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Use an Android tablet as a Wacom drawing tablet for a Mac?
How do I share Android tablet's screen while attending zoom meeting from Mac? I know there is a zoom plugin to share iPhone/iPad screen but is it possible to do the same with an Android tablet? (using the Android tab as a Wacom tab)?
I have: MacBook Air2020
Galaxy Tab A

You can do so using the Android remote control software scrcpy:
If you enable Development option on your Android device and afterwards enable the "Android Debug Bridge" option you can connect your Android device to your computer via USB and then remote control the Android device and see it's screen on your computer using a software like scrcpy (install it on MacOS via brew install scrcpy).
Then in a Zoom call you can share your computer screen which shows the Android screen via scrcpy.


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Move the pointer with the head on android
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Stéphane, I am quadriplegic.
I am running this topic because I need help.
My disability means that I cannot use my arms. I'm looking for a system where I can move the mouse cursor with my head on an android tablet.
I found a system with OpenCv but it's on Windows Would it be possible to do the same on android ?

This app claims to do this. It has a good rating too. You may like to test it

I tried but it is not very reliable

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Whatsapp - Cannot restore from a local backup
today I made a mistake on my Samsung Galaxy note 10+ Phone: my daughter deleted the app.
When I took the phone back, I noticed that whatsapp was no longer more installed on my phone.
When I reinstalled it from play store, activated, it can't find any backup, even if I have daily backup on my phone.
I've a lot of files in my whatsapp chat history and I reinstalled several times, following also the steps described in this guide: WhatsApp doesn't prompt to restore from local storage, but none of the solutions provided (permissions, etc.) works.
At first startup, Whatsapp asks for the permission to access google drive and then, it asks for the name to display, skipping the backup. Please note that i never changed my phone number, etc.
I tried also on Xiaomi Redmi Note 7, that I just initialized for this purpose.
I copied all the whatsapp data folder, renamed the appropriate msgstore.db.crypt14 but whatsapp didn't ask for any restore.
At this point, after several retries, Whatsapp activation system let me wait 24 hours or days to receive a new activation code by text message or call.
I've all of my working history and backed up whatsapp folder several times, during years but I never experienced a behaviour like that.
Any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Digitalchild

With A11 WhatsApp new location is
/sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/DataBases

Try to copy DBs to here

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


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WhatsApp partial restore from Google drive
I cannot restore all chats from a Google drive backup which was manually performed from scratch on the old phone before restoring messages on the new phone
Basically only some chats are restored on the new phone .. What can I try?


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I Can't Get Root Back After Trying To Modify The Hosts File
I have a Motorola Edge (regular not +) running LineageOS 17.1 (20210528). I had it rooted and decided I wanted to use the hosts file for ad blocking. I couldn't figure out how to get the OS to allow me to modify the host file. While I was doing so, I somehow corrupted to OS and couldn't boot into it. That was easily fixed by flashing the the OS, but now I can't get root back. When I reboot after I flash the Magisk patched boot.img (to both partitions), I get "Can't load Android system. Your data maybe corrupt..." (This happens when I try to boot into both partitions). Before I see the error message, it goes into a bootloop for a few minutes.
Thanks

format userdata

Could you tell me why something on that partition is preventing me from rooting my phone?   And what that something might be?       Thanks

you have installed magisk which destroyed encryption therefore phone is in boot loop unsucessful trying to decrypt until you start with a fresh formatted unencrypted partition

to undo magisk changes and fix encryption flash stock vendor (or restore fstab manually)

I fixed it a few days later. I don't know exactly what did it, but while the stock ROM was installed, I flashed the Magisk uninstall in TWRP. Then when I rebooted the phone, it booted into the LineageOS recovery and showed the  "Can't load Android system. Your data maybe corrupt..."  error message. I chose to do the factory reset and when the phone rebooted, to my shock and amazement, it booted into LineageOS! I got  it rooted again and everything is back to normal. I'm thinking it was flashing the Magisk uninstall zip that fixed it, but that's only a guess.

I think you solved it with fresh formatted unencrypted userdata partition

I think It was flashing the Magisk uninstsller that solved it, but you could be right.


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Why whatsapp always makes notifications at the same time of everyday but there is no message?
Whatsapp always makes notifications at 13:15 of everyday, but when I check, there is no message at all. So when it's about to 13:15, I keep looking at my phone, whatsapp pops up a notification but it disappears immediately. This happens at 13:15 of everyday. I don't understand what is wrong. My phone is Android 9.
Thank you.

I'd assume it's trying to create a backup daily?

Thanks Andrew. But not everyone receives this notification everyday, right? What is wrong with my phone? How could I fix it?

Check the WhatsApp settings if the backup is set to daily. If it is, then the notification will also appear daily (though usually late night, not in the middle of noon). Depends on the amount to back up, it can be as short as 1 second and disappear after that. You can also try How to get the notification history to identify and pinpoint the cause first.

Thanks. I have checked the notification history, it is Whatsapp. The channelID is other_notifications@1. I don't understand what other notifications it is. I already set the backup option of whatsapp to Never long time ago.

I found some things here. I don't know whether they work or not. I have to wait until tomorrow. 1: https://www.journeybytes.com/stop-whatsapp-you-may-have-new-messages-notification/   2: https://www.journeybytes.com/stop-whatsapp-checking-for-new-messages-notification/


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Huawei Y6 Elite - Wet, Can Charge But Not Booting
(If this is the wrong place to ask this question please tell me.)
I am in a bit of pickle right now.
It was quite rainy where I live, so when I took my phone (Huawei Y6 Elite Android 5.1) outside it fell in some water. It worked initially - I dried it and all.
Then, at the end of the day I powered it off.
I was trying to watch some YouTube, but then I couldn't power it on. I am 15 years old, and my dad gave me the phone (which used to be his) so I just said I'm going to charge it to him so he wouldn't be suspicious.
OK, so GOOD NEWS incoming.
Whenever I charge it, it shows up with the 'charging' screen.
I tried charging it for 1 hour and it wouldn't boot although it would show the charging screen.
Tried to put it in a bowl of rice for 1.6 days - took it out and still nothing.
I'm panicking right now as my dad would absolutely kill me if he finds out what I did to my phone, I need help ASAP.
Some of my ideas is to try to charge it for some more time and pray to G-d that it boots.
Another idea would be to tinker inside the components and dry them.
I need other ideas immediately. I am quite worried.
Thank you StackExchange - you have helped me with many issues at StackOverflow and I'm sure you can help a good friend out with this too.

Similar questions have been asked umpteen times on this site. Sorry to say but the only sensible solution is to let the service center deal with it and yes rice does not help

@beeshyams you're right. Time to tell my dad and face the wrath.


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What are the physical causes of motherboard-related bootloops?
A lot of Android phones, from the Nexus 5X to the LG G4, have suffered from hardware-related bootloop issues.
I have recently purchased a Google Pixel XL first gen, and want to minimize the chances of such issues, and so I'm wondering what the possible physical causes of hardware-related bootloops / hardware failure are?
For example, it's been rumored that the 5X's problem was the cracking of solder joints from repeated heating and cooling.
I will be using this specific Google Pixel XL as a backup server, and so won't undergo regular usage patterns, as it can essentially stay on 24/7 with the screen off, or only be turned on occasionally. So what would the best conditions be for such a usecase in order to minimize the risk of any hardware issues?
Should I leave it on 24/7? It won't get hotter than 30 degrees or so, and cools down to around ambient temperature (20) for most of the time when not in use. Or is it better to only turn it on every couple weeks?

Does this answer your question? How long until my eMMC is dead?

if your focus is more on sustainability than on security you should first unlock bootloader because fastboot is the official (and only) method to flash firmware on bricked google devices Recover files from android that wont turn on

@alecxs Sort of, that's a good factor to consider as well, but I can't really optimize that / minimize writes as the only writes it will be doing anyways is the files that get transferred for backup. I'm more concerned about risk factors for bootloops that I can actively reduce. I do have the bootloader unlocked as well.


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Run oneliner shell command in Tasker does not work
When using Tasker as a clipboard manager I made a shell script which reads the last clipping (also successfully captured by Tasker, in /storage/emulated/0/clipper/clip.txt). This I append to a file with all clippings with a maximum of 300 lines.
I use the oneliner command:
( tail -n 300  /storage/emulated/0/clipper/clipall.txt ; echo ______$(date +"%Y-%m-%d %T")_______ ; cat /storage/emulated/0/clipper/clip.txt ) > /storage/emulated/0/clipper/clipall.txt
to add the last clipping on the bottom and each clipping separated by the current timestamp surrounded by underscores.
Running this oneliner in a Termux shell is successful, but not as a Tasker => Run Shell command, so now I use the Termux plugin for Tasker and it can be run from Tasker. But without the 'help' of Termux it cannot run.
It is rather standard shell script, because the same script (with another directory obviously) runs on my Mac as well.
There is no root involved.
Does Tasker have limited shell capabilities ?

What Android version do you use? Access to /storage/emulated/0 from within an app is  no longer possible on Android 10/11.

Did you debug Tasker? Split your command into multiple lines and execute each of them wherever file access is requested. Save output and error in global variables so that you can see the error Tasker reported. I have Tasker 5.9 (not updated) on Android 10 and I get no problem with that one liner.

I have Android 10, but no problem with accessing /storage/emulated/0 as I granted Tasker 'storage access'.
Well I tried to by enabling 'store error in %err' and then 'Flash $err', but it stopped before showing %err.
I'll try to debug it by splitting it up into more lines.

SOLVED: I forgot to add a path preceding the temporary file called 'z'. The script working correctly is now:
( tail -n 300  /storage/emulated/0/htdocs/clipper/clipall.txt ; echo ______$(date +"%Y-%m-%d %T")_SEP______ ; cat /storage/emulated/0/htdocs/clip.txt ) > /storage/emulated/0/Download/z && mv /storage/emulated/0/Download/z /storage/emulated/0/htdocs/clipper/clipall.txt


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Storage isn't loading
I'm trying to clear up space to install Snapchat, and I have no apps to uninstall. So I go into settings to clear space from some apps. I load the "Apps" setting in the storage settings. The screen loaded, but all the apps say "Calculating" under them. And I can't clear the storage in the apps. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know. Thanks!

Try from safe mode. Google how to enter safe mode for your device

clearing app cache is per-app setting, therefore locate the storage settings in the app settings (opposite)


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How to access to USB port from ubuntu emulator on android?
I installed userland on my Android device and I run Ubuntu on it and connect to it with VNC server, how can I access the USB port from Ubuntu? Is it possible at all?
If userland can't access the USB port, what about other emulators like androidnix?

is your device rooted?

@alecxs  I can root it

https://android.stackexchange.com/q/232890 you can mount usb storage as usual and add pass through mount points in settings

@alecxs where is the properties - Allow to mount the Android resources address or properties - Edit the mount points list , I Can't find it in VNC server or UserLand!


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Help understanding Android permissions
I recently discovered there's a lot more to Android permissions than I originally thought. For example looking at the permissions for the Signal app, I've given it permissions that I would like to it have.

But if you tap on All permissions, there appears to be a lot more this app can do that I originally thought.

Is my understanding of this how it appears? For example it can "take pictures and videos" or "modify my contacts" - I don't want it modifying my contacts
Since I have Signal for privacy, this is very concerning. I've noticed similar things with (e.g.) Telegram. Have I understood this right?

The first screen shot shows the permission groups. The second shows what belongs to each group but those permissions can only be used if you have enabled the corresponding group.

If you want to view and control apps' permissions in a simple and comprehensive way, give PMX a try. Disclosure: I'm the author of the app.


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How to trust a Root CA for VPN use on Android 11
I want to connect my Android 11 phone to a VPN. The VPN is authenticated by a certificate signed by my own Certificate Authority (very typical).
I load the Root CA on the Android device by importing from local storage and the Root CA shows perfectly fine in the UI.
However, when connecting to VPN, the logs I get show that it can't validate the VPN server because it's certificate can't be validated because the Root CA isn't trusted.
Yet, the Android settings UI shows it is trusted.
The exact log message I get with logcat is:
received end entity cert "CN=xxxxxxxx"
received issuer cert "C=US,ST=......... CN=Intermediate CA"
received issuer cert "C=US,ST=......... CN=Root CA"
   using certificate "CN=xxxxxxxx"
   using trusted intermediate ca certificate "C=US..... CN=Intermediate CA"
checking certificate status of "CN=xxxxxxxx"
   using untrusted intermediate certificate "C=US..... CN=Root CA"
checking certificate status of "C=US.... Intermediate CA"
   self-signed certificate "C=US.... CN=Root CA" is not trusted

That does not make any sense as both the Root CA and Intermediate CA are loaded in the user's trusted CA store.
The certificates were created with OpenSSL, have the CA=True flag, etc.
Anyone knows how to get that to work?

How long is the validity time of the VPN cert? In Chrome Google started to accept only certificates with a validity period of less than 2 years (or less I am not sure). May be Android now behaves similar for VPN certs?

Had this thought also. CA should be able to be much longer than 1-2 year... what Chrome does not accept is server certificate being longer. I verified and even with a 1 year certificate identifying the VPN endpoint, it complains the CA is not trusted.

Why is the root CA certificate sent to the client?

@ecdsa That's how PKI works. TLS works the same. When you go to an HTTPS web site, the web site sends you it's certificate which is signed by a CA and your browser validates the certificate because you have the CA already trusted in your browser (done by Google, Mozilla, Microsoft). The CA certificates must be on the client station.

That's exactly why I asked why the root CA certificate is sent. It makes no sense as the client has to trust that beforehand (you say so yourself). It can't establish trust in a self-signed root certificate received from a random host it connects to. So why does the server send it? Also, that the client doesn't find a trusted version of that certificate (it only finds the received one) could indicate that there is something wrong with your PKI (e.g. the root CA you installed on the client not being the one that issued the received intermediate CA certificate).


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Blocking torrent in Android
Is it possible to completely block torrents in android?
I have tried to use many porn blockers like BlockerX, Remojo etcetera. I can block the torrent websites by blocking the keyword - 'torrent' .But there are many torrent search apps like Torrcrow and Torrent Revolution which can still fetch the torrent results. I also used SafeDns to block it but they all seem impotent.
Can we block torrent downloading at system level? Like making it impossible for torrent client to connect with peers or disallowing the torrent search in different apps.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I want to bolster self control that's why I need to implement this feature.

There's no universally working method. See How to effectively block torrents on my network? and How to block torrent sites? to get a general idea why it's so.

@Irfan Latif...Isn't it possible after rooting the device?

May be. But what would you do with root? Blocking ports or IP addresses, DPI, uninstalling apps. These can all be done without root too but aren't very effective.


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Network unlock a never-activated phone
I currently have a Motorola Moto G6 Play that was originally purchased 3 years ago from Virgin Mobile USA (which doesn't exist anymore), and was never activated. Interested in getting it network-unlocked, I called Boost Mobile (which acquired Virgin Mobile USA's assets), but was told to do that I'd first need to activate it for at least 12 months as per their contract.
Is there any way around that requirement? Does such a contractual requirement to activate a phone before network-unlocking it last in perpetuity, or does it expire at some point? It's pretty unclear what the helpline person was telling me in this regard.

Policy matters are unrelated to Android. For technical details regarding network lock see https://android.stackexchange.com/a/217365/218526

Does this answer your question? How does carrier/network lock work? How is it implemented?

@IrfanLatif: Where can I resolve such policy/legal details?

@RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket: No.

@DanielR.Collins sorry I don't know.


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What is this random arrow in the centre left of my Chrome screen?
Arbitrarily an arrow appears on the center left of my mobile Chrome browser. I cannot even click this arrow. It doesn't really affect any underlying features of my web browsing, at least not on the obvious. It is just a bothering little arrow, which has no reason in being there.
My phone details are:
My phone is: Samsung Galaxy M31
Model: SM-M315F/DS
Application version: Chrome 92.0.4515.131
Operating system: Android 11; SM-M315F Build/RP1A.200720.012

Attaching screenshot of my Chrome browser where the arrow can be seen.
As far as I can recall, this arrow disappears without any apparent activity.
Had anyone seen this? Or can shed some light as to what this is? And if it can be removed?

As suggested in Google forums-When I rotate the phone an obnoxious arrow overlays the middle of the screen?, force stopping worked.
You may try restarting if issue is not resolved.


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How to I unlock the bootloader on an Honor 7s?
I've attempted to unlock the bootloader using the fastboot method using ADB tools on my pc, which have yielded no results. I open powershell in the folder containing all the ADB tools and run "adb devices". My phone (not yet in fastboot) shows up. I than run adb reboot bootloader and my phone opens up into fastboot. All my screen shows in that is fastboot FRP unlock. Than running fastboot devices yields no output and no following commands work. Am I doing something wrong?

Does this answer your question? Can we consider Huawei phones as unrootable?

Does this answer your question? ADB can discover devices but not fastboot

No, I've tried everything mentioned and nothing works

I have disabled driver signature before that comment, but I had not done some of those things within that guide. I will try them out

No, this guide dosent work either. Should I just take it that my phone is not rootable? I've tried every possibility now

I've managed to get it working after reinstalling a driver and it all works up to the fastboot oem unlock part. How do I get the code for my bootloader? DC unlock costs money and its no longer available on the Huawei website. I do not plan on spending anything

Of course one must buy 4 credits on https://www.dc-unlocker.com/buy


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Apply system wide screen rotation
I've recently replaced a screen on my phone and it displays images slightly rotated. It's just a couple of pixels but it's really annoying.
I was wondering if there was some setting or API method to rotate whole system image, not just a single view image?

Hi, the title stated "Apple". Is the issue about iPhone or Android devices? Note that for Apple-related products, it's off-topic here but on-topic on our sister site, [apple.se]. Otherwise, consider mentioning the device model and Android version.

You can't rotate the content for just a few pixels. If the screen is mounted with a small rotation then you have to fix that by rotating the display (repairing).

@Robert No, it's not the screen that is rotated, it's an image. Straight lines drawn by the applications are not parallel to the pixel lines.


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Check for the existence of files without root privileges
How do apps check for the existence of files and folders on /data and /system partitions without having root privileges?
I know some games and apps do this for anticheat and security reasons.

/system is world readable and /data is accessable within it's own uid

Thanks. Explain the /data part, please.

Does this answer your question? Where Android apps store data?

Not really, still not clear on exactly how an app can detect the existence of another apps directory under /data/data for instance. I know apps can access their own data/data/"package name" but I don't know how it can find the presence of another app directory.

existence of apps is not existence of files and directories. there exist (pm) package manager and other APIs for this (java stuff). wait for someone other will explain better

Not the existence of apps, I specifically said app directory but it can be any directory so long as it's under /data

If your question is about apps can read files or directories of other apps (in /data) the answer is NO

Apps can NOT detect the existence of other apps' directories under /data/data/ without root. Discretionary Access Control doesn't allow different UIDs (apps) to access each other's data. See this, this and this how Android's app sandboxing works.

There's on exception though. On old Android releases or with SELinux permissive, an app can detect the existence of other app's root directory i.e. /data/data/com.xyz. But it's not possible to read its contents.

How do they do this?

They (the apps) don't play any magic in this. It's just permitted by the operating system. So any app can do this. Read about Discretionary (file owner, group, mode) and Mandatory (SELinux) Access Controls to know how it works.

@IrfanLatif How is "old" defined for Android releases in the context of your comment?

@RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket old is when Android didn't use SELinux MLS to enforce individual SELinux sandboxes on a per-app basis. As briefly mentioned in official documatation it started with Pie. You can check AOSP git log to find when exactly the changes were made.


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Enabling developer options does not work
I have a Samsung J3 (2016) which I would like to root. To do so, I want to enable the developers options. I tried the method which always works (tap 7 times on build number). This method does not work unfortunately.
Is there a different method to get usb debugging enabled?

Family link was the reason developer options could not be enabled. After changing the device settings in Family Link app, developer options could be enabled by tapping 7 times on the build number section.


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Can i install windowsphone 8.1 into samsung a10?
I have a samsung a10 device and in my high school years i had a lumia windows phone whose tiles interface seemed to look really cool unlike anything google have ever imagined for their android os, now how do i download a windowsphone 8.1 or windowsphone 10.1 operating system and install on this phone, i have the admin rights to the device after rooting it, thanks...
Is this even possible with this samsung phone?

The chances of this being possible are negligible.

Sorry, Android Enthusiasts is possibly not the right community to ask since they don't have much/any experience with Windows Phone OS. However, there's a similar question on our sister site for Windows Phone experts: Is there any way to install Windows Phone on an Android device? with the answer: no (in addition to Windows Phone is already EoL).

If you want to understand technically why it's not possible, check Is it possible to install Windows, iOS or Linux on Android phone? and How to boot Ubuntu persistent live USB on Android?.

OKay thanks @Irtan Latif

THanks @Andrew T

You are barking up the wrong tree. If you like the tile interface you can simply install an Android launcher app that uses such an UI. In my opinion you should ask on https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com what the preferred launcher app with Windows 10 tiling UI is. That is something realistic instead of trying to resurrect a dead closed-source OS on devices not built for it.

Windowsphone is still better at the user interface design, i bet even Larry page knows that.


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Android phone not displaying SMS sender ID
My Android phone does not show SMS sender ID, for example if one of the friends from my contact list, texts me, my phone will not show the name of the sender (which is saved in my contact list), it just shows the phone numner of the sender.
But when they call me, my phone shows the caller ID name (as saved in my contact list).
Any help fixing this issue will be appreciated.
Thank you

Did you revoke Contacts permission from your default SMS app? Verify that permission in the Settings app. Which SMS app are you using? Did this issue start occurring only recently or has it been the case since the time you bought your phone?

Try clearing the cache of the SMS app //If that doesn't help, change the SMS app to establish of the problem is with app or elsewhere

@Firelod Yes, I did the permissions are given (both SMS and contacts)

GO to settings
Try to find somthing like  Apps/ Application manager / Applications in settings home.
Open it, you'll see a list of apps.
locate your SMS app from that  list
go to permissions and give access to contact permissions

regards.

@ karthik nair Thanks for the response. I already did check the permission as you explained. Permissions are given to the app, but the problem still exists.

I fixed it. In settings, search for Sync (google contact sync), enable it. That will fix the problem.

glad that you fixed.


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adb shell settings put with default value... What is TAG parameter?
I want to set value and default value of a setting with adb shell settings.
But to set default I also need to specify the TAG parameter. What is this ?
put [--user <USER_ID> | current] NAMESPACE KEY VALUE [TAG] [default]
Can I specify anything or are there some "safe" values for TAG parameter? Where it goes?

Tag is just a comment. For system settings I've never seen it set to any value other than "null".


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Why Stock recovery replaces my TWRP?
The situation
Whenever I install TWRP, it gets replaced by stock recovery.
It doesn't boot to recovery at all the first time.
But it shows a message :

Orange state
your device is unlocked and cannot be trusted
rebooting in 5 seconds

If I even managed to boot into recovery, it's the stock one that's there
* I don't boot directly to the system.
* I use Reboot Manager app  to boot into fastboot, recovery.
* same results with buttons, but I prefer the app for ease of use (power button is bad).

Info

Bootloader : unlocked (w/ adb)
Root : Magisk (w/ magisk manager)
Model : Infinix zero 4 plus x602

Steps I tried :
1- using adb
> fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
> fastboot reboot recovery
//OR
> fastboot boot recovery.img

2- SP flash tool
same results as before
3- TWRP app
app crashes and doesn't work

what should I do to install twrp recovery?

Installing/updating the recovery while regular system boots is a common practice (may be to update the recovery after a performed system update?). I do remember that this was even used on Google's Nexus devices. You can simply boot instead of flash into custom recovery. Alternatively you would have to modify the system boot process to not overwrite your custom recovery. Not sure if there is a generic way to to so.

@Robert , "boot instead of flash into custom recovery" I did that with fastboot boot recovery.img but it doesn't work. the screen goes off briefly them shows the message above then boots normally to the system. If I can modify the system boot that would be great

Hey sorry for the late feedback. I tried it now and the same result as before.

@how do I provide the stock recovery? twrp app is not working.

that's what I used. it used to be fine but now it crashes as soon as I try to agree on terms of use

I did all of that but still crashes

you can manually dump recovery.img from cmd line

Try to burn all the firmware again with the sp flash tool and instead of the original recovery you will burn TWRP

Please provide additional details in your answer. As it's currently written, it's hard to understand your solution.

Why Stock recovery replaces my TWRP?

usually TWRP will ask for prevent updating stock recovery automatically on initial setup, it ask for swipe to allow system modifications. you can rename /system/recovery-from-boot.p manually instead.
For Samsung devices there is a service called flash_recovery that will run when the system starts up, which will restore the recovery image back to stock. TWRP itself might not solve that, therefore multidisabler flashable zip exist for some device models.

Where does it ask? on the phone after flashing?
I renamed the file but I still can't get to recovery. Instead of entering recovery, it shows the "unlocked and can't be trusted" message then boots back to the system. It shows that every time I power the phone. However, I can enter bootloader mode with the app normally.

"unlocked and can't be trusted" will show every time you power the phone. That is expected because bootloader is unlocked (it is not the cause of your issue)

yes it's unlocked. I flashed twrp using fastboot flash recovery recovery.img. isn't that flashing it to recovery partition? it doesn't boot into recovery at all

Yes that is flashing. after flashing, type 'fastboot reboot' while keep holding Volume Up Button until you see TWRP Splash screen

Tried it but still didn't work. After I reboot, It shows the android splash screen (without the error message) then holds for a few seconds. Then goes black then the splash again with the error message then boots to the system.

"cannot be trusted". Yes, I got it from here. what's vbmeta_disabled.img?

This is the origin of TWRP and there you can read that this build won't work. This device is old, vbmeta_disabled.img does not apply because vbmeta does not exist

As for the vbmeta, it didn't work anyways fastboot --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta_disabled.img
fastboot: unknown option -- disable-verification
As for twrp, I'm using the same file in the linked site. Is it a lost cause?

restore recovery-from-boot.p and boot android. reboot into stock recovery - if it works - do backup of recovery with TWRP app. upload stock recovery.img for me, I can try to port TWRP 3.3.1 for Redmi Pro and upload it soon


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How to monitor log app wise usage report RAM CPU Battery and stop RAM resident apps from starting at boot
How to monitor log app wise usage report RAM CPU Battery and stop RAM resident apps from starting at boot
Many time my Android 5.0 & 6.0 mobile become slow while working i checked it In process stat in developer mode that there are many of apps running and using RAM even after closing the app it means they are memory resident may be for notification and running in background.
We can force stop from app or kill process but it's for time being now my queries

Any App to.Record whole day log report for all apps how much total RAM CPU battery it's using while working on app and after closing the app means RAM using statistics app wise for whole day weak or.month

How to kill running apps proccess forcefully stop for temp running and freeing the ram urgently.

How to permanently stop (not uninstalling app) the apps or background services from.startup or disable from memory resident as and whenever we boot or start those apps run in background. Is there any way in Android to stop from.running in startup or resident memory RAM after closing app.

If your old Android phone is getting slow and slower is because the apps grow larger and larger as they are designed for recent Android phones that have 4 to 10 times more RAM of old devices. On newer Android devices you can restrict background activities of apps a bit but on Android 5/6 as far as I remember only some custom ROMs had this feature.

@Robert is there any 3rd party apps which can do it .. ifor monitoring battery I seen Greenwich or accurate battery and for ram  I am.using ram monitor or resource monitor.... I had downloaded a task manager which can kill process buts it's  not working much fine


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One wifi hotspot client uses all the bandwidth, causing problems for others. Is this configurable in a smarter way?
I use my Pixel 2 as a wifi hotspot daily. I usually works great even with 2-3 connected clients, but I had a problem recently where two computers were connected, one playing a game and the other watching a streamed video.
The game started getting disconnects and network problems and it became clear that the other client, streaming video, must have been consuming the maximum bandwidth available, leaving almost nothing to the gaming client. Once the video stream was stopped, the gaming client worked fine again.
This surprised me but I don't know how these things work in detail. I would hope for a setting that could create some fairness, for example "allow max 80/20 bandwidth consumption between two clients" or 50/50 for simplicity. I know that video streaming has different ways to adapt to the available bandwidth so I'm sure the video client would be fine with less, but the game needs some minimum to work.

Use tc on Android device.

On the computer which is streaming videos, check (toggle) the Pixel2 hotspot as a metered connection which would help a bit


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How to prevent charging over USB while debugging / tethering internet over USB?
When I'm on the go, I want to use internet tethering and debugging over USB to develop mobile apps with my Pixel 3A, but I don't want to charge the phone, because I want to waste energy on my MacBook as little as possible.
Is it possible to disable charging when the device is connected to my laptop, if so how? I know that I can set up debugging over WiFi and use a mobile hotspot, but I can't stand my hotspot performance and WiFi drains energy from my laptop as well.

If your phone is rooted there are apps which can disable charging while the phone is connected via USB. On an unroofed device the only possibility I see is to manipulate the USB cable by cutting the +5 V power cable inside the USB cable.Not sure if t!his would really work and then it needs to be an USB-C cable makes it much more complicated. An USB adapter could also do the trick, unfortunately I only know the opposite (charge only no data connection).

@Robert I'm using USB-C which allows me to reach high data throughput (LTE). Unfortunately, the device is not rooted, but I would also welcome answers that require a rooted device as well (for future reference). However, it would not help me right now, unless I decide to get GrapheneOS in the near future (something that I have in mind for a while, already).

Some details on how charging can be disabled on some rooted device can be found here: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/54902/disable-usb-charging There are also read-to use apps that make use of this and e.g. allow to limit charging to 40-60% so that the phone never runs out of power, e.g. this open source app: Battery Charge Limit - ROOT

I was looking for a solution that doesn't require root and I came across one. When USB tethering is on, I can get into its settings by touching on the notification:

There is a toggle that allows me to disable charging for this session.
Funny thing is I had to enable the toggle to disable charging, the option should be called "Don't charge connected device" instead.

Turning 'Charge connected device' on will charge the device connected to your Android device.  I.e. If you have your Android phone connected to your laptop and you turn on 'Charge connected device' it will charge your laptop (assuming it can be charged through the USB port you connected your phone to, e.g. MacBook with USB-C charging)

@samaitch I really appreciate your comment. Suddenly it makes sense, but now my solution is not what I am after. It's a neat side-effect and can be used when the host device rejects charging (like on a fully charged laptop), though. So my solution will lengthen the session of my MacBook, yet still shorten the session of my Mobile. Given the fact that charging results in net loss of energy in all circumstances, I still hope there is a better solution to enable tethering without any charging in either direction whatsoever.

For the record, on my stock Android Nokia 5.3, which recently was upgraded to Android 12, I don't see that 'Charge connected device' option at all.

To get to that USB page I have to do Settings > Connected devices > USB, and it has no option to toggle charging. This is on standard Android 9 (moto e6), and also (IIRC) on Android 11 Go (on a cheap phone). I had the cheap phone tethered all day every day for cheap internet access. After 6 months the battery bulged, and I guess the constant full charge contributed to that. It would be good to be able to control when it charges, to let the battery cycle normally, and not get too full.

@samaitch , I understand what you are telling but in practical the trick by Martin-braun is working. I observed 0 % change in my android after 30 minutes turning ON "charge connected device".

I couldn't find that menu on Oreo, where is it?

This answer is also helpful when using USB tethering for networking. When I enable "charge connected device", it means the phone tries to charge the laptop. It can't do this (can't deliver meaningful power I suppose), so neither device is charging the other, which is the outcome I want

@TimRichardson I wish this was universally the case. On macOS I have an app to monitor energy streams and I can confirm that my new Pixel phone indeed charges my MacBook slowly. Not fast enough to compensate the energy consumption, so the MacBook still loses drains the batter, just slower.


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Notification showing on my android without a specific App
I have a Xiaomi Note 9s phone updated with the latest security patched running
MIUI Global 12.0.4.0(RJWMIXM)
Android version: RKQ1.200826.002
Android Security Update: 2021-07-01
I am getting a notification on my phone that does not specify which app is sending it. It looks pretty phishy and I have not tapped it yet, afraid it might be from an attacker or a virus. Especially that it is titled "Delete User" in Arabic. I have taken a screenshot and added to my question here. The Arabic title translates to "Delete User and the body translates to "Listen to your own voice"
I tried to block it but it cannot be blocked as every time I click on "more settings" it displays a message saying "the app wasn't found in the list of installed apps".
How is it possible that I receive a notification from an app that isn't installed on my phone? and could this be an attacker? I tried using the built in security scanner and it said there are no viruses.
What should i do to get rid of it?

Maybe some website you visited on your browser? Delete the cache of browser, possibly cookies too and check?

Could you also write the Arabic text on here, just in case we need it to do some research?

Sure, The Arabic text is:
مسح المستخدم
It translates to: Delete user
The 2nd line text is: استمع الي صوتك
Which translates to: Listen to your voice

I do allow notifications from my chrome browser, like both notifications above and below this one, but as you can see on the upper left corner, it specifies which app is sending it. This notification is like a ghost thing! No app, no references to anything and I am afraid it might be a phishing attack

Do you have a guest or additional user set up on your device? Top searches suggest that //Also tag the person whom you want to reply to - otherwise they won't get notified (e.g. @guy who commented)

kindly share output of 'adb shell dumpsys notification — noredact'


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Doogee S88 pro Malware + install custom rom
I purchased the Doogee s88 Pro a year ago, and it is the perfect phone for my rugged lifestyle, except of the uncertainty of them installing malware / adware in their devices.
I'm trying to install a custom ROM, just normal android with SP Flash Tool, but I can't seem to get it to work. Is anyone able to give steps?
I have the following:,
AOSP,
ADB,
mtk drivers,
SP FLASH TOOL,
SCATTER FILE for device provided by manufacturer.
However whenever I try to direct the "boot" record in SP flash tool, I get a error saying "is this the correct one?" Which then I can't proceed.

follow the tutorial for custom ROM which is made explicitely for Doogee s88 Pro. first you should unlock bootloader, install TWRP and disable avb/dm-verity. This is just common example instruction for installing custom ROM

Yeah, this doesn't work via those instructions. Just get boot loop. I think romprovider just have the same type of guide for all sorts of phones to generate clicks as Havoc OS (the ROM) is not officially supporting S88 pro by doogee.

I have documented everything here: https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/discussions/2001 Also, in addition to flashing the vbmeta with a blank vbmeta, I also substituted this command with fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta.img which also resulted in a bootloop or going straight into fastboot.

You should have working device first. Enable usb-debugging and authorize. disable avb/dm-verity and get logcat from boot-loop


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How to take a screenshot from a video capture?
I recorded a screen capture of catching a shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go and it about 25 seconds long, with the stars sparkling at about 0:00:11 of the video.
So how do I capture the moment and make it into a photo?

Details: the Play button is there if I pause it, so it is obstructing the video moment if I take a screenshot at the moment.  I tried all the options or functions available in the Gallery app and then there seems to be no way.

There a lot of apps in Play Store that allow you to extract frames from a video: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=video%20extract%20frame&c=apps

This web service will help you create a screenshot from a video capture:
https://ezgif.com/video-to-jpg


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Remove files left in main storage from failed "Clear Data"
I used the SnoreLab app for a while and was using the full night audio recording feature.  I started to run out of space on my phone and found that I had accrued 20G of nightly recordings while looking at application footprint in the storage settings view.
When I hit "Clear Data" to free this up my phone chugged for a while and then crashed and rebooted.  Now there is no record that Snorelab is consuming storage, but my phone main memory is still almost full.  I've tried uninstalling Snorelab, which didn't free things up.
I also tried SD Maid and the Drives storage analyzer and Disk Usage.  Both of these show the /data as being >20G but show no folders larger than a few hundred meg.
It seems that there is no record of these files that I have access to but they are still consuming storage on my device.  The device is a Moto G4 running Android 7.

Check all directories on the "sd-card" section, most likely the app had created the recordings there in an own directory that does not exclusively belong to the app and thus is not deleted on uninstall/clear.

Everything that's cleared by "Clear Data" is also cleared when you uninstall the app. So the crash didn't leave any garbage. For a broader perspective read How disk space is used on Android device? and Where Android apps store data?.

be aware /sdcard is subdir of /data


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For Adoptable storage Fast random WRITE speed or fast random READ average good speed values?
For Adoptable storage Fast random  WRITE speed or fast random READ average  good speed values?
To move and use apps on its microSD Card (using microsd card as adaptable storage as internal memory) in android 6.0 marshmallow formatting  SD as internal  my droid suggests I use a "fast" SD card.
https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/sd-memory-card-faq/fastest-memory-card/
Ranks SD Cards by WRITE Speed and READ Speed. Interestingly, the same chips seldom appear in both lists. If I want to use my SD Card to store and run apps, is fast random WRITE speed or is fast random READ speed the most important quality to look for. As in many card random read speed is 230mbps and random write speed is 3 or 5 mobs there are some cards in which both random read write speed is  90mbps 100mbps Approx. So what's the internal storage random read write speed standard average value as apps read more than write.
In android perspective using SD card as adaptable internal storage what is  The important thing for best performance in micro sd card must be high IOPS, high 4k read/write values an average value the apps use to read and write on micro sd card .
But what is queue depth (QD) 1..32? For example random read 4k-QD1, random read 4k-QD32, random write 4k-QD1, random read 4k-QD32... Which values of QD are important for  android adoptable storage.
I just found another  old benchmark link
to find hdparm dd Linux benchmarking but its with old model 16gb 32 GB cards
https://www.pidramble.com/wiki/benchmarks/microsd-cards
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-performance-comparison-2019
I am planning for 128 GB UHS II v30 a2 cards  do any can share  any benchmark results for new microsd card for android adoptable app perspective for cards
Is there any command or benchmark  app in android through which we can benchmark or test the internal memory storage speed and match same or higher value random read and write speed  external microsd card speed for making it compatible matching speed of internal memory. Kindly share the apps I founded androbench, SD speed test but both test external SD card not internal

For adoptable storage bulk read/write benchmarks are not so important. More important are IOPS and random read/write speed of small data blocks. And of course reliability - for adoptable storage I would never use a no-name product.

https://android.stackexchange.com/q/220035/218526


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WIFI ON but Play fails "No internet connection. Make sure WiFi ..."
Recently i decided to check for app updates and Play refuses to work and popup the error "No internet connection. Make sure WiFi or mobile data is turned on."
However WIFI is enabled and internet work fine for apps like fdroid.
Maybe the issue is due to the fact that it is an old android 4.2 but  Play services were updated 03/2019 and they are v 15.0.90
Is android 4 still supported by Play? ideas? other app stores?
And there are no alternatives as LineageOS or custom ROMs for this device

Does this answer your question? How can I get back lost internet access?

Also, Google Play Services stops supporting Android <4.3.

First, what is your device❔❔?.

Its is an old S. Galaxy but Internet is working, and depending on the webbrowser you can receive warnings or error due certifications but WIFI is working fine. It is just Play producing a wrong and confusing error. I suppose soon PLay will definitely stop working as @AndrewT. said so I've installed aptoide app store


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How can I forward audio from the handset mic to wireless earbuds
Im involved in a kind of cosplay where it's useful to have someone else relay verbal instructions from the sidelines. (Very heavy sound deadening helmet)
Because its in a small space, and I can't carry a handset, I can't set it up as say, a VOIP chat or call from their handset to mine.
So what I want is a way that I can pair some Bluetooth earbuds to a handset, and someone can talk into the handset mic, and it'll be relayed and played out on the bluetooth earbuds, which will fit discreetly under the cosplay. (I can modify the helmet to ensure space inside if needed).
Is that something Android can do natively, or does it need a visit to software recs stackexchange for an app to do it?

Did I miss the alternative of using both VOIP chat + wireless Bluetooth earbuds? Bluetooth can have range up to 10m, so you don't need to carry the handset with you.

I dont understand this comment (apart from the 10m range which is ample, hence the entire question of using BT to relay speech from handset mic to earbuds nearby). Can you expand this as an answer, if it is one? At thr moment its a rhetorical question hinting at VoIP but not actually "can it be done" and how...


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Is it possible to activate the flash while filming on some devices?
I would like to know if it is possible to turn on the flash while filming on some devices?

AFAIK, this doesn't depend on the devices, but on the app itself. Do you have any issues with your device (if that's the case, which model, Android version, and the name of the app?)

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.


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Samsung boot loop after flashing patched Magisk image
My phone keeps showing both the Samsung logos while booting. It also shows the unlocked boot loader screen. I tried flashing the stock boot.img but it only removes the red text when booting. After some time it show a screen that looks like the stock recovery and shows this text:
Try again
Factory data reset
View recovery logs
I tried to do the data reset but that did not fix anything

Does this answer your question? Cryptfs : Unexpected value for crypto key location

assuming you have patched the whole rom AP_[device_model_sw_ver].tar.md5 (not only boot.img) according to install instructions (to avoid discrepancies in several fstabs), start from scratch again.
this time try preserve force encryption in Magisk settings to avoid issues with encryption. after factory reset userdata encryption should work again.
Of course as always don't forget to deactivate VaultKeeper before flashing custom binaries

Also I use Debian Linux so is there a  a method using Heimdall. I also tried Jodin but it just ask to get the pit file and when I press "yes" it Grey's out the start button.


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Preventing auto expansion of Gmail in the notification?
If I remember it correctly, Gmail used to show only a digest (the title/sender/time) of new e-mails in the system notification, and I had to expand it manually.
I don't know since when it changed but now, but now it seems to be expanded by default. To me, this is very annoying because often I do not want to read the e-mails right away, and when I swipe down to open the system notification menu for other things like stopping music, the big new e-mail notification takes up the entire screen, making it difficult to swipe up to close the system notification menu.
Is there any way to prevent automatic expansion? That is, I want Gmail to show only the digest in the notification, and the full body only when I manually expand the notification.

provide device model and android version for further help

Android version is 11, and probably the phone model does not matter. I can't think of why Google would have decided Gmail act differently in terms of expanding the notification on different phones.

The phone model doesn't matter, true. but can you atlest tell the phone brand so that i understand which android skin it is running? for example Samsung's OneUI or AOSP etc


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Android WIFI connected without internet
I have Galaxy s20 with android 11. I am connecting at work to WIFI which require to login using a browser. After that unless admin do not change the password mobile connecting automatically without any problems.
After several hours(2-3 usually) of smooth working connection I start having a problem - like connected without internet, or it become very very slow that browser will not load any page.
Here is what I did so far

checked other users and no one has this problem which means
router and internet is OK.
switch off and on WIFI several times no succuseed.
turned off/on the the mobile no succeed
Forget WIFI which worked first time only- then forget stopped working
and it keep connecting again without asking for password.
I have search on the internet and tried all possible solution nothing
works.
Any one have idea how to solve this problem.

I would first disable privacy setting for that WiFi (use real MAC address). Second disable Private DNS for all networks as this could prevent you from reaching the captive portal.

you must visit the url of captive portal manually by typing in address bar of your browser


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Google Calender: Prevent the notification of an event disappearing after the event time?
Say, I have set a monthly event at a specific time and date on Google Calender. I have enabled "1 minute before" notification for it. The notification shows up at the expected time, but if I happen to be doing something else and think I will do the event later, after that time, the event notification automatically disappears from the phone, even though I have not swiped it out. This sometimes makes me forget that I should do the event.
Is there a way to make the event notification NOT go away even after the time of the event, until I manually swipe it out?

I've been using a workaround for this for some time - it's an app called Events Notifier (I have no affiliation with the app). You turn off notifications from your calendar app and allow the notifier to present the notifications instead. The notifications will not disappear unless you explicitly dismiss them.

That's the designed behavior of events and Google Calender doesn't provide a way to keep notification alive.
You can instead enable reminders on your calendar and set up a reminder  so that notification stays alive till you manually dismiss.
For more see What is the difference between Events, Reminders and Tasks? and
What is the difference between a reminder and an event in Google Calendar?

If you still want to use events, you can mail yourself the notification text and see the email unread notifications


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Xiaomi 11 Ultra - rear display for vlogging
How I can see myself during video recording on Xiaomi 11 Ultra rear display ?
Is there any app which supports it or I have to wait until Xiaomi implements it.
I have Chinesse ROM. Ready to do anything to get it. Thank you!


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Cannot remove google account from Samsung android phone. Remove button greyed out
I cannot remove my google account from my android phone. Samsung XCover 4s Android 10.
This is a work phone and I only used my account to download whatsapp for work communication group.
I have deleted whatapp App.  I understand how to go to  -settings -account-tap on the gmail address I want to remove.  The problem is the Remove button is greyed out and diabled.
I can sign out of this device out from my laptop but all my contacts remain on the phone and my google account still on the phone.
I have tried clearing data in playstore, google etc.  I have signed in, signed out.  Sync ON then OFF.  I keep going back and the button is still not activated.
I really need help with this.  It is a privacy issue.

If it is a work account that Google account may allow your company to administer your device and therefore you can't disable the account. You should ask the admins of your company to remove your device from their device list, may be that allows you to remove the account.

Thank you Robert. Yes perhaps that is it. It is definitely encrypted with company securities and policies. I might need to get the phone reconfigured.  Will give it a go. I appreciate your reply. As I tried everything else it must be something outside the standard fixes.
Audrey

You can check in Settings -> Security -> Apps for device Administration which apps can manage your device. One should be from "Google for Work" or something like that. Not sure if it is possible to disable the app as administration app in this dialog.


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Stuck entering Recovery mode plus Power and Home Button not working
My phone is Samsung Galaxy J Max Tab (SM-T285YD). My phone's power and home buttons are not working. Now somehow i entered into recovery mode. But while entering it got stuck. What should i do now. It is stuck in this stage.

your buttons are wet/short circuited. dry smartphone in sun


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App Audio Mixer for Samsung Dex
Is there an audio mixer setting to adjust the audio volume of individual open apps, like there is on Windows, built into Samsung Dex? Or do I need a 3rd party app for this?

The same question has been posted some years ago, not sure if the answers are still valid.

@Robert The top answer in the linked question mentioned Samsung's Sound Assistant app, which is exactly what I'm looking for. So the answer is still valid.


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Revoking Certificates for VPN Connection
would like to ask what happens when you press on the clear credentials options during an established always-on VPN connection.
As I came across a situation where:
The CA certificated was installed on the phone, while the client cert is stored on an SD card and both have been saved as in a working always-on VPN connection. The client cert was on the SD card and when the SD card was removed, the VPN still managed to connect.
If the VPN certificates still remained under the saved connection, isn't it a security concern?

Usually certificates are imported into the user certificate store. This is the one you can reset by clear credentials.


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Can the Samsung contact app be configured not to show suggestions when entering a new contact?
Can the Samsung contact app be configured not to show  suggestions when entering a new contact? The default behavior of showing suggestions is not ideal from a privacy standpoint when someone is around looking at whether one enters the proper information into the phone.
I use the latest Venmo app on Android 10 with Samsung Galaxy S9.


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Disable Google Assistant Gesture
Im using Miui 12.5 in my Redmi 9, and for navigation im using gestures(swipe up for menu, swipe from corners to center to go back, etc), but sometimes when swiping up, instead of going back to home screen it shows the google assistant(like in the image) and i could not find where to turn this off. How can i disable this behavior?

Interesting, on my Pixel device back is swiping on the left or right display edge towards center. Swiping from one of the lower corners towards center is for the assistant.

Just to be sure, have you searched for "gesture" in the Android settings?

@AndrewT. yes, it just shows the options for miui gestures


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giving apps permission to drive or gmail
If you give mailsapps or filemanagers on Android (those with a few millions users and likely trustable) access to your gmail-account or google drive, do they in general store these data (mails/files) on their servers as well? Or is it relatively safe to give them this permission?

For GDrive I can't answer your question but for Dropbox I know that there is a authentication mode that allows the app only to access a special app specific subfolders in the apps folder in Dropbox.

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.

Though this question is relatively incomplete and off-topic, I'll still try to answer it.
Whenever you login with Google on an application, you can find whatever access that specific app/service has over your Google account by visiting accounts.google.com and thus decide whether it's safe for your privacy or not.
Now regarding whether these services can store your data on their servers is upto them and would be explicitly mentioned in the Terms of Serive / Terms and Conditions/ Privacy Policy of that particular app/service
That's it and one thing you should always keep in mind, doesn't matter it's a "free" service from Google or any other company,

"When something is free, you're the product"


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Is it possible to buy a used Samsung phone with fake/hacked Android ROM that looks like the official one and may spy on you?
I have a used Samsung phone. I wonder if it is possible to have a malicious ROM uploaded that looks like the official one that may allow the hacker to spy on the user. Can I make sure that I have the official ROM? The system updates are downloaded and seems legit. Also I checked Settings -> Device Status that states "official". Is it enough or these information can be forged?

Everything Android OS displays to you may be forged. Therefore you have to go down to those components you can not simply replace or modify. One such component is the bootloader, check what it displays regarding e.g. the state of the bootloader lock.

Thanks for the tip. I rebooted the device to Recovery Menu (volume up + power), then Reboot to Bootloader. After the restart the bottom line shows: DEVICE STATE: locked. As I also investigated, if the device is in the locked state, the installed os is verified, so if something were changed the system wouldn't start. More information is here: https://source.android.com/security/verifiedboot/device-state.

As I wrote the locked state is only one of the values displayed by bootloader. I would recommend to check them all, especially the knox fuse/flag.


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Battery drain while doze, CPU abort wakeups
I'm running Android 11, in a Moto G30.
I've noticed battery drains from 100% to 80% from 1am to 9am when I wake up. I decided to get a bugreport.zip using ADB and load it in Battery Historian.
Seems like at some point in the night, JobScheduler runs and finishes in a minute, but CPU stays on forever (even on full doze state). Reasons seem to be several Abort:Pending Wakeup Sources related to networking. At these point, battery discharge rate is ~2.5% per hour, whereas "normal" screen-off / doze rate is ~1.5%.
These are some screenshots, and here's the bugreport.zip

Here's the CPU wakeup sources list,

And here's a previous time when JobScheduler runs and CPU behaved well,

if you can renew the bugreport.zip download I'll have a look


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Possible to have different passwords for device encryption and screen lock?
I'd like my device encryption password to be very long and complicated but a short screen lock password for convenience. Is this possible?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nick.cryptfs.passwdmanager

On old devices with Full Disc Encryption (FDE) this was possible for rooted devices. But on modern devices that use File Based Encryption (FBE) this is no longer possible nor necessary:
In the old times of FDE the use password was directly used to derive the cryptographic key that protected the encrypted user data partition.
On modern devices user authentication and encryption root-key management is executed in the Trusted Execution Engine (TEE) of your CPU. There the Android Gatekeeper code is running that checks the login/screen lock password and is e.g. able to apply anti-brute force measures like enforcing increasing wait times if multiple false passwords were entered. As long as the TEE is secure this makes the device more secure than a long password.
The detailed process of the key-derivation for file-based encryption, according to the AOSP documentations is:

File-based encryption keys, which are 512-bit keys, are stored
encrypted by another key (a 256-bit AES-GCM key) held in the TEE. To
use this TEE key, three requirements must be met:

The auth token
The stretched credential
The “secdiscardable hash”
The auth token is a cryptographically authenticated token generated by
Gatekeeper when a user successfully logs in. The TEE will refuse to
use the key unless the correct auth token is supplied. If the user has
no credential, then no auth token is used nor needed.

The stretched credential is the user credential after salting and
stretching with the scrypt algorithm. The credential is actually
hashed once in the lock settings service before being passed to vold
for passing to scrypt. This is cryptographically bound to the key in
the TEE with all the guarantees that apply to KM_TAG_APPLICATION_ID.
If the user has no credential, then no stretched credential is used
nor needed.
The secdiscardable hash is a 512-bit hash of a random 16 KB file
stored alongside other information used to reconstruct the key, such
as the seed. This file is securely deleted when the key is deleted, or
it is encrypted in a new way; this added protection ensures an
attacker must recover every bit of this securely deleted file to
recover the key. This is cryptographically bound to the key in the TEE
with all the guarantees that apply to KM_TAG_APPLICATION_ID.

"Nor necessary"? As I understand OP wants a longer encryption password in case the convenient short screen lock password is compromised by shoulder surfing. Why wouldn't this be necessary any more?

@AndreKR In case of possible shoulder surfing attacks the convenient way would be using the fingerprint reader. I wrote "not necessary" as for the original FDE a longer password was inevitable as the password was directly used to derive the encryption key from it. Therefore an attacker was able to break a short password by an brute-force-attack on the encrypted partition in less than a few days.


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Camera stream rotation on the platform level
In the Quectel SC600Y board, I have a camera sensor (OV4188) that is mounted 90°CCW in relation to the device's default screen orientation, therefore, the stream that is displayed is also rotated 90°CCW. On the registry level, the sensor allows only to flip and mirror the stream but it doesn't allow for rotations. I could solve this problem by rotating the preview on the android application level, however, this is quite a performance costly task that I would rather avoid.
Is there a configuration that would allow to rotate the stream on the android platform level? (I believe that it would be less performance costly than rotation on the android application level) Any tips and hints will be highly appreciated.

Not sure if this is on topic. A quick search shows some type of setting for camera rotation in Camera HAL: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/hardware/libhardware/+/master/include/hardware/camera3.h  but also realize that for app developers this is an existing problem: https://developer.android.com/training/camerax/orientation-rotation

Note that development-related issue is off-topic since Android Enthusiasts focuses on end-users or power-users (but not necessarily developers) solving their issues. This might be a borderline topic though, depending on the meaning of "configuration" on this question (we can only answer on the Android OS level, not the development board).


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Why is there not a utility which builds lineage OS for different devices?
I've been using Ubuntu on different old computer hardware of mine, and it's wonderful how easy it is to install and how portable it is between different devices.
I have an 8-year old Samsung Android tablet which no longer receives updates, so using the internet on this device is a security risk. I assumed that I would be able to install a non-manufacturer specific version of Android on my tablet, and that this would be comparatively easy as installing Ubuntu on a computer.
So I had a look around and I found lineage OS, and I was surprised to see that it's very much device specific (and unfortunately for me there are no recent builds for my device). I did a little reading into why this is, and I've understood from this that there are two main reasons why it's not to possible to install a single version of lineage OS on many different devices, and that the builds must be device specific. My understanding is that firstly the machine language that processors use varies more across Android devices than it does in desktop and laptop CPUs, and secondly that SoC architectures do not come with a BIOS, which is necessary to inform the installer binary what hardware exists on the chip.
My question is about the second part of the problem to do with the BIOS; it seems to me that this is a straightforward problem to solve. I envisage a utility on my computer which recognises my Android device like how adb does. This utility could then get the hardware setup that exists on my device, either by directly interacting with the phone if this is possible, or by referencing the device's model number against some online database and downloading the information from there. The utility would then be set up to compile lineage OS based on the information that it now has about my device, and I can then copy over the device specific binary and install. That is, the compilation process is moved from a set of different developers who provide support for specific devices, down to a user friendly utility which builds a device specific OS.
So my question is, has this idea been considered? I'm pretty certain this utility doesn't already exist, so then I would also ask, what are the main reasons that would make this difficult to implement?
(and I guess I have a secondary question which is; have I correctly understood this problem? Perhaps I'm missing something in understanding why lineage OS builds are device specific. If this is the case, I would appreciate having this explained in more detail)

Please see: Can I install a ROM made for a different device? // Why is it that Android still can't be installed as regular OS? // Can I install any ROM for my Android device? In short: Android isn't "installed", but it's a device-specific "image" that gets flashed. So it's not possible to have a "universal installer".

@Izzy Yes I understand that, my question is 'why is there not linux utility that builds an android image for different devices?', I'm not asking the questions that have been asked in the links you posted. Please can you read my question again and consider unlocking it?

"there are two main reasons why it's not to possible..." - No. The main problem as I see it is proprietary drivers/implementations that aren't available/installable standalone, intentionally so. Work on these is non-trivial and can't be automated.

That said, a "universal" Android image already kinda exists for modern devices, enabled by Project Treble and in the form of GSIs.

@Joe Realize that building from source requires decent resources. Historically building for Android is a bespoke activity, see: Bootloader/BIOS, flashing ROM and correlated risks. Why Android devices are more brickable than PCs? also see How to boot Ubuntu persistent live USB on Android?. With Project Treble ports have become easier (not easy) but you'll still need a supported device (there are apps to check Treble support in Play Store).

@Joe ROM development is off-topic here. If you want a build bot, become a developer and DIY - this will answer all your questions. embedded devices are not personal computers, it makes no sense to compare android with some linux distro. If your question is about why (and not how) we can re-open

@alecxs, yes I assume that because this doesn't exist it must be difficult to do, and I'm interested in learning about what the difficulties are. I'm not making a request for someone to develop this software.

from linked question: "drivers are sometimes/often proprietary [...] difficulties due to those proprietary parts" (hope this explains)

@alecxs, thank you for your help. I have already found the comments on this post helpful. If my question is unlocked, those comments could be posted as answers, and I could comment on them (for example, not all drivers are proprietary, so would it be possible for a buildbot to exist in these case? Is there some other obstruction?). Would you be able to reopen my post now? I've also received an upvote.

I have asked mods but I don't have admin rights on this

https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/p6p1y4/where_are_proprietary_blobs


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Bootloop after rebooting the system (Android 7)
I have a TRT-LX2 phone, I recently performed a system update and after that my phone booted perfectly. But when I tried restart it again into recovery (I've installed TWRP before updating) it did not boot up and loops. Then I tried to boot it normally, it also loops!
After 12 attempts, the phone was booted into recovery and I restored the backup (which is the previous version of the system). But it still loops!
Finally I connected the phone with the PC and extracted the backup file but I did not see any boot image!
Can I recover my phone now? (Or, I've buy a new one?)

disable dm-verity

@alecxs How can I do that?

https://android.stackexchange.com/q/214902


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Can I tweak an app's storage permission and allow it to write on the phone but deny read?
The example I'll use is with an internet browser app — let's say Opera. If I allow its storage permission, I can download files on my phone (write) but the app can read its storage as well (I verified this by hitting file:///storage/emulated/0/ in the pathbar and I could freely browse all files on my phone).
If I deny its storage permission, it can no longer access 0/ but it also cannot download files.
If the download directory is pre-determined by the user, can we force it to only write and not read, thus being able to download files, without risking leaking data from our files to the app? I'm guessing maybe through ADB or something?

No. android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE always implies READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE. You can possibly devise some trick if your device is rooted. Note that an app's private directories in shared storage are always accessible to the app. Or they can ask the user to choose a directory (using SAF) whenever a file is to be downloaded. Privacy-friendly apps don't force the user to grant Storage permission in order to allow downloading a file.

I mean, I've tried with Opera, Firefox and Brave and all three request storage permission, in order to download a file. Question: Just to cross-reference, I went to my desktop and saw that yes there's all the other permissions — Location, Camera, Microphone, etc. — but not Storage as well. Why would it only be on mobile and not desktop as well? :/

Because your desktop might not be running Android. Every OS has it's own permission set to control access to resources.

Well, at the time of my reply, I had just checked my Mac OS desktop, but I just checked on my friend's Windows 10 laptop and it's also not supporting the option to disable storage access. I wonder if it's the same on Linux.

I think I failed to make my point in earlier comment. Storage permissions (READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE and WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) are specific to Android. How would you find those on Mac, Windows or Linux. It's something specific to an Operating System, not a software.

Oh ok, now I see. So, I'm suspecting my only solution is to keep the storage permission disabled on my browser app, and find an open source file downloader app (with its equivalent storage permission enabled), for whenever I need to download files from the internet? Well, open source, or just an app that one deems as trustworthy enough to not leak data, anyway.


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LOST.DIR on my SD card contains 98 years old files
I was cleaning up my SD card and find LOST.DIR i knew what it was for but i did not understand why the hell there are 98 YEARS old files
Does someone have got an explain?
I´m kinda scared

there is only one possible explanation - you are a time traveler when you asleep. Dharma Initiative released the nanobot cloud which deleted your memory

Lol i think that is kinda imposible

Take a sheet of paper and a pen.
Write down the following sentence:
"My birthday is 01/01/1924"
You can see there is nothing mysterious on that paper. just because it is written somewhere it doesn't mean it is true.
LOST.DIR is collection directory for restored garbage from corrupt files which is created when fsck_msdos is trying to repair your MicroSD Card.
imagine directory is like a folder and each file is a sheet of paper. access to folder is restricted (some room only your family has the key). each paper/file has three timestamps

mtime - modify time is time of birth/update of file (data) itself
ctime - change time is time of file permissions (day your mother gave you the key)
atime - last access time (so your father knows the exact date when your hands touched the sheet of paper or you read it's content with your eyes)

the timestamp mtime of files can be set to any value independently of "current" date/time. even the "current" time hwclock of your phone itself can be set to any date if you want so.

Why it is 98 years can be coincidence or set intentionally. The question can not be answered without knowing the origin of that files.
If it happens too often (every day) and there is again lot of data inside LOST.DIR even after deleting, that might indicate your MicroSD Card is near end of life and will become unreadable soon

Wow! You realy scared me about my sd card ending.
Anyway thanks for help i just readed the files that have been placed here and they are images of "FixingWER" (Old smartphone fixing company) but it is creepy cuz the files are kinda glichy (Black sqares everywhere). Thanks for the help


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I am having problems with the app when leaving Wi-Fi and connecting to cellular via mobile router on a samsung tablet
I am using a Samsung tablet for an application to manage a fleet of transportation vans. Inside the van we have a wireless router (Pepwave), when in the parking lot the Pepwave has priority to connect to the yards access point. This is to upload any surveillance video needed from the van.  I am trying to get rid of the data plan on the tablet and run off of the data plan on the Pepwave via Wi-Fi entirely.  It works great... for the most part.  The problem I am having is that when leaving the yard the Pepwave switches from Wi-Fi to cellular when the Access point is out of range.  The application does not refresh when this data provider transfer takes place.  All other apps like YouTube or internet browser for fine after connection reestablishes. The only solution so far is to toggle the Wi-Fi on the tablet on and off. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I would use an automation assistant such as Tasker or Automate.
You can set these to detect the WiFi change of state and then toggle your tablet's WiFi setting off then on automatically.
It may only be a workaround for the problem but it may be the simplest fix.

Thanks, i'll give it a shot.


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Phone Crashing due to too many files/directories on SDCard
My Galaxy S9+ running Android 10 crashes whenever I insert my microsd card containing upwards of 9000 sub-directories and 92000 files. The SDCard is using 330GB out of 400GB.
Basically the way this happens is that I insert the sdcard and then a notification displays saying "Checking SanDisk SD card... Reviewing current content
Obviously some kind of timeout is occurring when android attempts to scan the sdcard.
I have tried to disable the scanning a number of ways, making all the sub-directories hidden by prefixing them with a dot, putting a .nomedia file in every sub-directory and by not using any sub-directories and instead having all the files loose in the top level of the sdcard. This last "solution" actually works to stop the crashing but is unacceptable to me.
Basically my question boils down to this: Is there any way to disable android scanning the sdcard upon boot and when it is inserted ? I have rooted my phone so I could make modifications to the system to achieve this.
I simply want the sdcard to be usuable like on my linux desktop computer, I insert the sdcard, browse it with a file browser, and that's it. I don't want anything to happen by itself when it is inserted, no scanning, no indexing, nothing!
The MicroSD Card is formatted as exFAT

There is one major problem: the indexing operation builds the AndroidMedia database. This database is the only way to write to the sd-card for apps without root option. A lot of apps also use this database for finding files as direct file-system access is more and more reduced in newer Android versions. Therefore if the sd-card is not indexed then some apps may not be able to find some the files on this card or even add new files.

I don't need any apps without root access to be able to write to the sd-card, I use rsync with root access to write into the top level of the sd-card or I can just write on the sd-card from my PC. The only app I use to access this sd-card for reading is gonemad media player which can simply access a folder, no indexing required.

So if you know how to disable this indexing, please let me know ! :)

Disable auto-mounting of SD card and mount it manually. To disable auto-mounting edit fstab (https://android.stackexchange.com/a/217355/218526) or create a small first partition on SD card which gets auto-mounted, and not the second one. Another option is to format the SD card with a filesystem which isn't supported on SD card e.g. ext4 (https://android.stackexchange.com/a/220020/218526) but it can be mounted manually. Another option is to use a partition ID which isn't supported by vold.

So I am trying what you suggested now, what kind of partition ID is not supported by vold ? making a small first partition on the sdcard surprisingly doesn't stop the phone from auto-mounting in my case, the phone simply mounts both partitions even if one is ext4, and I don't really want to mess with the fstab so I think the partition ID trick could be my best option

I mentioned partition IDs in the second answer I linked in the above comment which you probably didn't read. Stock Android supports 5 MBR partition IDs and one GPT ID. So you can use some other e.g. Linux's ID (0x83 in case of MBR ...

... or 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4 in case of GPT). Read fdisk/gdisk manuals to know how to set these identifiers. // As far as the auto-mounting of second partition is concerned, yes you are correct. Recent Android releases support auto-mounting multiple partitions from SD card or USB. But at least ext4 is not supported (only FAT and exFAT are), as evident from here ...

... and here. // Note that some custom ROM developers and OEMs may add support for more partition types and filesystems. See the case of LineageOS here and here.

Irfran Latif's comment answered my question, I ended up mounting formatting the SDCard as ext4 and mounting it from the command line with appropriate namespaces and permissions.


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What is causing these elements/artifacts to be rendered as shown?

My wife changed my minimum width recently, but this hasn't broken browser rendering before in any of our previous devices.  Any ideas?

Clear the browser cache and reload page.

@Robert Did not fix the issue


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Missing photos after inserting external sd card into Samsung galaxy Tab s6 lite
I want to appologize in advance if this is the wrong forum.
Whats the problem?
I am photographing on my fuji xt4 and wanted to transfer all photos to my Samsung galaxy S6 Lite (using a basic card reader). The storage is correctly recognized and mounted. The first few times were no problem. However now all photos up from a certain point are not displayed/lost. Once inserted into the tablet the new photos and Videos are permanently gone (the camera doesnt displays them either).

Sony tough sd card 64gb (exFat)
Fujifilm xt4
Samsung galaxy tab s6lite (Android 11, not rooted)

What i tried

rebooting the tablet
reinserting the sd card
different card reader
accessing the photos by connecting to the camera via ptp is no problem
using more powerful file browser did not reveal anything new

I have currently no access to a normal computer and therefore cant properly investigate the problem further. I tried nearly all recovery android Apps but none scanned extertal USB storage. My last idea was to mask the card reader as internal sd card but Samsung seems to Block adoptable storage and any further advances in included formating the sd card.
My best guess is that my tablet is resetting the block-bitmap from the sd card to the state of the last time it was mounted.
Has anyone an idea on what is happening and what the best approach in recovering the lost data may be?


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Resolve dns through proxy > ProxyDroid
Android device and rooted and using ProxyDroid App with HTTP Proxy
one of the main problem with ProxyDroid App is dns leak . it's ether showing my original DNS or Google DNS . i want to Resolve dns through proxy so that it match the IP address Country .
i already have another App can do that but the main reason of using ProxyDroid is to force global proxy for all installed app and it's the only app can do that as far as i can tell ,
this is the dns address in my device wifi connection and it looks like ProxyDroid is using them
DNS 1 > 192.168.0.1
DNS 2 > 8.8.8.8
i just don't know to what address should i changed them in order to resolve the dns through proxy . any help please ? Thanks

ProxyDroid uses redsocks for HTTP and SOCKS proxy under the hood. You can configure redsocks manually from commandline and make it redirect DNS as well.


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Gmail personal email shows as “work” account
On the settings/accounts & backup/accounts page, myphone lists my gmail.com account as a “work account”.
I do not have a separate work profile.
The gmail work account is listed in addition the google account & email. It is alongside my actual corporate work account with the same swing badge icon.
I accepted mdm for the corporate account (an office 365 based account), which confers admin rights over the phone.
A separate exchange active sync is also present for the corporate account.
I should be able to remove the corporate account & this will remove the content (contacts, calendars, emails) but I am very nervous about any effort to remove the work gmail account.

Could anyone confirm what effect this might have if I try to remove the “work” gmail?
How can I tell which organisation actually owns this “work” gmail account?
(All references I find are for workspace corporate gmail accounts & work profiles but this is a personal gmail.com so I haven’t found assistance there)

Eg, has a malicious app gained control of the account? (No current evidence of that, but who knows….)
I will discuss with the sysadmin responsible for my corporate account - could it just be a side effect of enabling o365 corporate stuff?
My section of company is being demerged/transferred very soon so I like to resolve before someone accidentally wipes my entire phone….
Thanks the reading

Not sure if this helps. Possibly only to expand on your question as opposed to answer it directly.
I have 4 email addresses
I have a work profile with 1 gmail email and it is a parallel gmail app. In my personal gmail app (below) i see my 2 personal gmail emails (blacked out) and the only hint of the work one is the link in red.

Of interest to you is my fourth, Microsoft outlook email account with msn.com. For no logical reason under accounts one entry has it labeled as a work account.

If this is what you see then i believe you have nothing to fear, it is out of reach of my employer. This might not be what you see. I am very unsure why mine has a work label.
When you say

my gmail.com account as a “work account"

Do you mean it is a personal one?

yes, it is my personal email additionally tagged as a "work account" that I am unsure of. I don't have a separate work profile to both personal & work emails are shown, unlike your switch profile.   In essence I think your situation is the same though - your personal email is listed as a work account. I am hoping this is just to give the workplace authority to remotely wipe the device and that this will not affect the local content when the phone is separated from the workplace cleanly.

If it is exactly the same as my Microsoft account, appearing twice with those icons and all, i suspect it is just a UI bug. Perhaps add a screenshot


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How to install a certificate on Android TV?
I've installed certificates (especially the FiddlerRootCA) on several android devices already, since it has a security section in the menus.
On Android TV on the other hand, I was not able to find anything in the settings, altough I went through them? I would like to install the certificate here on my Android TV stick, on which I have adb root access to.
How can I install a certificate on my Android TV?

On regular Android devices installing Fiddler Root CA certificate is useless, as Android and nearly every app just ignores user installed root certificates. Not sure if Android TV also works this way, but I would assume so. See e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/62731432/150978 for details.

@Robert the correct and complete statement is:  "Apps that target API Level 24 and above no longer trust user or admin-added CAs for secure connections, by default." "But app developers can choose to let their apps work with manually added CA certificates" by adding <certificates src="user" /> to Network security configuration. So if the app is targeting Android version below Nougat or if it deliberately makes use of user certificates, it's definitely gonna work.

@IrfanLatif But Google does no accept apps with a lower than maximum targetSdkVersion for Google Play Store. Therefore in Play Store only apps that have not been updated for about more than 3 years can have a targetSdkVersion lower than 24. But of course it may apply if that app was side-loaded.


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Unlocking bootloader for samsung A10 only
Is there any possible way to unlock bootloader on samsung A10..I've tried fastboot I've tried everything..LXDE?..I'm dying here..

https://topjohnwu.github.io/Magisk/install.html#unlocking-bootloader

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/android-unsamlock-bootloader-unlock-for-samsung-us-canada-devices.4215101


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What is this status bar symbol that looks like combined ♺ and ⇵?
Occasionally a symbol shows up in the status bar (top right) of my Samsung Galaxy S8+, but I can't figure out what's producing it or why.  Any insight?

Tapping it does nothing. Given the dashed "warning-style" triangle, and the "up/down" arrows, I would guess it's a synchronization error of some sort, but I don't know what it would be from.
Android symbol lists (like this one) don't seem to include this one.  Google Image search did return 2 sites that have matches (image shows in search result preview) but I couldn't actually find the image on either page: this one, and this one (which is Russian but oddly, won't translate).


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How do i remove the root app(?)?
I have a Samsung galaxy S7 that i rooted, but i want to unroot it because an app i need doesn't allow root.
I followed this tutorial when rooting my phone:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=CEI75gZWUtc
So tried to unroot it first by unrooting in the superuser app, then factory resetting it, but the app still said that i was rooted. I couldn't find any trace of it being rooted and even tried looking with adb, but found nothing. Then i installed an app that blocks internet for selected apps (Net Blocker) and in the list of apps there are two apps that i think causes this. one named root with UID=0 under it and one named RootPA with no text under it.
My question is how can i remove these?

The best chance is to reinstall a full original firmware image, read this how to download it. Note that rooting has triggers a "fuse" that can not be restored and thus some know related functions will not work even reinstalling an original FW version.

unrelated (RootPA page 9). probably there is some check on bootloader lock


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How to set SD card to default for storage S9+
How do I tell my phone to store new files on my sd card instead of its internal storage, either for a specific app or the entire system?
(I did try to find this on my own. There are many sites that say how to do this. Unfortunately, none of them are accurate as the settings options have apparently changed)

You can't: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/218338/218526. Use Adoptable Storage: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/214706/218526

Are you sure? It was the default storage location for the photos I took until I removed and reinserted the card a few days ago. Was this feature suddenly removed or something?

Please read the answer I linked first. Apps can always save data to their private directories on external SD card (which get deleted when the app is uninstalled), but not to the rest of the directories. But saving to external storage is entirely an app's (or its developer's) personal coice. You cannot force it on any or every app.

what you looking for is in camera app settings

Thanks alecxs. If you put that in an answer I'll accept it