text:
Pin deleted but pin lock screen still comes up
I was fooling around with VPN on my non-rooted Galaxy Note II and created a PIN as required. When I was done I disabled VPN and disabled the PIN by entering my PIN again. Later on my screen locked and it now requires a PIN to unlock. My old pin does not work and there is no new pin. I cannot get the prompt to unlock via my Gmail info after entering the wrong pin 50 times.
How can I get into my phone? I am hoping for an answer other than wiping my phone.

I've just added the appropriate tag (locked-out). Please see its favorite question: Cannot unlock tablet as have no internet connection? It gives all variants of remedy currently known in its answers.

There ONLY way to get into your phone is to wipe all downloaded applications but keep all data on your internal sd card. This can be done by switching off the phone. Then hold the volume up button and press the switch on button. Select to delete all user data. Do not worry as this will not delete data on your internal SD Card. Select reboot. The proccess of selecting is done by volume buttons. You confirm using the MENU button.  If backed your apps with ES File Explorer you can have them back without any internet connection. Select the back app file in MY FILES and install all your apps back again without any internet connection.


text:
How to trigger mouse-over in Android
I visit sites where some features like pop-up menus and tooltips are invoked by placing the mouse cursor over an item. I would like to use all the features while using my Android tablet. So, I'm looking for a way to simulate the mouse-over event in Android browser, especially in Android 4.1.2

I really wish there was an answer to this that worked with tool tips — otherwise some sites are really frustrating with Android.

The long-click is basically the same as a right-click which brings up context menus.
Things for mouse-over such as viewing titles, and link urls can be accomplished with bookmarklets.  I have examples bookmarklets to view all titles, and all href links, see "href:", "href-x:" and "parentips" on for instance  my dolphin gestures page.
You can invoke example by clicking on one of those boxed bookmarklets links.
To learn more about bookmarklets, if you are not familiar with them, I would suggest starting at http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets.

I see you assume I have installed Dolphin. Maybe I will if there is no other way. I wonder if Android addresses the problem somehow without installing third-party browsers

You can   implement boolmarklets  in any browser that has bookmarks and has Javascript withoutpt enabled.   I prefer Dolphin because gestures can be used to invoke a bookmark without using a keyboard.  I use boolmarklets in the default browser that comes with Android Gingerbread 2.3.4.     A big problem with Android is not havingreal scrollbars and why I am not using hundreds of bookmarkets on Android.    Click on the bookmarklets on the page I referenced and you will see they work in your browser.

This does not sound as though it works with tool tips (text displayed on mouseover) — or does it?

Long-press the item (to open its context-menu), then hit the "back" key (to leave the menu). Works on most devices. Explained e.g. here, scroll down to "Smartphones".

Long-press does not activate any menu. It starts text selection

Then you're not long-pressing on a link. I didn't check all combinations of mouseOver events, admitted. But when it starts text-selection, what happens then when you press "back"? Is the mouseOver executed or not?

it works sometimes, and doesn't sometimes

Going necro on this since it was the most relevant thread I found when searching for a solution to this issue.
Based on the answer from @dmcritchie, I found the following works quite well to see tooltips when using Chrome on Android, which you'd normally only be able to see on mouse-over/hover when using Chrome on a laptop/desktop (Mac or PC).

When viewing this page on Chrome (Android app), open the menu, press ☆ to bookmark the page, then click "edit" on the notification that appears at the bottom of the screen to edit the bookmark.
Copy/paste the following to replace the name of the bookmark: πParenTips: Turns tooltips (title attributes) into parenthetical phrases. (https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/sitespecific.html#paren_tips)
Copy/paste the following to replace the URL of the bookmark:

javascript:(function(){ var z=[],N,title,tc,j; function r(N) { if (N.title) z.push(N); var C=N.childNodes,i;for(i=0;i<C.length;++i)r(C[i]); } r(document.body); for (j in z) { N=z[j]; title=document.createTextNode("("+N.title+")"); tc=document.createElement("span"); tc.style.color="green"; tc.style.background="black"; tc.appendChild(title); N.parentNode.insertBefore(tc,N.nextSibling); N.parentNode.insertBefore(document.createTextNode(" "),tc); }})();

Hit the left arrow ← at the top to finish editing the bookmark.
The next time you're viewing a page in Chrome on your Android device and want to see all of the tooltips that you'd normally only be able to see on mouse-over when using a desktop browser, click in the address bar, type πParenTips (case insensitive), and click the bookmark you just saved/edited (it should show a ☆ before it). The javascript saved as the URL of the bookmark will reveal the tooltips in parentheses after every object on the page that has one.

If you want to take this a step further (which I did), you can and the javascript into a macro, and add it into the MacroDroid drawer. Then, rather than needing to remember the name of the bookmark, you can just slide open the drawer and click the macro to execute the functionality.
Here's the code for the macro. If you use MacroDroid and want to import it, just save this using a text editor as ParenTips(tooltips).macro.
{"localVariables":[],"m_GUID":-7639397451296706360,"m_actionList":[{"m_option":1,"swipeAreaColour":0,"swipeAreaHeight":45,"swipeAreaOpacity":50,"swipeAreaOption":0,"swipeAreaVerticalOffset":50,"swipeAreaVisibleWidth":10,"swipeAreaWidth":10,"m_SIGUID":-7094001615827768492,"m_classType":"MacroDroidDrawerAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false},{"m_delayInMilliSeconds":500,"m_delayInSeconds":0,"m_useAlarm":false,"m_SIGUID":-8018690266470723056,"m_classType":"PauseAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false},{"action":0,"uiInteractionConfiguration":{"clickOption":2,"contentDescription":"","longClick":false,"xyPoint":{"x":300,"y":220},"type":"Click"},"m_SIGUID":-7967589745354417308,"m_classType":"UIInteractionAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false},{"m_delayInMilliSeconds":500,"m_delayInSeconds":0,"m_useAlarm":false,"m_SIGUID":-8261751054593356492,"m_classType":"PauseAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false},{"action":4,"uiInteractionConfiguration":{"forceClear":false,"text":"javascript:(function(){ var z\u003d[],N,title,tc,j; function r(N) { if (N.title) z.push(N); var C\u003dN.childNodes,i;for(i\u003d0;i\u003cC.length;++i)r(C[i]); } r(document.body); for (j in z) { N\u003dz[j]; title\u003ddocument.createTextNode(\"(\"+N.title+\")\"); tc\u003ddocument.createElement(\"span\"); tc.style.color\u003d\"green\"; tc.style.background\u003d\"black\"; tc.appendChild(title); N.parentNode.insertBefore(tc,N.nextSibling); N.parentNode.insertBefore(document.createTextNode(\" \"),tc); }})();\n","useClipboard":false,"type":"Paste"},"m_SIGUID":-5907160346063321222,"m_classType":"UIInteractionAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false},{"m_delayInMilliSeconds":500,"m_delayInSeconds":0,"m_useAlarm":false,"m_SIGUID":-7595853986867803473,"m_classType":"PauseAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false},{"action":0,"uiInteractionConfiguration":{"clickOption":2,"contentDescription":"","longClick":false,"xyPoint":{"x":980,"y":2100},"type":"Click"},"m_SIGUID":-4895727888846778703,"m_classType":"UIInteractionAction","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false}],"m_category":"Bookmarklets","m_constraintList":[],"m_description":"Turns tooltips (title attributes) into parenthetical phrases. Details:\nhttps://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/sitespecific.html#paren_tips","m_descriptionOpen":true,"m_enabled":true,"m_excludeLog":false,"m_headingColor":0,"m_isOrCondition":false,"m_name":"ParenTips(tooltips)","m_triggerList":[{"fakeIcon":2131231023,"m_SIGUID":-8670230100873968551,"m_classType":"EmptyTrigger","m_constraintList":[],"m_isDisabled":false,"m_isOrCondition":false}]}

If it doesn't seem to work on your device, you may just need to edit the coordinates for the UI Interaction(Click [x,y]) actions: (first one) to click the address bar in Chrome, and (second one) to click the enter/go key on your phone's keyboard.
Lastly, if you want to get rid of the parenthesized tooltips, just reload the page.

source: Stack Exchange

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

authors: Юрий Рогожин

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

sort: votes


text:
Best Wi-Fi Performance Doesn't Do Anything
In wireless options there is such setup, but it does not do anything. It doesn't increase coverage or signal. And i think it does not consume more power.
Why? Because this option does not apply itself in my opinion. Maybe a bug?
Htc Desire S
Android 2.3.3

Your phone settings cannot possibly affect the strength of the signal produced by a wireless router.
I would assume that this option just prevents Wi-Fi "sleep", seemingly confirmed by this discussion.  If that's the case it will consume more power when you're not using your phone.

So it's either Wi-Fi On or Wi-Fi Off? Suppose i chose Wi-Fi On, does that mean Wi-Fi will always be active? It will consume more power but how much?  This option can save battery when talking to someone since you don't need to see anything, just to hear

...him. But what i really would like to know is if there is no data exchange, Wi-Fi is still active and consumes power or it is active but does not consume power and not disconnects from internet.

@Boris_yo You're right, the screen uses more power than Wi-Fi.  If Wi-Fi is not sleeping it will consume power, even if there is no data transfer.  It uses even more power when there is data transfer, of course.  You have three options: Wi-Fi always on (enable it and enable Best Performance), Wi-Fi on when you use the device (enable it and disable Best Performance), or Wi-Fi off (disable Wi-Fi).

I would like 2nd option but the problem is that Wi-Fi goes to sleep when screen turns off. When that happens, trasnfer rate degrades significantly, Skype calls disconnect etc. What i would like is even when screen turns off Wi-Fi stays active but only when there are applications that use data or there is an active data transfer.

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


text:
"batch" removal of EXIF MPF data on Android phone before uploading to Google Photos
My Canon camera sets MPF in its EXIF data on and if there is a way to stop it, I can not find it.
This results in Google Photos saving the pictures in Original quality even though Storage Saver option is on - a known problem with Google Photos as discussed here.
At home I copy the camera pictures to my Linux PC and run a script to remove the MPF setting from a whole directory of photos in one shot. This allows the pictures to be backed up to Google Photos in Storage Saver as desired.
On travel, I back the camera photos up to my Pixel 6 phone using an OTG cable. I would like to have a way to remove the MPF setting similarly to what I do at home so that I could upload to Google Photos from my phone without blowing up my storage.
I have tried the app EXIF/XMP Tool and it does successfully remove the MPF setting. But in this app, I must open each photo one at at time and do the operation. If you take hundreds of pictures in a day, this is not workable. I seek a "batch" solution.
Is there a way on an Android phone to "batch modify" EXIF/MPF settings from many photos at once?

As you are familiar with Linux and scripting, you may want to try something similar on Android with Termux from github or F-Droid. You should be able to access the photos that are located in storage.
Be aware that there are issues with support on Android 12+ devices doing intensive computation on device.

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


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LineageOS 21.0 Build for SONY z3c
There are no new builds for SONY z3c since LineageOS 21, so I tried this manual meant for <18.1 in order to build a new version for z3c.
The breakfast-command leads to:
build/make/core/product_config.mk:226: error: Cannot locate config makefile for product "lineage_z3c".
18:58:49 dumpvars failed with: exit status 1
** Don't have a product spec for: 'lineage_z3c'
** Do you have the right repo manifest?

Is there any hope to build a proper new lineageos for z3c?

Currently lineage-18.1 is the latest version that can be built for this device. To make a 20.1 or 21.1 build quite a lot of porting work would need to be done, and this is not an easy task.
One ray of hope is that there is a currently an unofficial 20.0 build for Z3 (not Z3 Compact). As Z3 and Z3C use very similar hardware, it is possible that this work could be used as the basis for a 20.0 build for Z3C. But that will only happen if there is someone with the time, motivation, and expertise to make it happen, and to do the necessary work


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Magisk stable to canary and vice-versa
Switching from Magisk stable (27.x) to canary (and vice-versa if I don't like canary) should be an easy thing but I don't see updated instructions.
I had done this way back, IIRC, by choosing custom update and inserting a link which doesn't work anymore
I have downloaded the canary version from the official Magisk site and what are the next steps? Please note that I don't want to unroot, root with canary and set up all the modules, which is a huge pain.
I can think of two options:

Install the canary apk and it gets installed over the stable with modules intact

Change the canary apk extension to zip and flash from within Magisk

I am not sure which is the best way, possibly their are better ways but my primary concern is not to set up modules again and easily reverse from canary to stable
All this for a banking app detecting root

Guess I was over thinking. It turned out to be simple:
To update to canary

Install the downloaded Canary app
Magisk app gets updated to canary
Update Magisk (su) by direct install (of course patched boot image needs to be in downloads folder)
Set the update channel to Canary

To revert to stable (not fully tested)

Set the update channel to stable and the app gets reverted to stable version
Do direct install for Magisk (su) — this part I didn't test being in a hurry.

Please feel free to edit the content or write up an answer


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Pairing Galaxy Note 2 to my car
I'm trying to pair my Note 2 to my car and the car keeps searching and fails even though the info for the car Bluetooth shows up on the phone. Any suggestions?

Have you turned on Visibility of bluetooth?
Go to settings> Bluetooth & turn on visibility by setting a visibility timeout(2 minutes or whatever is convenient for you)


text:
If I have Android can I respond to group messages from iPhone users?
I have Android phone and use Handcent SMS. I have gotten group texts from iPhone users who use iMessage and I can see what everyone is saying, but when I try to respond I only get a loading circle that just keeps spinning and it ends up saving as a draft and doesn't send. Is there a way to fix this?

Related: In a group/mass text message from an iphone to other phones, who sees my reply to the group msg from my android? / iMessage like group messaging / Cannot receive group messages from iPhone users / Can you send texts from iMessage to someone who has Android and uses Handcent?

GoSMS Pro will allow you to group message (including adding pictures) just fine to iPhone users. Just tried it and it works great! Messages come back as single addresses but that is because they are sending via iMessage. All people in the group do get them however. And as an added bonus, you can add GoSMS emoticons so you can send and see emoticon smiley pictures from your iPhone friends!

You can reply to iMessage group chats by using the Android 4.2 stock messaging app, GoSMS or possibly other SMS apps.  I personally used GoSMS until the Android 4.2 added group messaging.  GoSMS worked great, it wasn't perfect, but it did work.  I don't think Handcent supports group messaging.

Your issue seems to be related to sending MMS messages. Can you send picture messages with your carrier's plan?


text:
Deleting albums from Gallery
I have an album called "23 Jan 2012", seems like it was empty when google picasa moved their data to google plus photos, and the thing is - there is no "delete" in the menu if I select it on the phone.
And there is no such an album in the google+ photos.
Any ideas?

There might be a directory by that name, e.g. in the DCIM folder of your SDCard (or one of the other default picture locations). You can check that with a file explorer.

@Izzy: I did, there is no such :-( All answers I've found refer to deleting it right in Picasa Web, but it's not available anymore

As the media scanner should re-fill it on its next run: Maybe you simply delete all data from the corresponding apps (via Settings->Apps->Manage Apps)? That should kick it. com.android.providers.media is the one holding the data, which might turn app in apps as "MediaStorage" or similar.

@Izzy: it kicks it but returns on next sync. I've found an app that solved my issue - see the answer and thanks

Ah! I see: so it was not the local gallery, but Picasa. I couldn't see that as I don't use "the cloud" for all my personal stuff :) Glad the issue solved, and thanks for the answer!

I just solved this issue after a lot of searching.
The normal Picasa page takes you to Google+, and it does not show the empty folders etc.
You have to use Picasa mobile:
https://picasaweb.google.com/m
Log in, and you can delete whatever you want.

Note that after deleting these from picasaweb you still need to use the Refresh option from the menu to re-sync.

There is a tool in the play store that can manage Picasa contents: Perfect Tool for Picasa.
And I could delete the extra directories using it.


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Missing Google Apps after 4.1.2 was built in Nexus S
I built Android 4.1.2 from source for my Nexus S using these instructions. Later I found that there are no Google Apps on the phone and so I cannot set up my Google account or use the Play Store or Google Maps. I tried to download the Google Apps from here and installed them from the SD card but nothing happened. How can I get them installed?
Also, is there any other way I can install Google Apps?

How exactly did you install the gapps package from your SD card? Did literally nothing happen, or did it claim to succeed or something else entirely?

No while installing it did not give me any error. It said installed, I did it from the recovery. But when I reboot the phone, I do not see any Gapps in my phone.

I tried to download the Gapps from here and installed them from the SD
  card but nothing happened. How can I get them installed?

perhaps there is not enough memory in system. Check and flash a lighter version with only essential apps(or trim down the package on your own)

It should not be the case since I flashed everything and tried to install it again

When you do not have enough space in system partition, it does happen.

I understand.. But in my case it has huge memory available

check out this link and try one of these.

in windows, install/use Nexus Root Toolkit to install the playstore .apk, then re-install missing gapps direct from playstore.


text:
My Nexus 4 crashes after every app start
I haven't used my Nexus 4 in a while, and all of a sudden all apps crashes on their start up, including the Google Play Store app.
I have tried to upgrade the OS to KitKat (via Settings => About This Phone => System Updates), but it's stuck updating to 4.3; I have a view with "downloading Android 4.3 update" which doesn't progess.

Screenshot (click for larger variant)

com.google.process.gapps has stopped

added explanation, though this is jus a work around for all aps crashes.

I see. The update is probably failing for the same reason as everything else. Did it start happening the first time you used the phone after a while?

yes. after 2-3 month of no use

Have you rooted flashed ROMs etc...


text:
Nook simple touch screensaver in USB mode
I have uploaded my own screensaver to my Nook Simple Touch, but when I connect it to my computer via USB, the screensaver goes to one of the stock ones. Is there anyway to make it so that when in USB mode, my Nook displays my custom screensaver instead of stock?

Whenever you connect your Nook in USB mode your USB storage from Nook gets unmounted and mounts in your computer. After its unmounted the OS can no longer find your screensaver. That's why Android doesn't want you to keep widgets in USB storage. Similarly apps moved to USB storage no longer works while connected to your computer.
If you move the screensaver to internal partition then it will work even when mounted to computer. For this your Nook must be rooted.

my Nook is rooted. Could you explain to me how to get it onto the internal partition?

If yo have ES file manager I'll tell you the steps with it or  kindly look at http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/36443-most-convenient-way-to-copy-files-to-cyanogen-nc/ for second reply from Scott Wilkins. I'm not sure if you have cyanogen or not and if it will work without cyanogen.


text:
Is there a way to improve S6 audio quality?
I just got a Samsung Galaxy S6 (Android 5.1.1) and I'm disappointed by the poor audio quality, as sounds are "chirping" and metallic, quite disagreeable to the ear. At first I thought it was just me, then I found several comments of people having the same opinion.
Is there a way to improve sound quality? For instance a built-in permanent equalizer, firmware updates, etc. ?

Get a custom kernel that has SELinux set to Permissive, install Viper4Android and after that Dolby Atmos. You are technically unable to have bad sound from there on. Configure both to your needs and enjoy the best sound your device can output. (I have an S6 Edge and using those mods improved the sound so much, that I can't listen to music without them)

I'm happy to report that apparently the problem went away with the recent update to Android 6.0.1 pushed to the device.

If you agree to void your warranty, your best bet would be to root your device and install a custom kernel, which can be further tweaked in order to improve the sound quality (amongst other things).

How exactly will tweaking your kernel improve sound quality?

After changing my kernel, I could mess up with the voltage of my speaker. That fixed up an issue in which I had a trembling audio output, so I guess it may work for the OP too.

That's a long shot imho just to get sound quality to improve. If its a known issue/bug, then probably will be fixed in next release by OEM. Sometimes, the issue might not be the kernel, as you suggest, but the medium of transport of the sound, like buggy bluetooth (software-wise).

I guess you're right. I'll leave my answer here as last choice, if there isn't a less dangerous method available.


text:
My GT-I9192 device keeps rebooting to "GALAXY" logo, even when trying to go into Recovery Mode
I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini that turns on just to the "Samsung GALAXY S4 mini GT-I9192" logo and keeps rebooting to it..
even when I try to go into recovery mode it just reboots to this logo and restart again
I download its firmware from sammobile.com and tried to flash it with ODIN. ODIN said everything went successfully, but the problem won't go away
I also tried to install CMW recovery, it went successfully too in ODIN... but I still can't go to recovery mode
Please, what would be the best solution?

Have you already checked with our boot-loop tag-wiki? Strange thing in your case however is it also boot-loops when booting into recovery, which puts me at a loss.

@Izzy Yes, I did, and when I try to turn on Recovery Mode I get a blue "Recovery Booting....." line at the top of "Samsung GALAXY S4 mini duos" logo, but as you said the strange thing is that it restarts after few seconds and continue on boot-loop

Raw idea: maybe you could boot into bootloader mode and see if you can flash a new recovery/ROM via Odin/Heimdall?

Nothing happens when I press the Vol. down and power buttons, it seems that I can't boot into bootloader mode too, it just keeps rebooting! @Izzy

Afraid I'm out of ideas then.

That happened with me too, sorry, but your phone is probably bricked. I fixed my S3 by purchasing an un-bricking device off ebay/Amazon. They look like so:

(If your phone is rooted, make sure you have the right root file (International or For a carrier) I corrupted mine because I had the international root file when my phone was sprint.)
Hope this helps!

I see! Well I'll search for more solutions hoping that this isn't the case for me.. Thank you for the information. :)


text:
Huawei P8 lite does not ask for user name password for connecting to WI-FI
I have a Huawei P8 lite with Android 5.0.1. My phone is having an issue when connecting to Wi-Fi. But only for my office wifi. For other wifi networks, it gets connected with out any issue.
One thing I noticed is the difference of the Security method. For my office network, it is 802.1 x EAP. But for other wifi networks to which I have connected my phone, the security method(protocol, not sure about the term though) is some thing else, as I remember it was WASP.
Others with some other phones in my office can connect to the wifi network. There are some other Huawei users as well, but with Android KitKat, they can connect their phones to the network with out any issue.
Why Cannot I connect to the WiFi network? How can I overcome the issue?

It won't prompt you, it must be setup manually in Android devices using Settings-WiFi and Add network, then enter the information manually. Enter the SSID manually, then change Security to 802.1x EAP, set EAP method to match your network (probably PEAP, ask your IT dept if unsure), then if 2 Phase authentication or CA certificate is required enter that information (otherwise leave blank), under Identity enter your username typically 'Domain\User' and the Password.
If that doesn't work, you will likely need to contact your IT department for more guidance.


text:
Closing a window within an activity using adb shell commands
I have been tinkering around with adb and attempting to control an application and close popup windows using adb shell commands. I trying to close an activity window that I can identify with the following command:
adb shell "dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus|mFocusedApp"

which returns two different variables while the window I want to close is open:
mCurrentFocus=Window{4e8ee3f u0 myApp/myActivity} (this is what I want to close)
mFocusedApp=AppWindowToken{ee23799 token=Token{5208e0 ActivityRecord{4dac6e3 u0 myApp/myActity}}}

Is it possible to close the current focus window and if so how?

When it comes to closing a dialog or a window, a user uses the Back key of their device. Through command-line you can emulate the functionality of Back key using a particular key event. The key event for Back key is KEYCODE_BACK. It has the constant value 4. Use it with input command in this manner:
adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_BACK
adb shell input keyevent 4    # alternative

I recommend you read this answer by Rene Barbosa. It lists many useful key events. I also recommend you execute adb shell input to find out how useful that command can be.


text:
How to disable flashlight in lock screen in Lollipop on Xcover 3?
Since upgrading my Samsung Galaxy Xcover 3 phone to Android 5.1 Lollipop, I've noticed that the flashlight keeps getting turned on in my pocket. Apparently, pressing the "Xcover button" on the side of the phone will now toggle the flashlight on and off even in the lock screen.
I've tried to find some way to turn this behavior off, but I'm not seeing anything in the settings that would look promising. My attemps to Google for a solution just yield instructions for enabling flaslight access from the lock screen on versions prior to Lollipop.
Short of getting a more robust case for my phone, how can I keep my pockets from shining in the dark?

Related: How to check if flashlight is activated?

@ Firelord: Alas, I don't think installing CyanogenMod and writing a script to control the flashlight is really the most practical solution here. At least, I really hope it isn't.

I had this same problem, and found a solution!
Download a random app (one that you don't actually need) from Play Store, then go to Settings (Personal / Xcover key) and change the button to open that app. Test that it works, and then delete the app, and now the button does nothing. ;)

Good idea! The only problem is that this also disables the button when the phone is unlocked, which is not ideal, but I guess I can just add the flashlight app to my home screen instead. I did some testing, though, and it seems that if I bind the button to some random game, it will not launch from the lock screen -- it seems that the real problem (to me) is that the built-in flashlight app has some permission that lets it bypass the screen lock. So I think if I found a third-party flashlight app with fewer permissions, and bound the button to that, it should work the way I want it...

Today my girlfriend's father ask me how to solve it.
I've just written an lightweight app (7kB) which does nothing at all.
Download it from here and set as your XCover button app :)

the app should be available within 2 hours from now...

That's... awesome! :D

I have found that this will disable the torch: Go to SETTINGS then ACTIVE KEY press SHORT PRESS and select NO ACTION, this should now disable the torch but leave the camera active on a long press.

I don't see that option on my XCover 3 (Android 5.1.1). Also (possibly related), on my phone the settings item is called "Xcover key", not "Active key".


text:
Using YouTube under Orbot
I'm trying to put my YouTube app's traffic on Orbot (Tor) in my phone due to filtering issues in my country. When Orbot is in Tor Everything mode, it works, and all of the traffic used by YouTube is gone through Orbot. But, when I choose Select Apps (and I select YouTube in there) it stops working. The point is that the video is not behind Tor on this state. Should I add another app to that list? What should I do?

Are you sure you need Tor for all youtube videos?  If you only need youtube access, then you should try alternative lower latency circumvention techniques, like alternative DNS providers or a VPN.  Tor should be used when you're worried about your government even knowing what you watch, meaning countries like Iran, China, Syria, etc.
Case 1. You care about speed and access, but not really privacy.
You should first try bypassing your nation's DNS servers by simply setting a DNS server outside the country.  OpenNIC and OpenDNS are cool, albeit maybe slow.  Google has some faster ones.  etc.  All these options worked fine in Turkey.
If your country blocks more than DNS then try using a VPN based outside your country, including free ones like VPNReactor.  VPNs are slower than simply bypassing a DNS block, but almost any VPN should be faster than Tor.  Or even a dedicated youtube proxy.
Case 2. You care about privacy more than speed.
Use Tor, preferably Tor everything mode.  There are security risks with using youtube's flash app through Tor, probably this specific issue doesn't impact youtube's android app.  Yet, maybe Tor's "select apps" mode doesn't adequately handle the NDK, where youtube's codecs probably live.  If so, that's harder.  Try a browser maybe?


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Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S5830 neither goes into Download Mode nor RAM Dump Mode
My Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S5830 has just “hung” during the start-up screen with the white text “Samsung www.samsung.com" on a black background.
I have tried to restart it and to take the battery out / put it in again but the result is the same. It neither goes into Download Mode (vol down+menu+power button) nor RAM Dump Mode (vol up+power button).
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on how to fix this?

Plug it into your computer and see if by some offshoot chance you have adb available.  If so, run a adb -d reboot-bootloader to reboot into download mode.
If that's unavailable, you are SOL and will have to have Samsung repair it.  Honestly, if it's hard bricked, you're better off buying a new phone...

I found a post on XDA that suggests you have to hold Home + Power till the device starts and shows the Samsung symbol, then let go. Holding it till "Samsung" appears is very important! This worked for my Galaxy Ace GT5830.

Sorry to say this, but if it will not go into Download Mode then your only hope would be to take into a service centre to get it repaired.
They would most likely charge you if you're rooted or have a custom ROM installed. Apologies for the bad news!

Done that buddy..they asked me to change the mother board of da phone.Thanx

@Max. Then what are you asking here for? Get them to change it :)

Thy say it will tak a month

I thought I must have an option to boot up my phone through Eclipse DDMS but I cant find any option there either!


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Disabling skype messaging sound on Nexus 7
It seems you can turn off all notifications and alerts, but I like getting text notifications.
The spammy sound that comes by default is most certainly annoying, and there doesn't seem to be any option to disable that without losing text notifications too.
Does anyone know how to disable just the Skype sound, whilst keeping the text notification?

Skype Settings -> Notifications


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What does the "Force stop" button mean?
When I go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Downloaded I see an application list. If I select some applications I see button "Force stop" active, but some applications have this button dimmed.
What does it mean? What happens if I press this button?
This button can't mean application running, since the applications with this button are not listed in Running section.
Can I list just applications which have the Force stop button active and uninstall them?

Android version: 3.2

As said in my comment to paco's answer, the information he gave is mostly correct: Most apps don't exit completely if you leave them, and no app should exit if you leave it via the "Home" button. Moreover, some apps have background services running which the user otherwise cannot quit.
Now there are some situations where you need an app (including its background services) to be stopped -- e.g. if you want to uninstall that app (or, in case of a system app, its updates). You will notice this when the "Force Stop" button is active, the "Uninstall" (or "Remove") button is grayed out -- but the latter gets activated when you stopped the app via "Force Stop". (If both buttons are grayed out, you can tell it's a system app, by the way -- which you cannot uninstall).
Btw: If the "Force Stop" button is grayed out ("dimmed" as you put it) it means that app is not currently running, nor has it any service running (at that moment).

You will notice this when the "Force Stop" button is active, the "Uninstall" (or "Remove") button is grayed out, can you give an example app which is having this behaviour? I just skimmed through some of my apps and found that both "Force Stop" and "Uninstall" buttons are activated. I am on Android 4.4.2.

As my answer is already 2 years old, Kitkat was not available back then; this behavior might have changed or not affecting all apps. I cannot test with Kitkat (no device running that), and out-of-my-head do not remember which packages I've seen that with, sorry.

The code behind the Force stop button is complex and undocumented. I'll reproduce it verbatim and then go through it one piece at a time.
private void checkForceStop() {
    if (mDpm.packageHasActiveAdmins(mPackageInfo.packageName)) {
        // User can't force stop device admin.
        updateForceStopButton(false);
    } else if ((mAppEntry.info.flags&ApplicationInfo.FLAG_STOPPED) == 0) {
        // If the app isn't explicitly stopped, then always show the
        // force stop button.
        updateForceStopButton(true);
    } else {
        Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_QUERY_PACKAGE_RESTART,
                Uri.fromParts("package", mAppEntry.info.packageName, null));
        intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_PACKAGES, new String[] { mAppEntry.info.packageName });
        intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_UID, mAppEntry.info.uid);
        intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_USER_HANDLE, UserHandle.getUserId(mAppEntry.info.uid));
        getActivity().sendOrderedBroadcast(intent, null, mCheckKillProcessesReceiver, null,
                Activity.RESULT_CANCELED, null, null);
    }
}

The first if line checks if any component of the package is a device admin (that is, if it's checked in the Device administrators list in the Security page of the Settings app). If so, the button is disabled (greyed out) so you can't stop device admins.
Then, the else if checks if the package is already stopped. Here, stopped doesn't just mean "not running". As far as I can tell, a package is in the stopped state if you've never run any component from it (such as by launching it from the menu), or if you've pressed a Force stop button (this one or in a "stopped working" dialog) and not run any of its components again. If the package hasn't been stopped, the button is enabled.
The else case covers the rare eventuality that an app has been stopped and isn't a device admin. In this case, it gives other system services a chance to enable the button. For example, the app might have an alarm set and pending, which would later cause the app to be started again even from the stopped state. In this case, the button will be enabled. If no other system service has a reason to enable the button, it will be disabled.
Summary
The Force stop button is enabled if the package is not a device admin and either you haven't already force-stopped this app or you have force-stopped it but a system service thinks it will run it again.
If the app is running (and it isn't a device admin), the Force stop button will definitely be enabled, but the button being enabled doesn't mean the app is running.

It's great that you show us the code that determines whether the button is displayed or not. To a developer like me that is the perfect answer. But really, this is only half the answer. You don't show what happens when you actually press the button.

Android maintains 4 types of applications in its memory. I dont remember all but running and cached background  are 2 of them...(cached background can be accessed by clicking the hardware menu button when in the running tab and selecting the poped up option)
So though it might not be seen in the running processes, it is not entirely dead.
Mostly it shall be in the cached background prcesses.
also, about task managers..Its is not advised to use them as android has been hardcoded to manage apps efficiently.App/Task killers actually rather drain battery as after the killer kills apps, acording to the algorithm android follows,they will be started again!(and apps take up rather more memory at startup than in ideal state) thus it becomes a cycle and drains the battery.
so the force close button is active on mostly running and cached processes and may exist on a very few apps that reside in the other two types of processes!
on other apps its greyd out!

It's more than 4 types (see Understanding Android Application and Activity Lifecycles for a closer explanation). But those classes have nothing to do with the "force stop" button, at least not directly (see my answer: an active "force stop" button simply means that either the app itself or one of its registered services is currently running).

This button is active for apps that are running or are be running since the last time that you started your device.
Android do not kill the apps totally when you exit from it, this button is for close completely the app and remove it from the stack (apps running), also this button free the memory used by the app.
There is no way to list the apps running, also the apps running in background have this button.
There are free killer apps in the Play Store, to manage the memory of your device automatically.

While the basic information is correct: better remove the part about the "automatic killers". There might have been some time when they were needed (before Android 2.x), but they are absolutely contra-productive and mostly have a negative effect on battery runtime.


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Vanilla Android on Nook Touch
I have a Nook Touch and I've followed some rooting instructions and have installed apps from Android Market, but some things about it are still Nook-ish, such as the screensaver.
How can I "wipe" my Nook Touch and install a "vanilla" version on Android and thus not run into anything specific to Nook?
Reminder: this is regarding the Nook Simple Touch eInk device, not the Nook Color.

possible duplicate of Flash a smartphone with vanilla Android ROM. You might also want to check Vanilla Android on Nook Touch

@Izzy: The second question you link to is this one.

Ouch -- fail. Copied it the wrong way around I guess. I meant Gingerbread ROM for Nook Color?... To make up for it, some other helpful Q&As: Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device? plus Can I use an Android OS card on the new Nook Tablet?


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Force Google Chrome to load background pages
I open links via context menu item Open in background but background pages begin to load only when tab is selected.
Is it possible to force Google Chrome for Android to load pages which are opened in background?

I didn't find anything related on chrome://flags, so I'm not sure if this is possible.

so do I with same result =)

No, it's not possible, because it makes a little sense. Chrome is a multi-process browser and it uses dedicated processes (in Android terms, Services) for rendering pages. On Android, processes working in background are usually aggressively killed by the system in order to free memory for foreground processes. It makes no sense to do loading of background pages as a renderer in background will most likely be killed soon, it will be just a waste of network and CPU resources. So Chrome just creates a placeholders for background tabs and only "fills" them when the user switches to them.

Maybe it makes a little sense from perspective of OS. But for user it's good. It would be nice to have possibility to read current page and at same time download background page. At time when you read current page all background page will be ready. User happy. I thought it is obvious. So, I assume it's not possible, because of system design flaw.

At least Chrome does DNS prefetching for hosts from the links on your current page. As DNS caches are browser- or even OS-wide, this works well.


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How to get the "check" next to text messages without being notified?
I have an HTC Incredible 2. The default is NOT to notify you when your message has been delivered.
I can go into settings and tell it to notify me. After doing so, it puts a checkmark next to the message when its been delivered -- That I like. However, it also "alerts" me with a notification in my notifications bar that it has been delivered -- I find that annoying.
Is there anyway to get the checkmark indicating it was delivered without the notification alert?

This is probably an HTC Sense thing that you can't change. On my G2, with the "vanilla" Android interface, it displays a small toast message that disappears after a few seconds.

@thunsaker, thanks, you're probably right. This is my first Android phone so I can't compare with others.

John as @thunsaker states this a HTC Sense mod and unfortunately cannot be changed.
You could look at rooting your phone and putting a vanilla ROM of Android on or the fully customisable Cynogen Mod 7, that way you can take back the control HTC stole ;-).
A place to start would be http://www.android.modaco.com

Rather than modify your ROM and switch over to CyanogenMod, why not simply use an alternative SMS app like Handcent SMS or GoSMS. Both have customizable options for Sent message notifications, including vibrate pattern options.


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Can application upgrades happen automatically, even if you have it turned off in marketplace?
I thought I had turned off all the automatic upgrades for the apps on my phone (T-Mobile G2 w/ Froyo).
However, yesterday, I got a notice that said that I had new GMail and described the new features.
I checked GMail, and I did have the new 2.3.5 version.
Then I checked Android Market, and it shows "Allow automatic updating" as unchecked.

I know that Google can reach out and pull apps off your phone (like it did with some recent malware). I suppose it might be able to force updates to apps, probably in cases where it's an important security update. I haven't heard of them doing so, however.

I had the same experience.  Automatic updates are off, but the new GMail arrived without input on my Moto Droid/2.2.2

I believe that Google can and will update their system apps like Gmail, Market, Search and Youtube (I think that is still system app).
There have been plenty times that the Market updates itself, without any interaction from the user. I have not seen them actually update anything automatically, except the Market, but if you have a "with Google" phone, I am sure there is some blurb somewhere that says they may update the applications without you knowing, or something.


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How can I install swype on HTC Wildfire S?
I have an HTC Wildfire S and want to install Swype.
I understand from a bit of searching that I need to download it.
When I search for "swype" in the marketplace there are dozens of results which all don't seem to install the Swype functionality.
Some forums even mention that this is not possible.
How do I install Swype functionality on my HTC Wildfire S?

Use Go Keyboard or SwiftKey X, dude..

Swype uses a "closed" beta system to distribute its app rather than using the Market. You can register for the beta and get a download link for their installer by simply visiting the Swype website.
Disclaimer: I have no idea if the Wildfire is "officially" supported, but QVGA screen support is noted for v3.0. The forum thread you linked to in your question is about 5 months old, and QVGA was not supported at that time.

Have you tried http://beta.swype.com/ ?
You need to register with an email address to get a link to download the Swype installer.

Swype developers pulled the app from the market in favour of deals with manufacturers and networks to have the app pre-installed on phones. So the only way to obtain it is to find a copy of the app apk file and manually install it. Note that there are different versions of the apk depending on the screen resolution (and possibly other factors) of the phone.

go to new message, put your finger on text input box and hold, it'll bring up 'edit text', choose 'input method' then 'swype'.

What if Swype isn't installed?


text:
Is there any way to force market to update and install apps one at a time?
I'm having problems with my Samsung galaxy Captivate where whenever I attempt to update all the apps in market, every single app begins downloading and installing all at the same time and the result is always the same, it crashes (20+ simultaneous downloads and installs would definably overrun any system!).
Is there any way to set it such that android is only allowed to download and install a single app at a time? I want to be able to run the batch updates but I want them to be queued up as opposed to all running at once and overwhelming my system.

If you use AppBrain it does downloads sequentially. Unfortunately you'll still need to click "Okay" for each to start the download but it'll save you a few taps.

Well i know you can individually install them on appbrain, but it is far from automated. I'd like the "update all" button, just not the "update all at once" effect.


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When I lose access to my Exchange server, is there a way to keep my contacts?
Changing jobs and will soon no longer have access to my company's Exchange server.  Contacts are in Exchange and synched on my Droid (HTC EVO) using the default Exchange app.  I want to be sure I don't lose my contacts when I no longer have access to the Exchange server.  But if I transfer them to GMail contacts now, I'm concerned it will duplicate my contact records.  Any suggestions or tips?  Thanks in advance!

You may want just transfer your Exchange contacts to GMail. There are quite good duplicate/merging tools in GMail Contacts. Use More actions and Find and merge duplicates. There are automatic as well as manual merging modes.
You can import CSV formatted contacts into GMail from its More actions and Import menu.

Assuming that you're using Outlook when you're at a PC in the office, you could just Export your contacts from Outlook on your last day, and then Import them into GMail.
GMail is good at handling CSV imports from Outlook, and will also suggest Duplicates that can be merged and help you to merge them.
A few helpful links:
Export Outlook Contacts to Google Gmail (Outlook 2002/2003)
Transfer contacts between Outlook and Google Gmail (Outlook 2007)
Export contacts (Outlook 2010) then follow the final steps from either of the above guides for the GMail import stage
Merging duplicate contacts in GMail

If it's stock, and you don't see an "export" option, you're probably toast.
I know CyanogenMod allows contact export to SD Card in VCF format, at least in version 6 (don't know about 7, don't run it). CM4 did not allow contact export.
I can't imagine a system administrator allowing rooted phones on their network.

Thanks to you both for replying.  Found the export/import function and was able to export to SD and then import back to GMail contacts. I'll just have some dupes on the Droid until my last day at work is done.  It was much easier than I expected - the import/export function on the device worked surprisingly well!

Oh so that's Stock? Awesome.


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Use Android device as a barcode reader for PC
Is there an app that allows your Android device to act as a barcode reader, in such a way that it can send something like keyboard inputs to a computer in real-time?

I made a free alternative: Barcode to PC: Wi-Fi scanner.
It sends realtime keystrokes, no copy&paste required, works everywhere

I tried your app, but for my sorry, phone and server couldnt connect :/
I tried and manual adding server.... the same Android 5.1 / Win 7 64bit

Best one i´ve found after trying about 20 different apps.

@minimiro Did you add the server to windows firewall exceptions? If yes it may be your antivirus that blocks the app.

Free and works very well without any configuration necessary. Thanks

@filippo Thank you so much! The app is so well done and works seamlessly. I can't believe it's free! Thank you. You deserve more upvotes.

works, but is actually shareware (even though it's marked GPL). it will ask you to upgrade to the paid version and some features are locked, a bit annoying. i asked the folks from binary eye to implement a similar "ping URL" feature which could be promising...

Bluetooth Barcode Scanner
WiFi Barcode Scanner

Both are paid apps.

See filippo's answer below for a good free alternative.

Install Barcode Scanner. In Barcode Scanner app settings check "copy to clipboard" after scanning.
Install ClipSync

Now your PC should have the info in clipboard so do Ctrl+V.
I haven't tested it myself but it should work, and both apps are free.

Instead of ClipSync I use UniClip! Clipboard Sync. It has support for Win, Mac and Linux.

I made a (free) app that shows scanned codes on webpage, allowing easy copy, updated real-time.
Web Barcode


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Facebook Messenger without permissions
Facebook Messenger for Android requires a lot of permissions - like reading my SMS and other stuff. I really don't like that. Is there any fb chat application which doesn't require such permissions?
In fact i would only need a notification when there is a new message.

The Facebook app itself (not the messenger one) can notify you of new messages. You can configure it in Facebook App > Settings > Notifications The messenger now handles SMS as part of its functionality, hence the permission, but there's no reason to use it since the default app will do what you need.

You can use ChatSecure (formerly known as “Gibberbot”) with Facebook added as an XMPP account. Just enter username@facebook.com and your Facebook password to connect.
For even more protection of your details you can use the "Connect via Tor" option with Orbot (the Android port of Tor) to hide your location from Facebook as well.

ChatSecure doesn't require any fragile permissions. There is a litte bit of a hassle to setup facebook through XMPP, but all of the information you can find here (after clicking Pidgin): https://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php.  UI is very simple. When two sides of the conversation would like to - there is possibilty to encrypt messages. This is what I was looking for, although it could look a little bit nicer. Good app! Thanks for the answer.

You can do what Andrew said, or you can download App Ops and remove the permissions from the app iteself
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.colortiger.appopsinstaller&hl=en

Do not see a mention of what version of Android OP is using, the linky to Play Store is only for Android 4.3/4.4... just saying :)

Yes, and Google says it was released in error and subsequent updates to 4.4 removed the capability. So, I don't think App Ops is a viable option.

I am just giving for reference, less than 2% of devices run kit kat, so there is a good chance it will work for him.  Just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it wont work for him.  Plus it will allow him to keep the default Facebook Messenger app.

App Ops looks like a great idea! Unfortunately I've got older version of android - 4.1.


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How to sync Nexus 4 and Nexus 7?
I have the both Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 devices. I want them to have the same (at least similar) list of installed applications and their settings. How can I synchronize them, so that I do not need to install and set everything up two times?

Android lets you backup settings & data for installed apps, but doesn't have a straightforward way to sync the actual installation of them. If you prefer not to manually search/install each app from the device itself (it gets really tedious) you can do what I do:
1) Go to https://play.google.com/apps to view the apps which are already installed on one device. Select the app you want to transfer over to view it's details page.

2) If the app is compatible with both devices (most probably will be but not all) click the button that says INSTALLED.

3) Select the other device where you want to install it and click INSTALL.

You'll still have to repeat this for each app you want to carry across, but I've found it to be much easier to do it with a mouse in a web browser than searching/installing

Thank you very much. I will try that. The reason I asked is that I first installed apps in my Nexus 4. Then I got my Nexus 7, and surprisingly, I find that it automatically installed the apps. But later on, when I installed new apps. in Nexus 4, nothing happened to Nexus 7.


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Services Google Play and Shop Google Play why both?
Why I do I have to have both Services Google Play and also Shop Google Play applications on my phone? They take quite a lot of memory space, which is quite small on my ZTE SKATE. I have an SD card with about 6GB space, but I can't move these over there. And when I try to delete Services Google Play it downloads on its own when I go to Shop. Why is Google doing this? When I got my phone I had only Google Shop there. Now this. I'm running out of space and there aren't any other apps that take a lot of space like this and I could delete/uninstall them.
Can anyone tell me what exactly is the difference between these two apps and why I need to have them both installed? And if I don't need them, how can I get rid of one of them so I have more space?

Try moving as many apps as you can to the SD card. You say you don't have many large apps, but even if you can get a lot of smaller apps to decrease their footprint in main memory it can add up. I used to use an app called SDMove which was quite helpful in that regard, although there are other, similar apps you can use.

Well I have everything I can moved on my SD card, so :(

Google Play Services is a library used by other Google and third-party apps. It allows apps to use:

Google Maps layers to show maps in other apps
Google+ sign-on and sharing
the new Google+ gaming functionality for match-making, leaderboards, and to store saved games "in the cloud"
Google Cloud Messaging to sync data from the Internet to your device efficiently
Location services to set up "geo-fences" so they can respond to locations and activities more efficiently than if they accessed your location directly

It's a lot of functionality that could have been made part of Android itself, but making it a separate library allows Google to update it directly, so app developers can rely on it being up-to-date on every device: unlike Android itself, which some manufacturers and carriers don't bother to update for older devices.
If you were to remove it, any apps that rely on it would stop working or behave unpredictably.

Is it okay if I delete the Google play shop app and just use the browser if I need any new apps? :D 10Mb too much for me :/

I don't think you can. When you choose an app in the browser, it just sends a signal to the Google Play app to start downloading the app you asked for.

Damn :( I guess I have to give up Angry birds...


text:
Unlock phone with a different button
I have a Nexus 4, and everything is OK, but I have realised that the power button is not working as well as I want. Sometimes I have to press it twice or push harder, so my question is: could I set up my phone to unlock with a different button, for example with the volume buttons? Is there any solution in case that the power button becomes inoperable?

It might be possible using Tasker, if your device has a camera button (which was, when I looked last, the only hardware button you could bind actions to)...

If your device doesn't have a hardware camera button, as @Izzy suggests, then I believe it's also possible on a rooted device. But you'd essentially lose a button for the sake of the new power button.

But I just have 3 buttons, power, and two volume buttons :s

I don't think you would sacrifice one of your volume buttons. And the power button is just the one you want to "replace". So the answer is somehow obvious, right?

When the power and back button failed in my rooted LG P500, I used Button savior.  This app works without any restriction on rooted devices and with few limitations on unrooted.
This app creates a small overlay on the screen (which is customisable in terms of its size, visibility, position etc.) and pressing this overlay slides a virtual buttons on screen to lock, volume up and down, back, home, search, menu, camera etc.
It was indeed aptly named for as it saved my trip to service centre to shell out money on my phone to replace the keys.

Thanks a lot, I will keep this answer in mind. Definitely I will use it!

The power button is not actually replaceable with any soft key as it is also used for powering up, during which no software component can help. Other than that this key plays important role in booting to recovery mode. Again this will not work with software key. But in my case the power button was only working inconsistently as you said and the back button totally stopped working. Had a difficult time when using CWM and hence switched over TWRP touch recovery.

A week ago or so I started using Gravity Screen Off.

Same problem occurred to my fathers Nexus 4 phone. We tried 3-4 soft best of them is Auto Screen On this soft used Proximity sensor on Left top just tap that sensor once or twice (set in setting).. and go your phone will unlock w/o power btn. actually it also support gravity sensor but may be not compatible with nexus 4.
Also works w/o rooting  ..

So, Did any of those Apps work fine?


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Upload data from internal memory to Dropbox
I have been trying to upload xml data from the internal memory of my android phone to Dropbox. However, it only works when I use a virtual device. I currently believe that it is because the phone isn't rooted (i.e. I can access /data/data/appname/files in the file explorer for the virtual device but not the android phone) which is required to access the app's allocated internal memory. Is there a way to do this without rooting the phone?

I was able to resolve my problem. I found out that since I am restricted in accessing the app's personal storage I couldn't create the folder called "files" (from /data/data/appname/files), however, by directly writing the data to /data/data/appname/, I was able to access and upload the data.
Hope this helps someone.

authors: พิสมัย มัฐผา


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Cellular network name appearing twice
The network operator name is being displayed like:

VODAFONE IN – Vodafone IN

[Screenshot] (left-top)
Instead of appearing twice, can it be made to appear only once?
Or can it be removed?
Without rooting.
Nexus 6P - Android 7.1.1
Edit: The device is single SIM. I tried in another device and there too the network operator name is being displayed twice so seeming to me fault of the network operator.

Guess your device is Dual-SIM? Afraid without rooting that's not possible. If the device is rooted, there are several Xposed modules – but then again, Xposed AFAIK is not (yet?) available for Nougat. Only thing left then: Take out one SIM. Admittedly, not a real solution to consider :)

@Izzy The device is single SIM. I tried in another device and there too the network operator name is being displayed twice so seeming to me fault of the network operator.

If it happens on a single-SIM device, that indeed seems to be an error on the operator's end. I'd check with one of their shops (to make sure it's not the SIM), they should have several devices displaying the name "as set up".


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My HTC One X seems to be self destructing after Jelly Bean update
I upgraded to Jelly Bean on my AT&T HTC One X last month, and ever since then it's like my phone has just given up on life.
I had to upgrade through the installer package from the HTC Website and was walked through the process by HTC tech support.
Things that have been happening:

HD Widgets would stop working off and on, the widgets I've had on the screen would simply disappear
Tasker crashes constantly and profiles don't work. I have used this app on my last 2 phones as well as on the HTC One X since I got it back in Nov.
Swype is no longer my keyboard and no matter what I do I can't seem to get it back.
most importantly : My microphone quit working on phone calls. It still works on speakerphone, but no longer works normalls.
Other various weird happenings here and there. I swear it's like my phone is haunted or has become sentient and given up on life.

These are all apps I have used for a very long time and have never had issues with. At least 2 of them are very popular and respectable apps.
(I would link to them, but Google Play is unfortunately blocked at work)
My phone is not rooted. I have not dropped my phone in water or even dropped it on the ground. Literally nothing major has changed in the past 2-3 months except the Jelly Bean update about a month ago.
If you need any more information to help me get pointed in the right direction to resolve my issues, please let me know.

If those problems started right away after the update: did the update process include a factory-reset? If not (and nothing else helps), this might be your chance:
Backup all things you can backup (luckily on JB that's not too big an issue, see Full Backup of non-rooted devices -- but I recommend to have all your apps into separate packages, as otherwise a full restore might bring back your problems). Then do a factory-reset.
Before restoring anything, check if your problems are gone. Then restore your apps one-by-one (just to make sure to not bring back the problem).
As for the backup process: check with Helium - App Sync and Backup, this is the easiest way to go. You can mark all your apps, make sure to check that .apk files are included (by default, Helium only backups data), and give it a go. Helium creates separate backup archives per-app, so you can restore them separately. Make a copy of the backup folder to your PC, just in case -- if restoring via Helium should fail for any reason, this still gives you the chance to use adb restore via USB.
Background: It might very well be that some settings got messed up on update. A factory-reset will erase all your apps and data, plus the Dalvik-Cache (optimized app code -- this might be the culprit if it doesn't 100% match the new Android version), so all settings revert to "default". Your Android system ROM (JellyBean) will not be reverted to what you had before, so no worries for that :)

No it did not. I was actually expecting it to be reset and backed up all my important information multiple times before I updated to Jelly Bean, but the apps simply weren't installed but still completely there in the folder structure.
I'm not too worried about the apps themselves, I can re-install them from the Play store.
I will try this tonight, thanks much.

That description makes a "system confusion" even more likely, while at the same time it seems a factory-reset will really be the remedy to that. As you already have everything backed up, go for it -- I keep my fingers crossed meanwhile and wait for your feedback :) Good luck!

Glad to read -- and thanks for your feedback!


text:
bsnl is709c android tablet is not booting up
My BSNL penta IS709C tablet got locked after too many unlock attempts. After that I tried to hard reset by pressing BACK + HOME + MENU buttons together with the power button but in vain. Tablet present condition:
1) USB debugging off, so no adb commands.  2) wifi is off. 3) No
    associated google account.
Please help me restore the tablet or suggest me how can I hard reset it.

So after battling for two days, finally I have managed to solved this problem.
First of all download stock ROM for your tablet from here
and extract the file anywhere you want.
Note:- All the below steps are provided in .ppt file which you can find in the downloaded zip folder(here ..\BSNL-IS709C\BSNL IS709C\Firmware\upgrade\tool). Since it is a Chinese version so I thought it might help if I re-write the steps here:

Shut down your tablet.
take out your SDCard if you don't want data loss.
Plug one end of the Usb cable to PC/Laptop.
Press the middle button(namely menu button) of the three buttons on the tablet and the power button together and then plug another end of the Usb cable to the tablet.
After this, your computer will try to install drivers for your device which you can ignore because you are gonna install the drivers manually.
go to device manager->Other devices->right click on the unknown device(which is yours with yellow triangle) and then click on update driver software.
Choose to manually locate drivers and move to this directory (..\BSNL-IS709C\BSNL IS709C\Firmware\upgrade\tool\Driver).
Select the appropriate driver(x86/x64) and click OK, a red color pop up is displayed. Click yes(or whatever) to install the drivers.
Now open the RKBatchTool provided here(..BSNL-IS709C\BSNL IS709C\Firmware\upgrade\tool). You will see a green color square on it which means that it has recognized your device. Meanwhile is the Chinese version, so can refer this picture for further operation:

Click on the Restore button to factory reset the tablet and when its done. Click on upgrade.
Restart the tablet and voila, its done!!


text:
Is it possible to switch keyboard language layout on HTC Wildfire?
I am thinking of buying an HTC Wildfire S. Since I will be buying it in Germany, it will have a German keyboard (e.g. Y and Z are interchanged).
Will there be a way for me to switch the keyboard to English and French and back to German with the click of a button as I do on my Windows PC (ALT-shift)?

The built-in Gingerbread keyboard should support multiple languages, they can be selected from the Settings -> Locale and Text -> Gingerbread keyboard -> Input Languages menu. After this, you'll see the current language on the space bar and can roll through the languages by swiping left or right on the space bar.


text:
Can someone explain fragmentation?
Would someone be able to explain android fragmentation?
If I created an app using 1.5 will that app work on all devices that have version 1.5 - 3.2 (highest current version)?  Or are there issues between the versions?  I understand 3.0 is the tablet version so an app made for 1.5 probably won't look good, but will it work without having to create specific version targeted versions of the app?
Also, why does it take so long for some phones to get updates?  Is Android so tied to specific device hardware that upgrading it is not possible without other device specific modifications?  I would have expected that if a phone is able to run a new version it would get it OTA, but reading around it seems a lot of android users complain that it's taking so long to get x update or that they don't even know if they will get it.

Fragmentation is caused by a number of things, here are a few:
Screen resolutions - You can have a varying degree of screen sizes between phones (and tablets).  Solution? Developers have to make sure their UIs scale gracefully.  It's not much different than creating websites for different screen resolutions. This isn't a new problem. Apple "solved" this by forcing their phones to have one resolution (plus a 2x resolution which make it easy to scale things up).  See Android dev guide for some more information.
Hardware - No phone is exactly like another phone.  Beyond screen sizes, we have different processors (or  multiple!), different video graphics, different sizes of memory (on board and external), different keyboards (or no keyboards!), (optional) notification lights, (optional) track balls, (optional) cellular antennas, etc, etc, etc. There are at least 500 different types of Android devices out there. One thing may run great on my phone, but not yours due to different hardware limitations.
Operating System - Each flavor of Android brings out new APIs for developers to use. This means that developers have to conditionally check whether or not they can use these APIs based on the device in use.  Additionally, carriers/manufacturers can be slow at updating (or may never update) their devices' software.  So some devices may "lag behind" in updates.  Even more: some manufactures like to skin/theme Android to their own liking (TouchWiz, MotoBlur, etc.).  This can cause some fragmentation as a stock version of Android behaves a bit different than a device with a skin.


text:
auto (usb) tethering when phone is connected?
Can I somehow auto turn on

usb tethering when I connect my
HTC Desire with Cyanogenmod 7.0.3 to my
Windows 7 computer?

NOTE Not when I connect it to anyother computer though.

Your phone is managed by the computer when connected, so you'd need to set something up computer-side.  Perhaps some sort of script to get adb to run a tethering app on your phone, I don't know.  Even if the phone started the tethering itself it would require something PC side to tell it that it's connected to the right computer.

So phone cannot 'know' what computer it is connected to?

Right. You could think about it this way, perhaps it's more intuitive: When you connect your phone to a PC for the first time, the PC installs the driver for your phone after getting determining what device it is.  But you phone does not install a driver for your PC, since it does not determine what PC it is.

If you use EasyTether, you can always have it enabled on your device and simply right click the icon in the tray (Windows) or enable it via terminal (Linux) and be on your way. Not quite 'default' but one click is pretty good. And EasyTether uses nothing when you're not attached to a computer, so no wasted battery or processing. It does display a notification icon to be persistent (not be killed), but you might be able to turn it off.
As far as it knowing, you have to have the client installed, so any computer you hook it to that didn't both have the client and have you enable it computer-side would do nothing.
Hope that helps!

Sounds good. The thing is that I connect my phone the the computer and then I have to turn on tethering. It takes some time for computer to pick up the connection but sometimes tethering won't start. Not sure why. An icon in Windows sounds great. Does it mean that when I connect to my office computer and do nothing, tethering won't start? It starts only when I click the icon in Windows?

THE LITE VERSION BLOCKS HTTPS, INSTANT MESSENGERS AND GAME CONSOLE TETHERING. does that mean the the application filters the connection???

the lite version blocks certain protocols and https:// connections i believe. the full version (while pricey) is unrestricted and has raving reviews. And as far as the turning on, that's the beauty of it, is after running it once, you can always have it activated on the phone, making it a one step process on the computer. And yes, you're still required to right click the icon and say Connect in Windows, otherwise nothing will happen. You might be able to write a script to enable it and attach it to the "Always do (...) when this device is connected" in Windows...


text:
Restore HTC One X to original ROM
My HTC One X came with ICS pre-installed, but then I upgraded it to Android 4.2.2 using CyanogenMod. Now I want to reset my phone to its original ROM, but couldn't find a way to do it.
Someone suggested that I download and run:

RUU_ENDEAVOR_U_ICS_40_Vodafone_UK_1.26.161.2_Radio_1.1204.90.13_release_251227_signed

but it didn't work. When I run the .exe I get the error:
 Error[155]: UKNOWN ERROR

My bootloader shows its version as:
version-main: 3.14.161.27
(bootloader) DEBUG: cid: VODAP001
ENDEAVORU PUT SHIP S-ON RL
*** UNLOCKED ***

How can I get the stock ROM reinstalled?

Where did you run the .exe file? If directly on the Android device, this would explain the error. It's most likely a Windows executable / self-extracting archive.

This is a protection that HTC uses to ensure quality in their devices. To re-install their custom stock, you must re-lock your phone. To do this, place your phone into fast-boot mode and plugin in via USB:
At the command line (or wherever you may have the fastboot binary), execute these commands:

fastboot devices
  fastboot oem lock

This will lock your bootloader and allow you to run the RUU. Your device should now report "LOCKED". After your device is locked, proceed with running your *.exe on Windows.
(Make sure you're installing the right one first!)
List of RUU's: http://androidfiles.org/ruu/?developer=Endeavor
Full Tutorial: http://androidforums.com/one-s-all-things-root/691874-guide-how-run-ruu-your-htc-one-s.html


text:
Edit root files
I have installed Jota text editor on my rooted device but Jota isn't give root permission when started and I can't save edited files. I tried to clear the app and data cache to no avail. How can I manually give Jota text editor root permission?

You cannot manually give root permission if the app is not designed to make use of it. Are you sure Jota asks for root access? Try switching to another editor. As an example, QuickEdit app can save files requiring root access.


text:
Cannot move app to sd-card?
My sdcard has plenty free space but I cannot move any apps. On my sdcard there's the old  Android/data path with many older apps. Why cannot it be possible to move apps here? Maybe I can create a symlink?

I've just added the app2sd tag to your question. You might want to check its tag-wiki and frequent questions, as that's asked quite often (Unable to move few Apps to SD Card / Can I force move to sd card applications that don't want to be moved there? and more).

Thank you but I read the wiki. My apps is moveable in Android system setting (and also app2sd) but when I push the button it gives me an error unable to move.

Well, it looks like you should [edit] your question and add all the details it's missing; our crystal balls are all out for maintenance currently ;)

I'm not sure what you want. I wrote I have old path Android/data in my sdcard with many old apps.

Maybe you describe step-by-step what you've tried to achieve your goal, and what happened. Don't forget to include any possible error message. E.g. your comment above introduces a detail missing in the question: you push a button (where?) and it gives an error "unable to move" (move what? which app? Maybe the app doesn't support App2SD?).

Hmmm. Do you know even android system settings?

This is not a chatroom here – but we have one of course. Maybe you want to come over there to discuss it?

@Izzy: I apologize, I should add old to my question.

I think I found the solution.  I need to be root to move the apps.

You may have found that being root allows you to move apps to the SD card, but that is usually no needed. Perhaps in your case (and it may work for others too) it is a workaround.


text:
Linux doesn't recognize Galaxy S 3
I've bought a Samsung Galaxy S 3 device today, but found out that I could not get my PC with Fedora 18 (Gnome 3) to recognize it (nothing happens when I plug it in).
As file transfer etc is essential to me, this renders my device pretty much useless (I don't have an SD card slot on my PC at the moment).
Android lets me choose how I connect though: as a "media device (MTP)" or a "camera (PTP)".
Is there a way to simply access the storage on my phone from a Linux machine?
It's pretty ironic because both my PC and my phone are actually running Linux, yet they can't communicate. For a large company like Google/Samsung there's pretty much no excuse for this, as Linux is quite popular nowadays, especially because Google already does most of its work on Linux.
lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1058:0748 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. My Passport 1TB USB 3.0
Bus 002 Device 009: ID 04e8:6860 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone [Galaxy S II], GT-I9300 Phone [Galaxy S III], GT-P7500 [Galaxy Tab 10.1]
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 046d:c077 Logitech, Inc.
Bus 006 Device 003: ID 046d:c312 Logitech, Inc. DeLuxe 250 Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

It would seem that the device is somehow recognized.

Do you have udev rules set up? See this (answer)[http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/36954/fastboot-not-working-on-my-nexus-4/37085#37085] to help you

Possibly relevant: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/15877/better-way-to-connect-galaxy-nexus-ics-to-linux

Also see my answer here. That would be for MTP. You also might want to have a look at QtADB, which is what t0mm13b had in mind when talking about "udev rules". Access via ADB gives you much more power -- while MTP just lets you copy files, basically.


text:
open multiple URIs with one click (similar to desktop Firefox "open all in tabs")
I want to open a folder of about 20 bookmarks in a web browser with one click. So far I have not found any browser or any addon that will do this, but maybe I am overlooking something obvious.
An alternative option is a very good speeddial-type app that will help me track which which bookmark was opened last so I can manually work through a list of 20+ bookmarks.
The problems I am trying to solve are:

make it convenient to open many bookmarks at once.
if I have to open them one at a time, provide a way for me to keep track of which bookmarks have already been opened in this session so I can manually open the next one as I go through the large list of bookmarks.

I have already tried Firefox sync, Dolphin Connect, XMarks and several other solutions and none of them do what I need.

It's not a perfect solution but it should help you out. Following preformatted text is a very simple script that can open a series of bookmarks which are tagged with a particular keyword. Each bookmark would be opened in the browser selected as default for the bookmark's URL type.
Script

#!/system/bin/sh

list=/data/media/0/bms_list;
keyword="$1";
browser="$2";
mkfifo $list;

# force-stop default browser
[[ "$browser" ]] && am force-stop "$browser";

# get URL of bookmarks associated with the supplied keyword
content query --uri content://org.mozilla.firefox.db.browser/bookmarks --projection url --where "keyword='$keyword'" | busybox sed 's/.*url=//g' > $list &

# Take each URL from the saved output and launch it using the default browser
while read line; do
    am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "$line" --activity-exclude-from-recents;
    sleep 1;
done < $list
rm $list;

Prerequisites
Here are the hard prerequisites for the script to work:

You must have root access1.
Busybox must be installed and available under PATH variable.
Firefox Browser for Android is required. It is required because Chrome doesn't support tags, the bookmark folders are not visible through Chrome's content provider and it would be painful to me if I begin to parse Chrome's bookmarks file available in its private directory. I didn't test with other browsers so that's another reason why I made Firefox a prerequisite.
It is to be noted that you're not required to use Firefox browser as your daily driver, but only to make and keep bookmarks in it for them to be sorted through particular keywords. Firefox browser doesn't support multiple keywords for bookmakrs, as of v44.0.2.
To add a keyword: Bookmark a link in Firefox, go to Bookmarks tab, long press on your bookmark → Edit → add your keyword under Keyword.
I've not tested with a keyword containing a space so if the script doesn't work with a keyword containing space(s), replace space(s) with _ in your bookmarks and then try the script.
I've only tested this solution with Firefox and Chrome so I can't guarantee that this would work with any browser. However, common sense dictates that if it is a browser for casual browsing, it would have registered for an intent having a URL data type, so the browser should have no problem with my script.
Note: For some reason, Firefox couldn't handle the series of bookmarks after some time and crashed. (It actually crashed every time.) On the other hand, Chrome v45.0.2564.95 didn't crash even for once.

Here's how the script can be executed after saving it under /sdcard with extension .sh:
Running the script
Install a terminal emulator app and execute:

su -c 'sh /sdcard/FILE KEYWORD BROWSER'

Example:

su -c 'sh /sdcard/bms_launch.sh Stack_Exchange com.android.chrome'  # this would launch all the bookmarks tagged with the keyword Stack_Exchange in the default browser com.android.chrome

Things to know:

FILE: file name of the script, e.g.: bms_launch.sh
KEYWORD: the keyword to which all associated bookmarks should be searched for and be launched in default browser
BROWSER: package name of your default browser. To know the package name, follow View app's full package name?
Note: it is not necessary to provide package name of the default browser. I used it because I had to force-stop Chrome as Chrome was causing some complication without a force-stop.

Convenient execution
How you would execute this script in your device is upon you to decide. I can recommend these two methods. Any of them would be enough.

a home screen shortcut made through Terminal Emulator app to a custom command on your home screen.
Tasker, to create an icon on home screen, tapping which would execute the script.
assigning script to a pie using LMT launcher.

1 Root access is needed because I don't know how to generate (and easily parse) a list of bookmarks from some browser dynamically. Even if I can have such a list, I wouldn't be able to go on unless I know that those bookmarks can be sorted using a tag or a keyword. This is why I chose Firefox and root access.
The dependency on a single keyword might cause inconvenience but I've given you a (possibly good) idea. If your preferred browser supports multiple tags/keywords for bookmarks then you should have no problem in tweaking my script per your needs.

Instead of storing bookmarks in a browser, you could save the links on your homescreen, and then put them all in a folder. Itd be quick access, and ive never heard of an android browser doing that. If youve heard of tasker, you could probaly set something up that you want

Dude, that's an awesome idea. Way to kick off your career on Android Enthusiasts!

I'm not sure I understand... if I put all the bookmarks in a folder on a homescreen, will that allow me to open them all in one click? Thanks.

That's where tasker would come in

It would help if you clearly and in detail explain  us how Tasker can be used here.


text:
Volume buttons unexpectedly started waking the phone from - how to disable?
When my phone is locked and the screen is off, I could usually wake it up only by pressing the home or power buttons.
Now, the screen also wakes when I press a volume button.
This started happening for no reason that I remember, and is extremely annoying since I use the volume buttons for controlling audio while the phone's screen is off (an option in Apollo).
Now when the screen goes on, the volume buttons have stopped changing the songs, but instead just increase the volume - which is quite a traumatic experience when you're trying to change a song on the go.
It also results in my phone's screen being on most of the time because I like to change the volume a lot.
How can I disable this?
Running:

Android: 4.2.2
CyanogenMod: 10.1.3

Is this stock ROM? What Android version?

@geffchang edited

Some versions of CyanogenMod have the “Volume rocker” option in Settings → Display; if this option is selected, volume buttons will wake up the phone.
There are also other ways to get this behavior (e.g., the GravityBox module for Xposed has the “Volume rocker wake” option in the “Navigation keys actions” screen).

Well that was easy... Should've found it myself, thanks.

@jco Please close the bounty...

@KeshavaGN It doesn't let you close immediately so I left it, and it would be automatically awarded to this answer anyway. But yeah, I did now.

check your device for unwanted applications. And also check your device administrator. Remove any unwanted application from it.


text:
Samsung GT-i9000 not detect USB connectivity in Windows 8
I bought a new windows 8 laptop and tried to install the phone driver to recognize it, but can't succeed: I installed and restared the Samsung driver package and restared my computer, I also tried to search through the device Manager on the web but it didn't find anything (which is strange because in Windows 7 it did find). I also have a Windows 7 laptop and it works there...
What Should I do?
found the solution!
First check if u have normal google adb drivers, if no then download them , put your device in usb debugging mode (this settings location depends upon your android OS version)
Go to Devices and printers in control panel -> go to properties of your device ( device should be connected) -> Change settings -> update driver -> Let me pick driver from my pc -> adb interface -> (it will give u list of adb drivers on ur machice) if you find any Samsung driver there click on it and click next or finish. Else choose google adb interface driver and finish.
Your device should be working properly with proper drivers installed :)

Harel, thanks for sharing your experience! But on a Q&A site, the question goes in one box, while the answers go into separate boxes :) Could you please split your above post, and place the solution into an answer below? Otherwise, in lists it looks like a question without an answer, and many people will miss it. Thanks a lot!


text:
Does the Galaxy S2 have two mics?
I need a straightforward answer, does the Samsung Galaxy S2 have two microphones? I tried to Google it but was not too successful. Two mics are essential for my upcoming project. Thank you for all your replies.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 does have dual microphones.
However, if using Gingerbread (2.3), the device only records mono audio.
Using Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) though, the device can record stereo audio at about 130 Kbps with a sampling rate of 48KHz.
Source: GSM Arena

It does have a dedicated 2nd microphone for active noise cancellation according to GSMArena.


text:
How to change date and time format on Marshmallow?
I'm using a Nexus 5X with Android 6.0.1, patch level January 2016. I'd like to change the system language to English but like to keep my local date format. In versions prior to Marshmallow, there was an option to set the date format, but I can find it anymore...
How do I set the UI language to English and the date format to DD.MM.YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD?

In Android Marshmallow you don't seem to be able to change the date format. Instead it chooses automatically what's appropriate for your locale.
In your case, you seem to want the English (UK) variant and not the English (US) one. So go to language settings and change it. Any other English variant should work since I'm pretty sure only americans use the MM/DD/YYYY variant.

But dd/mm/yyyy is not sane either. How can I get ISO 8601 dates (yyyy-mm-dd)?

I want the ISO format which is the proper standard format. I don't think Android is guessing correctly when it displays the date in the worst format it could choose. The one who decided that it shouldn't be allowed to choose the format and that the system could guess such preferences don't really know much about software design and development.

I was having the same problem.  Go to Language settings and check if your set on English  (United States).

How does that change the date format to something sane?

@MaxRied I think greg's trying to make the point that English (United States) uses MM-DD-YYYY, while English (UK) and some other English locales use DD-MM-YYYY. If a non-US English locale suits your needs in other ways, you can choose it to get the date format you want.