text:
Confirming the nature of a Samsung update, and declining it
I find it a little bit offensive to receive a "Software Update" message on my Galaxy Note 2 that does not disclose the nature of the update (an OS update? an app update?).

software update message (click image for larger variant)
Judging by the timing, the chatter, and especially the size, I am guessing Samsung is pushing a 4.4 (KitKat) update, but given the lousy experience of reduced battery performance after upgrading from 4.1 to 4.3 (including giving a chance for recalibration with many full discharge/recharge cycles), I'd rather avoid 4.4 for now.
My question is in two parts:

How do I confirm that this is indeed KitKat being pushed?
How do I decline the update, or at least delay it by longer than three hours?

3 hour max delay (click image for larger variant)

Go to SamMobile and navigate to the check your firmware and you can see what your carrier is pushing.

I am happy to report that upgrading from 4.3 to 4.4.2 made the battery last three days instead of one.

For the first part- Samsung has notes on the system updates on their site. I'm not sure what provider you're using, but you should be able to get to what you're looking for if you start at: http://www.samsung.com/us/support/
Use the "Start by Entering..." search bar in the middle of the screen to pull up your specific Note II phone and scroll down to the "Support Overview" section.
For the model I looked up, the "Which version of the Android™ platform does my Samsung Note II use?" question is already in the Frequently Asked Questions list, but if not, use the search bar just about that.
I didn't check every device, but it certainly looks like it's the Kit Kat update that's been downloaded.
For the second part- I'm working off the assumption that your Note is NOT rooted. Upfront note (haha): I don't have a Note II here with me, so I'm going off reference materials and memory on the exact option names in the menus. These steps should let you disable the notification until you re-enable automatic updates.

Go to 'Settings'
Click 'More'
Click 'About device'
Click 'Software update'
Uncheck the 'Auto update – Check for updates automatically' option

When the update prompt is in your notifications, pull down the notification list and do the following:

Press and hold down on the update until you get a 'App Info' option
Click 'App Info'
Click 'Clear cache'
Click 'Clear data'


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Restore specific items using Titanium Backup without root?
I regularly backup my entire phone using Titanium Backup.
For the next two weeks or so, im going to be using my friends phone. Id like to restore a few things from the backup (contacts, some app data etc.) without rooting it. Is there any way?

You can normally unroot yes, but that's a separate question.

Titanium stores the .apk's in /sdcard/TitaniumBackup/ and the data in the same folder in zip files.  You can click the .apk to install it when viewing in a file manager.
To restore the data, you can extract the zip file on a PC and copy the contents of the data folder (another folder named something like com.domain.appname) to /data/data/ on the device using adb:
adb push com.domain.appname /data/data/

You just see me double-confused: OP asked without rooting -- so how to access /data/data then? And since when is /data/data read-only -- how should apps store their data then? Another point to take care with this method: for system stuff (here: contacts) a simple copy might break things if the ROMs/Android versions of the two devices differ. Not only hear-say, but my own sad experience ;)

@Izzy ADB should have access to /data/data without rooting; that's how Carbon works.  As for the read-only bit I was apparently thinking of the system partition? :P

look at the date -- no Carbon then (and Android 4.0 was released only 10/2011). 2) No, that's not how Carbon works. Carbon does not copy, but is simply a frond-end to adb backup and adb restore (I can give you more details in chat if you want). 3) yes, for r/o you most likely had /system in mind :)

So peeps, I'm also interested in backing up and MOST IMPORTANTLY RESTORING application data, can this carbon/adb do that on a NON-ROOTED device? A new tablet with warranty on 4.2.2. Just a simple answer with a pinch of hint, thank you.

@emm980 It's called Helium now and yes, the entire point is to backup & restore apps and data without root.

What if the backup was done in TitaniumBackup? How can I restore it on an unrooted phone?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How can I disable a stock app that has its Disable button greyed out?
There is a pesky bloatware app (specificlly VUDU Version 1.0) that came preinstalled on my device.  Whenever I boot my device, it starts up an app process, so every time I boot I have to open up the App Switcher and swipe it away.
I went into the Settings app and tried to Force Stop and then Disable the app, but the Disable button is disabled ("greyed-out") itself.  Some other apps also don't allow me to disable them.  Is there any other way that I can enable the button or disable the app without rooting?  I am running 4.4.2.

Sorry, but you have to root in order to do this. There is no other way.

Root
(optional) Install Titanium Backup and backup your phone. If you mess something up you can restore your phone using this
Now use an app called System App Remover to select the app you want to delete. You will have to grant superuser permission for it to work

Alright, thank you for your reply.  I don't think I will be rooting because my device is brand new but I appreciate the information.

On some Android versions you can use adb to disable apps that you would otherwise not be able to deactivate via the UI. The Debloater app linked to above automates and simplifies this process. This answer will explain how to perform the same process manually.
WARNING: Disabling the wrong app or using the wrong commands can leave your device soft-bricked. Please make sure you know what you are doing before proceeding.

Make sure you've got Android debugging set up correctly, then drop into an adb shell:
adb shell

Get a list of all installed packages by using pm
pm list packages -f

Identify the packages you want to disable and make a note of them.
Disable each package individually by running one of the following commands:

if you are on Kitkat: pm block <package_name>, e.g. pm block com.motorola.motocare
if you are on Lollipop: pm hide <package_name>, e.g. pm hide com.motorola.motocare

The app should now be disabled and disappear from your launcher. In case of a background service it will permanently stop running in the background.

To reverse this procedure you can use one of the following commands:

if you are on Kitkat: pm unblock <package_name>, e.g. pm unblock com.motorola.motocare
if you are on Lollipop: pm unhide <package_name>, e.g. pm unhide com.motorola.motocare

For completion sake, since Android M and onwards, you can still disable OEM bloatware by running: pm uninstall -k --user 0 <name of package> without root access. But beware, the changes are permanent unless you perform a factory reset in which case the bloatware will be installed again.

Yes, there is another way :)
You are lucky because you have Android Kitkat version. Just use tool Debloater by Gatesjunior from XDA: http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/software/debloater-remove-carrier-bloat-t2998294
Requirements:
The program requires that your manufacturer USB drivers are installed for your specific device as well as the following:
• Windows Operating System
• USB Debugging turned on for your device
• Root or KitKat running on your device

I tried your way and downloaded the program, but it is not recognizing my device.  I went through all the steps and turned on USB Debugging.  My tablet is RCA brand, and upon further research, it seems that RCA does not produce drivers for their devices.  Can I still use this program some other way?

Your manufacturer USB drivers for your specific device is mandatory requirement. Try to find out help on XDA with USB driver for your device. What exactly type is your device? RCA brand tablet isn't so much helpful information if you need a help ;)

What exact information would be helpful to you, like the model number?

Post here everything what you can about your device. For example I have phone Motorola Moto G LTE, but exact information is model number on its paper box: XT1039.

Try this way:

Connect device via ADB
Go to ADB shell
adb shell

Find your target app by listing all the apps
pm list packages

Remove app like this
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.android.inputdevices

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

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


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Removing the home screen number to have one more row of app shortcuts
Is there any way to remove the home screen "numbers", i.e. (red rectangle):

and instead have one more row of app shortcuts?
I am using a Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900A with Android 4.4.2.

Hi Franck, it might help to add what launcher you are using. I've never seen the like; all launchers I've ever used at maximum showed that as overlay when swiping to another home screen.

@Izzy I'm using the default launcher (Samsung's Stock Launcher).

Ah, thanks. My comment just "overlapped" with GiantTree's answer ;) I second his suggestion for an alternative launcher. As we don't recommend apps here, I don't tell you to take a look at Apex and Nova launcher ;)

Any time, Franck! For more alternatives, please take a look at my list of Home Replacements :) I'm using Apex myself, so that's something I can really recommend. And Nova is said to almost be a twin of it when it comes to the paid versions.

This is not possible on Samsung's Stock Launcher but many alternative launchers have the possibility to display even more rows by shrinking them in height.
Try a third-party launcher as nearly all Samsung stock applications tend to be unoptimized for any Samsung device; especially in memory consumption.

E.g. using Nova Launcher Prime you can remove the scroll indicator as follows:

Result (the number of rows and columns of the desktop grid can be changed as you want):

Thanks! Any recommendation for alternative launchers?

Nova Launcher and Apex Launcher (as Izzy recommended) are full of custom features including the one you are asking for.

I suggested, we don't recommend apps here – ah wait: we just don't permit explicitly asking for, so OK #D


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installing openAOS 2.3.5 on Archos 5IT?
I found there is people installing openAOS 2.3.5 on Archos 5IT, but I haven't seen any website detailing the instructions on how to do it. Anyone?

According to the openAOS site, the Archos 5 is supported. So I would think that there would be a download for an update package for that specific device. This is how others do it. The steps to install on any of the devices should be the same (or close) the only thing you would need is the install package. I could not find downloads on the openAOS site.


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Google talk in Sony Ericsson XPeria Mini Pro
I've a Sony Ericsson XPeria Mini Pro with Android 2.3.3 and GTalk didn't came installed. I search it in the market and can't find it.
Is there any way to get it installed?

Are you sure it's not there? It's a pretty core app. It's very rarely called "GTalk" or "Google Talk" these days, try looking for it under T just called "Talk"

I thought that may be I could share the apk file through bluetooth from another phone and I succeed. Here are the steps:
All the steps are for the phone which already has GTalk installed.

Open file manager.
Go to System (outside sdcard) -> applications.
Search Talk.apk.
Send it to the phone where you want to install GTalk by bluetooth (or any other way).

Once Talk.apk is already in your phone, just click it to install the app.
I think (not sure) the second step requires rooting. Also I'm pretty sure that the native file manager doesn't allow you to go up from sdcard. I would need something like Es File Manager or Astro File Manager.

Odd that it wasn't pre-installed. I think your best bet would probably be to search XDA-Dev and install a separate Google Talk apk.

I've found it.. I didn't make a BIG search but I found an easier way..


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How to remove downloaded videos of TED app from device?
I like official TED app which allows me to download videos for later offline viewing. I've downloaded many videos & watched all of them. Now, I want to remove them from my device to regain my storage space. But, I am unable to find option in app for this. I've looked in file system, but unable to find downloaded videos. Please, help.

On the My Talks tab, tap/press options button (you can tap the overflow menu in the top right corner if you are on tablet).
There is a Remove Items in menu. That should do the trick. It puts an x on all the videos and I'm assuming a tap on that will delete them.  I haven't done this, because I haven't gotten around  to watching them yet.

There's no overflow menu in the top right corner. Instead, there's a listen button. Anyway, thanks.. the later objectives are same.

Sorry, I was on a tablet.  Tapping the menu button does the exact same thing.

Merge my answer in your own, so that I could delete my answer & accept yours..

I've done this.. waiting until its peer reviewed..

@SachinShekhar Done.

I have found the solution.
While on My Talks tab, press/tap options button to bring menu. From this menu, tap Remove Items which would allow you to selectively remove downloaded videos.

There are two ways you can remove the TED videos in bulk:

Go to the path /sdcard/Android/data/com.ted.android/files/ using your file manager in Android. Delete all the videos directly from there.
In your TED app, go to My Talks menu and then tap the vertical dotted icon at the right-top corner which will popup a dropdown menu. You should tap the Remove Items option which will show x at the left of each of the downloaded videos that you want to remove.

Hope it helps.


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How to remove apps from "all downloaded" in Play Store
In the new Android Market/Play Store (3.5.15) they have now got a list of "all downloaded" apps.
I have had an android phone for a good 2/3 years now and the list is huge, plus sightly more questionable apps which should have been lost in the ether of the internet have now been dredged back up to haunt me.
Can I remove apps from here?
Thanks

lol! absolutely! :p glad to know I'm not the only one!

Just to clarify: This is about the Android app, not the Play Store website, correct?

This was left as an edit to another post by an anonymous user, but should be its own answer.

Go to the Google Play app on your mobile phone and go to Menu -> My Apps, then swipe across to All Apps. Delete the app from there using the symbol button on the right, and the app will also delete from the online Play Store list.
In order to delete several applications at a time, long-press an application until a blue top bar appears; then short-press some other applications, and you will be able to delete all selected applications by pressing the deletion symbol in the upper-right corner, in the blue bar. This is especially practical because you jump to the top of the list after deleting an application, and the list is only sorted by date of first installation—at least at this moment.

THAT'S new to me!  Extremely unobvious though... it took me a bit before I saw the little outline of a circle with a line next to the app name on the right. I would have thought a trash can (like on https://play.google.com/apps) would be more intuitive - quite aside from making it nearly invisible!  Light grey on white... sheesh!

The question is, how do I delete it? Holding down the item doesn't seem to yield any context menu of sorts.

@ShedoSurashu Please see Logos' comment and the screenshot I added.  (This is on the 3.9.16 Play Store.)  I'm not quite sure why I can't do it with SuperSU however.

I'm using 3.5.19, how do I update it?

@ShedoSurashu See http://android.stackexchange.com/a/20386/1465

It is possible to remove multiple entries from the All list of apps with the new version of Google Play.
Long press on the first app to remove and a header bar will appear with a check mark and a delete symbol. Tap all the apps you want to remove and then tap the delete symbol.

I wasn't able to get this working on mine. (Droid 3, Android 2.3.4, Play Store App version 3.9.16) Perhaps this is ICS+?

Works a treat on my Galaxy Nexus.

@RichardBorcsik It sits there, doing nothing, mocking me... :(

Fair Warning: I think it only let's you do this with FREE apps. Once you add an app that is paid the delete symbols goes away in the header.

Here is a bit more up to date description from Google Play Help:

If you want to remove an app from showing on My Apps, touch the "X" to
  remove apps that you don't want displayed on the All category.

As of 2019-12-07 on Android 9 with playstore 17.8.14, one has to go to "play store -> my apps & games -> library -> click on the X symbol next to the application you wish to remove.


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Is there a keyboard featuring Undo/Redo?
Undo/redo feature is generally provided by input box host app, but.. the way Android's input works, it can be provided universally for all input boxes. Is there a keyboard which has undo/redo feature?

Comments explaining the downvotes would be nice...

I expect because you're basically asking for app recommendations, which don't do well on this site (or any site in Stack Exchange, actually). You're not asking help with a problem, you've already chosen your solution. Now you're using us to do your app searches for you.

The default keyboard does not have the redo/undo features. However you can try some third-party keyboard app like AI type keyboard which have these features.


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non-wipe non-unlock root for Android 2.3.3
I have a Nexus S running Android 2.3.3.
IIRC on old android version such as this there were non-wipe non-unlock methods to obtain root anyway, however I wasn't able to find them right now.
Can this be done?

I think Gingerbreak was the main root method, which is (IIRC) what SuperOneClick uses. That might be a good one to start with if you haven't tried it yet, but I'm not positive that it will work.

@eldarerathis: gingerbreak worked. Unfortunately, I lost root upgrading to 2.3.6. Still, since it worked, if you post it as an answer I'll accept it.

Android 2.3.3 was (on all devices I'm aware of) vulnerable to the Gingerbreak exploit, which used a software hole in Android to gain root permission and therefore doesn't require wiping your device. SuperOneClick provides this as one of its root methods, making it a popular choice for rooting versions 2.3 to 2.3.3 of Gingerbread.


text:
Wrong label color in gmail 2.3.3
I recently created a label on gmail via web, and assigned it a color. On the app on my Nexus S it shows as the default color instead, while all the other labels have the correct color.
I've tried to wait a day, or to reboot the phone; I've also tried to either rename it, or delete it and create it again.
OS is stock Android 2.3.3.
Any idea?

Have you tried clearing the data for Gmail and re-syncing?

@MatthewRead: tried, didn't work surprisingly.

@MatthewRead: also tried creating another new flag, first it had an arbitrary color, then reverted to the default "gray/no color"

This issue is fixed as of Gmail 2.3.5.2.


text:
Any reason why Swype isn't in Play Store?
Have developers of Swype keyboard ever told anywhere why they haven't added their app in Play Store yet? As Play Store is easiest way of installing and updating apps, it'd be nice..

In short, they get their money from OEM sales. The beta is still relatively easy to get into though.

Not a technical reason, most hardware supports it. Part of it might be the fact that manufacturer installed versions would conflict with an "official" Play Store version, much like the Beta version. The PR response: "This eliminates confusion and allows us to deliver the best Swype experience possible..."

@above commenters - is there other versions of Swype that aren't Beta?

They have here but doesn't give a clear reason.

How can I buy Swype? / When will Swype be on the Android market?
We have considered a direct-download sales model, but there are two challenges to that approach:

Customer Support - Providing Swype users with the level of professional support they deserve is a priority for us. We're still a small (but quickly growing!) company, and we don't have the resources necessary to support a full end-user sales model. It is much more efficient for us to focus on improving Swype and to partner with large organizations like Samsung and T-Mobile who already have customer support structures in place.
Device integration - Swype isn't just an app; it's a keyboard - the most widely used piece of software on a device. It interacts with nearly every single application on the phone. As such, it's more like a system component than an application. For each device release we do a tremendous amount of testing and we always find issues due to the varying components - the OS version, the device hardware, the OEM UI implementation, etc. In addition, some features can't be implemented without an OEM's engineering assistance. We end up doing a large amount of work on each device to be sure that you have a great experience entering text using Swype. So, we appreciate your enthusiasm, but we are not ready to do direct-downloads at this time.


text:
Changing the input language of physical keyboard on Android TV box
I have an Android box TV with Android 9.0, and I would like to add a physical keyboard, but there's no option for that. When I press the "manage keyboard" option, it shows what's in the picture.

I have a Microsoft keyboard connected with a USB adapter WiFi to the box. When I want to write in Portuguese, the physical keyboard it's in another language, but the on-screen keyboard is in Portuguese.

Have you checked similar questions here on SO like this?

I had a similar problem, my Android TV screen did not show the characters I typed on an external Genius Spanish Keyboard.
I wrote to the manufacturer asking for a driver but the answer was they do not provide support for Android OS.
After a trial and error research I found that
Logitech Keyboard Plus 1.3.0 (565k)
com.logitech.keyboard.look_ten
was the solution.
This apk is a Bluetooth driver but worked with my USB wired keyboard, I only had to set the keyboard language data.

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


text:
My Android 6.0 phone changes the MAC address every time I log into a WLAN; how can I stop it?
I have a rooted Cubot Max (Not Max 2) Android 6.0 phone that has an interesting habit: it changes the MAC Address every time I log into a WLAN. The WLAN MAC address usually looks like 00:08:22:xx:xx:xx. The second part is random. In the beginning, it was funny, but now I want to stop it.
I read the MAC address from Settings > About the phone > Status. There is no spoofing software on it. It seems that this is a normal reaction of hackers in China, they do not like constant MAC addresses.
Do you know if there is any secret setting there I could take a look at?

The randomization of MAC Address is a security feature of Android 6.0, the OS changes the MAC address when a background scan of the network is initiated.

When a device running Android 6.0 (API level 23) initiates a background Wi-Fi or Bluetooth scan, the operation is visible to external devices as originating from a randomized MAC address.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/android-6.0-changes
Here you may find details about the randomization:
https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/wifi-mac-randomization-behavior?hl=en

In current Android versions, each SSID has its own setting for randomization.  It is possible that this may be present in rooted Android6 as well.   To stop the randomization -

Go into Settings
Select Connections
Select Wifi (long press if necessary)
Select the SSID you want to fix it for
Once connected, press the Gear Wheel
Press on View more at the bottom of the screen
Scroll Down until you see MAC Address Type
Its a drop down, change it from Random to  Phone MAC


text:
Mute Google Meet's audio completely without muting the participants
In the Google Meet app, I want to watch the presentation of the meeting, but I don't want to hear anything. I can't just mute people because that will mute them for other participants.
I can't seem to find an output mute control or volume control in the app itself. I tried turning the volume all the way down on my Android device, but the volume slider won't go all the way to the bottom. Even if I set my device to silent, it doesn't seem to affect Google Meet.
How can I mute Google Meet's audio output completely? If it matters, the device is a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 (2016) (SM-T580).

This seems to work:
Use Companion mode for hybrid learning & collaboration - Google Meet Help
https://support.google.com/meet/answer/11295507
I tried opening a meeting in the app with a link like:
https://meet.google.com/abc-defg-hij?companion=1
and that let me turn the volume all the way down.  If that doesn't work for you, you might check the icon under the volume for more volume controls.
When I want to screen record a meeting on a desktop, I just mute the mic, and use an external display for the speaker device which I also mute.  A Bluetooth earbud, wired headset, or wireless speaker with volume control, might do the job as well on a phone.  Since this article came up when I did a search like how to come in to a Google Meet muted, I thought having this answer with the url argument (parameter or query string) "?companion=1" here which works on all platforms might be handy.

As of January 2024, the Google Meets app (v221.0.x, earliest version unknown) supports muting the audio output.
On the top bar, besides the meeting code, there's an icon to control the audio output. One of the options is to mute the audio output.


text:
How do I clear native PDF viewer as default?
I'm on Android Lollipop. Due to ghost touch, the native PDF viewer is selected default.

I also checked Reset Default Apps in the Settings menu, but there's only e-mail and messaging.

If it is (Google) Drive PDF Viewer, then:

Go to Settings
App and Storage (where you can see installed apps which are downloaded or pre-installed)
Select All Tab where you can see System Apps
Select Drive (triangle logo with three colors side green, yellow, blue)
Scroll down and click on Clear Defaults (if not available, directly check permission if available)

Note: Drive PDF Viewer has a red icon with a white Drive icon

I don't remember what the name was, but had a red document icon, like Adobe Reader, but not. It's not in the list of applications.
goovle drive says no defaults set and the  button is grayed out, ghosted. I don't have enough screen for a screenshot with both name and   button.
I'm afraid I don't follow when you say "directly check permission if available."

Can u open any random pdf file with it and then send screenshots of opened file and opened app in recent list

Other is to check every apps launch by default, Normal red logo of PDF viewer is by uc browser, mega app Which i used but u have to check every app one by one its time consuming but will solve ur problem and let me Know which file manager u using they also have inbuilt PDF viewers

New screenshot added. Yeah, I really don't favr trolling every application, so I'll leave that for tomorrow nite if I have to. I've got ES File Explorer and the stock file manager. I added MiXplorer recently, but had the viewer beforehand.

Its logo and interface says its drive inbuilt pdf viewer if u don't have data on drive just clear data and then see.

Otherwise boot your phone to safe mode might then open any pdf file many options will appear so u can have idea which pdf viewer that was

I added screenshot in answer see it matches with your logo screenshots

I don't use Google so no data (of mine) to lose, and that did it.
I did manage to find the core problem, tho. Opening an image file did the same problem: ghost touch selected Default as I tapped Gallery. Of course,  Gallery is right on the application list but again no default was set there or under Clear All, but I deleted the data and fixed it.
Something clicked that I thought to check ES File Explorer so I set Gallery as Default again and checked that app, ES. It didn't have a Default but I deleted that data and that also restored the "Open With..." menu.
So that's the problem: browsing with ES or maybe other file managers and selecting a default only applies to that manager (confirmed via browsing with the stock manager), and why no default shows in the application manager, and the solution is to delete data for either the defaulted application if known or the file manager.
Poor design on either ES or Google's part or both.
Thanks, @Kirandeep Maan, for the help and getting this solved!

U can give a try to solid file manager, Fx File manager or Astro file manager else if its same probably system bug for sure


text:
Move Chrome's address bar to the bottom
From How to Move Chrome Address Bar to Bottom or Top, Chrome's address bar can be moved to the bottom by using experimental features from chrome://flags. However, it has been deprecated since Chrome 66.

Google deprecated the bottom address Bar ‘Chrome Home’ in favor of a new
  ‘Chrome Duet’ interface from Chrome Stable to 66. [...]. If you want to use this Home
  Flag, you have to downgrade to Chrome Stable 65.

Are there any other possible ways to move Chrome's address bar to the bottom?


text:
Re-enable Disabled App (Enable option greyed out)
I disabled my default Messaging app some time ago, but now I need to Re-enable it, but when I go to the Disabled tab under Apps, the option to Enable it is greyed out.

Do you have root? If so,  you can do it via this app : App Manager - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lb.app_manager.  If not,  you can use adb commands via a pc.  Btw google has a messenger app on the play store : Messenger - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.messaging

Navigate to Settings > Application Manager > All  Then select Reset App Preferences from the menu. Try if this works, it worked for me for some other apps.

That would reset all my Disabled Apps and Default Application settings. This is more of a workaround than a solution. But Thanks for you suggestion. I will use it if a proper solution is not available.

Lets say if your play store is also showing the same disabled beside the app( for the default app of yours) then you have to reset the application preferences of the other messaging app. In order you understand this first let us understand the concept of Android Preferences
Android preferences come into picture as your device is having more then one application that does the same task and the operating system has to decide which application must be used as a default
Ex:-Let's say you have the default music player and for some issues you have downloaded another music player application from the play store. Due to this there is a conflict arising for what should be the default task to be done.
This is shown by the OS when you click on an .mp3 file. If you choose to open the downloaded mp3 player as default. It will show how to reset your preferences in the future.(application>preferences>De-select the default app for the task )
I suggest you can simply reset your other messaging app preferences for you to enable the default app. As doing the complete reset is troublesome for you to set your preferences again
Else if your Default app is not showing disabled for both the messaging apps then there's a problem with your Android Operating System for which you need to do a Simple Factory Reset.

I ran into an similar issue in 4.4.4, moved some app to the system with apps2rom app then deleted it and reinstalled, app became totally invisible, thanks to Xposed module Xprivacy I got a hint that it is 'disabled'  and I did re-enabled it with help of Lucky Patcher and all went back to normal.

Your problem is very easy mine is very difficulty to solve idid the same thing as u do idesable all messaging apps include google messages app hangouts to trying to send file safe via blue tooth and turn off data connection for 2min myphone was off and unable to work anymore now ihave to buy a new other device that not have google playstore when iturn it on is said keyguardtestactive have stopped Launch3 have stopped hangout out has stopped hangout is desable u your problem is easy just go to setting and reset your phone or downloded avg security or norton security app and wipe of your device it will resette every thing in your phone

you need to format your post and remove spelling errors to make it readable!


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Factory reset: prestigio multipad 7.0 ultra plus tablet pc pmp 36 70b
How to factory reset prestigio multipad 7.0 ultra plus tablet pc pmp 36 70b?  It boots to gmail sign in page, then it says wrong password, though it's not connected to the internet, it doesn't even let me connect. I need to reset it
Edit
usb debugging  mode is not enabled and I am stuck, can't login like this, and the tablet,isn't booting to recovery

That looks like an XY problem: what you really want is not a factory-reset, but passing by that lock, right? So I've just added the locked-out tag to your question; in its tag-wiki you can find some first-aid and links to useful related questions (I know your issue is solved by the accepted answer, so count this a hint for others coming across your post).

@Izzy thanks, but i sold the tablet since i couldn't unlock it long ago and accepted the answer that was there, to give him some rep coz he put some effort and voted it up

Thanks for the feedback, Fischer! So my pointer might prove even more helpful then :)

@Izzy yes you're right

If you cannot access the main UI, but the system powers up, boot in to recovery.
Try and find out what your recovery keys are (e.g. it's usually vol+, vol- and power on Samsung phones) online or by reading your device's manual, then holding them as your device boots.
Once in recovery, use the volume keys to select an option and power to use that tool, unless your device has a d-pad or older Android style buttons (Menu, Home etcetera).

Also: You can use adb to force the device to reboot to recovery mode if it is enabled, like this, in a terminal or command prompt, with the device connected to a USB port on the computer:
$ path/to/adb reboot recovery on Linux/Mac OS X; and
C:\> path\to\adb.exe reboot recovery on Windows
replace path/to/adb or path\to\adb.exe with the location of adb found in the Android SDK platform-tools folder (the SDK can be downloaded from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html - choose SDK for an existing IDE)

i have the sdk, usb debugging  mode is not enabled and I am stuck, can't login like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJXFAdh7UJg and the tablet,isn't booting to recovery, would I be able to force it using the sdk?

Maybe you can get it to boot in to a Fastboot envrionment described on the CM site where you you can flash a recovery or hotboot a recovery image if you can find one.

would  it work without usb debugging enabled?

although you did not tell me if it works without debugging, and I doubt it would, you gave me some useful info I did not know, so thanks


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Does the HTC Desire support 'microSDHC'?
The HTC Desire spec states that it supports:

microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

I saw on the Secure Digital entry on wikipedia that there are 3 protocols: SDSC, SDHC and SDXC - how can I know which of them my device supports?

the "HC" in every SD-Card name simply means "high capacity" - i.E. every SD card with more than 8GB is a SDHC card. Every "SDHC" Card is SD-Standart 2.0 ("SD 2.0"). Which means your device is compatible with a microSDHC card up to 32 GB.

In general, you can assume that "SD" refers to "SDHC".  It's the standard.  If your phone supported SDXC, it would definitely be advertised.

The HTC Desire supports only microSD and microSDHC up to 32GB.
SDXC is still relatively new and at present no handsets support it.

Thanks, any chance you know this from official documentation - something you can refer me to?

I have a 8Gb Class 10 microSDHC in my Desire.

16GB microSDHC here with no problems.

32GB Lexar microSDHC class 10 card. With SD tools benchmark I get 23.7 MB/s read and 9.1 MB/s write performance on CyanogenMod 7.1-RC1. On stock 2.2 ROM it had considerably lower values with read even less than write. The benchmark is run just after reboot to prevent caching mechanisms inflating the real values.

HTC Desire HD and HTC Inspire 4G supports SD cards up to 32Gb capacity. But 64Gb isn't supported. I've checked it by myself. So you can buy 32Gb card and be sure that it will work.


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The music player keeps displaying deleted songs. How do I remove them or refresh the library?
I am using a Droid X with rooted Gingerbread that is otherwise stock.  I have root access, but have not used it to do anything.
I have inspected the /Music folder multiple times and the 500+ songs I deleted are physically not in the filesystem any more.  I tried rebooting the phone multiple times. I tried deleting the Cache and data for the app in Settings > Application, as well as running SDrescan to remount and rescan the card. I even tried deleting them from the music player app itself.
No matter what I try, these songs will not disappear. (Though they obviously fail when I try to play them because they don't exist) Is there a file where the Music library cache is being kept that isn't getting updated? I would love to find it and just delete it.
I also use Songbird for Android, and it had the same problem. New songs show up, but the old ones will not go away at all. Though, now Songbird won't even load at all. Sometimes loading it causes the phone to reboot.  I have currently uninstalled it.
In addition, it causes the phone to become very unstable whenever I try to play music.  Accidentally playing a non-existent song can cause the phone to crash and get stuck on a black screen, requiring a battery pull and reboot.

This sounds like a pretty bad bug. I would try deleting the database used by the app, but I'm not sure which one it is.

What data/cache did you clear in setttings? The ones for the Music app (or Songbird) or the ones for the Media Storage system "app"? Usually clearing the latter helps (I seem to recall some saying to unmount->remount the SD card afterward, too).

@Matthew Read - Yeah, if I only knew what it was or where it was, I'd do that.  Maybe I'll try going in through terminal and seeing what I can do there.

@elderathis - Ah! a step in the right direction.  Now all the files are missing. Doing an SDrescan might just fix this.

@elderathis - Yup, that was it! I'll write up an answer, but if you want to do it, I'll accept yours for figuring it out.

What I've done in the past (and appears to have worked here, too):

Go to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications
Clear the data/cache for the Media Storage app (it's a system service/app)
Unmount and remount your SD card via some means.

Re-launching a music app after doing this will force it to rebuild the database, which can take a little bit of time but will ultimately refresh the list to reflect the most recent contents of the SD card.

SDRescan app will do the same with much less hassle: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.bero.sdrescan

Good work on this :)

@Chahk: Boylan made it sound like that didn't work for him without first manually clearing the data/cache, though that's definitely a good resource nonetheless since it saves a manual unmount/remount.

Now that I re-read his question I see that he does mention the app by name.

I found remounting the SD card insufficient; I had to actually reboot

This answer helped me; I had a similar problem. Clearing the media storage data and restarting my phone fixed it for me. As my phone is slow, it slowly relearning the songs that ARE on there...

I had the same problem, deleting the cache of the player I am using, Winamp for Android, did not help as it apparently retrieves the list of media files from the OS.
I solved by deleting (actually renaming) the Android Media Scanner external database:

cd /data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases
mv external.db external.db.off
reboot

After the reboot, the external.db file is automatically recreated and and the media files on my sdcard are magically working, the music artworks are showing up and the World is a better place to be.

@elderathis actually figured this out in the comments.  Apparently, I needed to delete the data/cache for the "Media Storage" app, which I didn't even know existed - but I suspect does all the backend work for media players.  I then did a SDrescan to be safe, and now it works!
In addition, the fact that the problem existed in Songbird and the Music app was an indication that it was something deeper in Android than just in each app.  So if anyone finds a problem across multiple media players, try deleting the "Media Storage" app data and cache.

As Chahk suggested in a comment on the accepted answer, there are apps available that will make Android perform the rescan of your media that most of the answers suggest. I've just started using the app Chahk suggested, SDRescan, and it makes refreshing your media library far simpler than any of the other answers - just start the application and wait a few seconds for it to rescan.


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Is it possible to install a radio application on Google Pixel 3XL?
I want to buy a Google Pixel 3XL but it does not have a radio. Is it possible to install a FM radio application on it anyway?

You can install the FM app but you will not get any signal because there is no chip on the device allowing to receive FM radio signals.
Your only solution is to install apps that stream FM radios such as TuneIn Radio. It offers a list of local (based on countries) and international radios. You can find other apps in the Play store.
If your media player is able to stream online content, you use it to stream radios if they offer online streaming. Create a playlist with the URL of the radio streams, then play them as you would with music. I use VLC to stream radios.

and does the app streams local radios ? or international radio only ?

@pheromix See edit.


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How can I know if fstrim was run when I put my phone on charging over night?
Is there any logging where I can confirm if fstrim was run when I put my phone on charging over night?

A charging, idle device over night is not the only way to run fstrim, there are other ways, too.
Quoting from this old article about scheduled fstrim on Android:

The Android framework will send out a “start idle maintenance window” event that the MountService listens for, and then invokes vold to fstrim filesystems when a few conditions have been met – the device hasn’t been touched for over an hour, no idle maintenance window event has been sent in 24 hours, and the device is either off-charger with 80% battery or on-charger with 30% battery.

But IdleMaintenanceService was removed in Lollipop, things have changed. On Pie, scheduled fstrim is triggered from StorageManagerService (1) to MountService (2):

if the device is alive at midnight + idle, fstrim gets run at the next available charging + idle time

* (3)
Mount service calls StorageManager which in turn calls Vold to do fstrim.
If the schedule is being missed because the conditions aren't met and fstrim has not run for the last 3 days (4), it will be forced during device startup if the device is restarted. SystemServer (5), PackageManager (6), StorageManager (7) and Vold (8) are involved.
In each case, the file /data/system/last-fstrim (9) (since Lollipop) gets updated (10), so you can check its timestamp (requires root) to find out when fstrim was last run.
If you want to do TRIM manually, use Android's commandline tool sm fstrim (requires root or adb shell). Previously this was vdc fstrim dotrim but added to Storage Manager in Oreo (11) and removed from vold in Pie (12).
In order to send FITRIM ioctl to selected filesystem(s) only, use the fstrim tool (requires root); a BusyBox applet.

What if you don't have root?
And you suspect that the scheduled fstrim is being missed for 3+ days, restart the device, fstrim will be forced (since Lollipop 5.1 (13)). Simple.
Apps can't TRIM without root; see this answer.

PS: HOW OFTEN TRIM SHOULD BE RUN?
Flash memory (including SSDs, eMMCs, SD Cards, USB sticks etc.) has a limited number of Program/Erase (P/E) cycles before it dies. But unlike HDDs, data can't be just overwritten on flash memory, it has to be erased first, which is achieved through garbage collection (GC).
Now if we do too much fstrim, this will cause frequent GC in the background consuming precious P/E cycles and hence reducing life. If we don't do fstrim at all, there could be unnecessary GC (of already deleted data), plus the write operations will get too slow with time because erasure will have to be performed before overwriting data, which has significantly higher latency compared to the program operation.
So we need a balance between both.
Also there are other factors e.g. whether eMMC controller supports over provisioning, how effective it is in background GC scheduling, wear-leveling and managing write amplification etc.
So unless you have the data sheet of your phone's eMMC and you are sure what you are doing, it's better to leave the fstrim to the OS. On PCs (14):

Running fstrim frequently, or even using mount -o discard, might negatively affect the lifetime of poor-quality SSD devices.  For most desktop and server systems a sufficient trimming frequency is once a week.

But this may vary depending on the situation.
RELATED:

Coding for SSDs
Why is TRIM not supported on encrypted “/data” partition?

I have a question. I understand that I shouldn't run trim too often but can "sm trim" work without root through adb?

Yes, because shell has MOUNT_UNMOUNT_FILESYSTEMS privileged permission granted by default, so must work without root. But there could possibly be other issues like a bad SELinux policy may not allow this. Also TRIM on encrypted /data partition is tricky.

Is there a way for non-root users to find out when TRIM was last run? I'm on a Pixel 6 Pro running GrapheneOS, if that makes things easier.

@MatthiasBraun you may find traces in logcat, dumpsys, dropbox etc. I've never tried though.


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Multitouch hardware on Android devices
Are all touch-screens on modern devices multitouch capable on hardware level (if software supports it)?
If not than how to detect if touchscreen screen by itself is multitouch or not?

A lot of the very cheap, non-brand name devices come with resistive touch screens, instead of the capacitive touchscreens used on the higher-end devices. Resistive screens very rarely support multi-touch.

Are all touch-screens on modern devices multitouch capable on hardware level (if software supports it)?

This is more or less impossible to answer without spec sheets for every Android device that has ever been created (within whatever timeframe you consider "modern"). Very broadly speaking, devices from major manufacturers over the last several years will typically support multitouch to some degree, but even that overall degree of support can vary between devices.

If not than how to detect if touchscreen screen by itself is
  multitouch or not?

There are a bunch of apps for this. I'd say pick one and try it. If you want to try to verify the results, pick several and try them all.

If you want to check programmatically, checking the system features via the PackageManager object works, as far as i can tell for my device. This method doesn't give the exact supported number, but rather a categorisation as follows:

TOUCHSCREEN_MULTITOUCH JAZZHAND (tracks 5 or more touches fully independently)
TOUCHSCREEN_MULTITOUCH DISTINCT (tracks 2 or more touches fully independently)
TOUCHSCREEN_MULTITOUCH (basic 2 finger gesture compatibility)

Depending on your task as hand, this might be sufficient enough, however GAThrawn's comment regarding low-tier phones makes me worry if it can be relied on that all those vendors actually set those values correctly before deploying the software.
Other than that, i don't know any way currently (but would also like to learn about one) - apart from maybe having the users test their devices as your app starts up, when the detected api level is less than 11 for instance.


text:
LED wont turn off
After receiving a message the LED was blinking for notification. After reading the message, the LED shines in dark blue and wont go into previous state, i.e. turn itself off. I tried to restart the phone, remove battery, but nothing helps.
Please, how can I make the LED not to light?
(Galaxy Nexus, 4.0.2)

Do you have an app called Light FLow installed? That might have an impact - see under ACCESSIBILITY.

No, it's clean install (no apps at all).

Try starting it in Safe Mode and see if the LED still acts up, Link - http://www.myvusers.com/forums/samsung-galaxy-nexus/10880-safe-mode-galaxy-nexus-samsung.html

Thank you for the tip! It all of sudden stopped to shine, when I started to charge the battery. I don't understand. Now, GPS stopped working, hmm..

reboot after using Safe Mode. Is the light still stuck in normal mode? For GPS issues, use GPS Toolbox and check that you're in sight of satellites.

I tried both GPS Toolbox and GPS Essentials, and I think the latter worked better. Anyway, thanks for the answers!

Try starting it in Safe Mode and see if the LED still acts up.. Link - http://www.myvusers.com/forums/samsung-galaxy-nexus/10880-safe-mode-galaxy-nexus-samsung.html


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Nexus One stuck in loading screen - How to save application data? (ROOTED)
I have my N1 rooted and after I installed BlackRose and change the partitions with password protection I wasn't able to start Android ever again. It show this screen:

I can access to the adb shell, and I can see all the private folders. So my question is
What folders/files do I need to backup to restore after the phone is fixed?
I know:
/data/data
anything else?

Is there any output to adb logcat while the phone is on that screen?  Can you still boot to Recovery or Bootloader?

Hi I can see the device on the adb list but no logcat nor application is opened.. I can start bootloader and fastboot. But because of the password thing I cannot do anything in there.

Here are the locations you can try to back up:
/data/app/         --> location of APKs.
/data/app-private/ --> location of protected APKs.
/data/data/        --> location of app settings.

However, if you are trying to install ICS a complete wipe is most definitely required.
Generally, re-partitioning the internal memory should wipe its contents.  I would try manually re-flashing Recovery, wiping the device completely (system, data, cache, and dalvik cache) and re-flashing the ROM.  If you do manage to salvage any app data, I would highly recommend not restoring it on the new ROM, as that can lead to problems, especially if you are backing up to FAT/NTFS drive (Linux file permissions are lost.)

Thanks. I'll not install ICS.. I'm going to install again the same ROM I was using.. Thanks for your answer.


text:
How can I sync iTunes with a Galaxy Nexus
How can I sync my music from iTunes onto my Galaxy Nexus? How-To Geek has a good article about using Salling Media Sync, but apparently the Galaxy Nexus isn't supported because it only shows up as a MTP device in Windows.
Also I'm outside the US so I can't use Google Music (no sure if that would even help though because I don't have access to it! :-o).

Thanks in advance!

Possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1351/android-and-itunes

Not voting to close because this question is slightly different since it's applicable to GNex and other phones that only show up as MTP devices.

@AlEverett Google Music isn't an option because I don't live in the US: "We're sorry. The Google Play music player is currently only available in the United States." :(

Try isyncr. They have a wifi add on also.

There are many 3rd-party apps in the Play Store that claim to be able to sync with iTunes: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=itunes+sync&c=apps&price=1

@Chahk The point is Wi-Fi sync..

@SachinShekhar: It's a nice feature, but the OP doesn't mention wifi in the question anywhere.

@eldarerathis Haven't you read this in question: it only shows up as a MTP device in Windows.? Without Wi-fi, he is out of option..

@SachinShekhar: Is he? I have no idea if something like Double Twist/isyncr/et al will work on a device that uses MTP (I don't use iTunes) so the wifi part wasn't really implied to me.

@eldarerathis Reasoning is simple: When you use USB for syncing (using any app), device must be in mass storage mode (MTP mode is used by Kies type software). His mass storage option is not working, so he can't use USB for syncing. And, Bluetooth/NFC/IR etc. based sync isn't practical. So, wi-fi sync is last option..

You can also try Double Twist.

...with its Air Twist add-on.

iSyncr works over USB (Mass Storage or MTP), Mac or PC, and also works over WiFi. It handles the Galaxy Nexus just fine.
In full disclosure, I am the developer.


text:
Internet not accessible even though connected to local network using wifi
I have a wifi connection setup at my home. Other devices like my ubuntu laptop and macbook, when connected to wifi are able to access internet. Even my dad's blackberry is able to load websites when connected to internet via our home wifi. My HTC desire is able to connect to wifi, shows a good signal, but is not able to connect to internet. My friend's android phone have same issue. I can access a website running on my ubuntu (apache) using my browser and ip assigned to my ubuntu box, but I cannot open google or any other website. Even marketplace show connection error.
Can someone help me out with this.

Did you try setting manually the IP+DNS, instead of relying on DHCP, as it does by default?
Wireless and Networks -> Wi-Fi settings -> [menu] -> Advanced -> Use static IP

I had a little trouble with this at first. 2 things: First, Wifi Static is a handy free app if you use more than one wireless network. Second, make sure there isn't an IP conflict on the router by pinging the IP you intend to use before you connect to make sure it isn't already taken.

Are you using IPv6 on your router? There was a question here just the other day, that identified an issue with android resolving an IPv4 address when it has an IPv6 address.
Here is the post I am referring to. If you can, set your router to use IPv4 (for now).


text:
How can you tell if your Nexus S is CDMA?
I am trying to flash ICS onto my Samsung Nexus S, but I'm getting the error E:failed to verify whole-file signature.  Really irritating since this is described by many to work.
I'm guessing that my phone is the CDMA version, but how do you know for sure?

CDMA phones don't use SIM cards, that's the most obvious way to tell.  (Some world phones are both CDMA and have GSM hardware and SIM cards, but that's not relevant here).  Most carriers are only one or the other so your carrier should be a good indication as well.

Good news, I have an AT&T SIM card in mine

@Styler There you go, it's definitely not CDMA then.  AFAIK only the T-Mobile version has been updated to ICS though, so that might be the source of your problem.

Yea I'm all about blazing trails today, thanks again

so... how would one fix this verification error?

@liho1eye You would use a package released and signed for your device.


text:
Durability issues of sd-cards in phones?
I understand, that there are many factors why a sd-card may fail. But I had my last two sd-cards fail in a very short time (about three months). Now I wonder if it is the phones fault, or if I just by bad sd-cards.
I don't have any brand information about the failing sd-card, because I just looked at the capacity and the price (which might be an indication, that it is my fault). But I did not buy the card from a dubious store, so I was hoping they would have some level of acceptable quality.
Is there a quality measure that I can look out for, when shopping for sd-cards?
My phone info: Samsung Galaxy S I9000 with Gingerbread 2.3.3

I had bad luck with any "cheap" cards that I ever bought. They usually end up being "off brands", and some of the slowest performing. The cheap ones usually don't even mention the class rating, which means they are probably a class 2, or worse. I never had them fail in the short time you seen, but they did fail, and after 2 cheap cards failed on me in my android device, I spent the extra couple bucks and went with a "name brand" class 6 (I couldn't even find a class 10 when I bought it). I have had this card for almost 3 years now, it has moved between 3 different android devices in that time, and has seen its share of custom android ROMs flashed to the host device. Not to mention it even had a time, before froyo, it was partitioned to with 1GB EXT4 partition to act as an "extension" of the devices internal storage, and even SWAP at one point on my ADP1. I have had zero problems with it.


text:
Huge "Data" when using DiskUsage in Innternal Memory
My Lenovo P770's internal memory usage is very large – although I have deleted some unimportant data/apps. This is what it looks like using DiskUsage application:

Screenshot (click for larger variant)
I noticed that theres a huge "Data" (755 MB) in my internal storage.
What is this data? Is it save to delete it? How to do it (where is it's location)?
Sorry for much questions, please help me out. Thanks a lot
Note: I have used CCleaner but it doesn't help much. I think the main problem is this huge "Data".

As the screenshot shows, the "huge data" is mostly "applications" (each column represents a "detail view" of the one left to it). From the apps, most space is consumed by Facebook and Twitter.

As you can see on the right, it contains the private data for all apps. If you want to delete these data, you can do it by uninstalling apps or by clicking "Clear data" in the apps manager.

How do i know which apps have that huge data? Thanks

You can see in your screenshot. Facebook is using 122.9 MiB, Twitter is using 90.4 MiB, etc. On recent Android versions, the same data are available in the apps manager: each app shows how much space it takes up, and you can sort largest-first.

Do you mean that "Data" is "Applications" + "System data" + "Free space" ?

Yes, that's how the app works. Everything to the right is inside the thing on its left.

Okay, i will try to do something (i think i have moved all of the apps data to the USB storage). Thanks, i will let you know what happened.

Wait, so if the total data is 755 MB, i should have around 1,2 GB free data because my internal memory is 2GB. How much does Jellybean OS cost?

Comments aren't for extended discussions. You asked a question, I answered it. If you have a bigger problem to solve, either ask it as a new question (and be sure to give all the details), or come join us in [chat].


text:
How to turn off notifications from Facebook Messenger on Android Gingerbread?
All the instructions on the web for disabling messenger notifications are for Androids 4.0 and higher. I just don't have "show notifications" box which to uncheck in the app menu on my Gingerbread device. Is there any other way to turn off messenger notifications or am I simply forced to buy a new phone?
Thanks a lot!

Screenshot (click for larger variant)

Those instructions are for Android 4.1 or higher, because this option was introduced with 4.1 – so before, there is no "common way" to do that. Either the app supports it – or not. No system-wide option for that before 4.1.

Messenger is good app for those who really don't want to miss any notification. If you don't want it, uninstall it and look for alternatives like Nimbuzz, IM+, etc... There are so many alternatives which supports Facebook chat.

If you have root access on your device, an application like this may work for you. I cannot test it as I have no Gingerbread devices.

This option only lets you turn off notifications for 24 hours (what a terrible feature)
Open the messenger application.
Go to the 'cog' icon for settings.
Turn notifications off.
This image shows the Icon, and shows the 'Notifications' option, but the arrow isn't pointing to it!

Thank you for the time and effort, but this doesn't quite address my problem. That option lets me turn off notifications for the next 24 hrs max. I would like it to be permanently disabled.

@Toolik that's a rubbish feature! I've never used it myself, and didn't realise it did that. Facebook seem to assume you always want their notifications. If you turn off Light, Vibration, Sound, Notification Preview, Chat Heads, is there anything left for it to notify with? I'll keep looking. I, personally, would not use any app that doesn't let me turn off notifications permanently, but I get that you probably don't want to get rid of it. Root access may allow you to do this.

@Toolik no problem, I also updated the answer for root users. If it works, consider accepting the answer! I'm still amazed how badly designed the whole app is!


text:
nexus S partition scheme, can it be changed?
planning on moving from the Nexus One to the S.
the only thing I don't like about the S is the 512ram and the 1GB for apps.
I tried to search forums, but found nothing relevant about this quesiton:
Is it possible to partition it something like
/system 6Gb
/SD 9Gb
/swap 1Gb

?
i'm comfortable flashing custom roms, but i never dealt with partitions.

I know it's been over a year, but if you still have the Nexus S, I have found a solution. Combined emulated SDcard storage like the Nexus 4. Check the guide here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-s/general/howto-combined-emulated-storage-nexus-s-t2848752

in case the above link disappears, the meat of the answer is to use android LVM2 (ligical volume manager). though i'm almost sure you can do it simpler by just changing regular partitions and boot scripts.
https://github.com/steven676/android-lvm-mod
the original link just outline all the overly complicated steps required to push a new kernel and a few system images and change partition on android. (which will never be a perfect solution because the android vendors never open source all the pieces to compile a perfect kernel for every device...)

thanks! i never got the nexus S because there was no good solution to this dumb design decision :) but thanks a ton for the link! i will try to revive my nexus one with that and put my newer phone for sale! that is the only thing preventing me from still using the perfectly good nexus one

I don't know enough about the first nexus to decide if it is going to work, but I hope you succeed!

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. Please see Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer? for more information regarding this policy.

@eldarerathis tried to summarize the most important piece on the answers. thanks for the reminder.

@eldarerathis You are right, it is my first time answering a question.:)


text:
How can I teach my phone not to capitalise "It's" every time?
I'm using the standard full QWERTY on-screen keyboard on my HTC Desire S, and when typing in to any app it seems that I cannot type it's without manually inserting the ', which is relatively slow and cumbersome, especially considering many other abbreviations work fine (eg, c, a, n, t -> can't).
If I type i, t, s then the default word that is presented is its, but in the word selection list I am presented with It's as a second choice; always capitalised. it's is not presented as a choice anywhere in the list of suggestions.
The phone seems to only capitalise anything else following a full stop or new line, and gets many other abbreviations correct, so why the misbehaviour for it's? And how do I fix it?
I've already tried adding it's to the dictionary (and checked that It's isn't there), but that didn't work.

That's...odd. I've never seen that before.

It seems that asking this question has encouraged me actually make a proper effort to poke around the phone's settings enough to find a workable solution, which is to enable Spell correction for the QWERTY keyboard word suggestions / predictions.
The option is enabled in the location:

Settings
Language & Keyboard
Touch Input

Text Input

QWERTY section

Spell correction

Now, typing i,t,s mid sentence will produce the suggested words its, Its, it's, which is pretty much acceptable for me. it's might be third, but it's listed and that's what counts!
I don't know if this is a common problem or if the default setting for Spell correction is on or off, so I don't know what the cause of the problem was, but at least it's sort of fixed.

check your user dictionary, perhaps you have the capitalized "It's" in your user dictionary?

@Lie Ryan: It is stated in the question that it is not.


text:
AnkiDroid - failed to Left Align Text
I'm trying to left align text in card but with no luck.
Tried changing text-align to left in Anki desktop, the card in desktop working fine, but it doesn't affect the card in mobile - it's still center aligned.
Also tried add html tag as follows, but still not working. (AnkiDroid version 2.3.2)

use p align / still centered (click images for larger variants)

Please also post a screenshot of your card template (seen in Anki Desktop). See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1j1Zx0mXME

Big thanks! Turning off "Simple interface" fixed the problem.

@DanHulme: Could you please post your comment as an answer, so that we can upvote/accept it? Thanks! :-)

@Deqing OK, since that worked, I've written it up as an answer. Please go ahead and accept it so other visitors can see the problem is solved.

To use any HTML markup but simple bold/italics in cards, you need to turn off the option Advanced -> Simple interface.


text:
Can I use ext4 on my SD card in a non-rooted phone?
I know that on a rooted phone, it's reasonably normal to create a small ext4 partition for App2SD to use, but I'm not asking about that case:  I have a non-rooted HTC Desire running Froyo, and I'd like to format the whole of my SD card as ext4 instead of FAT.  I'm aware that this will mean that Windows PCs won't be able to use the card, but all my PCs run Linux so they should be fine.  Will the phone be able to access and use the card in this case?

I don't think you can. especially since froyo uses FAT for its apps2sd implementation.

I think you'd have to change the mounting options for the SD card, which would require root.

ext4 should be supported if you have an upgrade to 2.3 or 3.0 Android (I see that your post is from just before the 2.3 & 3.0 releases...).
...and when btrFS is added to Android, it has a nice mount-option ",ssd" with wear-levelling etc that ext4 doesn't have... and more speed than ext4 now, esp if you use ",compress=lzo" OR ",space_cache" in fstab (but don't use compression WITH the space_cache option, only use 1 or the other or else it slows to a crawl in some benchmarks) -- and that speed comes despite btrFS checksumming of all data (not only of the journals, as ext4 does). :-)

Just an update from 2017: I think this is really only valid if you have a rooted device, unfortunately.

Just an update from 2021, still not working on Android 10. I also tried an XFS formatted thumbdrive, still nothing.

I actually had my sdcard on ext4 and got it mounted permanent at boot time (I have root on my phone).
The biggest problem was that the apps don’t expect permission checking on /sdcard, but extX enforces this (no mount option around this). So if one app stores e.g. some audio there and calls another subcomponent to play it, it fails.
The same is true for photos (camera shots them, some previewer might want to access them).
You can manually fix this, but you have to run after every new file created... There would be an nice real solution to this, but it requires system modification: let the apps run with umask(002) instead of 022. Android is UPG (User Private Groups), so there is no big harm in doing so. – Now the apps could choose if they want to expose files to others by setting the group to “sdcard“, or not. This would also add to an enforced separation where the apps want it.

Get fixed permissions using FUSE or sdcardfs: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/217936/218526. But this answer isn't for non-rooted phone.

It appears that the answer is "no" :(.  I was asking because I have a new card to go in the phone, so I thought I'd just try it -- it didn't work.  When I ask the phone to mount its card, it goes straight to saying "SD card safe to remove."
Oh well.

Please, support your answer somehow or delete it.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2424900 explains that vold is something of an obstacle

@JasonPlutext now there's patched vold available.

Short answer: no.
Although on Android 5 cat /proc/filesystems shows that ext4 is supported it seems that only FAT32 and exFAT (FAT64) are supported on non-rooted devices. I've tried mounting 64GB micro SD card as exFAT without any success.
Using fdisk you can format your card to FAT32 (files over 4GB are not supported):
$ fdisk -H 224 -S 56 /dev/mmcblk0

d delete previous partition
n new partition, then select primary one p and default sector start e.g to 2048
t set c for FAT32
(here you can save few sectors by going to expert mode x and moving begin of partition b)
w write changes

Then format to FAT32, using your number of reserved sectors (2048)
$ mkfs.vfat -F 32 -s 32 -R 2048 -v /dev/mmcblk0p1

-F 32 for FAT32
-s 32 cluster size expressed as sectors, so 32 x 512 bytes = 16KB clusters
-R 2048 number of reserved sectors

This way 64GB card can be mounted using FAT32, I didn't mange to find any working formatting for exFAT or ext4.

Please, support your answer somehow or delete it.

@Masi could you be more specific? I've tried formatting SD card to ext2, ext3, ext4, fat32 and exfat. Tested on Android 5.0 and only fat32 was working. Android has very limited options of logging on non-rooted devices. What would you want me to do?

I just did a complete system installation of a new Rom on ext4. The phone used the recovery mode (TWRP 2.8.x). No OS at all in phone.  Your recovery image must support ext4. Please, let us know yours and try to update it. I recommend TWRP 3.0.2.

@Masi The question is about default non-rooted Android. I guess you're using rooted OS.

No, I am using non-rooted Android.

@Masi Ok, I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. You've managed to install OS on ext4, but the question is about mounting an SD card. So, what's your point?

Yes, you can use ext4 in SD card.

@Masi well, could then you support that claim with something more specific?

I tried LineageOS 14.1(android 7.1.2), it support sdcard(tf-card) formatted in ext4.
Though it format sdcard to vfat defaultly, if you don't make any patch.
The easiest way is to format the sdcard with ext4 using a external usb-sdcard-adapter, then insert the sdcard into phone with LineageOS installed.

That's due to patched vold. Won't work on stock ROMs.

@IrfanLatif Why android insist on using FAT on external cards? FAT is so fragile that all major phone makers are getting rid of the sd card slot simply to not have to bother with it.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


text:
Mp3 not showing in library
I spent an hour trying to get this to work so I could get some sleep in my noisy hospital bed last night.
I wanted to listen to some noise on loop. I downloaded some waves lapping type music.
It's on my internal SD and is an mp3.
Clicking the file in Astro browser doesn't open the file in a player fully but only a popup preview window. It's in the foreground, doesn't offer many controls and stops playing when the focus is removed.
Searching for the file in all 3 of my players doesn't result in anything, even after a restart. I have also tried a SD card rescan utility from the play store.
Music apps I tried were Fusion, Bubble UPNP and the Samsung Music App. All of which seem to rely on some internal media index. Frustratingly I can't simply browse to the file from inside the apps, I have to search the library.
It should not take an hour and a post to here to figure out how to manually play a simple file, added to my phone in such a way.
It would be great if it were like Windows or osx and allow the user to "Open with... ",  and then select the app.
 I know you can dig in and change this, but it's a more permanent solution for a temporary requirement.
Anyway I must be loosing my mind:)
How can I add this file to my library from within Android or otherwise open this file in a full player to make use of controls like loop etc?

Update from a comment on an answer:
It's mp3, and plays in the popup player just fine. Perhaps the tags are corrupted and somehow blocking it from appearing in the library. I tried an mp3 tag utility and it can't see the file in the folder. So perhaps it is corrupt in some way.

How did you download it? Usually the downloading app should cause the new file to be added to what you call the "internal media index" without any action on your part.

Firefox, then I moved it to its own folder,  then tried the music folder.

As already suggested your files are most likely wrong tagged or not tagged at all.
In order to be recognized by apps relying on meda scanning, mp3 files need to contain at least a valid "title" id(3) tag.
On linux you can check your file with the tool "eyeD3" which can be installed on debian based distris from the package: eyed3
A simple:

eyeD3 /path/to/mp3/file

should give you all id information.
If there is no title tag you can tag by:

eyeD3 -t yourtitle /path/to/mp3/file

If you push this file now to your device and perform a reboot it should be recognized by the media scanner.

Does anyone know why players insist on not showing mp3's that aren't tagged? Why do they care?? What speaks against just doing the obvious thing and picking up ALL mp3 files?

If it doesn't turn up in the library even after a reboot (which should definitely have triggered the media scanner to add it to the library), the only reason I can think of is some .nomedia file being in the path. You can try to analyze that (finding whether there is one), or...
There are media players not using the library, mainly for FolderPlay & AudioBooks. Using one of those, you can navigate to that folder from within the app, and play the files. If that doesn't work either, the files might be corrupted or using an unsupported format.

It's mp3, and plays in the popup player just fine. Perhaps the tags are corrupted and somehow blocking it from appearing in the library. I tried an mp3 tag utility and it can't see the file in the folder. So perhaps it is corrupt in some way.

Especially that tagging problem is an important detail, so I've copied that information into your original question. I'd try copying the file to your computer to check with some other MP3 software. There are tools recognizing errors in MP3 files and giving detailed information on those – but that's no longer an Android issue then: if you need closer details on this issue, maybe SuperUser is a good place to ask (make sure to check their /help/on-topic first to confirm).

Had the same problem with file downloaded from Torrents. Wondering who put it there.

I found an album that android would refuse to recognise, until I renamed the files. I'm guessing android doesn't like the three dots (elipsis):
Original name:

...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - 05 - The Rest Will Follow

New name:

05 - The Rest Will Follow

To be exact, Android (and Unix) doesn't like file that starts with dot. Related: What are dot-files? on our sister site, Ask Ubuntu.


text:
Changing SD Card Just a Simple Copy & Paste
I'm migrating to a larger SD Card and I'm wondering if it is just a straightforward copy of the data from one card to the other in Windows?  Specifically, can I just copy the card using Windows Explorer and paste to a temporary folder, then copy the contents of that temporary folder to the new card and have the phone be non-the-wiser (so long as I preserve the directory structure)?

Joel,
I've done this before, and I've had mixed results. Make sure you have Windows set to see hidden files and folders, then drag everything over. Your phone may refuse to remember the SD card-stored apps you have (as in, you've moved an app to run off the SD card), but it may also work. App settings, as far as I remember, seem to come over. I'd say it wouldn't hurt trying.
I know it'll preserve the link to Gallery pictures and videos and music and such.

If the phone is off before you take out the original card and until you insert the new one, and the cards have the same filesystem format, it seems strange that it might not remember apps.  Then again I don't know whether Android might have some sort of SD filetable backup on internal storage that would allow it to detect a change.  I had no problems moving to a bigger card so it must not be size-based.

It must have something to do with the way Android stores apps that were moved to SD Card (native implementation, not the hacky ext partitions.)  Windows doesn't seem to be able to access anything stored in /sdcard/.android_secure/ folder.  @Joel B, you might have better luck either copying the SD Card's contents on a Linux machine, or using some Windows utility that copies the card's structure, as opposed to simply moving the files.


text:
After buying OnePlus One - Google Keep stopped syncing "Sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly. "
I bought OnePlus One. Keep did not sync any cards. I thought it was problem with the phone but than I uninstalled and installed Keep on my tablet and it stopped working with it too.

I get this in my sync screen in OnePlus One (left) / Nexus 7 Android 5 (right).
Notice the Sync is experiencing problems below.
When I try to play music on google play music app it stops immediately after start. Keep not syncing. My friend does not have this problem so it does not seem to be global.
It seems as if I broken my account somehow. Can I do anything about this? I have no clue who could help me resolve this.
Here is a video were I show the behavior Google Keep does not sync. Please help: http://youtu.be/AbAU-8TIf_w

Have you tried signing out of your Google account, then signing back in? That's always worked for me.

You mean in the phone? I tried. I did not try to sign out everywhere at once though. Do you mean by signing out removing the account from all devices?

Just on the affected device is usually enough. If you tried that it must be something else.

Two devices are now affected. After reinstalling keep on one device I own for a year now (Nexus 7 2013) it stopped working on it too.

Ok, so I found the solution with help from Psychol3oy on OnePlus One Jira. The issue is on Google site. They do not respond to any attempts to contact them, so I managed to find the issue myself.
Psychol3oy suggested on this ticket in OPO Jira, to turn on developer options on your device like this:

Enter settings on android
About phone
Tap on build number numerous times - it will say you enabled developer options.
Go back to settings and enter developer options
This will vary from device to device. I had to enable "Android debugging" and "Power menu bug reports"
Go to settings
Find Google in Accounts
Attempt to synchronize Keep
In OnePlus One hold power button and press bug report
It will slowly generate a bug report for you. Share it with you via email, or any other way.
Investigate. I am not sure how Android developers look for it, I just looked for "keep" and "sync" keywords within the log.

I found in mine there was some issue with one of the cards I had on my Keep. It looked like this:
01-12 21:39:04.993 1562 16531 E SyncScheduler: Ignoring sync request: rate limited

(on connection limit)
01-12 21:39:05.003 16099 16529 V KeepSync: Connected to GoogleApiClient.
01-12 21:39:08.653 16099 16529 I KeepSync: documents to pin: 5 Documents to unpin: 0
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: Error inserting user_edited_timestamp=1418138554492 time_created=1418138472081 notification_state=0 type=0 is_new_list_item_from_top=0 title=Marian Simonovi realtime_data_server_version=2 has_read=1 last_modifier_email=null parent_id=0 server_id=1RV2lPCgF9kzIYEAXKFxpH1JOxAsDRredxIoFvBrOiHaB2vYiLRFqoB3FISCS11A account_id=1 order_in_parent=116391936 color_name=GREEN time_last_updated=1418200125436 base_version=29 last_changes_seen_timestamp=1418140253433 is_archived=0 is_graveyard_closed=0 is_trashed=0 is_deleted=0 is_owner=0 sharer_email=null is_dirty=0 uuid=1418138472079.1701639728 is_graveyard_off=0
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: android.database.sqlite.SQLiteConstraintException: columns account_id, uuid are not unique (code 19)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteConnection.nativeExecuteForLastInsertedRowId(Native Method)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteConnection.executeForLastInsertedRowId(SQLiteConnection.java:782)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteSession.executeForLastInsertedRowId(SQLiteSession.java:788)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteStatement.executeInsert(SQLiteStatement.java:86)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase.insertWithOnConflict(SQLiteDatabase.java:1469)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase.insert(SQLiteDatabase.java:1339)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.provider.KeepProvider.a(SourceFile:1762)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.provider.KeepProvider.insertInTransaction(SourceFile:1650)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.android.common.content.SQLiteContentProvider.insert(SourceFile:113)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.content.ContentProviderOperation.apply(ContentProviderOperation.java:214)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.android.common.content.SQLiteContentProvider.applyBatch(SourceFile:231)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.provider.KeepProvider.applyBatch(SourceFile:1633)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.content.ContentProvider$Transport.applyBatch(ContentProvider.java:260)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.content.ContentProviderClient.applyBatch(ContentProviderClient.java:377)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.content.ContentResolver.applyBatch(ContentResolver.java:1227)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.syncadapter.DownSyncResponseProcessor.lZ(SourceFile:295)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.syncadapter.DownSyncResponseProcessor.q(SourceFile:263)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.syncadapter.DownSyncResponseProcessor.lY(SourceFile:236)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.syncadapter.KeepSyncAdapter.a(SourceFile:311)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at com.google.android.keep.syncadapter.KeepSyncAdapter.onPerformSync(SourceFile:198)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: at android.content.AbstractThreadedSyncAdapter$SyncThread.run(AbstractThreadedSyncAdapter.java:259)
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E Keep : Failed to insert row for content://com.google.android.keep/tree_entity?caller_is_syncadapter=true
01-12 21:39:08.813 16099 16529 E KeepSync: OperationApplicationException error while applying sync results
01-12 21:39:08.813 16099 16529 W KeepSync: Sync result 3
01-12 21:39:08.853 16099 16099 D WearableClient: WearableClientImpl.onPostInitHandler: done
01-12 21:39:08.903 798 851 D SyncManager: failed sync operation mimkorn@gmail.com u0 (com.google), com.google.android.keep, SERVER, latestRunTime 3728633, reason: 10013, SyncResult: stats [ numParseExceptions: 1]
01-12 21:39:08.903 798 851 D SyncManager: not retrying sync operation because the error is a hard error: mimkorn@gmail.com u0 (com.google), com.google.android.keep, SERVER, latestRunTime 3856031, reason: 10013

Pay attention to the longest row, saying:
01-12 21:39:08.793 16099 16529 E SQLiteDatabase: Error inserting user_edited_timestamp=1418138554492 time_created=1418138472081 notification_state=0 type=0 is_new_list_item_from_top=0 title=Marian Simonovi realtime_data_server_version=2 has_read=1 last_modifier_email=null parent_id=0 server_id=1RV2lPCgF9kzIYEAXKFxpH1JOxAsDRredxIoFvBrOiHaB2vYiLRFqoB3FISCS11A account_id=1 order_in_parent=116391936 color_name=GREEN time_last_updated=1418200125436 base_version=29 last_changes_seen_timestamp=1418140253433 is_archived=0 is_graveyard_closed=0 is_trashed=0 is_deleted=0 is_owner=0 sharer_email=null is_dirty=0 uuid=1418138472079.1701639728 is_graveyard_off=0

The title parameter on this row is saying the card name "Marian Simonovi". I found this card. It was a card shared by a friend with me.

I deleted (not archived, but deleted) this card on web interface of Keep.
I tried to sync my device and it worked immediately.

I know this is rather more difficult to do and it might not be this easy on your non-OPO device. You might have difficulties get to logs on your device (might have to use Android Studio on your PC). But this is what worked for me. Hope your issue will be similar.
This seems to be a bug on Google site. If you know a way how to let them know other than the ways I alredy tried (contacted developers via Google play, sent bug report, wrote google groups question, wrote on xda-forums) please let me, or them know about this.

I had to delete shared cards from another accounts.


text:
How do I erase all the data on Galaxy S4 if the screen is broken?
I have Samsung Galaxy S4, but the screen broke. I wanted to erase all the data on it before I send it back to the factory for replacement. Is there any way to do this?

Please add detail to your question that way it help to get correct answers.

Assuming you ever registered a gmail address on your google play account(which you have to, to download apps), your phone will be registered in Google's Device Manager on play.google.com.  If your phone was connected to WiFi or Data when the screen broke the below method can work(I've tested it myself multiple times).

Head to play.google.com(From your PC)
Log in to your google account.
Click the 'gear' symbol in the top right hand corner of the screen.
Go To 'Android Device Manager'
Select your GS4 from the menu of your registered devices.
Select 'Erase' from the list.

That should erase the phone.

Will this wipe out ONLY the data on my broken phone (its memory) and NOT my simm card and removable memory card?

I always take my removeable memory card out before I format a phone, so I would probably do that.  It won't mess with your sim card.

ok thats what i thought.  Leave the sim card installed tho right? i did sync with Google so this method should preserve all my data for the new phone then.

Yeah, leave the sim card in.

Thanks!!! I will let u know how it goes later. Can't be too careful with info security/privacy these days.... MUCH APPRECIATED!!!

Just wanted to follow up to say that the wipeout on the old phone was a success and the sim card was not affected at all.  I still have all the data/info intact and functional on my new phone. thanks NEW TO IT guy!!!

Glad I could help @bigaznguy

IF the LCD is no longer working but you can still see the display I would recommend an OTG cable Walmart
If the LCD is not working refer to New-To-IT's post
Another method would be to boot it into download mode and flash a new system image on it.

Connect the phone to a computer/laptop using the micro-usb or charger that came with the phone then reset the phone.


text:
Is my Exchange email encrypted on my device?
If I setup an email synchronization with our Exchange server, is the mail I store on my phone encrypted or readible if someone finds/steals my phone?
I have enabled the unlock password (although it's not easy to unlock), but it is very easy to remove the sd-card from the phone. Is the information on that SD-card readible for a "finder", or is it not stored on the sd-card anyway.

Honeycomb can do full-device encryption, hopefully that's in Ice Cream Sandwich as well.  I'd think about seeing if you can find an email app that features encryption ... as The_Brink says I wouldn't trust the stock app.

By default email will be stored in the phone's internal memory, not on the SD card.  (Though you can 'move' the app to SD storage, so it is possible that the SD card gets used).  As others have said, once your mail is on the SD card, there is no protection as the SD card is removable (since the data is unencrypted).
For mail that is stored in the phone's built-in memory, an attacker would have to unlock the phone to get the data.  Either directly through the mail app once unlocked, or to put the phone into "USB disk mode" to read the phone's state from a USB-attached computer.  (A really sophisticated attacker could probably disassemble your phone and wire the flash to a custom reader, by passing the phone lock and read your unencrypted emails off of the flash.)
Note that the Exchange connection allows the Exchange server to send a command to wipe your device.  (I believe this is contingent on some setup by the Exchange admin.)  In the web UI for my Exchange email server, there is an option to list authorized devices and to wipe them remotely.  Of course, the phone needs to be on a network to receive this command, so an attacker could delay this command by preventing the phone from using its networks.

Emails shouldn't be stored on the sd-card, but if they are then they can be easily extracted. I would say that your emails on the device are not safe. I would recommend an app like webroot mobile security. You can wipe all your data or locate your phone with this app. There are other apps just like it.  This is the best bet to keeping your data safe unless you are a spy then the only way to get ride of your data is through burning the phone.


text:
Is it safe for the battery to turn on the mobile data all the time?
I usually turn on my cellphone Mobile Data & WIFI all the time because I don't want to miss SMS and Emails. I'm afraid the battery could lose capacity over time if I keep turning on the Mobile Data/WiFi all the time or something might happen to my mobile. However, I believe modern electronics should be able to handle this kind of scenario. Does this apply to modern Android phones? Or do I need to continue disconnecting and connect only when needed?
Note: I have an unlimited mobile pack.

It all depends on your usage requirements

If you can't afford to miss mails or messages your wifi /data will be on and that will certainly lead to battery degradation. See Battery capacity wear-down, and its relationship to charging practices, specifically the graph and it's explanation.

Turning wifi /mobile data on/off isn't harmful. You can do that if you can live with missing messages or mails.

If your device is rooted you can prevent battery degradation by making the device run from mains as explained here Don't charge the battery but use connected power to run the phone or at least keep the battery charged and discharged within safe limits as explained here Ideal charging / discharging percentage for maximum battery life?

If you don't want to root your battery, your battery will lose its life quickly and you would end up changing the battery or the device. Unfortunately, that's true.


text:
Recording Microsoft Teams meeting on Android smartphone
I'm wondering if there is a way to record Microsoft Teams meetings with a smartphone; I'm using a Motorola Moto G6 Play and the record button doesn't appear.

I tried with a screen recorder, but Android doesn't allow you to record internal audio unless you root your smartphone (in this case the warranty goes away).

I have an explanation to why the recording button might not appear on your app: The administrator of your team might have disabled the option to record the meeting. Are you able to record meetings on other devices?

Hi @MehulArora, yes i can record the video by using a laptop.

Have you tried clearing the cache and data of the app?

@ReddyLutonadio how can i do it? I found only a video to do it on laptop.

Go to Settings -> Apps (or Apps & notifications). Look for Teams, select it. Under storage, select clear data. All data from Teams will be cleared from your phone. Restart the app (it will be as if you are using it for the first time). Select your account and give the necessary permissions. Try joining a meeting and check if the problem persists.

@ReddyLutonadio, i did it, but the problem persists.

Most smartphone manufacturers have screen recorders built-in these days.
If you want also want to record the video, on Samsung devices, you can use the Screen Recorder : https://www.samsung.com/au/support/mobile-devices/using-screen-recorder/
For other manufacturers, you should be able to find the steps required to record, by googling, for example : "Google Pixel screen recording"
Another option is to use another phone (or a tablet) to record it. Most phones have a built-in app to record audio such as Samsung Voice Recorder.

A solution is to open Microsoft Teams in the browser and here the record button is accessible.

To view the recording button after joining a meeting, click the 3-dot then on the list that appears, you should be able "Start recording". Clicking it will start recording the meeting just like on the desktop app.

Hello @ReddyLutonadio, thank you for your reply. The strange thing is that on my smartphone there isn't the function "start recording"...i'll upload a screenshot as soos as possible.

Possible causes -

Hopefully the reason is not this one, but anyways; an answer on Quora reads:

If you are trying to record in a private team channel, then you cannot record the meeting, as the team owner ideally disables the recording option for security purposes.

Another answer:

This is an issue with the version of your teams. You can check for system or app updates and then try recording again.

Another:

Teams meeting recordings are currently disabled for customers whose Teams data is stored in-country, if Microsoft Stream is not available in that country. A new admin setting will allow customers to turn on meeting recordings if Microsoft Stream data residency is not yet in country.

You can try clearing app cache, app data, reinstalling and updating your app if an update is available. Else, with the technical restrictions you have, I find it difficult for myself to cook a solution.
I'd always prefer going root. I know your warranty will terminate if you root the device; plus no point in potentially soft-bricking a smooth-running device just to have been able to record meetings. But rooting offers you so many tweaks that given a choice, I'd surely make the bargain. I think there are ways to delete the flash record from a device too; so there should be some way to keep the warranty intact

Also note that this question may be a possible duplicate of https://superuser.com/questions/1522669/microsoft-teams-why-cant-i-record-a-meeting

For any reason, when we are not able to use App specific record feature, we can use generic recorders available for android. I use XRecorder on android phone, it works great! We can record android screen with audio.


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Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra's hotspot is only limited to 1 connection
My wife and I just switched to Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultras (unlocked and purchased from Samsung.com) from Pixel 3 & 4 XL.  We had no problem with having multiple connections on either device.  On the S20s, under the Mobile Hotspot settings, it says

Turn your phone into a Wi-Fi access point.  Up to 1 other device will be able to use your phone's mobile data or Wi-Fi connection to access the internet.

Doing some research and talking to Samsung support, there is supposed to be an option in "Configure Mobile Hotspot" to set the maximum number of connections.  This option is not there for us.
I tried a handful of 3rd party hotspot apps and none of them worked. I also tried a few hidden settings apps and I couldn't find anything about setting the maximum connections.
Is there another way of setting this hidden maximum number of connection settings?

Did you buy carrier-locked phones?  If so, this setting is most likely limited by your carrier.  If you got your Pixel devices through Google Play (or straight from Google) then they would not be subject to this restriction.

Thanks CzarMatt, I forgot to mention that they are unlocked purchased straight from Samsung in the description.  I did a factory reset on the phone while the SIM was removed and the setting wasn't any different. :(

Strange.  My friend's Note 10+ says it can connect up to 8 devices.  You might find some information here: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/96458/how-many-clients-can-be-connected-to-a-wifi-hotspot  My guess is the carrier or settings of your phone are restricting the number somehow.  Try checking battery saver, data saver, any other throttling setting you can think of and play around with the settings.


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Can Doogee Y9 Plus run AR apps?
I have recently bought a Doogee Y9 Plus. As I found out, the phone does not have a compass or gyroscope.
I wanted to ask if the phone could still use AR apps. The phone isn't rooted, but I might even do it.

According to this it has the following sensors: Proximity, Light, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Fingerprint

Well it doesn't work on the phone itself. Here is a photo: link