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Can I use whatsapp with a number belonging to another phone
I currently have a Samsung S5 phone but find it bulky to carry and as I use it mainly for old fashioned calls I was thinking of moving my simcard (and therefore phone number) to my old Motorola Razr.
I understand that the S5 will effectively become like a small tablet and the email will still work on the S5 but will whatsapp if I am using the number on another phone?
Will my whatsapp contacts notice any difference or will it work exactly as it currently does?
Thanks

Answer is 'Yes', you can use it on your S5 seamlessly while using SIM in another device.
• Your Whatsapp contacts doesn't see any change.
• Remember Whatsapp can only be use on single device at a time(not whatsapp web) that means if you try to open it in your Moto device than you Galaxy device 's account will be closed.

I think I am in a good position to answer this question. You can always use a WhatsApp account with a no which isn't available in the device. I have been doing this for years. But please make sure that you setup a security code feature after successful completion of WhatsApp setup in the desired phone, which will secure you from being hijacked if the no(WhatsApp) lost!

Yes, you can use it on your S5 while using the SIM in another device.

You have to copy contact to that mobile.
Use the OTP that comes by SMS on that number to put on the mobile you want to use Whatsapp.
Sync your old chats from Google mail id,  you use to store back up.

Note: Whatsapp can only be used on a single device, so only use one account associated only one mobile number.
Suggestion:  You can also use Whatsapp Web to use Whatsapp on your laptop or computer without changing SIM.

Short answer:

Your S5 will still be usable for WhatsApp, with your phone number.
Your WA contacts will keep the same.

Important notes:

Every phone number can be used with WA on a single device. Using WA with that phone number on another device enforces closing the WA account in the previously associated device.
Be aware that, when you insert your Sim card in another phone (Moto Razr here), if it has WhatsApp installed, the phone may prompt about "updating the account" (or the like) in a cryptic way, and not explicitly stating that it refers to WhatsApp (this depends on versions of OS and WA).
If you answer "yes" (assuming it relates to the phone/line, not WA), the number will be used for WA in the Moto Razr, and it will be automatically removed from the S5.
You will need to associate again the number with WA installed in the S5.
It may be a problem if you do not have your Sim card at hand, as it happened to me before.
Be aware that, if you insert a new Sim card in the S5, WhatsApp may prompt for changing the number associated with the WA account (this depends on versions of OS and WA).
You have to decide what you want to do.
The latest Android versions allow for having two WhatsApp accounts in a single phone (likewise for Viber, Telegram, etc.), with Dual Messenger.
This required before the use of Parallel Space or the like.
So for the case above, if you configure it properly, you may keep you old WA account in the S5, and also have your new number associated with WA in your S5.
I have exactly this.

Yes, you can, I have done it my times. Even the number is no more active, you still can use it for your WA. Like my WA's number right now, the number itself already deactivated by the operator since around 2 years ago. But I still use the number for my WA.


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How to get rid of Google invasion?
The performance of my phone became very poor. It's very slow. When I open the wifi, it freezes for a few minutes! I had to reset factory default.
After the resetting, the phone became super fast once again but I found some pre-installed apps that may make my phone slow again such as Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, ...etc. I deleted all of them but I can't get rid of Google products. I can only disable them. I don't know why Google imposes their products. I have the right to manage my internal memory the way I like!
Here is a list of the products that consume the internal memory as well as the performance:

Chrome
Google Play Store
Google Drive
Gmail
Google App
Google play music
Google Play services
Google Hangouts
Google Maps
Google Photos

Would you tell me how to get rid of them, please? I have Android Marshmallow 6.0

Generally here, going Google-free is the arena of moderator Izzy. See the user profile with expertise in the form of links to explore Google-free options including app substitution, eradication, and the like, and related info about that topic.

Indeed I run my devices "Google-free". Easiest way to achieve this is to install a custom ROM like LineageOS – as for license reasons, those come without the so-called "GApps". Once those "GApps" are installed, it's hard to get rid of them in any othe way.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How does "Recycle master recycle bin" app recovering deleted files ?
There are many apps that recovers deleted data(images, video, PDF) i.e Disk digger , Dumpster e.t.c and these apps also ask for root , but here i want to know the process/methodology of simple recovering of files which are accidentally deleted.
In Recycle master recycle bin what have they tried to recover files using no root and it does provide the deleted files in app list view.
So to perform such task what i have to do in my app.
1) Are they implementing their own file manager by over riding/uninstall the default file manager so that user when ever open files it must interact with their file manager.
If so then how to override default file manager ?
2) Are they over riding system calls to force operating system functionality?
3) Or there is some thing else?

can any one help if they know what is being performed here.

You can check that by installing app and viewing through logcat what intents are being sent and received by the app while deleting a file. I don't have time right now, I may check that later. If the app is providing it's own file explorer to delete files, that's very simple. It's simply moving them to a hidden directory.

Can you provide the process how to implement or create such a file explorer that delete files because i have never worked on it .

I wish I could but I know almost nothing about Android app development. MiXplorer has this feature but I don't think that's open source. That simply moves files to /sdcard/.recycle folder on deletion. You may contact the developer for help. And development questions get more attention on https://stackoverflow.com/

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


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Is it possible to freeze an app in Bluestacks?
Sometimes is beneficial to "freeze" an application, for example when configuring on-screen controls for a game which doesn't display them at all times. Hotkey would be the most convenient.

What OS are you using? I'm going to assume Windows. I have no real experience with Bluestacks itself, but you can try suspending the whole process. To test if it can work open the Resource Monitor, right-click the Bluestacks process and click Suspend process.
If it does manage to 'pause' the app you can work on making it programmable using perhaps PsSuspend provided as part of PsTools. Finally put it into something like AutoHotkey.
Usage:
pssuspend <process name | process id> (-r to resume)

Windows. I considered suspending the process, but then I can't access Bluestack's on-screen GUI options? There's also Universal Pause Button for Windows — I don't think this method will work for my usage case unfortunately.

If you know a way to suspend apps on Android (without root) that should be a viable solution.


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How can I increase my samsung galaxy s4 signal power
I'm having poor signal quality from service provider(the signal for recieving calls, messages etc.)
When I check from "about device" section, it usually says around -110 dbm and 2 asu.
I have no problems connecting internet via wifi( my home's modem, not mobile data)
I have given the phone to a technician for repair but it's still not fixed.
I opened the case and checked antenna(which I'm guessing, was replaced by the technician, so it's most probably pretty new), which looked like okay.
I usually recive only 1-2 bars and rarely 4 bars of signal quality.
What might be the reason(s)?

Distance and obstructions from the nearest cell tower? I cannot get even that inside my house, and have to make calls from the driveway. Service to the HOME is generally NOT GUARANTEED by your service provider, just to your AREA. Check your contract wording.

I've been using the same places for the last 5 years, this problem started to occur a month ago, so that's not because of the area I'm in.


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How to grant write access to external SDcard using ADB in Android tv?
I can't get ES file explorer and winrar to write (copy or cut from internal storage and paste to external storage) to SDCard external storage in Android TV. It says that there will be an "open from" window where I can enable it, but the window won't appear like it did in my android tablet. Is there an ADB command to grant writing access to external SDCard?
I tried to use these commands:
adb shell appops set com.estrongs.android.pop WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE allow
adb shell appops set com.estrongs.android.pop READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE allow

That was the code for es file explorer, for winrar I just replace com.estrongs.android.pop with com.rarlab.rar The codes executed with no errors, however, I still can't write to the external SDcard, the suggestion to enable it in the supposedly upcoming popup window still appears and the popup window still did not appear. Please help

Android Marshmellow (API 23) or above you need to grant runtime permission. This can be done through an adb shell with the command:
adb shell pm grant com.your.app.package android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE

If you ever need to revoke the permission the use this command:
adb shell pm grant com.your.app.package android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE

Hi Bo, Sorry I just managed to try out your suggestion. unfortunately it does not work. Here's the exact code:  adb shell pm grant com.estrongs.android.pop android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE Any other ideas?


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Nexus 5X: bootloop after restoring NANDroid backup via TWRP
I was using LG Nexus 5X with Lineage OS 14.1 for a long time. I wanted to switch to stock Oreo ROM to see how it is.
I made a backup of the following items (Lineage OS 14.1) using TWRP:

Boot
System Image
Data
System
Vendor
Vendor Image

and copied them to my PC. After that I downloaded:
8.1.0 (OPM7.181205.001, Dec 2018)
which is a factory image from Google website and executed "flash-all.bat" to install the stock ROM on the phone. The stock ROM worked good. Afterwards I wanted to restore Lineage OS from my backup. So I installed TWRP "twrp-3.2.3-0-bullhead.img", wiped the phone and restored all the items listed above.
After everything was completed, I rebooted the phone and there was a boot loop at Lineage OS logo. I downloaded an older factory image:
7.1.2 (N2G48C, Aug 2017)
and installed it with "flash-all.bat". It worked, the phone booted. Then again I installed TWRP "twrp-3.2.3-0-bullhead.img", wiped everything and restored all the items from Lineage OS. After it was done the device wouldn't boot. Boot loop at Lineage OS logo again. I tried with older TWRP "twrp-3.2.2-0-bullhead.img" but nothing has changed.
Is there any way I can restore the old Lineage OS 14.1 from the backup I made? I'm not an expert, I follow guides on the web, if you have any comments or questions please state them clearly. If you have an idea how to fix the boot loop, please write your thoughts with steps which I could follow.
Many thanks.

A few things I noticed right off the bat. You backed up the system and system.img. Same issue with vendor and vendor.img There is no need to do both and can cause issue. The device will signature check blocks of data on the system partition during boot at the block level. The usage of dm-verity prevents TWRP from being able to successfully restore a normal system backup. To avoid dm-verity bring down the hammer TWRP introduced the system.img which is a close enough to bit perfect that dm-verity does abort the boot process. Those two things are enough to cause your bootloop.

@BoLawson: I have a similar issue: I installed Lineage OS 15.1, used it, created a backup, using it a bit more, and then I wanted to go back to the TWRP backup I had created. But as with the OP that results in a boot loop. Unfortunately I don't understand what you're trying to say with regards to dm-verity, is there anything that can be done apart from a fresh install of the whole system?

For more information on dm-verity and what it means for TWRP backups, have a look at the article What should I back up in TWRP


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Reset Partition Table for Nexus 7 2013 (Flo)
To cut a long story short I wanted to make the system partition larger on my tablet PC as it's far too small to do anything practical on. I used ADB push to put Parted into the root directory and proceeded to resize some of the partitions, but it has failed terribly to the point I have bricked my tablet. I have luckily enough found some guides on the internet to after I got QHUSB_BULK in Windows Devivce Manager. At the moment I have managed to execute the command
fastboot boot twrp-3.2.3-0-flo.img

but this is temporarily running from RAM as I'm unable to flash any of the partitions as they are "missing".
This is the my original partition table:-
https://pastebin.com/rhhjZtef
From some reading on the internet Linux can only have 4 primary partitons. I'm no expert in Linux. I know some basics but partitions is out of my area of expertise. All I know is that I have 30 partitions that I need to re-create and I don't know what partition type to set them to; primary, logical or extended.
I've played around with the three partition types but I get an error message saying "Too many primary partitions".
Could someone shine some light here please?
Many thanks
Will

This script might be worth a shot. If you wish to restore original partitioning, install sysrepartundo.zip. This script will attempt to non-destructively resize system again but if you installed some mega-gapps, it will obviously fail. In this case, use TWRP and manually format the system partition, then restore system's backup. https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=76278047&postcount=19 Or the link within about a way to un-brick the device. Hopefully it will bring Flow back to life.

Maximum 4 partitions is the limitation of MBR partition table. Android devices use GPT partition table which can have up to 128 partitions. You can use parted or gdisk to create GPT. But creating partition table isn't enough. Many of your 30 partitions contain contents related to bootloaders which are critical for booting. So you have to flash the proper contents to every partition too. These are just system, boot, userdata, cache and recovery partitions we modify usually during ROM flashing. So your best bet is to flash whole factory firmware that creates partitions as well

@IrfanLatif will just flashing a factory image re-partition the device? I thought they were just binary images. If this is the case I learned something new today. It is a nexus so its super easy and all firmware is available from Google. I have flashed a lot of nexi but I do it manual to the partition. Would he have to use the flash-all.bat to achieve this?

@BoLawson Personally I have never erased all of my partitions to test if this works or not, but it is possible, though I'm not sure if all vendors implement this in their factory flasher software or not. In one of my Qualcomm SoC phone's factory firmware, rawprogram_unsparse.xml contains entries of images from sector 0 to the last sector of eMMC. It also includes 17KB at start for main and 16.5KB at the end for backup GPT boot sectors (gpt_main0.bin and gpt_backup0.bin image files) which clearly indicates that whole memory is rewritten during flashing process including partition table.

Thanks for the replies. The problem I have is I can't load or flashing anything because I don't have any physical partitions. Currently TWRP is being assumingly loaded from RAM using 'fastboot boot' as I can't flash TWRP to the recovery partition. Once TWRP was temporarily loaded I then used ADB and entered Parted. It was here were I was having problems trying to re-create the 30 partitions.

@willowen100 the link in my first comment has a download for a flashable .zip that has a script with that utilizes the parted command to attempt to re-partition. (sysrepartundo.zip)

@willowen100 once you are in TWRP, you can create partitions using parted. First create a GPT partition table and then partitions one by one. But you need exact boundaries of your partitions in bytes (or at least in sectors; 1 sector = 512 bytes usually). The partition table you shared on pastebin won't suffice for creating accurately sized partitions.

I was in the same position as you re a total resizing of the partition table > System to Data. The following posts will help you. The first is a script to recreate all the required partitions. The second is a method to get the bootloader functioning from a Hard Brick. Worked on this for hours last night and have now had successfully recovered back this morning. Good luck. Mo https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75465233&postcount=222 https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75360854&postcount=199

Sorry for the extremely long reply back. I've only just managed to get some holiday since Christmas to sit down and crack on with this.
Anyway I have restored my entire partition table byte by byte but it has taken me ages to do as I have had to copy and paste 60 lines into Parted. The first line of each of the 30 partitions is for the partition sizes itself and the second line is rename each partition. Is there a way I can make a backup or at least a batch file to speed up the process in the future?

This file https://pastebin.com/aJJ1R4Be lists the entire procedure of commands I ran. However, after selecting 'Power off' in TWRP my Nexus 7 goes to a blank screen and I'm forced to follow the unbrick method again. What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE - I've successfully restored all 30 partitions and have flashed the stock Nexus image. However, Its stuck on an infinite boot animation so I'm not much further than before.


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Javascript not loading in browser(Miui10 Global8.9.6 beta_Redmi note4)
I had written a custom HTML/javascript application and wanted to run it in a android browser on my Redmi Note4.
Firstly I activated javascript in all the browsers (MIUI default browser,chrome,firefox).Then,I tried opening the file directly from the file manager,but it only loaded html but not javascript.
Afterthat ,I pasted the file path

content://com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer.myprovider/external_files/...

in the browser but even in this case only html was recognised but not javascript.However as seen from this forum thread here,this solution has worked on other phones.
Is there any way to detect javascript in MIUI10 OS?

Apparently,the Redminote4 file manager doesn't recognise the link between separate html/css/javascript files(even though it get's perfectly recognised in a desktop environment).
The only option left is to embed all your html/css/javascript code into one large html file(not a good practise!) and open this file directly from the file manager.


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Prompt for filename for screenshot
I have an S7 with Android 8 and Samsung Experience 9
Is there a way to be prompted for a filename when you take a screenshot?
Thanks

The Android built in screenshot function does not support to specify the filename.
One alternative way for triggering a screenshot would be to use adb shell via USB or Wifi from a connected PC. On the shell you can execute screencap /sdcard/screenshot1.png and therefore specify the filename.


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I see incorrect photo when accessing Android via USB
I see incorrect photo when accessing Android via USB. It's different from the one, I see in telephone itself. If I copy this photo to desktop, I get wrong image. If I move photo to desktop, I loose data.
This completely compromises USB access to Android.
Is it possible to avoid such situations by 100%?

There is a known bug in Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) in combination with Windows 10 that can lead to data loss. It is known since mid 2017, may be your device is affected. Regarding the files the easiest workaround is to reboot your phone.

Didn't know about this - MTP is a complete disaster of a protocol. I don't know why more phones don't just display as mass storage.


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Can we remap the keys when using an external keyboard?
I'm using my physical keyboard on my tablet with Android. The Brazilian keyboard works fine for me, there are only two problems:

The right-shift is "/" instead of shift.
The "ˆ" is different and is not accepted by LaTeX. (In LaTeX, we use aˆb for exponetiation and this one doesn't work).

One possible fix is to be able to remap the keys, Is this possible? Is there some app that allows me to remap the keys?

There is a similar question: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/48837/use-bluetooth-keyboard-with-a-different-layout

Though you didn't specify "Bluetooth", the linked question fits precisely (including its answers).

FYI, I'm looking to remap the right windows key to be Ctrl (since there is no right Ctrl key on my bluetooth keyboard). This question has already been asked; so, instead of asking another one, I figured I'd let people know other kinds of answers (besides changing the whole layout) are in demand.

Use GBoard (the Google Keyboard), it should be very easy.  Install this then when you are connected with the external keyboard, change the keyboard to Brazilian Portuguese and you shouldn't have any issues.

I'm confused, do I "pass the keyboard keys through gboard"? I thought that when using external keyboard, the keys would go directly.

Not sure exactly what you are saying.    Once you are connected with the external keyboard, go to the phone input settings and change the default keyboard to the one you want and the keyboard will type with that layout.

It didn't work. I changed to my language and Shift is still "/". I used multiples keyboard layouts and it didn't work.

What kind of android and hardware are you using?

Nevermind. I fixed with the link in the duplicate post. It's perfect now!


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WiFi Disconnect also disconnects Bluetooth
I have a new problem that has started in the last few weeks that's been getting more and more annoying. I have a Samsung Galaxy J7 with Android 7.0.
It seems now whenever there's some momentary interruption in my WiFi, the Bluetooth device disconnects. For some reason, when the Bluetooth disconnects like this, the sound continues to play on my phone while my headphones/speaker/truck is still on and working but not playing sound. Usually when the Bluetooth disconnects, whatever is playing will pause or stop.
This is especially annoying at work where it's quiet until my phone starts blasting music (or some hot sports take). This has only started a few weeks ago - I had NEVER noticed it before. I haven't made any changes to the phone recently or even installed any apps.
I have tested this by manually turning off WiFi - at which point my Bluetooth headphones stop playing and the music starts playing through the phone speaker.
How do I fix my Android or Galaxy so WiFi interuptions don't force Bluetooth to disconnect? And shouldn't it stop playing when the Bluetooth disconnects?


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cannot see device anymore when connecting to PC via USB
Lately I'm experiencing this problem when connecting my LG G2 smartphone to the PC: I cannot see it anymore in explorer.
I can actually connect to it tru ADB and push/pull files no problem. Also ADB shell works, developer options / debug USB enabled.
In Windows registry / System I got a critical error event id 10110 - 10111 DriverFrameworks-UserMode each time I connect it to usb.
Drivers are installed, cable is ok, I tried on several PC and can't see it, also tried with Linux, same problem.
If I dmesg | grep usb I got these two errors:
<3>usb_bam_ipa_create_resources: Failed to create USB_PROD resource
<3>init: cannot find '/system/bin/usbdebug-manager', disabling 'usbdebug-manager'

I'm 100% sure is not a problem PC side, but smartphone side.
I've been repacking /system/app and system/framework app to slim down my system, but I cannot figure out what is wrong.
LG G2 KK modified stock rom, Dorimanx Kernel

It sounds like the drivers maybe corrupted. Try un-installing and then re-installing (If possible updated) drivers? You could also try toggling the different usb modes such as mtp , ptp, and others. Debloating did you un-install a system app that had Mtp in name?

drivers are ok, 100% sure about that. Changing to other modes doesn't do the trick. I'll try to remember what apps I've disabled. Thanks for the suggestions anyway.  Btw Linux gives me this dmesg 'usb 1-1.3: usbfs: process 954 (pool) did not claim interface 0 before use
usb 1-1.3: reset high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci-pci'

I learned something new android has a connection assistant for usb troubleshooting. This would be good with your linux machine: https://developer.android.com/studio/run/device I do not know what process 954 is but something bad happened (obviously) and your linux machine reset high Speed usb for device number 6 (whatever device 6 is probably your android) which is pretty crazy to do in the middle of an operation. Is your data cable connecting your device to the linux machine old? Maybe try another chord.

What does the command mtp-detect return on your linux machine?

libmtp version: 1.1.13
Listing raw device(s)

Device 0 (VID=1004 and PID=61f9) is a LG Electronics Inc. Android phone (ID2).
Found 1 device(s):
LG Electronics Inc.: Android phone (ID2) (1004:61f9) @ bus 1, dev 6
Attempting to connect device(s)
PTP_ERROR_IO: failed to open session, trying again after resetting USB interface
LIBMTP libusb: Attempt to reset device
LIBMTP PANIC: failed to open session on second attempt
Unable to open raw device 0
OK.

That failed anyway Linux: Try editing/adding udev rules. Here is a walk through under Linux:
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/mobilesdk/0.4/concepts/mobile-android-detect/
Make sure the not folder all did not get removed when Debloating seach with a file explorer for mtp should look something com.android.mtp or com.your_manufacturer.mtp
What version of linux?

That didn't work either. I searched into the original image file I downloaded, there's no mtp system app. Btw, if I enter TWRP recovery and plug usb cable I see my device straight in explorer no problem

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Photo contrast changes right before sharing
I sometimes share pictures from the Gallery app (Samsung), but just before my sharing options come up, I can very clearly see that it increases the contrast (making it look unnatural). I have tried searching in settings, without any luck. Has anyone found a solution for this?
Samsung Galaxy
Android: 8.1.0
Samsung experience: 9.5

Older Samsung do the same. Or perhaps the targeted photo social


text:
Forced download
I had this icon in notification bar once I connected to wifi .. Google play auto update is disabled and application update comes with no red dot ... When I scrolled down the status bar, no notification about what is being downloaded ... In google play, no recent updated apps ... Any idea what was it or how to know what was being downloaded?
Kind regards,
Ahmed


text:
Can't uninstall an app
I downloaded a locator app not thru google play and after turning off all permissions, it still in my applications.

Turning off all permissions wouldn't uninstall an app. Clicking on uninstall would do. Are you saying you can't do it? Which application, device and Android version are you using?

You can't uninstall a system application without root permissions. root permission may voids your warranty, and system apps are built-in app for device, which you see out of the box / first boot.

Have you tried using safe mode?
If not, then try it. I, myself had a similar problem. Using safe mode, I uninstalled it easily.
If you dont know, how to use safe mode, search on google how to enable it on your device.


text:
Redmi 2014818 says "unfortunately com.android.systemui has stopped"
I have Xiaomi HM2 LTE IN. Also called Redmi 2014818. Every time I try to open any MI app the phone says "unfortunately process com.android.systemui has stopped".
Then when I tap "view summary" the lock screen appears.
So it has made using the phone difficult.
Luckily this error message doesn't appear when I open any non MI app like WhatsApp, Chrome.

Solved it myself.

Downloaded update.
Renamed it update.zip.
Pasted it in SD card "in" the phone from another "in" the phone folder using the RAR app.
Used power and volume buttons, etc. (in followed recovery instructions).
Did it. Much relieved.


text:
Is there a way to setup a "Work Profile" for an arbitrary Exchange account?
I've worked at companies in the past where it was possible on Android to setup a "work profile" which remained totally separate from the personal profile. This meant separate apps for things like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc. that were totally isolated from each other.
The benefit of this is that the company can delete the entire work profile if they need to without touching any of the personal apps and data on the device.
If I go to setup a new Exchange account for a Microsoft domain, it asks me to give it full and total control of my device and the ability to delete everything at the discretion of the IT administration of the organization.
Is there a "work profile" mode for setting up a Gmail Exchange account or a way to do this with the Microsoft apps?
I'm on Android 9 on an original Pixel 1.


text:
One specific game/app refuses to install
As the title says, one single game on the app store that I had installed beforehand without issues, now refuses to install at all. The playstore keeps giving me error -506 over and over, and that's when it installs the game, it downloads the game as it should but does not get past the installing stage because it keeps tossing error -506. Googling didn't help either because googling it only gives me topics about other error codes that are not related to mine at all. Please, if anyone knows the solution or possible fixes to this, suggest them to me here so I can finally play the game again.

Check this article https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-error-code-506-google-play-store/

Possibly the error is because you have got a dead data directory corpse somewhere from that one specific app from a previous install of the app. Once you uninstalled it it did not clean up after its self properly. You can try adb to get the remnants of the app with the command:
adb uninstall (package_name)
Looking like:
adb uninstall com.one.specificAPK
If that does not work and you have rooted privledges then use a root explorer and navigate to /data/data/ once there look for that one specific apps corpse. It should be a white file delete it.
If that is unsuccessful then there is an app called SdMaid (no affiliation) that has a corpse cleaner that should do the trick.
If that does not work then try Google's suggestion of one of the following:
METHOD 1:

Go to Setting >> Go to Application Setting (In some devices application setting is named as apps).
  Go to, All the apps > >Find the Google Play Store >> Clear Data and Cache
  Once you have clear everything, Next you need to Force Stop the application.
  Similarly, Find the Google Play Service >> Clear Data and Cache
  Also, Find Google Services Framework >> Open Google Services Framework >> Clear cache and data
  Now, Restart your device and try to download the app.
  It has worked for many users and hopefully it will work for you also. If it didn’t worked for you, go to next method.

METHOD 2:

Go to Setting >> Storage >> Scroll down and select “Unmount SD card”
  Open Google Play Store >> Download the app again that was giving you the error message
  After successful installation, Go back to Settings >> Storage  >> tap on “mount SD card”
  If above steps didn’t work, also try removing your SD card before installing.

METHOD 3:

Go to Setting >> Accounts >> Google
  Remove all your Google accounts
  Go back to Google play store and Sign–in your account information
  Accept all the Google terms and setup Google settings then Run Google Play Store and download the app.
  Removing and adding the Google Account has solved the issue for many users as there was problem with the Google account. If this help you to fix the error then the job is done otherwise head to next method.

METHOD 4:

Most of the users have found this solution to be working fine. After changing the storage setting users were able to download the app without any error message displaying on-screen.
  Steps to change the Storage Setting:
Go to Setting >> Storage >> Preferred install location
  Tap on Preferred install location, a box will pop-up with different option
  Select “Let the system decide” option
  Open Google Play Store >> Download the app again that was giving you the error.


text:
Cant remove Google Chrome notifications
I got notifications saying "waiting for network" when I tried to download a video file.
How do I get rid of those notifications without restarting the device?
They seem to be unclearable. Why?
Is there a notification removal app that I can use?

Have you checked the Download page from the Chrome itself if there are pending downloads?

I managed to cancel the downloads. Still I am seeking for an app that can clear any type of notifications.


text:
How to backup the entire device from a computer and mount any of the bakup partitions in Linux?
I am looking for some tutorial or help to be able to make a backup of all Android partitions directly on my computer and be able to mount each of them from Linux to view them.

Making backup is possible but all of them don't have mountable filesystem. You can mount /data, /system, /cache and a few others with ext4, f2sf, fat etc. filesystem. Even you can mount directly from  phone using UMS. Do you have root and custom recovery?

I don't know if it will work for your particular device and OS but I think this script is straight forward and you will be able to get the general idea and modify accordingly.
It first lists the content of /dev/block/platform/[xxxxx]/by-name directory (differs from device to device) then loops through the content files which in this case are partition names of your particular device. In each iteration it trims the 0x0d (carriage-return "\r") character that is added at the end of each file name, then it uses cat to print the partition to stdout of your terminal but we must also handle 0x0d (carriage-return "\r") byte that is added before newline(0x0a) before printing, then it calculates the md5sum of the output file which you can compare to the md5sum of the partition in your device to be sure there is no corruption.
#!/bin/bash
BY_NAME_DIR="/dev/block/platform/sprd-sdhci.3/by-name"
for partition in $(adb shell ls $BY_NAME_DIR)
do
            partition=$(tr -d '\r'<<<$partition)
            echo Backing up $partition partition
            adb shell "su -c cat $BY_NAME_DIR/$partition 2> /dev/null"|sed 's/\r$//' > ${partition}.img
            echo Calculating md5sum
            md5sum ${partition}.img > ${partition}.md5
            echo Done backing up ${partition}
done

You can also refer to this question to see how you can handle the added "\r"(0x0d) characters

Make sure the transfer is done in binary mode (adb exec-out instead of adb shell), or the images might turn out broken. Doing so, you can also omit the sed part, as exec-out should take care for that. I'd also remove the 2> /dev/null part (at least while testing) so you see when something goes wrong.


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Motorola Nexus 6 won't show its filesystem
I've had a Motorola Nexus 6 for some time now, and I tend to be a bit static with it -- I'd uploaded the majority of my music library at the time and then didn't change much for a long time.
Now I recently purchased a number of new songs and wanted to upload them to my phone, but when I plug it into a computer (any computer I've tried so far, two linux systems and one windows 10) they recognize the Nexus 6, but when I try to open it in a file manager they only show an empty folder. Rebooting either the computer or the phone had no effect.
When I attempt the same thing on my Samsung Galaxy tablet, the tablet prompts me to enable sharing and after I confirm that I can browse the filesystem on my tablet, but the Nexus 6 phone never shows me that dialog.
It's entirely possible that I accidentally enabled a security feature and forgot about it; can anyone offer suggestions where I should start looking?

It took a lot more searching than I liked, but this question put me on the right track.
What you need to do is connect via USB, then unlock the phone and drag the top bar down. One of the notification areas will say "USB charging this device", and when you tap it you're offered the choice of USB charging, MTP file sharing, PTP photo sharing, or MIDI passthrough. Selecting MTP filesharing will let your computer browse your phone's files.


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Tethering won't work claiming data connection is unavailable
When I try to turn on tethering/mobile hot spot it gives me the system message "Unable to connect, data connection not available." However it worked in the past with this carrier/phone and the internet still works. I can browse the web on my phone fine.
Things I tried so far:

restarting my phone
Taking it in and out of airplane mode
turning wifi off and on
turning on and off power saving
turning sync on and off
turning off high performance mode.
resetting all network settings

Is your data connection turned on when you're trying to tether? If no, keep it turned on...

Yes. I have my data connection turned on. I tried turning it off and then on again also.

I never did figure out what was causing this issue. I finally was able to fix the issue, though, by completely resetting the phone to factory settings and setting it up again.


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Taking photo and storing it directly to OneDrive/365
At work, we draw on white boards a lot and at the end of the session, we take pictures of the boards (with our personal camera phones) with a goal of putting the pictures on our intranet.
Whilst it's minor, having to plug my phone in to the computer via USB, find the relevant images, copy them to my computer and then add them to our Office 365 storage / OneDrive is just an additional process I'd like to remove.
I can't sync the DCIM folder because it would include personal pictures as well.
Is there way to always save images to OneDrive/365? I found http://www.uploadcamapp.com/ which is perfect other than it only uploads to Drive and Dropbox
It needs to be OneDrive/365 as that is what the business uses.

It appears as if OfficeLens does this, but it is slow and manual. With uploadcam the photo was just automatically uploaded where as OfficeLens asks you to choose where to upload on each photo taken


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How can Users from a company download private apps
In order to keep our react-native app updateable and private, we decided to use this approach to upload an APK to the Play Store privately. Apparently, our client has to have G Suite set up for this to work. I suppose, with G Suite, the client can "add" user accounts to the company and with that, somehow allow them to download our app (by whitelisting it?).
But how/where can the Users download and install the private app after it has been published? Can they just search for it on the play store and see/download it there?

I think you need to make your own store portal on Google Play..  I was looking into this a while back, the best solution was to release a beta version and add people to the beta testers..

https://support.google.com/googleplay/work/answer/6145139?hl=en


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Extraordinarily fast battery consumption
I have been using Xiaomi Mi Max (4/128) (now running on MIUI 10.2.1.0) for over two and a half years and as the time passed, my battery started to die pretty quick - I used AccuBattery to check the battery's health and it was about 40% after 30 charging sessions. On average it could last about 3-4 hours on screen and about 12 hours standby.
My decision was to change the battery and I did it, but the phone still does not work for 8+ hours on screen (as it did before the battery started dying that quick). I took a look at the power usage graph and the thing that suprised me the most was the distribution of power. I know it should be rather exponential than linear, but it was different - first 30% (from 100 to ~70 percent) has been drained in less than an hour, next 45% was used linearly (approximately 10% per hour), and the rest lasted for 20 minutes, going rapidly down to 0%.
Up to now I deleted apps which I was not using, turned on the auto-brightness and the battery saver. I was thinking about doing a factory reset, but at the moment I am unable to save all my photos and data, so I would like to get any ideas what else could I do instead, in order to lenghten the time the battery can last.

Your device may not have recognized the changed battery. Use your device until it turns off and the load it while it is turned off.

@Robert will try it soon, I'm gonna tell you if it helps later.

@Robert I have done it twice now, battery consumtion looks pretty similar (it discharges from 100 to 70 and from 25 to 0 percent pretty quick), but it works nicely on 70-25%. Is there any way of making it a bit more linear?

Looks like a software issue for me. I had the same issue on my max 2. I flashed the firmware again using Mi flash tool and there's no battery drainage now.


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Can't boot into recovery or TWRP
Long story short, I was trying to get TWRP on my Moto G6 but am unable to boot in any way.
fastboot boot twrp.img

Results in the phone hanging with the Motorola logo. I'm guessing that this is relating to me flashing the recovery before-hand instead of booting it first. I'm not sure, I'm new to this.
When I try to boot into recovery from fastboot it presents me with the fastboot screen once more saying "Start Up Failed" with an error "Failed to pass validaton [sic], backup to fastboot".
For the record, the normal mode boots up fine, but I don't really care for the phone if I can't get TWRP running on it.

Is your bootloader locked?

Tried booting to recovery using ADB commands? adb reboot recovery?


text:
use a smartphone mic with a mixer
I need an app that makes the output jack audio of the smartphone coincides with what is picking up the microphone. In other words, I would like to use the microphone of the smartphone, like a normal microphone to be connected to a mixer. from an electrical point of view it is feasible, I was wondering if it was possible even on the software side.
has a similar app already been created?

Yeah you can do this using a Bluetooth voice changer for example.

I would like to use a very common aux cable. the question is about the software side

Yes it's possible, depending on your headphone jack... It might be a Four pin jack with microphone pin... So a normal auxiliary won't work as it has 3 pin ( Ground, Right & Left speakers )

@zillinium I thank you for the information you are sharing. however the thing that matters to me is if there is software that directs what the microphone captures towards the audio jack output.

Yes, most of them are designed around being a Voice Changer.... It's just a little annoying to use with AUX cords

@zillinium I ask you directly: I look for an app that "hijacks" towards the headphone output, what is listening on the microphone. a realtime voice changer app, it might be fine, but I'd like my original voice.

It's rather easy to build, however It needs headphones to test the app or else it has feedback into the microphone... I understand that you specifically are not using the devices speakers... however the feedback issue usually stops the development of such apps... You can use a voice changer with no effect added to produce the realtime pass through ... I can build you one for testing purposes.

Updated answer.

here's a built one that I'm talking about....

Direct Download APK from my Google Drive
New Mic2Aux.apk

This version has control over the 3 pin - 4 Pin microphone, using audio source changing in settings.

Hope this helps clarify how it works.

The microphone is recorded into a stream
The stream is played via the headset or main speaker
When using No headset, the Audio is looping from speaker to microphone continually getting louder.
If using Aux cord, there's a delay between processing into a stream and then playing via the output.
It does work as an example app on my device, however not efficient enough for realtime recording.


text:
Which component of the Android protocol stack performs cellular encryption?
I understand that the SIM Card plays a significant role in generating keys for the encryption and decryption of cellular traffic, but are these keys passed to the Android architecture so that it can use them?
Or does the actual encryption take place on the SIM Card?


text:
Android Apps will not stop updating, no matter what I try
I've searched extensively on this and I see many threads where the advice relates to drilling into the apps individual menu list and 'un-checking' the 'Enable auto-update' box.
Anyway, I'm at my wits end here now.  For whatever reason, I do not want ANY apps to update by themselves.  This functionality has been well supported in Android for a long time now and has worked.  However, it no longer does and it's extremely frustrating - I'm turning to the collective brain here to see if anyone is able to help me at all?
Here are the details:
Galaxy Note9 (SM-N960F UK)
Vodafone contract (UK)
Android 8.1.0
Sams Exper Version 9.5

Google playstore : Auto updates is turned OFF
Samsung Galaxy Apps: Auto update apps, is turned OFF
Every SINGLE app in the Play store list has been checked that the 'Enable auto-update' is NOT checked. (this is the one that everyone seems to immediately advise upon, however I have covered this off already)

And yet, at least 40-odd apps have recently auto-updated and continue to do so!
It's driving me nuts.
Is anyone else having the same experience and - is anyone able to assist at all please?  Many thanks in advance.

Does your phone have an alternative market app? Some manufacturers add their own market app to install and update apps. Also, when they get updated, did you confirm that it was the Google Play which updated them?

Current apps installed/updated via Playstore contain a special signature. Therefore it should be possible to check if an updated app was installed by Google Playstore or a 3rd party market. Additionally check the special app permissions for apps which can install other apps?

Thanks for the replies - interesting points.   I was aware that the Samsung Galaxy app also was able to update apps, but assumed it was restricted to only apps that originated from there.   But as far as I am aware, outside of the Play store and the Galaxy store, I can't think of another app that would a: have permission to update such a (seemingly) random array of apps and b: would even want to.   You mention there is a way to tell via the 'signature' which app has updated another app - I am not aware of how to do this, could you elaborate please?  Many thanks, Ash.


text:
after rooting phone, can I remove all traces of original phone carrier?
Forgive my mobile ignorance.  I have a Galaxy S4 from Verizon (sch-i545), and I do not use it as a phone anymore.  What I want to do is turn it into basically a very simple media device for kids' use on wifi at home.  Almost a tablet.  I want a very clean version of Android, and I will install a very few number apps, just a few carefully-selected things that my children can use.
If I root the phone and then install a custom ROM (I haven't done this yet but see plenty of tutorials online), will I be able to achieve what I want, or will my phone keep complaining about not having a SIM card?  And will it still think it is associated with Verizon (custom splash screen and who-knows-what-else)?
Certainly, I could just factory reset it and disable the dozens of bloatware apps, but I'd feel especially content to do a little more than that and have the knowledge that it's just a little computer running  the custom android version I want without any Verizon fingerprints upon it.

That's usually all associated with your modem data, if you replaced your modem software with another it'd change your IMEI number etc... So generally a custom ROM will avoid changing the modem... It's in a separate partition and sometimes not even accessible by a booted system... You will most likely still have the mobile network provider's lock to the network using the modem information like your IMEI number, etc.... You can remove the SIM stuff and make it a WIFI Only device ( similar to some tablets ) ... You would be able to use the device with NO sim card, but not another provider's sim .

As its hardware is still altered by Verizon, you'll likely not be able to perfectly swap out the OS, since the bootloader of your device is still locked down by Verizon, and that makes sure you don't touch anything related to boot (it won't boot up if you do), so it is also impossible to replace the splash screen that shows up first when you boot the device up.
That being said, it still shouldn't complain about anything Verizon wants the device to complain about. Everything you see after the device ends the boot animation and displays the lock screen are controlled by the custom ROM. So if the custom ROM developer doesn't want the ROM to complain about anything (and that is kind of the point of a custom ROM!) you should be fine. Also Verizon would not be able to interfere with your device functions remotely.


text:
Android GUI: Y Axis Inversion
Somehow the Y-axis of my Android display became inverted. I'm looking for a way to return it to normal. At this stage I don't care if it's a real solution to the original problem or a workaround.
Only the visual display is inverted, not the touch sensor; the two are out of phase with each other. In other words, the home button that usually lives at the bottom of the screen, appears up the top, but the trigger is still down the bottom. It's.. frustrating.
Yes, I've tried a factory reset.
No, rotation isn't a solution. I made this to demonstrate the difference:

I read somewhere that I need to change ro.sf.hwrotation=180 to ro.sf.hwrotation=0 in /system/build.prop, but that line isn't present on my device; an old LG Nexus 5 (Hammerhead). I'm hoping SurfaceFlinger might have some kind of config file somewhere that I can edit or something like that. Any ideas?


text:
How should I enter organizational units into my contacts?
The (Android) contacts system is modeled to contain individual people's contact info: There's a name, a last name, an organization/company the person is in, address etc.
However, we also need to keep the contact information for organizations, or departments/units within organization. For example: The customer support line of a branch of company.
What's the right way to have this information in your contacts?
One thing you can do is  just divide the information somehow between a pseudo-name and the overall company info. This is already crooked, semantically, since you'll have a name that's not a name; but its even more untenable, because the company name is critical, while not being displayed or being shown in small print when a call is incoming or when browsing the contacts.
What I actually do is shove everything into the name somehow, and use the most recognizable company name to start my "name".
Are there other options I'm missing?


text:
Keeping whatsapp installed on second device
If I transfer everything over wireless to my new android device (included whatsapp) from the old one, when I open Whatsapp it does not ask a verification code for the new device (where I have my sim). And in the old device, with just wifi, the old whatsapp still works.
How can that be possible?

Saying "transfer (included whatsapp)" you mean what? Did you install whatsapp on the new phone? Can you start WA on the new phone?

From the old android phone to the new android phone all apps (whatsapp included) were copied through wireless. So i didn't install any app. All the apps in the old device were found in the new device. And upon opening whatsapp I just entered in the chat page without the app asking me any verification code

Are you trying to say that WhatsApp is now working on both devices at the same time?

I uninstalled whatsapp on the old device after 10 minutes. So I don't know if the app would have stopped by itself automatically or not. But in those 10 minutes yes I could open both

Do you know how could that be possible?


text:
Backing up/save files on android with a broken screen
My phone's screen is broken and is useless, but it has important files on it. Is there a way to back the files up or get the phone back?

You can only back data up yourself, if the phone is functioning (apart from the screen obviously). Make sure it shows some kind of life signal when you plug it in/turn it on/press the volume keys/etc. It could be something like the charging LED lighting up or vibration. If you have the SIM card in there, you could also call it and check that way. If none of these work, then the only solution is to take it to a data recovery center (it can cost a couple hundred dollars, so make sure those photos are irreplacable).
So, first of all, a broken screen could mean a couple of things:
1.: The digitizer (touch screen glass) is broken
This is the easiest problem to solve. If you have an OTG cable (a cable with a micro USB end and a female USB on the other), you can connect a mouse to the phone and use that to back everything up. It's very rare nowadays for a phone (especially phablets) to not support this feature.

You could also just buy a new screen and either apply it yourself or take it to a repair shop if you want to keep the phone.
2.: The LCD (the display) doesn't work
If you see a black screen or random lines on the screen, when you turn it on, then the LCD is broken. This has a bunch of different types too.
If you're lucky and the phone goes into file transfer mode, when plugged into a computer, then you can just take the files off, so make sure to try this first.
a.: Water damage
If you dropped your phone in water and it got damaged, then either a chip got fried or something got corroded. It's usually impossible to tell which one it is, so the phone has to be disassembled and cleaned. It's not really worth it to buy a screen at this point, LCD don't really mind water that much. However, If you're "lucky" and only the backlight is faulty (or the connectors got corroded), then you can just take a strong flashlight, hold it up against the screen (possibly somewhere with a white/light area of pixels). Make sure to try this out, in my experience, even some repair shops forget to check it. I've had it on a friend's phone recently and it looked like this:

(That's the vodaphone logo btw)
If it's not the backlight, then probably some video output chip got damaged. Backing up data in this case is very hard. You could try using one of the tools designed for this but it's a gamble whether they work and even if they do, they might require you to turn on USB debugging (which is hard without seeing anything). I also don't like to install random programs on my computer.
In some cases, removing the corrosion from the device can also solve some problems. If you want to keep the warranty, take it to a repair shop and let them clean it. If you don't care however, iFixit has some really nice guides to disassemble almost any phone. Make sure to remove every board from the device, then take an unused tootbrush and some Isopropyl alcohol and give it a good scrub. Clean the adapters and the ends of the cables too. You're essentially looking for some blueish-greenish goo:

If you don't want to void warranty and you can't take it to a repair shop either, then you could theoretically put it in a tub of alcohol, but I haven't tried it and it certainly won't have the same effect.
After this, assemble the phone again without missing anything out and test it. Hopefully it works. If not, check the general advices part.
b.: Blunt damage
If you dropped your phone on concrete and the screen won't turn on again, it's either because the LCD got damaged or a cable got loose (the latter is very unlikely, I've only had it happen once and only with a vibration motor). If it turns on, but you see lines one the screen (see image below), then the LCD is broken.

(This is an iphone, but you get the point)
In any case, it's usually worth it to get a new screen if it's still in production. Make sure to not touch the glass too much, the small glass shards don't mix well with your finger.
c.: General advices
If nothing above worked for you, there's a small chance going through a software based solution will work too.
If you have USB debugging enabled, install adb, pull up the command line of your choice, connect the phone to the computer through USB (pray to your choice of deity) and type "adb devices" without the quotes. If your phone show up in the list, you can continue. Type "adb pull mnt/sdcard/DCIM/Camera/" without quotes. This will pull the images from your phone. You can also do "adb pull mnt/sdcard/" if you want every file on there, because you have some sick scores in temple run you want to keep.

Quick note: I compiled this list because I found the general lack of a comprehensive guide, which went into hardware and software frustrating.


text:
How is it possible to listen to FM radio while a phone is on airplane mode?
My phone was on airplane mode, i forgot to turn it off then i decided to listen to Fm radio. It worked really well. I still wonder how airplane mode works. Shouldn't it be disabled first cause i just read that some wireless devices work while  on airplane mode.

Air plane mode disables all transmitters as these are creating the strongest radio waves that exit your Smartphone.
For some services like mobile network, WiFi and Bluetooth disabling only the transmitter without also disabling the receiver does not make sense, therefore both services are completely disabled.
The fm receiver however only receives the fm frequency and therefore does not have to be disabled in air plane mode. The same holds for GPS.
Note: Even disabling all explicit transmitters of a Smartphone some implicit transmitters of radio waves may still be active, e.g. the CPU and other electronic components can emit radio waves. However those radio waves are a lot weaker than e.g. a WiFi signal.


text:
How to restore data from Google Drive?
My Samsung Galaxy SGH-T99 broke recently. I can see the backup of my data on Google Drive. I will not repair the device and want to restore my data. How can I do that? Please provide guidance.

Google should ideally offer you to restore a cloud backup when you set up a new device using the same Google account. Works well on my Nokia phones. I do not know if Samsung as a varied implementation.


text:
View list of registered document providers
How do I check in Android which applications have registered their document providers? I hope no code is needed (I need it from user perspective), but if that's the only way then I can attempt that.

Are you talking about apps with "content providers" (app acts as data source) or are you talking about apps that have registered file types (mime types), e.g. a PDF viewer that can receive and display pdf files?

I assume were referring to the file types the different apps can open.
On a rooted device you can get the list the following way:
The mime types and the applications for the default user are stored in the file /data/system/users/0/package-restrictions.xml
Therefore you can execute the following PC to get the full list on a smartphone connected via USB (an enabled ADB):
adb shell "su -c 'cat /data/system/users/0/package-restrictions.xml'"


text:
Does Huawei's super charging affect the battery?
I have a Huawei P20 pro and it came with a "super charger" that can take full charge the phone's battery really quickly. Sometimes in less than an hour.
I wonder if this affects the battery's lifespan! Will the battery degrade overtime due to how fast the super charger works?
I'm interested specifically in Huawei's super chargers.

I don't think so. fast charging feature is related to its processor.

please go through this link which describe technically, https://www.quora.com/What-is-fast-charging-How-does-it-work

I don't think that you will get a definitive answer to that topic. However in general the battery temperature increases more with fast charging. And high temperatures can fasten battery degrade.

Battery charging is an ongoing field. There isn't conclusive evidence that fast charging itself is bad. However, fast charging have a measurable impact on battery life in the field
https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2014-09-14-study-sheds-new-light-why-batteries-go-bad.aspx
http://ecec.mne.psu.edu/Pubs/2018_Yang_JPS.pdf
Other variables include discharge rate or temperature also have an effect on battery life too. Like any engineering problem, fast charging is a trade off. The loss of battery life may not be pronounced as the normal 2-year life span usage rate.
Please note, fast charging is not part of the USB standard. Qualcomm, Huawei, Oppo and Apple create their own implementations.
Even worse, lots of cables break the USB C power spec.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/11/8/13564460/usb-c-spec-apple-cables-port-future-macbook
https://bensonapprovedcom.wordpress.com/
Benson Leung regularly validates cables ever since a third party cable kill a chrome pixel.
I am not sure what will happen if you mix up different chargers.


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Error in Galaxy tab a: 'Unable to restart your device. Verification failed' after supersu
I own a Galaxy tab a 10.1 with s pen (2016). I flashed via odin, twrp 3.1.1.0 and the system booted fine. Then I flashed the last version of SuperSU and since then the system doesn't turn on and I get the famous
Verification failed. Unable to restart your device. The integrity verification has failed. You need to restart your device to factory default settings. This will erase your data.
As I can't access my data in twrp, I tried to flash no-verity-opt-encrypt (6.0) but it doesn't help and I still can't access my data on the internal storage from twrp. Before I do a factory reset, I'd like to backup my data. Do you know if it's possible or how can I fix this error?
Will flashing the stock firmware help?

Uhh, ok. If you're able to boot to TWRP, click mount and put a check mark in each box. Go back to TWRP file manager and poooof you shout see what you're looking for. Backup all partitions, then do a factory wipe.  Go to restore and only check "data". I suggest you root with Magisk (system-less) and find yourself a sweet custom ROM like AEX.

Thanks but I can't mount data. I have omb in my internal storage under twrp.

Do a backup of whatever you have left of your ROM. Move to computer. Use Odin and flash stock ROM, then flash the AOF8 non Knox kernel from XDA. Flash Magisk 17.1 or lower. Boot. Check to make sure you have the proper TWRP for your device! Go to Lineage or AOSP and find your ROM for your device. Flash it. Flash Magisk 17.3.

so my data is lost ? Do you have any idea how to save it without wiping the data partition?

by the way I couldn't find AOF8 non-knox kernel for this device in xda. can you please send a link?

If you didn't erace data partition, it's still there somewhere, but the path is corrupt. Make sure you install BusyBox, you can find a flashable static BusyBox on XDA. But like I said, flash just your system partition first which may restore the path to your data, but you might loose root which is probably a good thing. Magisk my friend.


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adb error type 3 Activity class {com.android.launcher3/com.android.launcher3.WallpaperCropActivity} does not exist
I tried to change my wallpaper via adb. As I'm new to Android and don't know much about its activities, launcher etc. I don't know where my mistake is. I have found following adb command:
adb shell am start -d file:///sdcard/Download/test1.jpg -a android.service.wallpaper.CROP_AND_SET_WALLPAPER -f 0x1 com.android.launcher3/.WallpaperCropActivity

I'm getting the following error:
Error type 3
Error: Activity class {com.android.launcher3/com.android.launcher3.WallpaperCropActivity} does not exist.

I tried another command which shows a message on the device screen:
Picture couldn't load as wallpaper

adb command which shows the message:
adb shell am start -a android.service.wallpaper.CROP_AND_SET_WALLPAPER -c android.intent.category.DEFAULT -d file:///sdcard/Download/$bild -t 'image/' -e mimeType 'image/'

The devices OS is Android 8.1.
Does anyone know how to change the wallpaper (Home- and Lockscreen) of an Android device with adb?

What device is it? Which launcher are you using? Is the Android rooted? And, can I know why you are resorting to adb for this?

@Firelord I think it‘s Launcher3. The Device is not rooted. I want to set some settings for those devices. I have to do these „default settings“ very often. A part of our default settings is a special background. So I thought i could create a Script which sets the picture that I want as background.


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Android's certain button cannot pressed
Im facing issue cant press certain button (i.e. VPN ok button, chrome agree t&c), as seen in the video
Screen Record (GDrive)
Currently i am using

Ressurection Remix 7.0 (Android Pie/9)
OnePlus X E1003
GApps is stock, but removed certain apps such as pixel/google rom as it may conflict with previous try of installation.
PS: i wil post on rom's xda forum later

Try to clear cache and data of chrome browser, I know that shown is chrome's first open page(without any data), force close chrome and have a try

I already try that, and somehow i could bypass first page. Now, its running normal
Thanks for the answer


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What android icon app is this?pls help

Please help me identify the icon encircled in my attached photo..thank you.

Apparently it has something to do with you messenger app. Long press it and choose info. If it gives you an option to uninstall, it's a user app, uninstall it. If it doesn't, it's a system app. Force stop, and see if your messenger still works. Myself, I'd just uninstall the app if it's causing problems. If not, hide it.


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Play store downloaded more than 100%

What is happening? Play store keeps downloading after 100% how to fix this ?

I had a similar problem on a very old version of the Google Play Store. Did you try pressing "Force Stop"?


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Moto G5 Plus Wi-Fi disconnects every now and then
Moto G5 Plus (XT1686 - Boot-loader locked) running on Stock Android 8.1.0 with latest security patch(August 2018) disconnects from Wi-Fi network for no apparent reason. My device is right next to the Wi-Fi Router (Other devices have no issue with connection at the same location) , the Network strength is high. 10 seconds after getting disconnected from the network, it tries to connect back to the network and it works for another 2 minutes before getting disconnected from the network.
This issue occurs randomly (Could not blame/pinpoint certain installed Apps). I booted into Safe mode to check if it happens because of a particular App on my phone. But the issue occurred on Safe mode.Also, I don't think the problem is my Wi-Fi Router(D-Link DIR-600M) because the issue occurs with WiFi Routers at my workplace, Friend's home as well.
I tried every workaround mentioned in the forum here.

I have turned OFF Turn off WiFi Scanning
Forget Network, Add it back manually
Tunnel the network through VPN
I have factory reset several times hoping to fix the issue but to vain.
I have reset the Wi-Fi network, changed Router configuration from Auto Channel to a fixed Channel
I have changed the Router configuration - Security encryption method to WPA2-PSK, WPA-PSK

I have no clue as to what is the issue here, I'll be grateful for any Fix / workarounds / Creative solutions. Let me know if you need any more information.

Actually, the issue here seems fairly clear in looking at your troubleshooting... discounting the fact that your router is 9 years old and likely not up to current standards, you did state:

I don't think the problem is my Wi-Fi Router(D-Link DIR-600M) because
  the issue occurs with WiFi Routers at my workplace, Friend's home as
  well.

Considering you have tried this on multiple networks and connections, and you have factory reset and performed a network reset multiple times, the conclusion can only be that your phone is defective. You should contact Moto for a warranty replacement, or just consider replacing it if it is no longer under warranty.
In looking at all the troubleshooting you have done, and given the above quoted statement you made there doesn't seem to be any other possible cause.
There is no known issue with WiFi on the Moto G5+ in any Android version or release, and since this is not related to a single router or connection, the issue seems quite clear, your Moto is defective.

The problem is, Even the replacement will have the same issue (Lots of users on the forum have gotten it replaced to find that the WiFi issue prevailed on the replaced phone as well ). I wanted to find a workaround to the issue, hence posted the issue. Thanks, anyway.

@Manubhargav If the issue is the device, then there probably isn't much you can do. Even unlocking and using a custom ROM likely won't help, they all use the same radios.


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Micro SD Card causing Problem in Tablet
Device: Pipo N7 MT8163
Android 7.0
I am using a Micro SD Card (128GB) in my tablet. As far as I know the device is supposed to be able to handle this card. The tablet recognizes it without a problem. What I am experiencing is, that I find different areas of the tablet malfunctioning. for example I can't download or install new apps while the card is mounted in the tablet. If I unmount/eject it then I'm fine.
I also find that most of the time I can't delete data or cache in the Settings -> Apps. Even when I can delete it doesn't update the data and chache amounts.
Usually when you go to the apps in settings it shows under each app the amount of space the app is taking. When my card is mounted I don't get this info.
These are only a couple of the problems I seem to have. As soon as I eject the card all goes back to normal.
I have tried to google this problem but wasn't able to find anything related to my problem.
Please if someone can advise on what I can do

I had a similar problem. I couldn't get to the root cause but I copied the contents to PC, bought another SD card and copied from PC and it worked fine. Strangely, the original SD card worked fine on other devices and is in use till date.

This didn't help.with the second card I have the same problem.

In that case, I suspect a hardware issue but to make sure it is only hardware, I would suggest factory reset (after saving data). If it continues after factory reset, more likely hardware

When I do a factory reset it helps for a little while and then it goes back to giving me problems. This is the reason I'm thinking it may be that the device can't handle such a big card.

Big card could be one reason - you would need to check with a smaller card and also see the phone specs to see what's the maximum size supported.

As I mentioned in the question as far as I know it should support 128GB cards. Its a little bit hard to find decent info on these China devices.


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Bootloader unlock HTC Desire 12+
I am trying to unlock the bootloader of my HTC Desire 12+. I tried several tutorials but they all failed.
Here is what I did so far:

I boot the phone into recovery mode
Start the bootloader
After the phone started the bootloeader I try to find it with fastboot devices form my desktop computer (connected to the phone via USB)

PS C:\ADB> fastboot devices 5)
  d126ce6c        fastboot

I try to get the OEM identifier token

C:\ADB> fastboot oem get_identifier_token
  FAILED (remote: unknown command) Finished. Total time: 0.000s

Here I am stuck.
I read online that for some HTC devices I need to enter the recovery/download mode. However, I do not even find my HTC device (via fastboot devices) in recovery mode nor do I know what the "download mode" is.
Any ideas how to fix this?
Thanks!

I had the wrong fasstboot.exe file. It worked when I choose the one provided in the section "All Other Supported Models" on https://www.htcdev.com/


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Moved files within Internal Storage and file can't be accessed from android
I have Moto G S5 (Android 8.1). I connected it to my laptop (Ubuntu 18.04). I moved some files (about 4 Gb) from a folder in internal storage to root folder of the internal storage.
Transfer happened succesfully. But the File manager of android doesn't show those files in the root folder. And I can access those files from my laptop, but when I try to open it. It shows Unknown MTP error. The SD card capacity when viewed from Android has decreased by 4 Gb (same as those files), but when I see the SD card capacity through Ubuntu the capacity remains intact.
Please suggest me some steps to recover those files. I tried copying those files back to the original location, but I get the same MTP error.

raw ideas: a) use a terminal emulator or b) adb shell to gain shell access, then use the mv command to move the files back to their original location. I wouldn't trust MTP farther than I can throw my house. To my experience, the adb shell approach has the best chances (even better if you have root access).

@Izzy Isn't adb a tad slow when transferring big files, though?

@DeathMaskSalesman compared to MTP? ROFL And then, OP wants to move files within the device, so that's not relevant (it's no adb pull – though in my experience, even that is faster than transferring via MTP (but then again, what is not?))

@Izzy Can't argue with that. I still don't get why Google picked MTP to begin with.

@DeathMaskSalesman if you just got your first Android device ever, without any "depth knowledge" in advance, and plugged it into your computer – what would you end up with? Besides, Nikhil is lucky he didn't try that from Windows and lost all those files, if that bug wasn't yet fixed …

@Izzy Ah, "that" bug. I don't even want to remember.

@DeathMaskSalesman I was never affected. Don't use either MTP nor Windows :)</OT> // Nikhil: Have you tried that? If you have no idea about ADB, our adb tag wiki will be a good start.

@Izzy I'm using neither as well, starting from that day.

@Izzy Thanks for the guide. I would go through it. It previously sounded complicated.

@Nikhil once you got the knack it's easy (I use it almost daily, so I might be prejudiced). The only troubles are drivers (when you're on Windows), and then maybe getting the device properly detected for the first time (not hard either if you know how). A little self-promotion: my article ADB for end-users might help getting you interested to dig-in – and started :)


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Overheating device with random apps spiking CPU usage
Few days ago my phone has started overheating and burning through the battery like crazy. I don't use it too much, and it used to last 1.5-2 days, now it's dead in 6 hours.
I've installed System monitor lite and it's showing that several of my cores are constantly at extremely high usage (over 80%), and various regular applications like Gmail and LinkedIn are shown spiking the CPU up to 20% each. I expected a single app to be doing something stupid, and after seeing which one it is, it would be simple to just remove it, but that's not the case. It turns out that a bunch of regular apps that I haven't opened in days are going crazy.
Here are some screenshots:

So, any suggestions besides doing factory reset?
The phone in question is Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 running original MIUI without root.

A couple of things:

Applications that show running processes are only able to show the user processes (meaning no kernel processes)
Android gives more priority to the application in the foreground (the one you are currently seeing). When you open the the task manager, the other processes are being capped. The measuring you are trying to do influences the results.

If you can provide more details by measuring externally with one of these:

Try installing Android Studio:
Post the Log Cat results:
Or use the Android Debug Bridge (adb) with adb logcat – you can view your Android device’s log.

With one of these you can actually profile your running Android phone over a USB connection.
I don't think anyone can give you a complete direct answer without some more information, except if maybe they had the exact same model number and issue.

looking like you are on Chinese variant of RN4 with mediatek deca-core processor
If you feel like your phone is using too much cpu power than it is not the case image showing cpu usage of asus zenfone max pro m1]1
here you can give a look at my device cpu usage. all 8 cores are working on a high frequency but still i am getting  a great battery backup. so definitely it is not looking like a issue in cpu.
u can try resetting your device or can take help from a xiaomi care.

I have 2 of these exact same phones, and as you can see from the second one, it's running cold compared to the first one: https://imgur.com/a/59u13EG. 7/10 cores are offline, and others are running fairly low, no app is using more than 2%-3% of CPU.

did you updated your phone recently looking like a software issue and pls check cpu usages with another apps too and check whether results are same or different.

here in my case both apps are showing different results


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How to read (or restore) files on encrypted SD card after update to Android Oreo?
My situation
I have been using the encryption of my Android phone’s external SD Card on a Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017) Duos (SM-J330F) ever since I got it. I have recently updated my OS to Android 8.0 (Oreo).
Upon restart a notification was displayed that the encrypted SD card could not be decrypted because it was encrypted on a different device (which is no true; I have been using the same device, but the OS might not be able to recognize this). It is my understanding that decryption of the SD card is not possible on any other device.
This might not be the first case where Android fails to decrypt SD card after update to Oreo.
What have I tried?
I have shutdown my device, removed the (micro) SD card, and plugged it in to my notebook. All (?) files are visible, the filenames look okay, but content is not readable. I have then created an image by running
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p1 of=~/SANDISKSDHC.img status=progress
I have reformatted the SD card with my Android device. I have then written back the IMG file to the SD card by running
dd if=~/SANDISKSDHC.img of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 status=progress
I have loaded the SD card into my Android device and started it. Again a notification was displayed that the encrypted SD card could not be decrypted because it was encrypted on a different device...
My resources

How do I decrypt files on my SD card that I encrypted using the Settings? (doesn't seem to apply to my situation)
Encrypted SD card failed after S5 restart (different situation, but references the next)
How to decrypt a microSD card after a factory reset of the device used to encrypt it? (tried this, did not solve my problem)
Cannot open Airwatch encrypted files on SD card after Android update (no answer)
How to Read marshmallow encrypted memory card? (different situation, and I did not understand the procedure linked in the answer)
How to restore files on SD Card that was protected by Vault app? (different situation)


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Clear all apps user data with ADB without factory reset
I'm trying to achieve the goal of clearing all app data using Git Bash on Windows, but I don't know exactly if this approach is wrong, because it shows FAILED on every line.
adb shell 'pm list packages' | sed -e "s/package\://" | xargs -n1 adb shell pm clear

List all packages
adb shell 'pm list packages'

Remove "package:" from the begining of each line
adb shell 'pm list packages' | sed -e "s/package\://"

Execute "pm clear" on every package name
adb shell 'pm list packages' | sed -e "s/package\://" | xargs -n1 adb shell pm clear

Regards.

I wonder what's wrong with this. Seems to work fine when I tried a dry run. See if everything is fine and no special character is causing an issue. Replace pm clear with pm path and see if it also fails.

@Firelord: pm path is working correctly!!


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Unresponsive Samsung Galaxy S6 phone, even to soft reset (volume down + power)
I'm having some trouble with my Samsung Galaxy S6 not responding.
I can't remember which Android version it has; it's whatever it came with in 2015, so it's Marshmallow or earlier. The phone is not rooted, not modified. I think that USB debugging is enabled.
The phone is showing a slowly blinking blue notification light.
It does not respond to pressing any of the keys, does not respond to soft reset (volume down + power), does not respond to hard reset (volume up + power + home).
When plugged into a computer via USB cable the computer does not give the option to connect to the phone.
Running "adb devices" at the (Ubuntu) command line with phone connected returns blank list of devices.
What are my options? Is there some other reset option I haven't yet tried?


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Is there a command in /system/bin to wipe cache?
Is there a command in /system/bin to perform cache clearing?

If by wiping you mean erasing the contents of partition mounted at /cache, you can delete them simply from any file explorer or commandline (terminal emulator / adb shell). It needs root. Or if filesystem on your cache partition is ext4, you can use /system/bin/make_ext4fs to format the partition (what custom recoveries do usually). But it can be dangerous in some situations. Some apps save logs etc. there.


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How to copy the /system/media/audio from phone to PC
The adb pull /system/media/audio command works on one of my phones to copy the folder to my PC, it copies the folder's contents recursively.
However, on my other phone the USB connector is broken, and the phone cannot get a USB data connection. The phone is not rooted and it's impossible to root without losing data. The apps FolderSync, ES File Explorer and ASTRO File Manager can't see the /system folder: they see / as empty.
My plan was (1) to use a file manager to copy the contents of /system/media/audio to /sdcard/audio, and then (2) to use FolderSync to copy /sdcard/audio to Google Drive. Step (1) doesn't work, I haven't found any app so far which is able to see /system. Also running ADB over TCP would require rooting the phone, which is not possible (because I don't want to lose data and settings).
Is there a way to copy /system/media/audio from this phone to my PC?

What about using Termux and copy those files like this?
cp -R /system/media/audio /sdcard/system_audio

and then you can pull system_audio from your storage as usual.
For most ROMs, you'll want to grant storage permission tovTermux first:
termux-setup-storage

and tap "Grant".

I was getting cp: ...: Permission denied until I enabled the Storage permission on the Termux app on Android 9. Then the copy worked. If you update your answer with that, I'll accept it.

Setup an FTP server. I used this app. I set the login to anonymous, HOME directory to root (/) and started the server. I logged in to the server using my PC (used Linux; Windows natively supports FTP access too - try the answer here from Ashok). If you get into issues in using your File explorer to access FTP server, then simply fire up your browser and access the URL directly. It would be like ftp://IP_ADDRESS:PORT. Make sure to remain within the same Wi-Fi.
At first, I logged in successfully (Code 200) but naturally didn't see anything in FTP server (an unprivileged user). But I edited the URL to directly jump into /system/ and it did load successfully, all without root too. My URL was ftp://192.168.0.18:9999/system/.


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Possible to create offline (local/non-synced) contacts in Android Oreo 8.1?
In Android Oreo 8.1 (on a Motorola device), is it possible to create offline (aka "local" or "non-synced") contacts?
This was fairly easy on previous Android versions, but I'm not seeing a way to do it on Android Oreo 8.1.
On Oreo 8.1, everything seems to get synced to an account.

On Android devices without an option to save contacts locally (either to the phone or the SIM), you can use FJ Software's MyLocalAccount (which you can choose to sync to your Google account or not as you wish).

Edit:
It seems that Motorola's Contact app has no support to add offline contacts. I tried installing the APK of Contacts from Motorola and it doesn't show SIM or Phone as an option to save contacts.
However, it does show (in search and normal listing) the contacts which are already stored on the phone or SIM.
So, what you can do is to use a 3rd party contacts app to add contacts on your phone. Then you can continue to use the stock contacts app to access them and dial.
Google contacts is a nice app which closely resembles Moto contacts, but does come with the ability to store contacts on the device.
Original answer and mostly irrelevant: Leaving just because there are comments related to it.
When creating a new contact, you will have the options to choose where to save the contact.
Simply choose Phone or SIM from the Saving to drop-down and you should be good to go. Here's how it looks on my Nokia 7. It is on Android 8.1 as well. I know the Motorola implementation will slightly vary, but it will be overall the same.

Thanks.  That's exactly what I expected to see, but there are no unsynced options present on the Motorola.  Since you're using Android Oreo 8.1 as well, it seems to be a Motorola limitation, not an Android one, which is strange since Lenovo uses a fairly plain vanilla version of Android for the Motorola devices.  Either it's a Motorola limitation, or it's a feature on your Nokia.  Either way, your answer is helpful because it shows that it's possible on Oreo 8.1.  Now how to get it to work on the Motorola?

@RockPaperLizard I tried out a moto app and it seems that you are right. There is no support for offline contacts in there. I've updated my answer.

Thanks for the update.  Do you know if the Google Contacts app will allow importing a VCF (or CSV) file into unsynced storage?

Yes, the Settings > Import has options for .vcf file and to save it to device. Now, I do not know if it only accepts 1 contact per VCF or it can take many. Ideally it should :)

I was having this exact problem on Asus zenfone max pro m2.  Their "pure android" experience removed their default contacts app and Google's stock contacts app is hellbent on forcing people to use their cloud/gmail google acct storage sync.  I read @Someone and xda answer and they recommended adding a LocalAccount as an acct.  Then you can pick this local acct as the default contact in which to save contacts  I'll write my own answer to this soon.


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Disable or change audio ducking (lowering)?
The audio ducking feature seems to let apps decide to lower its volume or pause playback while a notification from another app is playing.
Even though this feature is turned on by default, I am unable to find a way to change the amount by which the volume is lowered (similar to how this could be done on any decent OS for PC). Or to just disable this feature.
Most answers to this question on the internet have been utilizing the fallacy that you should mute the notifications if you don't want them to interrupt your playback (of let's say, music).
Obviously I do not need this accessibility feature. I can separate sound sources just fine. Last time I checked this is one of the basic cognitive skills that most humans possess, but maybe I have superpowers after all.
I think it is clear what I want to achieve. No messing with the audio levels unless I say so. A user that is in control, is a happy user. I want to be happy too :(
There is probably no setting to do this. Since I am a developer myself, I wonder if there is some hackish way to modify the default audio ducking volume to simply 100%? Or just using something similar to 'about:config' / windows regedit for Android?

There is a method here (not tried by me) https://www.xda-developers.com/pokemon-go-audio-focus/

On Android MIUI 12.5.4 I found the option at:
Sound & Vibration > Sound Assistant -> Multiple Audio Sources (don't adjust media volume during incoming notifications or while audio from other source is played)
This made notifications play at normal volume when I was listening to music, and more importantly, no audio ducking.

Not sure on Android 8.1, but on Android 5.1, it's the following:

Sound & Notification Settings > Interruptions

Disable Interruptions on specific apps or all together

Does this actually do what I want? I just want notification to play during music playback, with the given volumes. Btw, this never happened on my previous Android, I think there might have been a setting to change this on that. The awful thing is that this happened after an upgrade that Android said cannot be undone due to policy updates.

Looks like "Interruptions" is another name for "Do Not Disturb"? AFAIK, it blocks the notifications completely, not lowering the notification volume only.

I fixed it by turning do not disturb on and off again to be honest- Android 11


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Is it possible to have Google Assistant work with screen off?
When I'm out and about, I usually have wireless headphones (with mic) on, and my phone in my pocket, usually listening to a podcast.
Quite often I want to add something to my todo list- and I'd like to have Google Assistant do that for me.
But the problem is that it seems that Google Assistant requires screen on to work - is it possible to get around this?

So do you have a headset with Google Assistant support: https://support.google.com/headphones/answer/9027902?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en Also see: https://9to5google.com/2017/09/29/how-to-google-assistant-headphones-instruction-videos/

Also make sure your settings are correct per link below. Samsung phones seem to have an issue. [Edit] to add device. https://support.google.com/assistant/thread/387976?hl=en

@MorrisonChang Ok - cool, that looks like it answers the question. Feel free to post an answer saying that it needs to be a 'made for google' device, and a link to those instructions, and I'll accept it.

To use Google Assistant with features as shown in this article on Google Assistant headset instruction videos you'll need to be using Headphones optimized for the Google Assistant or Made for Google:
See: Official Google Assistant on Headphones Documentation


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Use Samsung or Google account for automatic backup?
On my Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 8.0 I'm logged into both a Samsung account and a Google account. Both of these offer cloud backup and data synchronisation of settings and documents, but I'm unsure which I should use, because it's not clear to me what each does exactly.
What I'm looking for is an automatic backup of settings, contacts, messages, downloaded files, photographs, ... in case my phone is stolen or lost or I have to do a reset for some reason.
This doesn't have to be done immediately; I'd be ok with data being uploaded once a day, or even every couple of days for things like photographs.
At the moment it seems that both the Samsung and Google account have some degree of backup/syncing switched on, but they're probably doing the same thing twice, and they may get in each other's way if I ever want to restore data.
Since I'm already using a lot of Google services (Gmail, Calendar...) it seems a logical choice to go with the Google account, but I don't want to completely disable the Samsung account, because I want to keep the "Where's My Phone?" functionality.
So, what would be the best way to set up automatic backups, and how do I avoid the Google and Samsung backup functionality doing duplicate work or getting in each othere's way?

If you are going to switch phones to another Samsung brand in the future, use the Samsung backup.
If you switch to a different android phone manufacturer, then use Google backup.
However, there is no reason not to use both. All of the Google service stuff, to my knowledge, does not backup with Samsung, and vice-versa.
As for restoring apps and data, I do not think they will collide.
You could also change what each is backing up. Say for instance, let Google save off the Apps and other google service things, and let Samsung do the rest.


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TWRP accepting `adb` connections but no `fastboot` connections
I can connect to TWRP (3.2.3-0) with adb but fastboot devices does not list any and fastboot continue (while my phone is booted into TWRP) only prints:
$ fastboot continue
< waiting for any device >

I can rule out a driver problem since I have used fastboot successfully with the same combination of phone, cable and PC.

ADB and fastboot are two different protocols. Android Debugging Bridge works in ROM or in Recovery mode, when adbd (adb daemon) is running on phone.
Fastboot is one of the most commonly used Firmware Update Protocols. It works in bootloader mode which is also called download mode or emergency download mode (EDL) by some vendors. Some devices have both modes where EDL provides more primary access as compared to fastboot. Some OEM's use different tools for firmware flashing such as ODIN, nvFlash, QPST/QFIL etc.
Bootloader mode is usually accessible by rebooting in bootloader mode from recovery or ROM, or by pressing Vol+ key when device is booting. Similarly EDL is accessible using different combinations of Vol+, Vol- and Power key.
Bootloader is one of the very first pieces of software that is loaded in booting process. GRUB is the most common one used on Linux PCs. On Android embedded devices, the most commonly used bootloader by SOC vendors is ABOOT. To know further about bootloaders, boot process and what we can do in adb/fastboot mode, have a look at given links:

Boot Process: Android vs. Linux
ADB & Fastboot

You are confused about fastboot. It is not another adb. There is no fastboot server (in TWRP) which accepts connections. Rather it is a step/mode in the boot process of Android. Think of it as GRUB. You need to reboot your phone while the fastboot command is waiting for your device.


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What if a thief disabled Android Device Manager in settings
I have my phone stolen and It has no Lockscreen pattern. No sim Card. Location Turned off. No Data/WiFi.
What if the thief is smart enough to turnoff the Android Device Manager first before doing stuff with the mobile?
Does Android require Google account password first before disabling the Device Manager?
Will the Remote Erase work once the device goes online ? (Do they use device Id or IMEI for this)

Hard luck. Without any security like PIN etc, he is as good as the phone legitimate owner and if he turns off Android Device Manager, you can't wipe the device. Remote erase only works if it is enabled

Law One of Computer Crackers: If I can touch your device, I own your device.
Law Two of Computer Crackers: If you device does not have a password, I definitely own your device.

Okay, so those are not really laws, at least not written ones. I am just stating them to make a point.

Because you have no device security to access it, anyone who gets hold of your phone can do anything they want.

What if the thief is smart enough to turnoff the Android Device Manager first before doing stuff with the mobile?
Does Android require Google account password first before disabling the Device Manager?

Then you are out of luck. You do not need a password to disable/uninstall any application through settings.

Will the Remote Erase work once the device goes online ? (Do they use device Id or IMEI for this)

No, it uses your linked Google account to erase the data.

No sim Card. Location Turned off. No Data/WiFi.

But before any of this, you say there is no sim card (meaning no carrier service available) and no wifi. That alone means that you are not able to do anything with device manager. If the thief were to connect it to the wifi, then you could, unless they have removed your account before connecting to the wifi.


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Can Android device be used as USB webcam for full-HD, 30fps video source for Skype calls via PC?
Have found some apps that allow an Android device s.a. a Smartphone with good camera to be used as a USB webcam, when used of ADB over USB. However they seem to limit the video source to be fairly low quality i.e. mostly little better than VGA or if higher-resolution then at low fps.
Is there anyway to tether an Android device to a PC, over USB while using the device camera as a USB webcam working at FullHD (1080p) at 25-30fps, that could be used for doing Skype (or Skype for Business) calls ? I would like to use this setup for a live-demo. I know that I could go out and buy a dedicated webcam, but trying to avoid it if possible. My PC has an inbuilt cam, but it is 720p (not very good) and for the demo I need to be able to tilt, swivel, pan the camera - not very convenient when using inbuilt PC webcam, but fairly easy for an Android phone, mounted on a tripod.

http://www.skipser.com/p/2/p/android-as-webcam.html

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/features/how-to-use-your-phone-as-a-webcam-617643