again.
If you're unsure of your account information, click Find ID or Reset password after you click Sign in.
Once you are signed in, you can see all of your synced data.

I'm not sure I follow. Or, I guess the question is: how does my tablet connect to Samsung Cloud without the wifi password, to get the wifi password?

@MartinArgerami Sorry, I guess I misunderstood the situation because I assumed your Samsung tablet already had an internet connection through another method, like mobile data for example. Otherwise, I'm not sure either whether Samsung has some kind of active sync through another method (perhaps the other possibility is through Bluetooth)

Yeah, that's what my question is about. My tablet, with no internet connection, learns the wifi password (and connects to the network) a few seconds after my phone does.


text:
How can I check if busybox is working properly?
I have Busybox installed, but I suspect that it does not work properly.
Total Commander ADB plugin invokes busybox mv -f and busybox rm -f commands, but it seems to fail silently.
Is there a reasonable way how to check?

"How do i know if I have busybox?"

Open Terminal Emulator and type "busybox". If it gives you a giant list of command options, it's installed. If it says "Command not found", it's not.

edit Rather than putting this in the comments: you could also try su to become root followed by busybox, busybox --version, busybox --help or anything that will give you some feedback and some clues as to what's going on.

It gives me nothing. No error, but no text either. Thats why I am confused.

Then it prints busybox and nothing else.

Titanium backup does a check and displays busybox information. Might be handy. Try the above in terminal emulator, but try SU first, as I think busybox commands need super user access!

I think it is completely broken. su followed by any of busybox, busybox --version, busybox --help does not do anything (but repeat the command to the output). No error, no output.

@RossC Where exactly in Titanium Backup? I cannot find it.

It is on the play store. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup

@RossC I have it. I just do not see the busybox check and information in the application.

It should have 'Root Access' and a tick beside it and the text "OK ->tap for more information<-". When you click that it should show your busybox version!

@RossC Can you also put it as answer? It was very helpful.

Thanks guys! I have figured that my Busybox is broken as I have suspected. I ended up re-flashing the ROM.

Glad you got it working :)

To add to the answer above:
Titanium Backup from Play Store You can install this, and it will have Root > OK "->Tap for more Information <-." Once you click on this it will display whether your root is correct and your current busybox version.
Alternatively, using terminal commands like in the accepted answer, you may need to enter the SuperUser command first with "SU" in the terminal emulator of your choice. The prompt will change to a # sign to show you are now in SuperUser. The alternative SUDO, will give superuser on a command by command basis, e.g. SUDO Busybox.
As with the OP, sometimes reflashing the ROM is the easiest or you can use the  Busy Box Installer from Play Store.  (I have not tried this personally)


text:
cannot send mail via 3G with outlook exchange sync
i have a android 4.2.2 phone. i cannot send an email via 3G with outlook exchange sync. If i try that, he will wait until its connected with wifi, and than send it.
synchonising calander / tasks, incomming mail on just 3G is not a problem, just sending email with 3G in outlook exchange active.
Gmail, internet work just fine.
the same account on IOS is not giving any problems.
can anybody help me?

Is this using the stock Email app?

I would guess there is a setting issue in the APN
Check your setting in APN with you phone company

If that would be the case, incoming mail wouldn't work either, nor would synchronizing calendar and tasks – which do work, as the question describes.


text:
Unable to find partition for path '/sdcard' in TWRP
I have been trying to root my Nexus 5x running Android 7.1.2 (N2G47F)
So put SuperSU.zip file to install it from TWRP.
I executed following command -
fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-bullhead.img
But when I get into TWRP I can not find SU file becouse TWRP can not find nexus build in card.
In log console I am getting following error.
Unable to find partition for path '/sdcard'
any ideas?
Thanks!

Sounds like encryption. Try using the latest version here.

nice. Newere version unlike older asked me for password. I was able to root my phone thank you.

I'm moving that to an answer.

Sounds like encryption is blocking the recovery from accessing the internal storage. Try using the latest version here.


text:
What is the use case for the Google Wi-Fi Assistant?
The Google Wi-Fi assistant is available on the Pixel and Nexus devices running Android 5.1+, in some countries. The description at Settings->Google->Networking is

Wi-Fi assistant:
  Automatically connect to Wi-Fi at select locations and other open networks determined to be high quality

Why would I want to use Wi-Fi assistant? I am not accessing anything on Google's network that requires authentication, and if an application requires secure data, it should already be using an SSL/TLS connection.
From a privacy point of view, this seems to trade the wireless network's ability to monitor all traffic with Google's ability to monitor all traffic through the VPN.

The Google Wi-Fi Assistant is designed to provide a seamless always-connected experience using Wi-Fi. If, for example, you do not have a mobile data connection, the Wi-Fi Assistant will connect you to "high-quality" Wi-Fi whenever possible, and provide security through VPN.


text:
Change the actual kernel on my phone
After reading the "benefits" that I could have after changing the kernel of my phone I would change the actual one that my phone has.
I've already flashed custom roms in the past and my question is if the procedure to change kernel is more less the same , so do I have just to flash it ?

https://android.stackexchange.com/a/206097/283929

Yes the procedure is pretty much the same. Infact some custom roms already has the custom kernel inside them.
Anyways if you want to flash a custom kernel, find one for your phone ( probably from xda-developers ).
If you found a kernel, if its already in a flashable zip, just flash it via recovery.
Otherwise, put your phone in fastboot mode using button combination or via ADB by typing adb reboot bootloader and flash the kernel using this command fastboot flash boot filename
Note you need to have an unlocked bootloader for this to work and adb and fastboot working.


text:
TWRP recovery: "pm install /path/to.apk" not working
I'm making a flashable zip for TWRP, to debloat my phone. I also want to install apps in the same script.
However, when I do "pm install /path/to.apk" (whether in a script or through the terminal) I get the following error:
Error: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke interface method 'android.os.IBinder android.os.IServericeManager.getService(java.lang.String)' on a null object reference

I get the same error when I try other pm commands, but when I input only "pm" I do get the help message.
Is it not possible to install .apks this way or is something else wrong?
Thanks!

Use script to place the APK file at the correct place in /data/app instead.
mkdir,mv,chown and chmod are to be used.
While pm binary is there, it cannot do it's work from recovery that is a completely different system.
See this as someone trying to install a game on his Windows system while booted on Ubuntu.

While @Zulgrib has already described why pm wouldn't work, I'll supply a bit of extra info on integrating apps into the flashable zip.
Basically, you put the apps' APKs in the correct location in the zip, and have the updater-script extract it to where it belongs. The script usually does this by executing:
package_extract_dir("data", "/data");
Thus for an APK with package name com.abc, usually it should be placed in /data/app/com.abc-1/base.apk for it to properly install. Unlike what @Zulgrib said, no shell commands are needed - the extraction script does everything for you.
Do note that:

If you already have this app installed and subsequently updated, there might be a folder like com.abc-2 which your flashable zip can't overwrite, and installation will fail. My suggestion is only use such flashable zips to update apps contained inside, so that the folder names will always have -1 behind and will be updated properly.
Some apps require more than the APK in the directory to be able to run. In my case, I observed Jackpal's Terminal Emulator requires its libraries to be extracted, but I never got how to do so right, so in the end I resorted to installing it manually.

Extracting libs is as simple as issuing an unzip command. Then chmod & chown correctly and it'll work.

@iBug Problem is, I have both ARM and ARM64 devices which need different sets of libs, but from the log output of the app, it seems to look for the libs in the same folder regardless of arch. Can't bother figuring out how to pre-determine the arch just to install such one minor app. If you have surefire details on how to do it, just edit it in, I'm open to experiment.

Extract lib/armeabi and lib/armeabi-v8a for ARM and ARM64 devices, respectively.

Thanks for the info. I'm working from a clean install so updates aren't an issue, but it's probably easier to write a batch script for adb in cmd than to figure out which apps need libraries extracted etc. I can at least install a launcher and a file manager right away so that I have a working barebone install to work from.

I have included tens of apps in my own flashable zip and Terminal Emulator seems to be the only anomaly. That said, when I intend to add apps into the zip, I always first assume that they don't need the libs, and expel the anomaly afterwards (the anomaly will force close upon being opened, a good sign something's wrong).

I see. Maybe I will try it that way. I'm guessing usually apks have the correct filename when downloaded, so all I have to do is add them to the zip.


text:
My phone don't use speakers to the maximum of its possibilities
I've a Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro.
I've a problem with its speakers. When I put the maximum volume and I put the phone close to the hear, I found that my phone uses only half speaker to share the music(or every type of audio).
Is this a bond I can unlock in my audio settings or is this a problem that the phone has took from outside?

Using half of speaker to play sound? How can you know that?

If you disassemble the device, you will see that, despite the outer shell reserved a wide opening for sound output, the actual speaker unit is quite small and biased to one side. This will produce the effect you observed.

You might be expecting a large speaker, or 2 separate speakers filling the whole opening, which simply can't be the case for lower-end devices.

authors: Једноруки Крстивоје


text:
Authentification wi-fi with my Android?
I have an Hisense L675, Android version 6.0.
I haven't Wi-fi connection at home YET and I use my USB pendrive to my PC HP 15-AY094NL. Sometimes I would like to connect it and use it like Wi-fi with Hisense L675. But it doesn't work. I tryed everything for example turn off the mobile phone or my computer but I don't know what to do.

What type of pendrive is it e.g Sandisk etc?

I know that that there is a way to connect your mobile phone to your PC via USB to use internet, but I don't know a way like Wi-fi, there are some apps that probably can do it but I think you have to pay. Look at this link and say me if I helped you


text:
Remove App icon background

I have a Xiaomi mi5 (MIUI 8) and I would like to remove the white background of these icon but I don't know if It is possibile

I don't own a Xiaomi device, but on my Samsung J5 I have the option to remove those background at Settings > Displays > Icon frame. Check to see if there is something similar.

You can try using nova launcher and apply the Android stock icon pack from the look and feel option in settings. It will remove the backgrounds in the icons. Alternatively, you can try using some icon packs if you are not a fan of the stock circle icons. I made a list of popular icon packs for Android on my website. Check them out Top 5 Android Icon Packs


text:
Google Voice does not provide spoken prompts
I'm using a samsung s7 and google voice in Always Listen mode.
I can say Ok Google, then  "text john".
 It works, but  google voice does not SAY "ready", " ready ro send?"
On Straighttalk on verizon network.

Say Ok Google and go to Settings in Google voice and turn on Voice Output to Always.


text:
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Gray Horizontal Bars on Screen
I recently purchased the Galaxy S& Edge, but as of yesterday I have been experiencing a strange problem with the screen. The screen is divided into sections, alternating between sections of normal color and brightness, and sections where the color and brightness seems darker. When I adjust the brightness of the screen to max, the dark areas get smaller and smaller until they completely go away at max brightness. The same goes for the normal areas at lowest brightness - they disappear. Obviously I don't want to keep my phone at max or min brightness all the time, so does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? I have tried restarting and clearing the system cache, and starting in safe mode, but to no avail.

This was the same issue that my dad had with his S7 Edge, the screen had some random horizontal dark streaks...
When turning the brightness up, you could clearly see the bars beginning to get smaller

Now this seems to be a defect with some of the phones, my dad did do a bit of research on this issue and came to find no fixes, so he went to where he bought it from to get a replacement.
His new S7 edge seems to be working fine...
I strongly suggest that you give the phone back or get it replaced... this is a defect and hopefully you have a warranty of some sort that you can use.
Best of luck!

I entered an RMA application and it was approved, but then while I was waiting for them to get back with a reference number it just fixed itself. The lines got smaller and smaller until they just disappeared and I haven't had a problem since. I can't explain it, but I'm not complaining either. Your answer is still what I'd recommend however.

@Cian Walsh. Good to hear that the phone sorted itself out, but it's better to get it fixed that to just hope that it'll never come back, due to the fact that my dad purchased the phone from a reputable seller (John Lewis) they offered to take the phone and replace it with an identical brand new one...

I would agree that RMA is the best option. I haven't had a problem in 11 months though, so I believe it's safe to say that it can sometimes resolve itself.

Did you enable developer mode and modified some of its settings ? if so, try disabling the items you modified except USB debugging (if you use it), or directly disable developer mode.
Hope that helps

I didn't enable developer options.

so better bring it up to its manufacturer


text:
Oneplus One is not recognised at all by Windows 10
I've been having this problem for a long time, can't remember how much exactly. No matter what I've tried, I haven't managed to get my computer recognize my opo (Cyanogen 13.0).
When I connect it absolutely nothing happens. The device manager doesn't flash (doesn't recognize a new device connected), so I cannot find/update/remove the drivers anyhow.
Developer options on my phone have a bunch of things but none seems relevant, apart from open/close Android debugging (adb) and select USB Configuration (Charging/MTP/PTP etc). I've tried several options, nothing seems to change.
I've also installed some Windows MTP drivers (see here) which were supposedly solving the issue caused by a Windows 10 update, but no luck (which could have been the issue, but can't be sure-I can't remember the last time I was able to browse my phone's memory).
Any ideas? It seems so strange to me that I am the only one with that issue.
I know CM was abandoned and was thinking to change to another version, but I can't even move my files right now :(

Does this happen on Windows 10 only ? Did you try on another computer/Windows version ?

I know it might sound dumb, but it was the cables' fault after all.
I had already tried two different (one of them was the original which worked fine until some time ago), but none of them worked so I figured something else was wrong. Until I came across a third one, which seems to be the only functional one....
Thanks anyway! and beware of your cables xD

Also you can try to use third-party Oppo PC suite: Mobogenie, Moborobo, MOBILedit and others; try to Google it and you will find the links to download the software. These utilities can help you to connect your Oppo device to computer.

When the mobile phone is connected to the computer, mobile phone down the status bar, click is connected to the USB debugging, and then click on the file transfer, I hope you can understand, because these words from Baidu Translate, I am a Chinese developer

usb wire is the only problem...a normal usb cables has 4 small wires in it for audio video or any file transfer and charging your device....so of what i could think of in this case there could be 2 problems in your usb cable :-

some usb cables are only made for charging your device and hence only have two wires inside them and so there are no wires for transfer of files and hence not recognised by device or computer

2.this one could be rare but possibly the two wires responsible for the transfer of files are some broken somewhere in between and hence behave as a wire which is only used for charging and hence ur device and computer cannot recognize it.
so the only solution is to try changing the usb cable..and it should work
thank you