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How can I use Gmail's canned responses on my phone?
I frequently use canned responses in Gmail on my computer but it doesn't seem to be accessible on my phone. Are there any workarounds or solutions that allow me to use this feature on my phone as well?

As of July 2019, the features is not available for Gmail app but you can use it when using a browser on your phone and requesting the desktop version.
You are left with 3 possible solutions:

Create draft messages that you can then copy and paste for new messages.
Enable "Smart Reply" in the Settings of the Gmail app for the account you are using. Then hope that you will get good suggestions when replying to messages.
Use Canned Responses for GMail. It purports:

GMail canned responses are very handy on a full featured web browser but when it comes to mobile - it's almost impossible to import your canned responses in an email message. With Canned Responses for GMail you will be able to do it in 2 taps. A swipe and a tap actually :)


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Copy messages from my old phone
How can I transfer my SMS and MMS messages from my old phone to my new phone?
My old phone uses Android 2.1 and it seems that you currently need at least Android 2.2 to log in to a Google account. Therefore, I can't use any tools which require a Google account, such as Android Market/Google Play.

You can download the app mentioned in my answer here. When you are replying, click the "Add comment" button to post a comment. You have previously click to post an answer while you should have clicked comments. Please click on the ? button on the top right of your browser, then take the tour to learn how to navigate the site.

You can try SMS Backup & Restore. Install it on both phones. Backup the messages from the old phone (preferably in xml format). Transfer the file on the new phone, then use the app to restore the messages.
You can also try the method described in this answer.
Disclaimer: I am not related to the app's developer(s), just used it a few times.
Note: I am not sure if it still supports Android 2.1 or not.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Why do notifications stop for WhatsApp after few minutes?
I have Nokia 5.1 Plus with Android Pie.
Now, since a few days, I'm facing this irritating problem. When the WhatsApp is open, it works fine. You receive push notifications, and messages are not delayed.
When you minimize it (i.e., open other apps) and leave the phone away, I don't notice any problem for 10-15 minutes. Even when screen is locked, I receive WhatsApp notifications.
After 10-15 minutes, WhatsApp kind of freezes. When I try to send message from other phones to my phone, I see nothing. When I use phone and open WhatsApp (which wasn't closed, just minimized), I see it takes 2-3 seconds to fetch pending messages. So it kind of stops.
I have removed all battery optimizations settings for this app. Did reset of the app, still can't solve this issue. How can I fix it?

Duplicate of: https://android.stackexchange.com/q/213949/218526

I don't see it a duplicate. My notifications stop after a few minutes, not immediately.

But the reasons are same. Some power-saving / data-saving mechanism kills the apps in background.

I noticed something today after a month of problem. My phone has 32 GB memory. I noticed it had consumed 29 GB of it till today. So I freed up some space (9 GB free now). Later I noticed the WhatsApp problem is solved (so far I didn't notice any problem). Is it a possible cause?

I don't think so. By killing apps, memory is cleared from RAM, not eMMC.

Memory = storage space. I guess I typed something wrong. What you say now?

RAM is volatile memory (that requires electric current to hold data) which running processes use along with CPUs. That's the basics of computing. Hard disks and Flash Memory (SSDs, eMMC, USB sticks, SD cards etc.) are forms of persistent memory (that aren't dependent on electric current). Running processes (including all your apps) have nothing to do whether your persistent memory (eMMC) is completely full or completely empty (more than 90 or 95% full may break apps sometimes). Operating System (Android) kills running processes (apps) to free up RAM for other processes. I hope I made my point.

If you think freeing up space on your storage resolved your problem of missed / delayed notifications, you can add that as accepted answer for others' benefit.

Sure. But I'm not sure if this solved the problem. So I wanted to know about it, if you knew something like this.

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


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32-bit and 64-bit Android: how to tell before buying a phone
I have been looking into 32-bit or 64-bit Android versions for phones. It seems to me that the information on the number of bits of the installed Android version is always missing from phones' specs, unlike what happens for the CPU. Googling around, the ways I have found to understand whether a phone is running a 32-bit or a 64-bit OS all include actually doing something with the phone, like looking up the kernel version or downloading some app, like AIDA64.
How do I know if a phone I want to buy will come with a 32-bit or a 64-bit Android before I buy it? It would be interesting to find a layman-friendly criterion or resource that allows me to know this in advance, especially to be able to look into the cheapest phones running a 64-bit Android.

Are you looking for website or on device indicator? Or just buy a phone with at least 6GB of RAM which requires 64-bit support.

One way to know that the OS is 64-bit is to check the RAM. 32-bit OSes have (see/utilise) a maximum of 4GB of RAM while 64-bit devices see more.
Devices with more than 4GB of RAM will be using 64-bit Android.
Limits are as followed:
32-bit:  2^32 = 2^2 * 2^30 = 4GB. A 32-bit OS will go 1 bits up to 4GB.
64-bit:  2^64 = 2^4 * 2^60 = 16EB. A 64-bit OS will go 1 bits up to 16EB.
Up to 4GB, the RAM won't help differentiating whether it is 32 or 64-bit. More than 4GB, then it is more than likely to be 64-bit.
Large Physical Address Extension(LPAE) was implemented to allow physical address up to 40-bit. But as @Irfan as inferred, it is not known (at least publicly) if there are devices in the market which have taken advantage of it.
Conversion table
-----------------
2^10 = 1 KB
2^20 = 1 MB
2^30 = 1 GB
2^40 = 1 TB
2^50 = 1 PB
2^60 = 1 EB

I have Redmi Note 4 with 3GB DDR3, but it's 64-bit. So this criteria could be misleading sometimes, partially applicable.

@IrfanLatif Could you explain the misleading part? Because I said that devices with more than maximum of 4GB of RAM will have 32 bit OS. But a device with more than 4GB will be 64-bit (it doesn't mean that a 64-bit OS can't handle less than 4GB of RAM, but that the 32+bit OS can't handle more than 4GB). I will be more than happy to edit, if you think it's necessary.

@ReddyLutonadio Only windows sees restrictions in handling RAM for 64/32 bir

@ReddyLutonadio A phone comes with 3GB RAM. Based on your answer, one can't be sure if it's 32 bit or 64 bit. If RAM >= 4GB, then the criteria holds good. But some 32-bit architecture also supported larger RAMs? I remember some news from a few years back.

Also include a reference to LPAE, though I'm not sure if any devices are/were shipped with this.

Until the manufacturer doesn't describe the technical specifications of OS included with a device, it's hard to say if it's 32-bit or 64-bit. But a device with 64-bit hardware is expected to come with 64-bit OS (not always), let's take a look how to identify 64-bit hardware.
To find out if a device is 32-bit or 64-bit, you need to check the specifications of its SoC and then of its processor. For instance SoC in Redmi Note 4 is Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (MSM 8953), which contains processor Cortex-A53. It's evident from technical specifications of Cortex-53 that it's based on ARMv8 architecture, which can process 2 types of Instruction Sets: aarch64 (which Android's arm64-v8a ABI uses) and aarch32 (which Android's armeabi-v7a ABI uses). So the phone is 64-bit, shipped with a 64-bit OS.
On-device processor/SoC information can be checked using some third party app as you have mentioned, or directly from CLI: uname -m, cat /proc/cpuinfo, cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model etc.
RELATED: Android apps for “armeabi-v7a” and “x86” architecture: SoC vs. Processor vs. ABI

What you wrote is correct, however a 64bit CPU doe not necessarily means that the phone is running a 64bit version of Android.

@Robert valid point, I was focusing hardware aspect. But I don't think one would prefer 32-bit OS on a 64-bit hardware, isn't it? It's a wastage of resources then. If a phone's specs aren't out from OEM, I don't think there is way to find out if Android ROM is 64 or 32 bit. But they don't tell much about stock ROM usually, other than Android version, or if it's heavy mod on AOSP like MIUI.

I don't know the numbers but it is not uncommon to use a 32bit  OS on a 64bit capable hardware. Just think of the Raspberry which has 64bit hardware since 4 years and finally this year gets a 64bit OS.

Raspberry Pi is a learning PC, not a phone, maintained by a foundation. There isn't any beneficiary giant corporate group behind that. So they don't have teams of paid developers working 24/7. And is more open source as compared to Android based phones.

I'd also like to point out most armeabi-v7a CPUs are actually 64 bit but generally run a 32 bit version of Android. Arm64-v8a however is always 64 bit

@colbycdev I always though armeabi-v7a ABI and ARMv7-A CPU were always 32-bit.

@IrfanLatif nope. For instance the SoC in the Moto g6 is armeabi-v7a but Qualcomm spec for it says it's 64 bit

@colbycdev SoC in Moto G6 is Snapdragon 450, which contains processor Cortex-A53, which is based on ARMv8 architecture, which can process 2 types of Instruction Sets: aarch64 (which Android's arm64-v8a ABI uses) and aarch32 (which Android's armeabi-v7a ABI uses). That's what my understanding is.

@IrfanLatif hmm ok. Just know it's armeabi-v7a didn't know it was ARMv8

Also getconf LONG_BIT returns 64 on my Pixel 4a, Android 13. Not sure if it can be added to the methods mentioned in the last section of your answer. This was using Termux

And lscpu on Termux returns CPU op-mode(s):  32-bit, 64-bit (amongst a ton of details)


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Sensible method to edit contacts on a Samsung phone?
Currently the Samsung app for Contacts is driving me nuts on my S9+.
I used to have my contacts entered as I wanted them into the Phone address book (only one other phone number on the SIM). But then the Contacts app started to pester me about wanting to merge contacts. Dismissing those notifications by touching that X in the top right of the notification window ended up removing the one contact that was most complete for my significant other (in a sense the master contact which also contained address, birthday, siblings and stuff, aside from the phone numbers). Instead I now have her Telegram and Skype contacts as a single entry in the Contacts app. Alas, that single entry cannot be edited, only deleted. But given the intransparent handling of this stuff, I'm really afraid to delete it, because it warns me that the contacts will disappear from where ever they are defined (so presumably deleting this one entry from Contacts will end up deleting the contacts in Telegram and Skype respectively).
Anyway, so I figured I'd simply start creating a new contact for the Phone app to use, even though the phone number was already mentioned in the combined Telegram and Skype entry.
Guess what, when I create a new entry it cannot be named the same as the existing one, even though the existing one cannot be edited. I'm out of words for how badly this software is designed ...
How can I manage the contacts on my Samsung S9+ in a fashion that makes explicit where a contact is stored (i.e. where the respective data comes from), lets me merge them in either direction and lets me move them between the different address books of connected accounts (SIM, Phone, Google, mail provider)?
NB: I'd like to avoid any method involving syncing to Google or so ...

try MyPhoneExplorer from PC and edit the contacts offline (airplane mode). you will see what happens when you're back online. in case its gone you still have the backup

Try to go into your contacts (in the app you use to phone people), then click a button that says Create Contact and put the number, name, and whatever more info it needs.

did you read the question?

@Jeffrey I would not have asked the question if it were so simple. It seems indeed you didn't read the question (and whoever upvoted your answer didn't either).


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Huawei stream S can't send or receive text messages
I have a Huawei stream S which is a Japanese version of Huawei p6 . I cannot send or receive text messages . I did factory reset . Help me to fix my problem

First of all, is the SIM card detected? Does the phone receive the signal? Is your current location considered "roaming"?

Yeah all of the things work


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How to find local IP when connected to VPN?
I have connected an android device to a VPN using the native Android VPN client feature. I need to know the IP the device has been assigned on the VPN subnet, but I can't find it on any Android menu nor with any tool.

Android's VPN uses TUN interface on OSI Layer 3. So you can find what IP is assigned to that interface using Android's built-in command ip. From any terminal app or adb shell:
~$ ip addr | awk '/inet.*tun/ {print $2}'


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How to connect USB device to a phone doesn't have OTG

What are hardware and software difference between OTG support and non-OTG support devices (android)?
Is there a way to connect non-OTG device with a pendrive (or other) via USB? Is there any hardware limitations if the slave device is powered externally?
Does the OTG feature comes with kernal/OS or any android OS (6.0 or later) is capable of OTG if hardware supported? If yes, is it same for Android ONE and AOSP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go

@alecxs I went through that article, but here's the problem in practical way. Assume there is a phone that the manufacture says NO OTG support. IF I connected a pen drive with external power (as the device is unable to supply power), will it work? Is it a hardware limitation or with some software tinkering can it be achieved?

it does not really matter if it is a hardware limitation unless you have the ability to compile a custom kernel, if it does not support it you won't change this with a app. it is not related to power supply, it has to be announce the host mode (or accept the demand of the OTG adapter by short-circuit pin 4+5 in other words)


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USB OTG not showing WiFi network even after drivers are installed in Android kernel
I am trying to connect to WiFi using a USB WiFi stick by making use of OTG on my Android Nexus 6. The USB WiFi stick has a separate AP. However, I am unable to see this AP in the list of available WiFi networks on my android phone.
I have installed a CROM with a custom kernel including the drivers of the WiFi stick. I can see the drivers and firmware being loaded using dmesg:
[ 3480.147186] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci-hcd
[ 3480.161788] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=2ef5, idProduct=0008
[ 3480.161807] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 3480.161819] usb 3-1: Product: Dongle
[ 3480.161829] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: WiFi
[ 3480.161838] usb 3-1: SerialNumber: AB1018S052
[ 3480.174615] wifi 3-1:1.0: Firmware Version: 10441, $Revision: 13790 $
[ 3480.176511] ieee80211 phy9: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'
[ 3480.180991] ueventd: firmware: loading 'wifi/wifi_x/fpga_xc.bit' for '/devices/f9200000.ssusb/f9200000.dwc3/xhci-hcd.0.auto/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/firmware/wifi!wifi_x!fpga_xc.bit'
[ 3480.195460] ueventd: loading /devices/f9200000.ssusb/f9200000.dwc3/xhci-hcd.0.auto/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/firmware/wifi!wifi_x!fpga_xc.bit took 14ms
[ 3481.666134] wifi 3-1:1.0: probe::FPGA download success.

Also, there is a light on the stick that turns green when the drivers are recognized. So, I can say with surety that the drivers are loaded and the device is recognized. However, the WiFi AP for USB stick is not appearing.
When I do the same thing on my Ubuntu laptop, after loading drivers I can connect to two different WiFi networks at the same time, one with built-in WiFi card and the other with USB stick. But I believe this cannot be done with Android, where you can connect to one WiFi at a time.
I suspect that even after the drivers are loaded, Android is only scanning WiFi networks available to built-in WiFi card. Is there a possibility to disable the built-in WiFi in Android and make the Android OS scan WiFi networks available to USB WiFi stick as well?
Thank you.

Do you get a network interface on Android when USB WiFi stick is connected?

@IrfanLatif No, I can't see any additional active interfaces using ifconfig in adb shell.

Neither in /sys/class/net/?

@IrfanLatif: There are following interfaces, but these interfaces exist even without installing the device drivers:
127|shamu:/ # ls /sys/class/net/
dummy0/         r_rmnet_data3/  r_rmnet_data8/  rmnet_data4/    sit0/
lo/             r_rmnet_data4/  rmnet_data0/    rmnet_data5/    usb0/
r_rmnet_data0/  r_rmnet_data5/  rmnet_data1/    rmnet_data6/    wlan0/
r_rmnet_data1/  r_rmnet_data6/  rmnet_data2/    rmnet_data7/
r_rmnet_data2/  r_rmnet_data7/  rmnet_data3/    rmnet_usb0/

Seems like the problem is with your driver. Also confirm with iw dev | grep Interface and cat /proc/net/wireless.

@IrfanLatif: There is an interface with wlan1 with the name of the device in the Driver name as well. Can you tell how can I scan over wlan1 interface rather than default wlan0 interface and connect to a WiFi over it?
2|shamu:/ # iw dev | grep Interface
Interface wlan1
Interface wlan0
shamu:/ # ifconfig wlan1
wlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 70:b3:d5:95:85:fe  Driver lifi
BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

iw dev wlan1 scan. But for that interface should be UP.

Try iw wlan1 interface add wlan1 type managed && ip link set dev wlan1 up.

Or iw phy phy9 interface add wlan1 type managed && ip link set dev wlan1 up.


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2-step Verification No Popup only hear the sound?
The 2-step verification used to work. But today, when I sign in the account, my android device does not popup the verificaiton window at all. I only hear the notification sound, but no popup and no notification at all. This is just weird.
All special actions I did after its last working time are (1) create a second user account on android mobile (2) this is dual-sim cards mobile. I removed my primary sim card.
I am not sure if the above two actions are the cause or not. But I do hear a notification sound, but with no popup window at all.
So What is the problem? and How can I do the 2-step verification now?
Thanks a lot.

I found the solution. I have disabled some permission on Google play services. This is used to work well. BUT maybe due to google play services upgrade automatically or something else I don't know, it no longer works with some permissions disabled. After enabling all permissions to Google play services, it works again.


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A wrongly 'I need help' text was sent from google maps
I left my phone where I work and I needed a #. I asked a coworker to gain access. An 'I need help' text alert was sent to one of my groups and I recieved the same message from one of them. It was sent 20 minutes before it was discovered. Upon frantically calling to find out what kind of help was needed, I found that it was bogus. It was unnerving, to say the least. Aside from shutting it off, what can be done to correct this?

Don't let your co-workers, or anyone else, unlock or even gain physical access to your phone is the solution. Otherwise I am not sure exactly what you are asking... What is it you want to correct?

From this blog and this question on Security.SE, looks like an emergency/panic feature on some Android phones by pressing the home/power button 3 times. However, I don't know if it can be disabled or not.

https://uxdesign.cc/samsungs-send-sos-messages-is-flawed-43e6a633fe4


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Can't record voice notes in whatsapp
so my friend has a samsung edge 7. whenever she tries to record or listen to a voice note on whatsapp the voice note is full of notification sounds when while recording there was no such noise. i've checked, and the phone has the latest update. ive uninstalled whatsapp and reinstalled it, no dice.

Does she use earphones/headphones when she's recording? Or maybe she gets notification when she's recording.

neither of those two things.

Try to isolate the problem by recording outside of whatsapp then send it on whatsapp and see if the sound is still there.


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"Waxl dyne untherhouze" bug
Every time I start my device a Cleaner window appears. And in the window these words appear: "Waxl dyne untherhouze".
What does that mean? Is there a bug involved?

Sounds like you have malware. Look through your installed apps (from settings) and see if anything sticks out as fake. Uninstall it.
If nothing appears off, then the next step is doing a factory reset. Back up your information first!
If even that doesn't work, call the manufacturer for service. Fixing malware that can survive a factory reset is a very technical and risky process.


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Where is usually located the Python Interpreter on Android devices?
I have installed qpython. Just don't know what exactly is an interpreter neither where should i look for it on Android devices. Thanks

Android doesn't have Python pre-installed, that's why you need to install third party app. Now it depends on the app where it keeps it's files. Interpreter must be somewhere in /data/data/org.qpython.qpy/ directory.

I believe i found one interpreter on termux: /data/data/com.termux/files/bin/env thanks

But that's a different app, won't work with QPython.

I'll try /data/data/org.qpython.qpy3/files/bin/qpython3-android5 and will update the answer


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Are printer drivers technically possible?
It seems that printer manufacturers like Canon provide a printing app for Android devices, from which you can print documents and images stored on your Android device, but not printer drivers. So you cannot just print from any app, in the way that you can print from any program on a computer with printer drivers installed.
Is there a technical reason why there are no regular printer drivers for Android devices? Or is it just a choice made by manufacturers?

Is HP Print Service Plugin considered as a "printer driver" in your context? That aside, printing is only available natively since Android 4.4 KitKat and needs to be implemented by each individual app.

@AndrewT. That indeed seems to have regular printer driver functionality. They even call it a printer driver. And if an app doesn't support the "print" option, you can use "share", which is a logical way of doing this generically on Android, I guess. I wonder why not every printer manufacturer followed HP's example on this.


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Turn off the prompt asking "You usually dismiss these notifications. Keep showing them?"
I often dismiss notifications from my home screen by swiping them. For example, I collaborate through google docs a lot, and get updates on when a document has changed. I like knowing when this happens, but often don't need to see the change itself so I just dismiss the notification by swiping. However, almost every batch of notifications I do this with, I get prompted with:
"You usually dismiss these notifications. Keep showing them?"
It interrupts me being able to dismiss notifications. And I get asked this constantly even after selecting "Keep showing".
How can I prevent these "You usually dismiss these notifications. Keep showing them?" notifications from appearing?


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How do you select a large number of rows in Google Sheets without endless scrolling downward after selecting the first row?
In a spreadsheet of 40,000 rows, I want to select the first 2,500 rows to copy them to another sheet. The only way I've seen is to
select the first row and tediously scroll the
"dot" down to include all 2,500 rows. On a computer, this would be a breeze with the
Shift key. How to accomplish something similar in Android Sheets? The keyboard doesn't open unless I'm editing a cell, so any keyboard-based solution seems to be a non-starter. Thanks.

Looks like someone already has an answer!  I also had a couple of thoughts, but I'm an Excel user and I'm not completely sure G Sheets will have equivalent functionalities or not:

Pre-define the selection range up to the desired row as a named range, then select the range.
Utilize any keyboard app example to circumvent keyboard limitation you mention (Android Excel app also has a button to bring up the on-screen keyboard).

Here is how you can select a range when using Google Sheets:

Select a row or cell.
Click the 3-dot on the top right, then select "Select cell or range".

Enter your range. For example 1:2500 will select row 1 to row 2500.

Click Ok. Done.

My menu does not show Accessibility Settings and does not show Select cell or range. Why would those items be missing from the menu? Thanks.

@ibc I am using version 1.19.232.06.34. Is the version the same as yours?

I am using 1.19.232.06.35.

My version seems to be a later one. Why would a later version have less functionality?

Yes, yours is a newer version compared to mine, and yet those settings don't appear.

Are other settings present except "Accessibility settings" and "Select cell or range"?

I have a menu item Create a filter. That item does not appear in your menu. So I don't have two of your items, but I have an item that you don't have.

@ibc See edit. I also have "Create a filter".

It's just very unusual for a company to remove functionality from a product. But, we' re talking about Google, a company that creates apps and later takes them away. So why not menu items?

@ibc If you other devices or if you know someone else who uses Google sheets (or who can download Google sheets on their phone), check the feature on those. I have checked on Android 7 & 8 on 2 phones and the feature is present.

I am using Android 8.1 and Sheets version ending with 35 on my phone and don't see the items. My phone is an LG Q6+. On a Samsung phone with Android 9, I installed Sheets and it is version ending with 34 and the items are also missing. So I am very confused.

@ibc Go to your phone Settings -> Accessibility, then enable at least on service. Go back to Google Sheets, you should then start seeing the missing features and functionalities. When there is no service enabled in the Accessibility settings, they don't appear.

That worked!! Thank you so much. I turned on some accessibility settings in all three areas (vision, hearing etc.), and the menu items now appear. This is really strange behavior, in my opinion. Thanks, again.

The link you sent as "Tour" took me to an article on the Verge website dealing with Android. It's not clear to me how to say thank you properly.

@ibc Here is the correct link


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Sudden, semi-random reboots of S7
I bought a used Galaxy S7 about a month ago.  Ever since I bought it, it has had a tendency to reboot fairly unpredictably for no obvious reason.  I've noticed that if I am using a particular app when it reboots, it will usually reboot again if I attempt to use that app soon after startup.
Currently the phone is locked in a cycle of rebooting within a minute of startup regardless of what I do (including booting in Safe Mode).  It has rebooted at least 20 times in this way, with uptime always or almost always under 1 minute before reboot and no interaction with the phone at all.
I've tried clearing the Dalvik cache and other cache partition; although this did not fix the issue, I did notice that it took quite a bit longer (multiple minutes) to reboot on the first bootup after clearing the caches.
How can I get my phone to stabilize and hopefully avoid future unsolicited reboots?
UPDATE: whoops, forgot to read that info link for [boot-loop].  Apparently at this point I'm expected to give up and do a factory reset.  However, I'm concerned that the issue may be that there are bad blocks in the NAND.  Is this a possibility, and if so, is there a way to mark them so the firmware does not attempt to use them?

Random reboots could be due to almost any software/hardware related issue. Usually a kernel panic log (like in pstore, if you can access) can give a quick hint what happened just before reboot. Property persist.sys.boot.reason may also give a tiny hint in some situations. If a factory reset or firmware update doesn't fix it, most probably it's hardware related e.g. RAM or some thermal problem. Contacting official CS will be more beneficial in that case.

A dying eMMC usually doesn't cause random reboots (AFA I've experienced and observed), it starts with write-protection of memory, so the data gets lost and you will face funny situations. Then some partition may fail. A factory reset will give you better clue on that e.g. if you fail to wipe /data or /cache. Use blkdiscard tool to make sure memory is completely erased, but that requires root. Bad silicon cells of flash memory are fully handled by eMMC firmware, you have no control over them, even on costly SSDs. And phones even don't have S.M.A.R.T to know about eMMC's life beforehand.

Sorry, how would I access pstore?  I'm in the recovery shell but I don't see it in /dev or /sys/fs

Then your kernel (main or in recovery or both) isn't built with CONFIG_PSTORE. Do grep pstore /proc/filesystems to confirm.


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How to root Android using CF-Auto Root Solution
How to root using CF- auto root? How to use Odin with it?

Possible duplicate of Do I need CFs auto root If I can install TWRP recovery?

When you decide to root your Android usually you have to pick a proper rooting solution next. Otherwise, you have to face a lot of problems. In the worst-case, you might have a bricked mobile phone or tablet instead of a rooted one. So in this article, I'm going to talk about one of the best rooting tools if you have a Samsung smartphone or a tablet. We are going to root it using CF Auto Root through download Odin.
Preparations before Root Android
So this an invention of the famous XDA developer Chainfire. The exploit is working for more than 300 common Android devices.  But today we are gonna focus on Samsung. If you want to work with this you better check the compatible list which is available in the XDA Developers forum. It usually unlocks the bootloader first. So make sure to keep backups unless you will lose your data. And the other special fact is that Samsung drivers are only compatible with Windows. So you should have a Windows PC for the task.

Android Rooting for Samsung

First, you have to make sure to install proper drivers. Check this
link out and you will be able to download them. You just have to extract the zip and launch the .exe.
The next step is to download the correct CF-Auto-Root file. There are
many. So to find your compatible version check the model Number and
the Android version. And then click the download.
Make a new folder and extract the downloaded zip file there. The file
should be located in the hard drive.
Then put your smartphone or the tablet into the download mode. Volume
down button, home button, and power button will help to do this.
Press and hold it simultaneously.
Now connect it with the windows computer using a USB cable.
Now browse to the folder that has extracted the content of the
downloaded zip file. On there you will see a .exe file with a name
ODIN. Right-click on that select to run it as an Administrator
Once Odin is running it will detect the device.
In the interface  "ID:COM" field should be turned to blue.

Click the AP button and keep the rest unchanged.
Again you have to browse to that exact same place that has extracted
the content and select CF-Auto-Root.rar.md5 file. Then click Open
When the log tab displays a message saying "Leave CS" click the
start.
Now the rooting process has been started.
When its finished the device will reboot back to Android.

Wrap Up
So this is an almighty process of rooting your Android Operating System using CF-Auto-Root and Samsung Odin. It is safe and pretty easy compared to some other tools. So if you want to check the root status you should download the root checker.


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Bluetooth scanning is disabled
I bought an android car head. I can search and pair my phone with it, but form the unit itself cant search for the devices and it always empty list. Is there a way to enable scanning from the unit it seems it was disabled by the admin?

In settings , under connections wifi,turn off wifi there will be a option underneath about scanning  you can select Bluetooth and Wi-Fi scanning in the background on or off


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Re-locking bootloader with stock ROM/recovery - Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus
I recently unlocked the bootloader on my Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus to take a partition image, as per this answer.  I didn't flash the recovery or make any change to the ROM, and the device is not rooted.  After a factory reset (to Android 8.1.0, if that helps), I now need to re-lock the bootloader, but fastboot oem lock renders it unable to boot normally.  I can still boot into fastboot mode or recovery, but the phone won't start normally until I run fastboot oem unlock again.  How can I get this back to factory settings, with the bootloader locked?
Note that I'm not interested in reasons to keep the bootloader unlocked.  Having the bootloader locked is a requirement for several apps that I need to use, and I'm not going to try to bypass that.

You can try to reflash the stock rom, or if your only problem that apps wouldn't work install magisk and by this apps you can use magisk hide.

Why would reflashing the ROM help?

Maybe unlocking has broke any function on your software. this i*ve found on Xda @fminl


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Android: the print quality is bad
we have a problem with Android printing. The print qualitity is bad.

The font has podium on the edge
"Gaps" in the font inside
broken lines

We have the following printers:

Samsung Xpress M2026W
Brother HL-L2350DW

The connection is made via WLAN.
We tried the following variant:

Samsung & Brother Print Service:

via external Apps (Adobe Reader)
our own native App (printerHelper, printManager, ...)

Samsung Mobile Print App:

Direct call and print of a PDF / image (JPEG / PNG)
Call through our app with explicit intent

Samsung Cloud Print
Brother Mobile Print App:

Direct call and print of a PDF / image (JPEG / PNG)

The only variant with good print is printing with a desktop PC (Windows 10, Ubuntu 14.04 and 18.04)
So there is generally no Problem with the printers.
It was tested on Android 6, 7, 8 & 9 and many tablets and smartphones (LG, Lenovo, Nexus, Pixel and Huawei)
To exclude images and fonts that could cause problems, we also tested third-party PDFs and docx with Arial.
Are there solutions to that? Be it settings (Android, manufacturer App or printer) or programmatic solutions? We would be so far, the printer directly address, if this is possible?! Also, we could imagine hiring consulting firms, if anybody knows any on this topic?

I had the same problem when printing from android to my Brother HL-2340D.
My prints included a barcode which couldn't even be scanned when printed from my android-device.
What I did to fix it was downloading Brother Print Service Plugin
With this installed you get a new option in the list of printers. With this one there's a new button in the print-settings, "MORE OPTIONS" pressing this takes you to a new with 2 more settings, 1 being Quality. The options there are "Normal", "Fine", "Best" with the default being "Fine". This prints in about the same quality as without the plugin. Maybe a tad better. "Best" prints in about the same quality as the default settings on my pc, which is 600 DPI.
Oh, and the "Normal" option is anything but normal.


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Apps coming as updated when recently installed
So, I recently downloaded myfitnesspal and when I did, it showed as updated and not installed. It said that the app was recently updated and not installed.
So my question is, is this normal sometimes and is anybody else having this problem? Is there anyway to fix this problem?
Thanks in advance for you reply!


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How can I block ads in Facebook videos
I have installed AdGuard Pro and have installed all the filters.
Nearly every video I watch on Facebook (only when using my Android phone) becomes interrupted by a video ad.
In contrast, my partner also has AdGuard Pro on a Android and she experiences zero ads during facebook videos. It seems that we have the same setup, however I receive ads and she doesn't.
I have been trying to figure out how to block these ads for over 1 year.
Please help.
Thank you


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How to clear all of this Bloatware that is insidiously being put on my phone?
As is probably a very regular question here, I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo and I'm having problems with the amount of memory being clogged up by what I will assume is garbage. I have installed on my phone ES File Explorer and it helps with cleaning things up, but I'm consistently low on internal storage and as a result my phone is slowed down. I barely have any  documents or downloads on my phone. The largest set of files is pictures which take up 194.38 MB. Here is where the issue is, there is 9.72 GB being categorized as "Other". So the percentages are as follows:

Picture: 194.38 MB
Audio 103.99 KB
Video 124.23 MB
Document 8.68 MB
APPs 6.34 MB
Others 9.72 GB

It drives me up a wall because I don't save anything to my internal storage and always use my SD card. So I'm of the feeling that it is my provider and Samsung that have put a bunch of bloatware on my phone. So the question is how to find it and get rid of it all? Suggestions on a set of instructions I could follow? I feel there i no reason my phone should be this restricted for storage considering how I use it.
Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! Have you already checked with our bloatware tag-wiki? Your question seems covered more than once, though I'm not 100% sure to what degree. 4 matching Q&As are directly linked from the wiki, 30 additional candidates via this search.

Yes I've taken a look at some of the articles and it does appear the answers there are sufficient. Should I delete the post?

If there's one other question which you'd consider a duplicate of yours, we could close this as duplicate. Might help others finding it easier. You know, different search terms and such. You could also mention multiple useful ones (and update the tag wiki if you thing that would be helpful).

Yes. One of the other posts I read was essentially a duplicate. So we could close this one.

Related: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/216132/218526

Which one, @dc3rd, so I can mark it here?

@Izzy    this one:  https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/64008/storage-on-htc-desire-x

Thanks, marked!


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How to report an issue with the entrance when Maps never thinks I have arrived
Google Maps / Directions has this neat feature where after you reach your destination it asks you if it routed you to a convenient or proper entrance.  This is very nice because sometimes when there is a cluster of businesses it doesn't know the proper way to route you to the building you are going to and you can help out by telling Google where it should have had you enter.
However, there is one office building I frequent that it keeps wanting me to head about 500 feet further down the road.  The would put me right in front of the building on a busy street, whereas the correct entrance is to turn right and go into a parking lot behind the building.  Unfortunately I have not figured out how to report this to the mapping program, because even once I go into the entrance it still is telling me to keep going.  If I exit navigation it never asks how it did!  I used to remember an option to tell it you want to walk the rest of the way but I don't see that any more and don't know if it would help.
Short of going for a long walking detour (which I never have time for), how can I tell Google that I have reached my destination so it can get my feedback on how to make directions better?
Update: I tried walking in the building itself to try to get closer to where it wants me to go while I was waiting for an appointment, but I am not actually getting a signal.  I'm not really sure if it's even possible to get to where Maps wants me to go without walking outside around the whole building, which is probably around 1000 feet.

I think this question is about the Android app instead of the web app. If this is right the question is off-topic on this site but could be on-topic on [android.se].

Usually in such cases the parking lot has a different address as it is connected to a different street. I don't think that Google would change the routing behavior in your case as the routing is correct - you want to be routed to the building. If you want to go to the parking lot this is a different destination.


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Is it possible to enable native video calling in stock android?
My phone's IMS status shows that video calling is unavailable that I can't do native video calling.
I'm using stock android on Asus  Zenfone Max Pro M2.
Android version 9.0.
So is it possible to activate video calling.

From what I can tell, IMS requires the carrier to support the software & hardware. But that's not say you couldn't do video calling over a separate service/app.

Yes I can't do native video calling.


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How do I get rid of "the connected device is unable to access data" notification
When I connect my phone to my job computer the phone shows a "the connected device is unable to access data" dialog from time to time. I think this is just annoying - if I want to access files from my computer I would notice that when I try and if I don't I couldn't care less.
Is there a way to disable that popup from appearing? I'm using a Galaxy Note 9 (in case that make any difference).


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what versions of android lets you share saved wifi using qr code?
i am trying to list the versions that support sharing saved wifi through qr code .

This is a feature of the upcoming Android Q version.
There are device manufacturers who have already implemented this feature in their current Android 9 devices (e.g. Huawei).

can i get a refer ?

I have not found an official announcement by Google, but if you search for android wifi qr share you are getting plenty of sources from news sites. The fact that Huawei already has this feature I got from a German print news magazine.

I searched that but all what I found was apps .. I asked some people and have found that is there on these models Huawei Y7 Prime android 8
xiaomi note 6 android 8 / 8.1
Xiaomi Mi 9 android 9
Xiaomi Note5    8 / 8.1            and many more I think . where do you think I can get more info ... And there is another question on xiaomi you have to be currently connected to that network to be able to share the qr code .. And you can't do it on just  saved WiFi networks .

Just use one of the following articles: Q 1 Q 2 Q 3 Samsung

Yup ... the other phones brands that doesn't have android Q added it based on the manufacture UI .


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Google drive high data usage
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post...
Yesterday, i opened Google drive to check and spreadsheet and everything looked fine. Today i see that this night Google drive has used about 600MB of mobile data on the background. It's been 2 weeks since i connected to a WiFi network and around 1 month since i opened Drive. Obviously, i have now disabled background data usage for that app on Android settings but I'm afraid that this can happen again with another app.

What has been using that much mobile data (maybe sync or updates?) and how can i avoid this happening in the future?
Is it safe to disable background data usage on every app (except messaging apps)?

Thanks and sorry for my bad English.

Did you download something using a browser? In some MI devices, for some reason,
some downloads initiated by browser unnecessarily are directed into Google drive app even when defaults are off.

I have a mi A2, but i haven't downloaded anything except that spreadsheet, that i opened trough a link to drive.google.com


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Make home screen icons round again, after Huawei update
Yesterday I installed a suggested update on my Huawei nova3i, to EMUI version 9.1.0
There is one change which I don't like.  Many apps installed from the app store used to have round icons, but now they have square icons.
See in this before and after, how the 'Calm', 'MeeWee' and 'Vimeo' icons have changed shape:

(We can also see that the icons grew a little bit larger, which I don't really find appealing either.)
Is it possible to restore the old look, with smaller round icons for apps from the App Store?
(I am willing to install a theme if I have to, but I don't really want the default icons, wallpapers and text to change!)

I guess the device somehow lost my theme, and this ugly look is the fallback "no theme found" behaviour.
Anyway, I downloaded the "Legend" theme from this website, and used these instructions to apply it.
After I applied that theme (although I think any theme would do), I got a reasonable compromise: smaller icons and rounded-square borders.  This is certainly improvement.

Now I just need to reset the font and wallpaper, which I can do.
Still, if anyone knows how to get the really round icons again, I would like that.


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What is `/system/app/AutomationTest_JBUP.apk`?
For backing up data from and repairing a stock Samsung Galaxy S2 (see How to copy / modify data from a soft-bootlooping Samsung Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100)), I used a recovery ROM (PhilZ-cwm6-XWMS3-FOP-5.15.9-signed.zip, SHA256: 406a617e8b378384bde40dd2dc6234c0660a1b4f592b6c25b3be6b6f078b9eec). This recovery ROM works without having to re-install the stock firmware (which, on this phone, is normally required). As a side-effect, it also installed the "Superuser" app, making it possible to become root.
After turning on the phone a few times, I was asked whether I want to allow "Automation Test" to gain super user privileges. What application is that and where does it come from? It seems like it is stored here: /system/app/AutomationTest_JBUP.apk.

According to this thread from Xda-developers, AutomationTest_JBUP.apk is listed among the apps that can safely be removed from a Samsung Galaxy S2. That will mean it comes installed by the manufacturer as default app.
Its package name is com.sec.android.app.DataCreate and analysis of a subsequent version shows that it is from Samsung. I have no idea of its purpose.


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Was unable to install any app - how to find out what was blocking the installs?
I was unable to update/install any apps earlier today, using either Play Store, F-Droid, or Play Store in my work partition, even though I had over 500MB free on my phone (Pixel XL running Android 9.0).
I have 2 theories about why this happened, and I would like to find out more low-level information to try to figure out definitively why it happened. I think it's happened before, as well.
Theory 1 is that the flash memory on the device is being wear-leveled, and some of it has become unusable because it has been written to too many times and is "dead", but for some reason Android, or maybe the underlying Linux kernel, is still reporting the unusable blocks as "free space". So while it looked like I had 500MB free, I really had less.
Theory 2 is that Play Store in my work partition is somehow silently causing installs on my personal partition to fail until it "gets its way" and manages to install the updates it wants to install. (This seems very unlikely to be intentional, if so - there was no warning about this in any of the terms and conditions I signed up to when I created a work partition, to my recollection. Also, it doesn't explain why even 500MB free is not sufficient to install a relatively small update.)
When I freed up even more space (by uninstalling 2 apps in my work partition) Play Store in my work partition was able to update all 5 apps that were due to be updated, when I manually hit update on them. Then F-Droid was able to update apps again. So it looks like I'm good, for the time being... oh wait, I spoke too soon, it's happening again.
The two work apps that were uninstalled then automatically got pushed to my device and reinstalled, which to me casts doubt on the theory that it was about lack of space / unusable space (theory 1).
I uninstalled them again, and now I'm able to install apps again... for now.
Can I get some additional information on what was going on using adb or something like that?
I've already tried df in termux and it's not showing me anything useful - only one partition's free space is changing. I've read through the wall of text of previous solutions but they either don't seem to be relevant or are not making a lot of sense to me.

Did you try running 'adb logcat' and looks for info/warnings/errors? It is the first point of contact for troubleshooting.

There is a low space threshold of about 500MB (depends on the device), and any app install or update that would take you over this limit always fails. No-one really explains this, least of all Android itself.
This is actually a badly-implemented "feature" - it is supposed to prevent you hitting 0% free so that system apps don't start failing, but it doesn't fully prevent that. You can still hit 0% free - and get into a terrible situation where system apps pop up error notifications every fraction of a second - by uploading/downloading files to the phone.
(The reason the 2 apps were able to reinstall themselves, is probably because I cleared some caches for some of the apps in settings as well as uninstalling those apps.)
The only way around this problem involves root access - which I am not allowed to do because it violates the terms and conditions of my work partition on my phone.
So the only thing to do is free up enough space...


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How exactly does FBE's key derivation work?
These are the files that I know go into verifying a user's password:
/data/system/gatekeeper.password.key
/data/system/gatekeeper.pattern.key
/data/system/locksettings.db
/data/system/locksettings.db-shm
/data/system/locksettings.db-wal

I know that this is where the files used construct the FBE key are stored:
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/version
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/secdiscardable
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/encrypted_key
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/stretching
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/de/0/encrypted_key
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/de/0/stretching
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/de/0/keymaster_key_blob
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/de/0/secdiscardable
/data/misc/vold/user_keys/de/0/version

Although I'm told the encrypted FBE keys are stored in the above paths, these files seem related:
/data/system_de/0/spblob/0000000000000000.handle
/data/system_de/0/spblob/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.pwd
/data/system_de/0/spblob/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.secdis
/data/system_de/0/spblob/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.spblob

The XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX is a placeholder for a 16-character long hexadecimal "handle"; 0000000000000000.handle, by contrast, is named exactly as it written. There are actually several sets of pwd/secdis/spblob files on my phone and two that are missing their spblob file. I'm not sure I'm supposed to have that many.
Over the pass few days, I've messed up my phone trying to get TWRP to decrypt my data. At first, after removing my password, I couldn't set another one as Settings would crash whenever I tried. I was able to fix it by renaming locksettings.db. I then went ahead and set and cleared several different (but very insecure) passwords/PINs, including my old one (which is secure). I'm unable to remember the order of events, but now I'm at a point where I get Pixel is starting whenever I swipe on my home screen after booting. I'm suspecting this has to do with it not being able to decrypt my FBE key. I'm wondering if through my combination of renaming files like gatekeeper.*.key and locksettings.db that the FBE key maybe was decrypted with the wrong key and then reencrypted with a different one.
I'd like to know what role the above files play in the encrypting my phone. I'd also like to know:

What data from what sources is combined using what algorithms to decrypt the keys that encrypt my phone.
What happens when the password is changed (e.g., what files are decrypted/reencrypted, whether the salt is changed, etc.).
How the files gatekeeper.*.key and locksettings.db used in the process.
Whether or not the FBE key ever changes with the password.

The purpose of all of this is to determine if the problem with my lies with the encryption key being wrong or if it's a matter of cleaning up the right files, and to get past the endless Pixel is starting message to my apps and content.

page 9+10 may give you some hints (just found this on google i do not understand everything) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e1cf/9ad5614f3a24b24088e4b22e9218f0abc3a0.pdf

@alexcs A factory reset will not suffice. I want my data that's on it.

bear in mind there is a 30 seconds timeout after x attempts (timeout may increase) and twrp will silently fail during this waiting period (even with the right pin) - it can even wipe your data (depends on gatekeeper settings and device)

furthermore i am not sure if /data/system ever was accessible (is this unencrypted area?)

@alexcs Why backup EFS? (And which metadata?)

I am not aware how it works for FBE but for FDE there is always a crypto footer, sometimes as file metadata on efs partition, sometimes as metadata partition, or concatenated to userdata partition (16384 bytes). Without this a backup becomes useless

@alexcs If the timeout is enforced by Android, then the timeout can be disabled by flashing a ROM that does not enforce it.

according to this fstab /metadata seems to be still relevant for FBE on some devices https://github.com/TeamWin/android_device_oneplus_guacamole/blob/android-9.0/recovery/root/etc/twrp.fstab

@alexcs Not true that a backup of FDE is useless without the "footer", which is just the FDE encryption key encrypted. If you have the encryption key for the FDE already, you don't need the footer.

Of the files you mentioned above, locksettings.db is actually the least relevant to the decryption process. And, as a result, the easiest to recreate if corrupted or lost. It's simply an SQLite database. It contains the following tables:
CREATE TABLE android_metadata (locale TEXT)
CREATE TABLE locksettings (_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,name TEXT,user INTEGER,value TEXT)
CREATE TABLE sqlite_sequence(name,seq)

The table android_metadata contains a single row, e.g. locale=en_US. The table sqlite_sequence is a counter for the rows in locksettings, and should therefore contain a single row name='locksettings',seq=9
In the table locksettings, only one row is actually relevant to the decryption process. That row is name='sp-handle'. It's matching value is the decimal representation of the hexadecimal value represented by XXXXX in XXXXX.spblob. Put more simply, the only thing locksettings.db does in practice during the decryption process is point at the correct spblob file. This is particularly important if you have several, as each might correspond with a different unlock password.
The spblob file contains something called the "Synthetic Password", which is used to generate the decryption key for the Key Encrypted Key in /data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/encrypted_key. encrypted_key is basically an AES-256-GCM encrypted key. The first 12 bytes is the GCM IV, the last 16 bytes is the GCM authentication tag, and everything in between is the cypher text. Once successfully decrypted, the key is added to fscrypt's keychain, and used to decrypt files in user-locked areas of the drive, like /data/data or /data/media. This also involves reading xattribute (9, 'c') on each encrypted file/directory, but this is already down to the filesystem driver. The important point is that you need to decrypt spblob to decrypt /data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/encrypted_key to decrypt the rest of the drive.
Not to be confused with /data/misc/vold/user_keys/de/0/encrypted_key which is used to decrypt files/directories that don't require the PIN, such as /data/app or /data/system_de/0. The matching keymaster_key_blob contains the key to decrypt encrypted_key, in bytes 5 through 36 (The rest is header, metadata, and authentication tag), making it significantly easier to decrypt. Naturally, the CE key does not have a matching keymaster_key_blob.
spblob itself starts with 2 bytes representing version and "token type" respectively. The "token type" is 0 for lock screen, 1 for strong hardware token, and 2 for weak hardware token. Generally, it should be 0. The remainder of the bytes are the double AES-256-GCM encrypted synthetic password. The same general format as encrypted_key applies, i.e. First 12 bytes are IV and last 16 are authentication tag. As a result, the size of spblob is the size of the synthetic password plus 2+12*2+16*2=58 bytes.
The "outer" GCM encryption is generated from a hardware-encrypted key, with the application id synthetic_password_XXXXX where XXXXX is the name of the blob with leading 0s trimmed (Comments inside the Android code suggests the 0 trimming might be a bug that was left in because "fixing" it would break the decryption process). An encrypted version of this key should be present in the file /data/misc/keystore/persistent.sqlite, which is also an SQLite database. Decrypting it would require files from the /metadata partition, which is hardware-protected.
Fully describing persistent.sqlite would make this already long answer even longer, so here's the query for getting the encrypted key:
SELECT blob FROM keyentry, blobentry WHERE keyentry.id=blobentry.keyentryid AND keyentry.alias='synthetic_password_XXXXX'

Where XXXXX is the matching spblob file name with leading 0s trimmed.
The most important part is that so long as the phone hasn't been hardware-reset, it should be able to recover the hardware-encrypted key without problem.
The inner encryption of the spblob is where the user PIN comes in. And also where the other files come in. First the file pwd is parsed to get parameters for scrypt KDF algorithm. The user-input PIN is put through scrypt with the parameters extracted from pwd to produce a 32 byte hash called "stretched LSKF". This is combined with a hash of the contents of the secdis file, and then hashed again, to produce the key for decrypting the partially decrypted spblob. The exact formula is:
prefixhash(prefix, message) = sha512(prefix.padEnd(128, '\0') + message)
inner_key = prefixhash('application-id', stretchedLskf + prefixhash('secdiscardable-transform', file-contents('XXXXX.secdis')))
synthetic_password = gcm-decrypt(inner_key, gcm-decrypt(keystore_get('synthetic_password_XXXXX'), file-contents('XXXXX.spblob')[2..]))

So, to answer the original question, to properly decrypt the files, you need:

locksettings.db to point at the correct spblob
The pwd and secdis matching the spblob to be present
The correct PIN matching the spblob
synthetic_password_XXXXX to be present in persistence.sqlite
The /metadata partition to contain the correct key for decrypting synthetic_password_XXXXX. Note that factory reset or flashing a new ROM will very likely wipe the /metadata partition.
The encrypted key /data/misc/vold/user_keys/ce/0/current/encrypted_key, as well as the matching secdiscardable and stretching files, which are used along with the synthetic password in spblob to generate the key necessary to decrypt encrypted_key.

Changing your PIN is most likely to create a new spblob file, and change locksettings.db to point at it. It may delete the old spblob file. It's unlikely to touch the CE encrypted_key as any modification to it runs the risk of corrupting it, rendering all files encrypted with it inaccessible. It would absolutely not attempt to re-encrypt all of the files, as that would both carry a risk of corruption, and also take a very long time. Much longer than anyone would wait for just a PIN change. Also, according to the comments within the code, "A user's SP never changes, but SP protectors can be added and removed", so even if you get new spblob files, the decrypted content of each of them should be the same.
As an aside, I do suggest creating backups of all of these files before doing any more messing around. If at all possible, try to create a backup of the /metadata partition as well, although the hardware may attempt to prevent that. That way, if messing around or guessing wrong PINs causes one of these files to become corrupt or disappear, you can potentially restore it from backup.


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Will phone lose pairing if it was paired via WiFi direct and it connected to a WiFi network?
If a phone and another device is connected via WiFi direct, and the phone detected a home or free public WiFi network, will it connect with the WiFi network and lose pairing with the device it was originally paired to?

It will not connect the other wifi if you didn't connect it manually.

What if the WiFi network was set as "connect automatically" when detected by the mobile phone? Will connecting to WiFi then break up or cause the WiFi direct pairing to malfunction?

It will connect only when you end the connection with wifi direct


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How can I block the update on my SM-G930V?
Note that my device is not rooted, and I have not downloaded the recent update yet

+1 because disabling com.wssyncmldm and com.sec.android.soagent via pm seems not sufficient according to XDA

@alecxs So it is impossible?

just wait for answer i am pretty sure it is possible. assuming you have already checked developer settings, there must be another solution


text:
Chrome on Android has just eaten all my data plan
I am using Chrome on Nexus 5X.
Nothing like this ever happened until the last 2 days - my data plan was depleted suddenly, the carrier's app claimed that I have no more data, and when I checked my data usage in Android Settings, I got this:

WTF?
I didn't do anything special with Chrome in the last 2 days, my occasional Facebook browsing (no videos) has no way to reach that amount.
Is there any way to check inside Chrome which website did this? Or is it a Chrome bug?

Go into Settings app > Apps> Chrome> Storage> Manage Space>Manage. That would show you website-wise data consumption. Not sure how accurate that is.

Didn't show anything useful or related.


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Albums disappears from gallery
Some time back I was asked by the PHOTOS app to move photos to my account. When I confirmed the same I have found to my dismay that they have been removed from my albums in gallery. Now how do I retrieve those photos back to my albums

Please provide more info. Which phone? Android version? Which photos/gallery app?

Sign into the google account that they were synced under initially when they were on the phone, or go to photos.google.com and sign in there to manage them.

Verify the photos are on your google account by going to https://photos.google.com. (sign in if needed) then verify they are there.
If they are then:
Go to accounts and sync.
add account.
allow 5 minutes to sync in background.
open accounts and sync and sync now by hitting menu or 3 lines/dots and hitting sync.
Update/install google photos app and then open it.
change account under the google photos app to correct account if needed.
See if photos are there, if not, after checking wait 3 minutes and check again.
Another option is too use the website to download all the photos to your sdcard by clicking on the "photos" section and then hitting the 3 dot menu in top right and hit "select photos", select the ones you want, then 3 dot menu again and hit download photos.


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How to install TWRP?
I'm a very beginner and I read some info about ADB tool and other articles about flashing ROM, rooting and things like that. I would like to install TWRP recovery on my phone using ADB tool.
I did the steps in this web page. It showed on the mobile screen that some data or files are successfully transferred (As far as I remember).
Now, when I enter the recovery mood, it's the same screen (same software) that appears before installing TWRP.
Why doesn't the  TWRP interface open? The link said "Done!!! Now you should have TWRP on your device" but I don't know how to open it on my phone.
Phone type: Techno W4

Did you boot immediately into TWRP afyer flashong or did you go to the system first?

first of all, you can not install a twrp.img on "any device" - you must find and download TWRP recovery for Tecno W4 (which is not official supported!) after fastboot flash recovery twrp.img type fastboot boot twrp.img then swipe to modify system (this will rename recovery-from-boot.p and make the twrp install permanent). second, you need to install "dm-verity disabler zip" to make your phone bootable again

https://mega.nz/#!oDIAyYzD!FwF0J3uLjjFfxETu6ylPwko82bUWE79Ex8uWG0-JeDk

@BoLawson Thank you so much for your suggestion. I used the file provided by After I wrote "Fastboot reboot", the phone restarted. I pressed the "Volume Up" button while restarting to boot into recovery mode. It works!

@alecxs Thank you so much for giving me this useful link. It works :) I also did what BoLawson said and I booted immediately into recovery mode after installation.


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How to view device kernel information (verbose)?
I need to view my device kernel info, in particular the architectures.  The device is not rooted, therefore uname command isn't available in local terminal, but cat /proc/version doesn't have an option to increase verbosity (that I'm aware of) like -a for uname.  Is there any other method I can use to see this information?

What device are you using? In most phones I have used, uname is installed by default. What information about the architecture do you want to access?

The getprop command has a number of values that are related to the architecture. Check out getprop | grep abi.

If it's the architecture that you are looking in particular, then from the terminal you can type arch command.
You can also try CPU-Z to check the kernel architecture on its System tab.
Note : The assumption that uname is only found on rooted devices is unfounded. I have a device not rooted on Android 8.1 that has uname thanks to toybox.

arch is not available via adb on my phone (Sony XA2, Android 9).

@Robert toybox is not installed on your phone? Or is toybox installed but arch has not been packaged with it?

Arctiic's question is about an unrooted device. Mine is unrooted, too. Therefore of course "toybox" is not installed. Installing such executables system wide plus PATH require a rooted device.

@Robert I think toolbox and toybox are part of stock Android, how would you get getprop and setprop without them. Nothing restricts apps executing /system/bin/uname -m or the uname syscall (including SELinux and seccomp). Also uname is part of every busybox release. Get one with Termux or place in /data/local/tmp and execute from adb shell. Multiple options.

@Irfan OK, you are right, there is a toybox and toolbox, however neither of them supports arch on my device (Sony XA2, Android 9 security update 2019-08-01).

@Robert same here. Busybox does have; it's also a wrapper over uname syscall.


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How to move data to a bigger SD card (internal storage)?
I have a Moto G5 with Android 8.1. My 128 Gb micro sd card is formatted as internal, and I want to replace it with a bigger one (and I want to still use it as an internal storage).
Is it any way I can migrate my data to the new memory card?

Your new memory card will be wiped anyway when you insert it into your phone for the first time. So I would recommend copying the data to the new memory card after you insert it. You can copy it using OTG or via computer.


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Android "Nearby" ( set up nearby device ) - "No devices Found"
trying to migrate over from  1 mobile to other . Older is on 7.0 and newer is 9.x aka Pie.

Both devices have bluetooth and wi-fi turned on. In fact one sees the other on a bluetooth scan and they are paired.

Its just that the nearby service (?) of whatever its called that is used  for setting up a new device just doesn't do its job.
I initiated  simultaneously from both phone - the "find nearby devices" beacon...none of the phones "found " each other . I repeated the same separately- No avail.

Why is this happening and what does it take for this stuff to run correctly ?


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Phone Clone from Samsung S7 to Huawei P30 blocked?
I'm trying to upgrade a Samsung S7 to a Huawei P30 using the Phone Clone app on the P30.
This works by setting up a WiFi hotspot on the new device and then connecting the old device to it.
This fails every time, but when I look at the old S7 the hotspot has been added to the list of restricted networks, probably because the new phone isn't acting as a bridge to the internet and something stupid in the S7 is deciding it isn't a valid network because no internet.
How do I get Phone Clone to work?
How do I turn off whatever it is in the Samsung phone deciding to block the WiFi hotspot because it's local only?

afaik Samsung have Knox enabled by default which may prevent access to phone data (regardless it is hard to believe such apps are working without root?) but i am still learning...

@alecxs it doesn't get that far and I've given Phone Clone access to the things I want it to copy. It's failing to connect in the first place.

didn't know that such app exist. unfortunately only for huawei - would like to see it for other devices too


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Is it possible to prevent an android from slowing down in just 2 or 3 years or even 4 years
I know that SSDs wear out with time but it takes a long amount of time for the wear out noticeable affect performance (not 2 or three years). I can TRIM the SSD as far as I know to bring back it's old performance. I believe that RAM and CPUs/GPUs don't slow down with time (not 2 years that is usually the amount of time after which people start feeling like they need a new phone). So is it possible for a phone to be as fast as it was 2 years ago if the apps in the current age are also not more CPU demanding than they were 2 years ago?
PS. also my last question is unanswered so please consider replying to that

I used a Samsung Galaxy Y Duos GT-S6102 with 160 MB storage / 290 MB RAM for many years, i really liked it because of its size. finally google maps stopped working (Android 2.3.6) it became useless because of lack of support, hardware still works fine

If the SSD is overused the flash cells itself are getting slower, therefore TRIMMing will not help in this case. But if you are afraid of SSD degration you can simply buy a phone with double the memory you need and leave the half unused. Anyway AFAIK a flash degration is today not very likely unlesss you don't write every day hundret of GB to it.

Yeah that's what I meant. People buy a new phone saying that their phone has got slower but I have always wondered if it had actually or it's just the current version of the apps they that demand more than the phone can give. If the apps weren't updated ever, I think everything would have been fine. Or people can just factory reset and run TRIM because that will bring back factory verison of all apps


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HSP Profile not working on connecting via Android Settings Dialog
I am a newbie on bluetooth & facing a few basic problems. I am currently working on an android voice assistant application, trying to make it work with bluetooth headsets.
If I connect to bluetooth via settings dialog the voice is still captured from Phone's microphone(and not from headset) but when it's connected via HSP profile programatically, voice is captured from Headset.
Can anyone help me understand this behaviour?

By default HS/HF profile has only control connection established. Audio connection become active during voice calls and speech recognition. You need to use BluetoothHeadset.startVoiceRecognition/BluetoothHeadset.stopVoiceRecognition and listen to ACTION_AUDIO_STATE_CHANGED intents.


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Permanently split screen (damaged touch screen)
Is there any way (via app, adb or anyhow) to force Android to actively use only part of the screen AND (this is crucial) to display something else (e.g. clock or some widget) on the remaining part?
The thing is I found an old Nexus 7 and a small part of its digitizer is damaged (top part, about 1/4 of the whole screen area). I wanted to somehow permanently "split" the screen and use the remaining 3/4 for regular use and have the rest display time and date, current weather or anything else.
Ideas anyone? :)

Not exactly what you're looking for, but this should get you going. Resize screen for Dead touch zone

Thanks for that. I saw it earlier and it would be actually pretty good, but the unresponsive (touch-wise) part remains useless and I wanted to have it display something....


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Android (9) Pie's native "Back Up" to google drive grayed out
Android Pie has a native manual back up to google drive. After I turned off the back up and turned it back on, the back up button is grayed out.
Since then I

Re-added my google account on my phone
Cleared Google Drive cache

as described here, but to no effect.
Another person solved the issue through the ADB debugger. I ask here because I would like to avoid installing ADB. Do you have any ideas?

Sorry, I can back up now. I have no idea why this is and what changed, but the button works.


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UDP stream capture and replay
I am capturing audio from a radio device to my android using tcpdump.
How can I take this cap file and replay the UDP stream within it? As I want to replay the audio I got from the radio.

UDP usually uses dynamical port numbers on client side, therefore just replaying will not work.
Note: The following bases on the assumption that the audio stream is transmitted using a common standardized protocol and is not encrypted or otherwise protected like it is on streaming apps like Spotify, Dezzer, ...
Instead you need to extract the UDP data stream from the created packet dump (usually in pcap file format). See for example this question.
Then you need a streaming server software that allows to stream the data you have extracted. The server can run on a PC that can be accessed via network from your Android phone or on the Android device itself. I assume that the client software on your Android device allows to specify the audio streaming server.

I managed extracting the packets to pcap file using tcpdump. Now I have the file on my Android device, can you recommend an app that will be able to replay it and recreate the audio?

@Dean You also need to find out what data format is used, analyze the extracted data if it can be directly played within e.g. VLC on a PC. Regarding the server I can't  make any recommendations, sorry.


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In Android 8, during video recording, how the data is saved to disk?
In Android 8, during long video recording,
1) how often does the recorded video data is written to internal storage?
2) What is the size of each piece of data written?
3) Is the data stored contiguously in the internal storage or each piece of data is stored independent of each other?

Question 1 and 2 depend on the app you are using to record video. An app developer can better tell about this. Question 3 depends on the filesystem you are writing to.

What would be the answer for a typical app such as the default app in a Samsung phone. The filesystem is sdcardfs stacked on  ext4.

I have no idea at all, but I'd use inotify to see live changes made by an app to filesystem.


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Android 8.0 | How to show the day of the week on my widget (HTC CLOCK) or Notifications area at the top
so I have this problem of not knowing the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday,...) and having it on my HTC 10's home screen or the notifications pane would help a lot. I remember that one of the above-mentioned items showed the day of the week along with the date, but I don't know why it is gone. Any help will be much appreciated.
P. S. Priority is to avoid installing third-party apps for this simple thing.


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SSL certificates not updated on old Android
I have an old Android smartphones. More and more websites stop working because my chrome browser doesn't trust the root CA (Outdated or missing CA certificates). Obviously the root CA list is only updated via an android os update.
Any ideas how I can migate the problem? (Beside adding them manually / buying a new phone) Lineageos isn't supported as well.

How old is that smartphone? Usually you can add your own CA certificates in the settings.

@firendlyQuestion Please edit your question and say exactly what Smartphone you are talking about (brand, model and Android version). Anyway if your phone is that old you should be able to root it and the edit the certificate list.


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Prevent Contacts from forcing me to save to a logged in gmail account?
If I have a logged in gmail account (say, for example, in the play store), the phone absolutely forces me to save contacts, calendar appointments, etc. to the gmail account.
For example, if I add a contact, I'm supposed to be able to say where I want to save the account to (my email account, the device itself, etc). It will not allow me to save to the device (that's not even a selectable option).
What do?
Device is a Moto Z Play, Android version 8.0.0

even worse local saved contacts will move to google contacts (for example when saved to phone with MyPhoneExplorer)

Disable Google Contacts Sync app (root is required). Or try revoking Contacts permission and all AppOps of the same app. Works for me, I manually sync contacts, not to Google servers.


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How to keep track of updates to APK
I use only a handful of apk that are not from Google Play store (for whatever reason). For example Youtube Vanced, GCamera, Blokada.
But since they are not in the Play store, is there any way I can check if there are any available updates to all my "unofficial" apps?
I mean check from one place and automatically, not going to the relevant sites and checking manually every few days.


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Is any way to lock Android KitKat to a certain frequency/band?
Normally we can lock our mobile to either LTE, WCDMA, or GSM thorough Network Mode option from setting. But I would like to lock specifically 900MHz and/or 1800MHz band, which they are included as GSM in the Network Mode. Then my question is: is any way to do that way? Prefer if I can do with command or script only without installing any application. But thorough application also will be fine too.

AFAIK such decisions like "Which frequencies are used?" are the job of the baseband, which is like an independent small OS running in parallel to Android. Android can only communicated via the Radio Interface Layer (RIL) with this system. Therefore if the RIL has no command to whitelist or blacklist frequencies you can not do what you want, as modifications to the RIL is an extreme complicated and dangerous topic (dangerous because you can easily break laws by misusing or disturbing frequencies of your MNO who will sue you for that).

I remember long ago, I could lock my Nokia phone (a featured phone non Android. So the intention to mentioned Android is could be with different OS we can do) to certain frequency channel. However, the channel still need translation to actual frequency. So, what I am asking here is the same thing. Is any way to lock android phone to certain frequency, or at least to certain band.

@AirCraftLover as Robert said, yes this can be possible but Android APIs don't offer such option. Even, I think, you can't read frequency, rather writing (I'm not a developer though). May be RILD can but that's just a binary blob. Communicating directly with BP may work, if you can find out what modem speaks. May be ATC or QMI or some other vendor specific thing. Or may be some Engineering Mode or Test Mode or Diagnostic Mode or dial code or bootloader mode or service mode may fulfill your requirement, which is again vendor/SoC specific. Generic Android (AOSP) doesn't do what you want.


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file manager doesn't find folders
I am using a terminal, Termux, and Qute.
The terminal Qute shows me a path data/user/0/com.ddm.
In the file manager Cx File explorer I am not able to find them. In Android folder, there is a data folder with a lot of folders called com.something, as com.dropbox.android, but not the above cited folder, idem for folders of Termux. How can I find the wanted folders in file manager?

First is /data/ and latter is /data/media/0/Android/data/. Names are same but those are different directories. If you want to access /data/user/0/ from some file explorer, you need root access. If you just want to copy some files, do that from within Qute app, e.g. using cp command.

@Irfan Latif Thanks so much.  Do you know if it's possible to create and directories that are in the visible part of the phone with a non rooted Android terminal?

Visible part for non-root apps is /sdcard. Yes you can create directories there provided that the app owns storage permission.

@Irfan Latif very good thank you.


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Deleting apps from android phone that can't sign in
We have an old android phone that grandchildren use for play.  No SIM card, but on wifi.  The Google account previously used is obsolete, so we can't sign in.  But without signing in, the "play store" won't let us get to the list of apps to delete them.
We'd like to delete Contacts and the contact list, Phone and the list of calls and transcribed voicemails, and other things like that.
If we reset to factory settings, all the games disappear too, and we'd have to log in to a valid account to get them back.
And, I cannot find the settings! (Also want to turn off the unneeded cell radio to save battery.

Deleting an app doesn't need Play Store, but there's always a possibility that the Contacts and Phone apps are system apps, which you can't uninstall without root access. You can try my answer if it's possible, but you probably need this question instead...

I’d rather not root it, for the risk that an experimenting child will inadvertently trash the whole thing.  So I’ll post a different question.

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/217350/delete-personal-data-from-phone-that-cant-sign-in-to-google

There should be no need for Play Store, as I answered in your duplicate questions. You can use Settings-Apps to remove or disable most apps, and if you need to disable system applications that are not accessible here, you can do it via ADB without root. Google would be your friend here...

Since the ‘settings’ can’t be found, that doesn’t help. And it was not a duplicate; it was a different question.  And Google (NSA’s biggest competitor) is never my friend.


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Get raw app usage data
Android seems to keep a log of the past week of app usage. It seems that there are many applications that are able to get this "App usage" permission and by querying some underlying api get all the app usage data from your phone. It shows launch times and duration of specific applications. Some applications that can read these data are: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.uninstaller and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.huybn.UsageHistory. While it seems that many of these applications have ways to export this data I was wondering if there was a way to export this data without an app as the above apps each have an export format that really can only be read on the android phone.
TLDR; Is it possible to grab Application Usage Data via ADB or as a file on the internal storage (maybe in /data/system/something?)

From JB to Kitkat, usage stats were stored in /data/system/usagestats/usage-history.xml. After that, it has been split to multiple (daily?) files. I currently cannot find my notes on those separate files, but see e.g. here for more details.

It seems that I need my device to be rooted in order to see those files. I am assuming that the apps listed above can read those files because they have the permission that allows them to have "usage access". Is there a way to give adb usage access? I've noticed dumpsys shows the last day or so but not the entire usage history that the apps above can see.

For direct access to those files you'll need root access, yes. No idea how to widen the window for dumpsys. And as for giving ADB usage access, that would need root again to exec the grant (if it's possible at all – and even then, I guess you'd have to use some API to access those data).

Thats quite frustrating. Good to know though thanks!


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Is it possible to transfer the internal memory/storage chip of an S9?
My Samsung Galaxy S9 is physically damaged and the board is dead. The phone will not turn on or show any signs of life. Plenty of important photos and data are on that phone which I need to retrieve.
Is it possible to swap out the internal storage chip from the dead motherboard of a Samsung Galaxy S9 and place it to an identical working board and retrieve the data that way?
If not, is there any other way I can get the data off of my dead phone? :(
Thank you in advance!

Based on the iFixit tear-down of the Samsung Galaxy S9 you can see that the flash chip in this model is a single chip soldered onto the motherboard - it is inside the orange rectangle below, a 64 GB UFS (NAND flash + controller):

Therefore theoretically it may be possible to unsolder this chip and read out the content if you manage to get the chip working in a different environment.
However even if you manage to read out the chip completely it may be of no use as usually Android devices come with enabled encryption by default (not sure about Samsung and especially this device). The encryption method uses hardware based cryptography, which means that the key is not directly stored in the flash chip but requires other system components like the CPU. However I don't know the exact details on the used encryption especially where the keys protected by the "Hardware Security System" are actually stored.
As your device most likely uses File based Encryption (FBE) there may be some files accessible that are unencrypted, however I don't have any experience what files are typically stored without encryption. My assumption is that most of the app/user data is encrypted.

Thank you for your clear and useful reply Robert. Have you by any chance heard of any other method? Maybe there is a NAND flash reader that can do the job?

If I get it correctly the used flash chip uses is a ball grid chip, which means the "pins" are hidden on the bottom of the chip (covered by the mainboard), therefore you have to unsolder the chip. UFS is a standard for accessing flash chips, therefore an UFS 2.0 capable reader should be able to communicate with the chip. See also this topic: https://forum.acelaboratory.com/viewtopic.php?t=8987

Looks like the readers are painfully expensive. I better stick to the idea of transferring the memory chip to a working motherboard. Still waiting for a reply from someone that has done it on a Galaxy S9. Thank you Robert for your helpful comments.


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WhatsApp—How to prevent notifications from returning after swiping them away?
When I get a new message in WhatsApp, I get a notification that contains the beginning of the message. After I swipe it away, the old message always returns when I get a new message. How can I prevent those zombie messages from coming back? There is a "mark as read" feature but that is too complicated to use, I have to swipe down and then click, I just want one swipe to completely clear the notification.

The notifications are showed by the Whatsapp (and there is no option in whatsapp to change this). You'll have to request Whatsapp dev for this feature.
Personally, I don't think they will consider your request so easily.
Anyways, Good Luck!


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Android 10 and no internet wifi
I've been working on developing an android app for some time now that is meant to communicate with an embedded device.
The embedded device acts as its own Wireless Access point, and has no internet connection. Since having updated a couple of android devices (A pixel 2 and a pixel 3a) that we were using for testing to Android 10, we've noticed that the device will switch off of the WIFI without internet to a different profile that has internet. This happens somewhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes after having connected to the embedded device. (I also tested this on a generic router, with the same outcome.)
Is there anyway to prevent this behavior?

In the general Wifi settings of Android 10 there is a "Network rating provider" setting. Have you tried to change the rating provider to "None"? Assuming that a network without Internet gets a lower rating this could explain the automatic Wifi switching.

Yhea, that was set to None.
I also tried disabling Turn on Wi-Fi automatically, everything under Wi-Fi control, and Wi-Fi scanning. None of that changed the behavior I was seeing.

Have you been able to solve this problem? I am seeing the same on a Pixel 3a device with Android 10.

Not exactly, it turns out it was a bug in Android. I had filed a bug report back in October regarding this. As of May 13, one of marked the issue as fixed and google stated that the fix will be available in a future build.
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/141903691


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How can I restart my Samsung S9 phone without the power button or any other physical button?
How can I restart my Samsung S9 phone without the power button or any other physical button, and without rooting my phone? I only want to use the tactile screen.

On unrooted phones there seems to be a possibility for a device manager app to initiate a reboot (on Android 7+). However in PlayStore there seem to be only apps that reboot using root permissions.

@Robert thanks interesting

If your power menu shows reboot option too, this can work: restart Android phone when power button stopped working


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My wife can cast videos from her phone to our Chromecast, but I can't. What gives?
She has a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, while I have a Google Pixel 3. I can cast if the app in question (e.g. YouTube or Hulu) supports casting with a built-in cast button, but if I used the system screen mirroring cast feature from the pull-down menu (say, for an app that doesn't support casting internally, such as Spectrum), I can't cast videos - the part of the screen where the video is appears black on the TV. This sounds like some sort of DRM issue, but why would it only affect my phone and not hers? Is there any way to cast videos from my phone?

Is your device rooted or at least its bootloader, unlocked?

It's not rooted, and I don't think I unlocked the bootloader (I don't even know what that means); do Pixels come with pre-unlocked bootloaders, perhaps? Does installing a custom launcher such as Nova count as unlocking the bootloader?

Videos are usually decoded in hardware and directly written to the frame buffer (special graphics memory). The screen cast is generated by different memory region and therefore does not include the video. This effect is common to all hardware accelerated video players, even on a PC/Windows this is the case.

Hmm, I wonder why my wife's phone would be able to cast videos, then? Does the Note 8 render videos in software, perhaps? Is there a flag i can set to make my phone do the same thing?

@ekolis May be the graphics driver on the Note 8 works different and provides a deeper access for the screen cast component that includes the decoded video?


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Android emulator can't find the wayland QT plugin
Trying to run the Android emulator on Wayland (Fedora 30) gives me the following error:
statvfs('/home/user/.android/avd/Pixel_3a_29.avd/snapshots/default_boot/ram.img') failed: No such file or directory
Warning: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in "/home/user/android/sdk/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins" ((null):0, (null))
emulator: INFO: QtLogger.cpp:66: Warning: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in "/home/user/android/sdk/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins" ((null):0, (null))

Any suggestions on how to resolve the issue?

Even if the AndroidEmulator is involved this is more a Linux/Wayland, problem. You should better ask this question on a Linux related StackExchange site or forum.

To debug this issue, start the emulator on the command line. For example:
~/Android/Sdk/emulator/emulator -avd Pixel_3a_API_30

(To list all available AVDs, use emulator -list-avds.)
In your case, you have probably set the QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland env variable, but Android Studio seems to bundle their own platform plugins,
which don't include wayland, only xcb. This results in the following error message:
...
INFO    | Warning: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in "/home/username/Android/Sdk/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins" ((null):0, (null))
...

This works for me:
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb ~/Android/Sdk/emulator/emulator -avd Pixel_3a_API_30


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Netflix over mhl (usbC to hdmi aadapter) what could cause fail?
I am wondering why when I start Netflix's app it fails to playback any video (even downloaded ones).
Youtube works just fine, it's only an app running on Desktop looking environment.
So is it the DRM that could forbid that without an app knowing, I am not trying to ask an app specific thing, but globally for any app if DRM framework is the cause. Like for instance when a banking app blurs out, it's not the app causing it, but the category of the app.
The full setup looks like this:

1 Samsung S10
A smart tv (MHL compatible)
1 cheap usb-C to HDMI adapter
A long HDMI cable
(which doesn't matter at this point, since we have a connection to the tv)
A Samsung Dex running
Target app is in maximized window

(Please don't flag the question if it's poorly written, I really think this is a problem that some people will find it useful if solved, especially if they want to watch videos using some evil DRM based apps)

What happens when you try to stream the Netflix app to the TV without Samsung Dex?

I don''t think that a banking app is comparable with a streaming app. Banking apps usually set the SECURE flag on each activity which prevents the activity from being displayed in the recents list (and may be also via MHL?).

When I use normal HDMI mirror mode it doesn't care, but when in Dex mode, probably sets environment variables that it is streaming on HDMI or second screen, I need to capture the env changes in adb shell somehow to prove the theory. I am open to any advices on how to monitor variables or if possible to use strace (without root) :).


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Taking out of silence after x missing calls from specific person?
I'm using silent/vibrate mode most of the time, however, I do want to be notified by a ring if a specific user/s called me more than once
Is there any setting or app to help with this request?

In Android 9: Settings > Sound > Do Not Disturb > Calls > Allow repeat callers

I know this one, but the problem is I have to set DND mode rather than just lowering the volume


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Sharing contact throught SMS
When I am share the contact throught SMS, during the addition of contact it is converting to MMS formate and message is not going.
Please help me.
Phone mode: MIA3 andriod one

it is converting to MMS formate and message is not going

This only happens if you try to send the contact as a vcard file (.vcf is the extension).
To send the contact number only, copy the number to clipboard and paste it in message body. The message will be transferred as text.
If you want to send the message as a  vcard file, contact your cellular company (eg. Airtel , Jio, Vodafone etc) and request them to enable MMS on your number.


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Fastboot Device not Detecting my Device
I'm following this tutorial about how to unlock bootloader on Moto.  My device is a Moto G5, and my computer has windows 10.
On the command line, I can type
adb devices

and it returns my device.  I then do
adb reboot bootloader

and it turns my phone into bootloader mode.  But when I do
fastboot devices

it returns a blank line.  According to this source (the second answer), I need to update some the "Unknown 'Android' device".  However, I don't have anything like that.  The closest I have is Other devices->Fastboot potter S.  Do I update this driver?  If so, how?  If I choose "Search automatically for updated driver software," it doesn't find anything.  If I choose "Browse my computer for driver software" and then "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer", I have to "Select [my] device's type from the list below." but I don't know which one I'm supposed to choose.
How do I fix this problem with fastboot devices?  What drivers am I supposed to update?  How do I fix them?
If this question is better suited on another stackexchange such as superusers on account of it's being more about windows than android, let me know.  I tried asking it there first, but the "android" tag said that the question would be off topic.

I did enable usb debugging.  I'm not sure about the drivers.  I just installed what the tutorial I linked to recommended in the prerequisites.  I'll try that later to see if it will work.

USB Debugging is irrelevant within the bootloader. It does its thing within the system and recovery. This might help with the drivers: https://support.motorola.com/in/en/solution/MS89880#

Got stuck at the exact same point when I had this problem! I figured out I could follow the instructions on this page (https://developer.android.com/studio/run/oem-usb), and once I downloaded and installed the right driver, the device showed up when I ran
fastboot devices -l
then I just did fastboot reboot and everything worked : )


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What is this notification symbol for?
I’ve circled the icon in red. What is this notification/alert for?

This icon has to do with parent supervision. This means that someone is supervising your mobile phone and that your mobile is in a kind of "children's mode". Can you click on it?