text:
Is there any way to install android app without having internet?
I just bought a Samsung Galaxy Mini S, but I don't have 3g or wi-fi internet - I have internet only on my computer. Is there any way to install android apps without internet, via bluetooth or using the USB cable? (I do have bluetooth on my computer).
If it's possible to install the apps than where could I download the apps? The Market doesn't let me download them to my computer.

Two questions: 1. how to install 2. Where to get.

Yes: you can connect the phone to your computer via USB, click the notification on your phone to mount the USB storage to the PC, move downloaded apps from your computer to your phone (easiest if you put them on the SD card), and browse on your phone to where you put the apps and click on them to install them.
Your phone should have a file browser, but if it doesn't I recommend Explorer.  You'll need to enable Unknown Sources in Settings -> Applications as well.  You can download apps to your PC most easily from alternative markets like GetJar.
If you have installed something like Download Crutch so that you can download any type of file, or are using a non-stock browser that will ignore Android's restriction on downloads, then you can of course just download the .apk's directly to your device and skip the PC.

You can also transfer the files from PC to device via Bluetooth, and then those files will be in the folder /sdcard/bluetooth.

"Your phone should have a file browser, but if it doesn't I recommend Explorer." - very well. And How do I install Explorer? I guess you didn't think about that...

If your computer has internet access via ethernet, and also has a wireless adaptor, you can use Connectify to set up your own wifi hotspot for your phone to connect to. You can then download and install apps normally.

Actually you can download from Google Play to your computer. All you need is the Google Chrome Extension - APK Downloader. Just select an app on Google Play then on the top right corner will have the APK Downloader symbol. Click it and download the app in .apk format. Then just transfer the app to your phone with either Bluetooth or USB then install the app like normal using App Installer on your phone. Simple way to install is just click on the file in your phone then click Install.
Also when you are trying to use the APK Downloader. They will ask for a Device ID for your phone. Enter ##8255## in your phone dialer then you will see your device ID. Just insert your name, E-mail and Device ID in the APK Downloader settings in extension list and you can use it.

I also faced the same problem when I brought the Android Smart Phone.
There is no way to download the apps to your Computer from Android Market. You should have internet on your mobile to download the apps directly to your mobile.
There are some websites where you can download the apps into your Computer.
For Ex: Mobiles24, GetAndroidStuff, etc..
And more over some of the Android Apps need internet connection to work.

install MOBOGENIE software  fro, their official site its free and easy to use and install every app for android java etc

Would you bother to provide a link to that "official site"?


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Use android as xbox360 wireless adapter?
I have a rooted cynogen mod Lg P500.
I can connect my xbox360 to my laptop for bridging a connection. but have recently moved to ubuntu so the bridging is a mission and a half.
So I was wondering if it was possible to use an android phone as an xbox360 wireless adapter.
By this I mean:
My android is connected to my networks wifi.
I want to connect my xbox360 to the android and connect to xbox live.
Is this possible?

Why don't you ask on http://askubuntu.com/ about bridging with Ubuntu? It really shouldn't be very difficult, I've done it on the command line often enough.

This will almost certainly be impossible.  Your XBox doesn't have USB drivers for your Android phone.

This would be possible if your rooted your phone and wrote an installed a new kernel usb driver which made it look like a supported network adapter.  Needless to say that would be a project requiring quite a bit of expertise and effort - it's probably going to be cheaper to get a supported adapter, and not tie up your phone in the process.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Android 10 device won't reach one specific web-site?
My android 10 device is failing to access one particular website.  All others are fine.  This started happening a few weeks ago.
I have contacted my mobile ISP and they say their systems are working ok.
I have contacted the website support, and they say I am not blocked by them.
If I use a VPN, I can actually get to the website from the device.
If I tether to the device from a PC and look at the tcp traffic, I can see that a UDP name server request for the website is repeatedly sent to the device, without reply.
Can anyone suggest a remedy?

Yeah two solutions I am aware of

Cause: improper configuration of IPV6 from ISP
Solution: Go to APN settings and disable IP V6 (set apn protocol to ipv4 from ipv4/v6 and save the current APN)

Cause: DNS issue
Solution: Change DNS settings to Google's DNS or anything else (it's called 'private DNS' in some devices under settings)

APN was already set to IP4 only. 2. Changed DNS setting to private from default automatic. Problem prevails.

Edit: Can now access site directly on mobile device, but tethering access problem remains!

Go to wifi/system settings of client device and tweat dns there too!

I cannot get the client PC to resolve the name no matter what I set the DNS setting on the PC's wifi interface to be (custom private or automatic).  Is it possible that the android hotspot function always uses the ISP's DNS?

Finally got the PC side to work.  But I had to do it through the browser's DNS over HTTPS setting.  All very strange.

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


text:
Can I use different countries version of the Play Store on different accounts?
I recently moved abroad and I need to change the country of my Play Store (for mobile/banking apps), I also need to keep the apps from my home country.
Can I use two different Android accounts (with two different Google account) each with their own countries? Will they interfere with each other?
Thanks.

I think yes. I have different accounts with a different country. It is working fine.

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


text:
How can I disable the downloaded neural net for speech-to-text?
My voice-to-text was working amazing on my Pixel 3, until I elected to accept the optional downloaded neural net that makes for "faster recognition" and works offline. The result has been an astounding drop in accuracy to the point that it's unusable, and I'd like to turn the feature off and go back to normal recognition.
How can I do this?

I finally found it, right after I put up the bounty, go figure.
Just searching "Voice typing" in settings and turn off Faster voice typing.


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How does carrier/network lock work? How is it implemented?
I feel like I should have been able to find the answer to this, maybe I'm distracted or something, but does anyone know how carrier/network/sim lock actually works and if there are any workarounds? Say I wanted to make one of those unlocking services. What is the process?
I saw a couple answers from some years ago, they all seem fairly vague and as if it's actually an unknown, so I'm not sure if that's current information. It seems inevitable that someone would have leaked or reverse engineered that information by now, right?

Carrier locks work at SoC/bootloader level. In simple terms the modem - which has its own Baseband Processor -  is tuned to certain frequencies / bands or programmed to register with only one MCC/MNC which identifies a universally unique carrier. MCC/MNC is part of IMSI which is stored on SIM card and used in initial authentication process when device goes online.
Both modem (which is integrated in SoC) and SIM (which is a Java card Secure Element) are completely isolated from Application Processor (the one on which Android OS runs); they have their own processors, OS and possibly storage. Modem's communication protocol (through RIL) is usually vendor-specific and closed source (used to be simply ATC in good old days). Communication to SIM (APDU commands) is also routed through BP. So the unlocking workarounds aren't very straightforward but hacks do exist and they work, usually through special hardware/software.
Mostly modems accept some kind of dial code for SIM unlock, which is calculated by passing phone's IMEI through some mathematical functions, which are cracked by hackers sometimes. Another approach is to communicate with modem thorough some service mode e.g. Diagnostic Mode (DM) on Qualcomm SoC's (see this recent example), or possibly go even below that and directly use UART/JTAG entirely bypassing Android OS. So there is no standardization and official/unofficial unlocking methods largely vary from vendor to vendor and device to device.


text:
Quick way to send a link to a Google Play store app via SMS
I feel like I'm not seeing something obvious.
I have several apps installed via the Google Play store on an Android device.  I want to send links via SMS to the appropriate Google Play store pages so the recipient can click on the links, have them open in the Google Play store app, and then decide if they want to install them.
This seems like obvious functionality, but I'm not seeing any way to do it in Android Nougat.
How can this be accomplished without installing a separate app for the task?

Might be related: Play store - share button missing

OK. I must be losing my mind.  Before writing the above question, I searched for a Share menuitem in the Google Play store.  I swear there was none.
Now, when I try the same thing, I see a Share menuitem that does exactly what I want: I can SMS a link for an app to someone else.
I can't explain why it wasn't displayed before.

Can you add a screenshot? I'm looking for that function and can't find it.

I came here for the same reason and it looks like you have to have the app installed before you can share a link to it. I hate modern UX.

I just tested by browsing random apps/games that I haven't installed and the share option is there.


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How can I reboot my phone without the power or volume buttons?
Title is pretty self-explanatory. My phone's power and volume buttons don't work. The home button does. It's a Lenovo ZUK Z2 Plus.
This phone has always had a tendency to crash unless rebooted occasionally. Now that the power button doesn't work, I won't be able to turn the phone on if it crashes and shuts down.
I've taken a complete backup, but I'd still like to continue using the phone for as long as possible. In order to prevent the inevitable crash, I'd like to reboot the phone every so often. How can I do so?

Can you not get the buttons repaired?

@Burgi No, spare parts aren't available anywhere in this city. Believe me, I've looked.

Do you have root access? It would be very easy than.

Use the Scheduled Power On/Off features available in the Accessibility setting to turn it off, then back on a minute or two later.

This! Also allows me to switch my phone on automatically in case it shuts down.


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How to access other partitions from android-x86 on dual boot with ubuntu-16.04
I have android-x86 along side ubuntu-16.04 I have installed android in a 16GB partition in my harddrive. I was wondering if it is possible to access other partitions from android as it just shows nothing in the files app. It would be pointless because all my pictures videos or other files are in those others partitions. I am not an expert so please let me know if additional information is needed.

Yes, you can!
If you are new on Linux, it could be a little tricky.
Open terminal (if you don't have, install one), type:
su
mkdir /storage/windows
ntfs-3g /dev/block/sdaX /storage/windows

where X is the partition that you want to mount.

Why is it "windows"?

For the terminal, Termux is probably the best choice now for Android.


text:
Why are android permission so broad?
I was reading a review for a game on the play store where someone gave a bad review saying that the game looked cool but it required access to photos, media and such which encouraged the user to uninstall rapidly. The developers replied to this person saying that they valued users privacy and what not but they didn't have a choice because they needed that to actually save the progress. This totally makes sense that they would require access to internal or external memory to save.
I was reading that some games also require access to phone call so that they could pause the game when you get a call which also makes sense. But the displayed message for the user is that the app will have access to your calls, can make calls (which could cost you money)  which is a red flag for some users.
I'm guessing that most games don't use permission in a malicious way but to prevent any why aren't permissions more restrictives/specific ? I'm assuming that the vast majority of games use file permission just to save and nothing else, why not make a save permission ? I also assume that having more restrictive permission might increase the number of required permission for some game which could potentially be annoying for the majority of user.

Or, the developer could be proactive and explain in detail the needed permissions. Some apps do this well and it seems to require little effort (see Easy Voice Recorder); the majority DO NOT, leaving the user to risk awarding the permission anyway. The additional effort, in my case, allows my feeling better about the app, the care placed into it, and the professionalism of the developer.

I don't think there's an answer for this as it is too subjective. What would you consider restrictive? Eg. Would you consider an app being able to autoplay sound require to have a "sound" permission?

@wbogacz I agree with u but for someone who is sceptic even if you, as a developpers, explain what you need in detail the reality is that in theory you could access anything on my phone so that's better of course but in no way safe.

@SSS Well for example there is a permission for camera (flashlight + camera) and a flashlight permission. So at some point someone said "needing the flashlight doesn't mean you need the camera", why no one said "needing to save stuff doesn't mean you need access to every data on our users phone, thats overkill and not safe". You're right though this might be too subjective.

As an Android developer, this is an especially frustrating aspect about delivering apps into mass market.
The wording on permission models have caused great grief, as you have pointed out, but it has gotten better.  In fact, prior to Android 5.1.1 (API 22) apps were required to request all of their permissions up-front, at install time.
Now, permissions are generally requested when they are needed - i.e., when a protected API is accessed at runtime - allowing developers in-app time to explain their intentions.
If the developer of an application were respecting the spirit of permissions enough, their applications would, ideally, still function without being granted a particular permissions.
Obviously, if you deny a photo app access to, say, the Pictures directory, the app experience might not be stellar.  However, an app should still continue to function - that is, without crashing - regardless of granted permissions.
Also, as others have pointed out in the comments, developers and publishers are encouraged to provide meaningful insight into why their app needs the permissions it is requesting.
Now, focusing on your main concern:

. . .why aren't permissions more restrictives/specific ?

They are becoming more restrictive/specific.  For example, Google has introduced Scoped Directory Access.

Apps such as photo apps usually just need access to specific
  directories in external storage, such as the Pictures directory.
  Existing approaches to accessing external storage aren't designed to
  easily provide targeted directory access for these types of apps. For
  example:

Requesting READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE or WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE in your
  manifest allows access to all public directories on external storage,
  which might be more access than what your app needs.

Note the bullet point - relating to the game you mention, the developers could leverage scoped directory access models to fine-tune their permission requests.  That, in tandem with clear and concise permission explanations, would strengthen trust for app's users.
Why haven't they, as well as many other apps out there, already utilized this feature?  Well, the scoped directory APIs become available in Android 7.0 - meaning only devices running Android 7.0+ can actually use it.  It is often simply a matter of prioritization for developers on whether or not to implement different behavior on different devices.  Personally, I believe in doing what's best for the platform, but I digress.  Feel free to reach out to the app's support channels requesting changes or deeper explanations for their permission requests.


text:
Restored "App+Data" with Titanium Backup for com.android.providers.telephony and now Messaging is crashing
I have a Moto G 4th Edition (harpia) running LineageOS 14.1 nightly. I was trying to debug some issues with its MMS and I used Titanium Backup to take a backup of the APN settings because I was about to follow some tutorials and I wanted to know I could certainly undo them if I needed to. I wasn't able to fix the problem, so I tried to restore using Titanium Backup. When I was restoring the settings, it asked me if I wanted to restore App, Data, or App+Data. Without thinking too much about it, I clicked "App+Data". Then, I went back to the APN settings page to see if the APN settings I had were restored. When I clicked on an APN, it crashed. I think the exception in question is:
06-27 18:44:22.454  2067  3374 E DatabaseUtils: java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial: reading com.android.providers.telephony.TelephonyProvider uri content://telephony/carriers/1265 from pid=4901, uid=1000 requires the provider be exported, or grantUriPermission()
06-27 18:44:22.454  2067  3374 E DatabaseUtils:     at android.content.ContentProvider.enforceReadPermissionInner(ContentProvider.java:608)
06-27 18:44:22.454  2067  3374 E DatabaseUtils:     at android.content.ContentProvider$Transport.enforceReadPermission(ContentProvider.java:483)
06-27 18:44:22.454  2067  3374 E DatabaseUtils:     at android.content.ContentProvider$Transport.query(ContentProvider.java:212)
06-27 18:44:22.454  2067  3374 E DatabaseUtils:     at android.content.ContentProviderNative.onTransact(ContentProviderNative.java:112)
06-27 18:44:22.454  2067  3374 E DatabaseUtils:     at android.os.Binder.execTransact(Binder.java:565)

(But another suspicious-looking message I see is 06-27 18:44:20.760  2067  5631 W ContextImpl: Failed to ensure /data/user_de/0/com.android.settings/databases: mkdir failed: EACCES (Permission denied).) I reached out to Titanium Track via their "Contact Us" page but haven't gotten a response so far (it's only been about 36 hours). In the meantime, I noticed that I also can't even use the Messaging app on my phone. When I try to enter an SMS conversation, it crashes. I think the exception for that is:
06-27 18:43:54.101  1141  2774 W ActivityManager: Permission Denial: opening provider com.android.providers.telephony.SmsProvider from ProcessRecord{890eeb3 3530:com.android.messaging/u0a73} (pid=3530, uid=10073) that is not exported from uid 1001
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel: wtf
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel: SyncMessagesAction: unexpected failure in scan
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel: java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial: opening provider com.android.providers.telephony.SmsProvider from ProcessRecord{890eeb3 3530:com.android.messaging/u0a73} (pid=3530, uid=10073) that is not exported from uid 1001
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1684)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1637)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.app.ActivityManagerProxy.getContentProvider(ActivityManagerNative.java:4199)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.app.ActivityThread.acquireProvider(ActivityThread.java:5534)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.app.ContextImpl$ApplicationContentResolver.acquireUnstableProvider(ContextImpl.java:2239)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.content.ContentResolver.acquireUnstableProvider(ContentResolver.java:1520)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.content.ContentResolver.query(ContentResolver.java:518)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.content.ContentResolver.query(ContentResolver.java:475)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.mmslib.a.VL(SourceFile:40)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.sms.i.ahs(SourceFile:1498)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.sms.DatabaseMessages$SmsMessage.getProjection(SourceFile:120)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.datamodel.action.q.<init>(SourceFile:450)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.datamodel.action.m.Lg(SourceFile:131)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.datamodel.action.SyncMessagesAction.Jf(SourceFile:293)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.datamodel.action.SyncMessagesAction.IU(SourceFile:244)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.datamodel.action.BackgroundWorkerService.Kk(SourceFile:146)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at com.android.messaging.datamodel.action.BackgroundWorkerService.onHandleIntent(SourceFile:123)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.app.IntentService$ServiceHandler.handleMessage(IntentService.java:68)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 F MessagingAppDataModel:     at android.os.HandlerThread.run(HandlerThread.java:61)
06-27 18:43:54.103  3530  3843 E MessagingAppDataModel: SyncMessagesAction: unexpected failure in scan

Based on these two exceptions, I'm guessing that I shouldn't have restored the app but just the data, and some important metadata of the app got lost or wasn't restored correctly. However I'm not sure where I would find that metadata or what it should be.

I tried TWRP "Restore Contexts".
Someone on the /r/Android Discourse suggested I dirty load the same ROM. Unfortunately support for LineageOS on my handset is discontinued and there's no images to download. I tried re-using the latest update from /data/lineageos_updates, but that didn't fix my problem.
I took a backup of my phone in its current (semi-working) state and I've tried wiping data for the messaging app, the telephony provider, the settings app, but I still have the same crashes.

Has anyone seen these exceptions before? What are these providers? Where are they kept on a normal Android system? What creates them, and is there a way to manually cause them to be created?

Looks like for some reason the permissions (here: ownership) of the app got messed up. You could try figuring out where (what file; most likely the APK) and fix that – or simply perform a "dirty flash" of the very same ROM, which should fix it implicitly ("dirty" means w/o factory reset etc, so all your apps, configurations and such are not touched). And yes, with system apps, usually only restore data ;)

I've tried doing a "dirty flash" several times (wipe the system partition, sideload the last available Lineage 14.1 for my device, sideload a gapps package with wiping cache and Dalvik cache). It doesn't solve the problem. (Not only that, but when I do it, I start getting "Calendar has stopped" errors.)

OK, so I figured it out. For posterity, here's the process I went through.

I took a complete backup using TWRP before I made anything any worse.
I was fortunate in that I had a pretty clear idea what I had done to make everything go wrong (restore "App+Data"). That meant I could do it again and try to get a sense of what the app had done. I used find on the device to get a list of all the files that got changed when I did the bad restore. (busybox find doesn't have -mmin so I did touch somefile; [do the bad thing]; find . -newer somefile.) This gave me a list of "suspect" files: some stuff in the data partition /data/data, some stuff in /data/misc/profiles that I couldn't figure out; some stuff in /data/app incl. an APK and ODEX stuff; and a handful of files in /data/system: users/0/runtime-permissions.xml, users/0/package-restrictions.xml, packages.xml, packages.list, and a few others.
In Titanium Backup, the thing that was being restored ("Phone and Messaging") seems actually to be an alias for com.android.providers.telephony -- when you click "Open system details", that is the "App" that comes up. This sorta matches the errors from the logs.
I found https://github.com/TilesOrganization/support/wiki/How-to-use-ADB-to-grant-permissions and https://gist.github.com/Arinerron/1bcaadc7b1cbeae77de0263f4e15156f which were interesting. When I tried to adb pm dump the com.android.providers.telephony package, I saw that it had WRITE_APN_SETTINGS: granted=true. This increased my confidence that the permissions weren't really the issue.
I also looked through the /data/data for the com.android.providers.telephony package. Everything was owned by system rather than by an app-specific account, but maybe that was OK. restorecon didn't do anything on any of those files either.
Among the things that I tried in order to get stuff working again was to flash LineageOS 15.1 from a random post on XDA-Developers. That led to other problems but at least my messaging app didn't crash any more. This gave me a "known good" state. From this I adb pulled a bunch of stuff from /data: system, misc, app, user_de, data.
I grepped through all the files looking for telephony since I was pretty sure that was the thing that had been restored wrong. Nothing in runtime-permissions.xml had telephony in it (and I didn't really suspect permissions anyhow because of the WRITE_APN_SETTINGS thing, above). package-restrictions.xml seemed OK -- there was only one entry that referenced the providers package and there was nothing in it except stopped="true". (telephony occurred in some other entries for other packages, but always under enabled-components, so that seemed OK to me.) telephony did show up in packages.xml but I didn't understand enough of the data format to know what it was saying. (Attributes present include ft, it, ut, and isOrphaned.)
By comparing the packages.xml from the "broken" 14.1 install and the one from the "working" 15.1 install, I made some progress. From the 14.1 version:

    <package name="com.android.providers.telephony" codePath="/data/app/com.android.providers.telephony-2" nativeLibraryPath="/data/app/com.android.providers.telephony-2/lib" publicFlags="1007402629" privateFlags="8" ft="16b952851c0" it="11e8f7d4c00" ut="16b95285980" version="25" sharedUserId="1001" installer="com.android.vending" isOrphaned="true">
        <sigs count="1">
            <cert index="1" />
        </sigs>
        <perms>
        <!-- Some stuff that I disregarded because again I didn't think this was a permissions issue -->
        </perms>
        <proper-signing-keyset identifier="1" />
    </package>
<!-- much later... -->
    <updated-package name="com.android.providers.telephony" codePath="/system/priv-app/TelephonyProvider" ft="11e8f7d4c00" it="11e8f7d4c00" ut="11e8f7d4c00" version="25" nativeLibraryPath="/system/priv-app/TelephonyProvider/lib" sharedUserId="1001" />

From the 15.1 "working" version:
    <package name="com.android.providers.telephony" codePath="/system/priv-app/TelephonyProvider" nativeLibraryPath="/system/priv-app/TelephonyProvider/lib" publicFlags="1007402501" privateFlags="8" ft="11e8e4f2c40" it="11e8e4f2c40" ut="11e8e4f2c40" version="27" sharedUserId="1001" isOrphaned="true">
        <sigs count="1">
            <cert index="1" />
        </sigs>
        <perms>
        <!-- snip -->
        </perms>
        <proper-signing-keyset identifier="97" />
    </package>

OK! It seems like the codePath and nativeLibraryPath are screwed up. Possibly the ft, it, and ut fields too. I still don't really know what those are for, but they correspond to fields in other apps in the packages.xml file. Maybe they represent some kind of cross-application sharing. Anyhow, I used vim on the device to make some changes -- first removing stopped from package-restrictions.xml, and (when that didn't work) editing packages.xml to merge the two entries into one <package> entry with the codePath, nativeLibraryPath, ft, it, and ut fields from the <updated-package> element (and then deleting <updated-package>). I restarted the phone after each change to see if it worked. I can edit APNs/read SMS messages again so that's nice.
I was able to find https://dzone.com/articles/depth-android-package-manager which says that the ft, it, and ut fields represent timestamps so probably they don't correspond to anything in particular. Probably the paths were the essential change.
Overall I would say that I think Android could one day become as approachable and user-friendly as Linux, given enough effort. I don't even think it would require anything difficult -- just more effort documenting how things work from the user/system administrator's perspective (to balance out all the extant documentation about how things work from the app developer's perspective). A good example would be "What is the package.xml file and what do ft, it, and ut stand for". Also it would be great if the source of truth for Android distributions wasn't an ad-encrusted forum like XDA, but hey, one step at a time.

Looks like TiBu restored the APK as user app and then messed up the XML consider it being a user app – thus ignoring the "system status". Apart from the fact we both know by now one shouldn't restore "app + data" on a system app, as TiBu offers this option it shouldn't mess it up. Glad to see you've solved it finally; but it would certainly be a good idea reporting this to Joël (the TiBu dev) so he can fix it. Thanks for sharing your evaluation and solution!!!

Today, I made the same mistake (restoring the whole 'Phone and SMS Storage' app with Titanium Backup) and solved it by

uninstalling it from within TitaniumBackup (a warning appeared, but it was safe to ignore for me and uninstalling the update is not possible via the normal Android app settings)
and restoring my SMS from an XML file afterward (Titanium Backup -> Menu Button -> Restore Data from XML...).


text:
How to get my phone to access WIFI channel 13?
My phone can't see Wifi 2.4 Channel 13. Why? How can I fix it?
I have an android phone (Moto E4, Android 7.1.1, Not rooted) that was purchased in the US about 12 months ago. Just after purchase,I came to China for a few months, and it worked perfectly on the Wifi here in my home. I had a Chinese sim card. I don't know what channel my home Wifi was working on last year.
In September, I returned to the US and swapped out the sim card for a US carrier. It continued to work perfectly.
I have just now returned to China, and my phone no longer can see the wifi signal in my home. When I look on my PC, it shows that the Wifi is transmitting on channel 13. When I look in my android app "Wifi Analyzer" it shows a blank space for channel 13. (Also, I forgot my Chinese sim card in the US)
Is this a hardware or a software issue? How to fix this?

The available channels are a pure software issue. The only question is if it is a configuration issue (e.g. auto detection of the country you are in e.g. via used SIM card) or a driver issue (kernel driver only supports channel 1-11).

@Robert In the event it is a driver issue, can that be updated?

That would require to root the device and install a different ROM that uses a different driver.

My phone can now detect ch 13 on 2.4 GHz wifi.
Here's how I did it. I borrowed a local sim card. As soon as the phone booted up, if was able to see the wifi signal. I confirmed that it indeed was on ch 13 with both wifi analyzer and on my pc.
I have since removed the borrowed sim card, and the phone continues to see channel 13. So indeed, as suggested in the comments by @Robert,

auto detection of the country you are in e.g. via used SIM card

Is the correct answer.

WiFi Channels are a regionally/country regulatory issue.
In the United States the 2.4 GHz bands are 1 through 11.
You can either:

Change your router's 2.4 GHz band to fit the U.S. firmware/ROM limitations.
Switch to using a router on the 5 GHz band as there is overlap with China and the United States.
Risk bricking your phone with a Custom ROM. Note that the Moto E4 appears to have only U.S. and European versions, and each version is using a different CPU manufacturer so trying put International ROM on a U.S. phone would not work and may brick the device.


text:
Can the Samsung Galaxy Tab run Facebook games and applications?
Can I open any Facebook games/applications on the Samsung galaxy tab? Games/applications like farm villi, Poker etc will work properly in the tab.

Try Firefox. For some games, it may work better than stock, or maybe not, as it based on its own engine Gecko, not system wide WebKit.

The builtin browser will probably show you a touch-optimized version of Facebook. You can try to get rid of it by changing the user agent string. See this question for more info on that.
Edit: Also, if the games require click-and-drag, this won't work on a touch screen.

Facebook has a "full site" link at the bottom, also.  Important to mention is that the device supports Flash.

I tryed to use Facebook games with the built-in Browser and some other browsers like FF, Miren, etc... Sometimes they work in one Browser, sometimes not. This seems to be dependant of the game you want to play. It is to say that FF does not support Flash so far.
I had no problems playing Backyard Monsters in standard Browser until the last update of Backyard Monsters (except it had laggy graphics), now no installed Browser works.
FreeFarmGame is running in Miren only.
Not tested any other so far, that are the only games I play.

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

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


text:
Why won't Kies let me tried to update to Froyo again after a failed upgrade attempt?
Yesterday I connected my i9000 to Kies which showed a message about the Froyo upgrade. I clicked on Firmware Upgrade, it started with an progress bar, and when it got to 100% it tried to reconnect to the phone and it again showed "Firmware available. Want to upgrade?" I clicked on upgrade again but it did not show any progress bar, just but tried to reconnect and then displayed the update message again.
Now whenever I connect the phone to Kies the "Firmware Update" link is disabled.  I thought that the phone might have been successfully updated despite everything in About it still shows 2.1 update 1.
How can I fix this and update my Galaxy S to 2.2?

I'm assuming reconnect = reboot. Did the phone show a warning triangle with the Android robot shoveling and the text "Downloading..." after any reboot?

That model seems to be particularly problematic. Notice: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4319/why-is-my-samsung-kies-not-detecting-my-galaxy-s-gt-i9000 http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4363/is-there-any-specific-reason-why-kies-does-not-detect-samsung-galaxy-s-gt-i9000 http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/8870/cannot-update-samsung-i9000

Its better to choose an official firmware (of your country) and flash it manually. Go to AndroidAdvices.com and search for your device. The site provides well tested step-by-step guide. It provides firmware too.

Use your country firmware for device and your warranty will be intact.

Make sure you have the official drivers installed from Samsung.com, then reboot your device and PC and try again.  You can also try putting it into download mode before using Kies:

Remove the battery
Hold VolumeDown plus the Home key plus Power.  While holding,

Reinsert the battery.
Release the power button, still holding the others, about 1 second after the white "GT-I9000" text appears.
After a few seconds a yellow triangle with an android in it should appear, this is Download Mode.  If it doesn't, try this again while holding Power the whole time.

why we need to do 1. point? and if we start download mode without kies then will it connect to internet ?

You can't get into download mode by just doing steps 2 and 3, you have to do 1 as well.  Download mode just boots your phone into a mode where it will accept firmware upgrades -- Kies normally puts your phone into that mode automatically, but sometimes it fails.  So doing it manually may help.  Download mode does not connect to the internet or the cell network.

@Jeevan The easiest way to install the correct version of the drivers is to use the "Update Drivers" command within Kies when you click on the Kies logo, don't use the ones from the website, as they may not be right for your version of Kies.

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


text:
Can Google Daydream View function as a Cardboard for unsupported phones?
I have the $79 I need to buy a Daydream View, but not the $650 to buy a Pixel to go along with it. My current phone is a Galaxy S7. (Don't tell me to just get a Gear VR. That's not what I'm asking.) If I get a Daydream View for my Galaxy S7, or any other phone that doesn't come with built-in Daydream support, will I be able to just use it like a really fancy Cardboard?

Surprised this hasn't been answered - but yes, Cardboard is just to hold your phone and have basic lenses to view the split screen. Daydream VR is a superset of that functionality, so Cardboard apps should work fine with it.

Thanks! In hindsight I think the goofy original title was why it went unanswered for so long. I forgot that this isn't Arqade and silly misleading titles aren't the norm.


text:
Double tap to zoom on Pixel 3a chrome browser?
I've just switched phones from iPhone to a Pixel 3a and one of the things I'm missing right now is double double tap to zoom in Chrome. I haven't found anything suggesting the feature doesn't exist on Android. I've found a few questions asking how to disable it but I don't see those options myself so I can't just enable it.
When I double click a block of text instead of zooming to fit the screen it just selects the word I tapped. Instead I have to tweak the zoom level with pinch-to-zoom until it is sized properly.
Am I missing some setting to enable this? Is there another way to zoom to fit? Are there any alternatives to pinch-to-zoom?

Have you seen this https://android.stackexchange.com/q/251817/360364

Since Chrome 32, Google started removing the 300ms to allow the double tap to zoom in or out for mobile sites.

For many years, mobile browsers applied a 300-350ms delay between touchend and click while they waited to see if this was going to be a double-tap or not, since double-tap was a gesture to zoom into text.
Ever since the first release of Chrome for Android, this delay was removed if pinch-zoom was also disabled. However, pinch zoom is an important accessibility feature. As of Chrome 32 (back in 2014) this delay is gone for mobile-optimized sites, without removing pinch-zooming! Firefox and IE/Edge did the same shortly afterwards, and in March 2016 a similar fix landed in iOS 9.3.

According to Google:

Is losing double-tap-to-zoom an accessibility concern?
No. Pinch zoom continues to work, and OS features cater for users who find this gesture difficult. On Android, magnification gestures takes care of it. Tools like this even work outside the browser.

However, if you request desktop sites, you will still be able to zoom in/out off pages using the double tab. For mobile sites, you should enable Magnification gestures and use the triple-tap to zoom.

I see. Since it's a mobile site it's assumed to be optimized for mobile. Unfortunately the site I used this feature on leaves a large left gutter in landscape mode.


text:
Is it possible to know the wear level information of a phone, like SSD have with SMART?
Is there a way to find out the media wearout level on an android device? I have a tablet that is acting weird and slow, so I wonder if the internal storage is still ok: it is the Nvidia Sheild (renamed Tegra K1 later on) and probably has eMMC since it's quite old.
I know that a SSD is not the same as a phone storage chip. I read about eMMC and UFS and I am interested about wearout on both generations of storage!
https://www.dignited.com/23879/emmc-or-ufs-mobile-phone-storage/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-ufs-3-0-storage/
Here's a link to Unix/Linux SE for more info about media wearout:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/106678/how-to-check-the-life-left-in-ssd-or-the-mediums-wear-level
I know that one way to estimate the storage wear is to run a storage benchmark app, but I am interested about storage wearout.
Thanks!

SMART was originally designed for ATA devices and extended to SCSI and PCIe/NVMe later to cover almost the whole range of HDDs/SSDs. Trying to send SMART commands to eMMC, e.g. using smartctl would throw error: Unable to detect device type. Please specify device type with the -d option.
Unlike SATA or SAS, eMMC communicates over parallel links and has a different command set. One of these commands (CMD8) dumps the Extended CSD (Card Specific Data) register which holds card's internal information and device capabilities including Life Time Estimation and Pre EOL (End of Life) Estimation. EXT_CSD register can be read (requires root) using mmc tool from mmc-utils:
~# mmc extcsd read /dev/block/mmcblk0 | grep -E 'LIFE|EOL'
eMMC Life Time Estimation A [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A]: 0x03
eMMC Life Time Estimation B [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B]: 0x03
eMMC Pre EOL information [EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO]: 0x01

* 0x03 indicates health status is estimated between 20% and 30% of the device lifespan.
* 0x01 indicates Normal pre-EOL status.

Depending on your MMC driver, the above information is also available through sysfs interfaces:
~# cat /sys/devices/soc/7824900.sdhci/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0:0001/{life_time,pre_eol_info}
0x03 0x03
01

* Path may differ depending on eMMC vendor.
Another option is to read ECSD register from debugfs:
~# cat /sys/kernel/debug/mmc0/mmc0:0001/ext_csd

But parsing ECSD raw output is an extra job.
For UFS part I'm not sure at the moment if the health/wear estimation is available through HCI Capabilities Registers or not. Also unlike eMMC, UFS operates over a serial communication link and supports a subset of SCSI commands. So it might be providing SMART (or SMART-like) monitoring system. Someone else may update the answer if some authentic source of information is available.

REFERENCES:

Wear Estimation for Devices with eMMC Flash Memory
eMMC ELECTRICAL STANDARD (5.1) (JESD84-B51A)
UFS in Linux kernel
UFS Overview

Wow thanks for the detailed answer about eMMC storage! I assume that these commands are only available on a rooted device...

@ForeverLearning yes definitely. Without root files in /dev and /sys aren't accessible.

It still boggles my mind that there exists a predictable, measurable failure mode that at some point on millions of devices cause them to essentially brick, and yet there is no way to actually measure it because (presumably) it's assumed that nobody is going to keep their devices long enough for it to matter. (planned obsolescence ftl)

ext4 has (fs-level) lifetime write stats which is shown by tune2fs -l. Maybe f2fs has something similar as well but I'm not sure: https://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1602.2/03846.html


text:
Way to prevent the noise when 2 phones together
In using an app, for example Wechat, to have video chats.
Two Android phones A and B are sitting in the same room. The two users of A and B stated video chat with mobile phones C and D in another city, when two users of C and D are also sitting in the same room.
That is, phone A is calling phone C; phone B is calling phone D.
When the video chats started, because phones A and B,  C and D are close to each other, sharp noises started to appear.
What's the way to prevent this noises in the video chats?
Thank you.

This phenomenon is called audio feedback which usually occurs when the sound from the speakers reaches back into the microphone, and then gets amplified because of the speaker-mic loop.
Common and general solutions are to cut off the loop, or at least reduce the loop gain by:

Wearing earphone or headphone (isolate the speaker and the mic, prevent the feedback loop completely)
Mute the mic when not needed to speak (prevent the chance of feedback loop)
Reduce the speaker volume (reduce the volume gain)
Take some distance between the speakers (reduce the volume gain)

Considering this is a physical phenomenon, I'm not sure if there are Android-specific solutions, though I'm also interested to know if there are... consider posting it as the answer!

The phone "knows" the sound it is emitting from its speakers and could thus subtract that from what it is recording on the microphone. This is similar to echo cancellation. This would be one thing that can be done in software. Other than that, the basic "acoustic hygiene" techniques you listed are the most effective. No need for complex feedback suppression algorithms if there is no feedback to suppress!

@JörgWMittag Such subtracting would not work when two phones are involved.

Before feedback cancellation techniques became common, such an effect would happen even with one pair of phones, e.g. phone A calling phone C. If both phones are on loudspeaker, then the signal emitted by the phone A would go into A's microphone and get transmitted to the phone C, where the same feedback between the loudspeaker and the microphone would re-transmit it back to A, etc:
SPK_A -> MIC_A -> SPK_C -> MIC_C

This problem is prevented by subtracting the loudspeaker output signal for the microphone input. However, for such a software subtraction to work, phone A needs to know what to subtract: if A is the only phone in the room, it can subtract its own loudspeaker output, and feedback cancellation works as intended.
With a second pair of phones, feedback cancellation fails because the signal emitted by the phone A is picked up by the phone B instead. As the phone B doesn't know what signal A was emitting, it cannot subtract it from its microphone input, and sends it to phone D:
SPK_A -> MIC_B -> SPK_D -> MIC_C

There is a second (symmetrical) feedback loop that is possible:
SPK_B -> MIC_A -> SPK_C -> MIC_D

As you can see, the loops are closed, and there is no opportunity for the feedback cancellation software to break those.
In order to prevent the noise, you'll have to break the cross-phone loops physically, e.g. by muting both loudspeakers (switching to earphone) in one of the rooms (e.g. A and B), or in one of the calls (e.g. A and C).
Indeed, muting the microphones, being in separate rooms or having a single call at a time would also help, but I suppose those are not real options.

This depends somewhat on the implementation of the feedback cancellation - you can also reduce gain automatically/adjust a notch filter if an increasing high frequency component is detected, which is how units such as this work https://www.behringer.com/Categories/Behringer/Signal-Processors/Feedback-Suppressors/FBQ100/p/P0A3Q#googtrans(en|en) but I don't know if that approach is implemented on 'phones.

@PeteKirkham Suppressing high pitch with a filter will only work when the feedback delay is fixed and very small (single digit milliseconds), such as between a microphone and loudspeakers on a stage. Mobile phones can delay audio for hundreds of milliseconds, which means you'll have to filter out the whole audio range to eliminate the feedback.

It's been a long time since digital signal processors were capable of both detecting the peak frequency of a spectrum and implementing a narrow filter at any point in the audio range. Both were part of the course work when I did my first electronics degree in the late 1980s.

@PeteKirkham If you filter out, say, 10 kHz, what will prevent the feedback loop from running on 10.1 kHz? If the problem is so easy to solve, why do you think cell phone manufacturers didn't solve it already?

The professional systems such as the one I linked to change the filtered frequency when they detect a change, otherwise they would be useless as the frequency changes when people move on stage. If you think about the OP, it is a situation which only occurs when there are two phones in the loop, so doing the development work would not benefit most customers, hence you see the approach in recording equipment and conference calling systems rather than phones, where the subtraction technique works well enough for most use cases.


text:
Scheduling with Google messages. What does the roll-out information mean?
This news article describes the roll-out of Google's new scheduling feature for Google Messages. On my own phone, I briefly had the opportunity to use the feature before it inexplicably disappeared. The news article seems to suggest two things: first, that the brief opportunity to use the feature might have been part of a test prior to the general roll-out, and second, that "schedule send is rolling out as a server-side switch ..."
What exactly does that last part, about server-side switch actually mean. I understand the general principle of client-server relationships with things like using an email client on my PC connected to my ISP's email server, but what server is being talked about in connection with Google messages. Surely they're not talking about something that requires cooperation from every ISP!?

It means that feature will be enable by Google's server. You might already have the feature but you won't see it on the app's interface.

Surely they're not talking about something that requires cooperation from every ISP!?

It is not related to ISPs. Often due to the high number of users, some features are not "open" for all of them, but enable to users from the server (in this case Google's) slowly based on country, language, phone model, etc until all can use it.

I'm not sure that I understand. Are you saying that scheduling with Google Messages only works if one has one's device signed into a Google account and shares one's message with Google?

@user02814 it means that the availability of the feature is controlled by Google's side, and that the app/device needs to contact Google server to retrieve this info. A bit similar to staged rollouts on Play Store.

@AndrewT. Thank you. That would explain the disappearance of the feature. My device is not normally signed into Google, so I probably saw the feature on a rare occasion when there was Google account info on the device. I might add, that it seems to me to be a disgraceful privacy-invading way of implementing the thing.


text:
Where does Google Pixel take caller ID from?
I made an outbound call to a business today and the caller ID displayed was that of a completely unrelated business in a different geographical location (so would have a different (UK) area code).
Does Google perhaps pull this data from business profiles on the search engine and how can I report the inaccuracy?

Phone by Google app (which is the default Phone app on Google devices) uses data from Google and its licensors.
In the Caller ID setting (Settings - Caller ID & spam), Google put a disclosure,

Data being used in these features is provided by Google and its licensors. Learn more about business listings data.

The listed licensors are:

France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Morocco: Kapitol S.A. (trading as Infobel) (the "Infobel Content")
Brazil: TeleListas S/A
Turkey: Turkey Yellow Pages (Yellow.com.tr)
Kenya: Yellow Pages Kenya Ltd (www.yellow.co.ke)
Egypt: Egypt Yellow Pages Limited (yellow.com.eg)
Saudi Arabia: Al Wahda Express Saudi Arabia (www.daleeli.com)
Bulgaria: New Europe Directories Bulgaria EOOD (www.goldenpages.bg)
Norway: Digitale Medier 1881 AS (www.1881.no)
Italy: SEAT Pagine Gialle SPA (www.paginegialle.it)
Republic of Ireland: Central Index (www.centralindex.com) and YourLocal.ie, trading names of Touch Local Ltd
Czech Republic: Zlaté Stránsky (ZlateStransky.cz)
India: INFOMEDIA Yellow Pages (www.yellowpages.co.in) and/or IndiaCom (www.indiacom.com)
New Zealand: Finda
Slovenia: Monolit informacijski sistemi d.o.o
Taiwan: HongKu Info Co. Ltd. www.ipeen.com.tw

It is also mentioned that

If you know that your business listing is supplied by [...] and you have any questions about it, you should contact them directly.

For data provided by Google, it should be possible to report them by finding the related business listing first, then following the steps on Edit business information in Google Maps or Report data or content errors on Google Maps.


text:
SMS not received on new Android
I just purchased a new Moto G Power (Android version 10) and replaced my old iPhone 6s backup phone. When I put the Sim card in, everything worked except incoming SMS. Outgoing SMS worked fine, just not incoming. I figured it might be related to the Apple account and iMessage, so I found a link that would disconnect from iMessage. I saw on a website that it might take a few hours to take effect, so I was patient about it.
That happened yesterday afternoon (around 3 PM). It's quite a few hours later and I am still not receiving incoming SMS on my device. When I put the Sim card in the iPhone messages come in, and they come in as SMS rather than iMessages. So I'm not sure why it's not going to the Android device.
Does anyone have any recommendations for next steps?

You need to reach out to your carrier's support team...
If you can send SMS and make/receive calls, then the issue likely isn't with your device. SMS uses the same transport and registration as is used for phone calls, so this likely falls on your carrier.
This has occasionally been an issue with some carriers when users are switching from Apple to Android, and a new SIM has to be issued sometimes.
Reaching out and working with the carrier's support team is probably best at this point.


text:
What's my solutions if i brick my android phone?
Are there any tricks (general or not) that I can use if I brick my Android phone? e.g.: when updating android..

This can vary a lot depending on what kind of phone you have.

This pretty subjective.  It usually depends on what you did to "brick" it and also varies by phone. For instance, there would be a difference in perma-bricking the device by flashing the wrong radio, vs flashing a rom and getting stuck in a boot loop or having issues flashing a recovery, etc.

As you haven't mentioned your phone related information, I can share my view.
When your phone is not responding or bricked then you can use your phone PC Compassion or PC suite or whatever depends on what your phone model gave you.
I own Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro. Sometime back while installing another ROM the phone bricked. I googled and read lots of articles to unbrick the phone.
Especially XDA Forum helped me in unbricking the phone. Sony Ericsson has SEUS(Sony Ericsson Update Service).  Using this we can unbrick the Sony Ericsson phones. I am guessing the similar kind of set up is there in all the other phones also.

For samsung phones, Kies is the software for Unbricking

I Hard Bricked my phone yesterday when I went to flash a custom ROM. I think I was trying to flash a ROM for the wrong model or something, not sure. Whatever, totally bricked. I had two options as I saw it:
Option 1
Go to AT&T, play dumb, and see if they would give me a new phone. (it worked) Since it was hard bricked, they could not even turn it on, they simply gave me a new one. My default 1-year warranty covered it.
Option 2
Send my phone into the Mobile Techs. They came highly recommended and said they could unbrick a hard bricked Galaxy s3 (my specific model).


text:
My android phone is often getting affected with virus
My problem :
Hello friends. I use Asus zenfone go T500 android phone. My problem is, my phone often gets affected by some kind of virus which sometimes installs some chinese apps without my knowledge and sometimes it causes troubles to other system apps and because of this i fequently get a message displaying unfortunately stopped working.
What I have done:

I tried resetting my phone(factory reset).
But even after resetting after a few days the same problem occurs again. So i thought of reinstalling my stock rom and hence i downloaded the stock rom from the official asus site and reinstalled it. Everything was fine. But again after some days the same problem. What i mean here is no matter any time i scan my phone with some antivirus or factory reset or reinstall ROM the behavour still exists.
I tried updating all my system and installed apps but no use.

My predictions:
What i predicted as a problem was this that my phones private ip address must have been stolen somehow and some idiot from some country is DOS attacking my phone.
Other info

NOTE: I once rooted my phone and then later i reinstalled the stock
ROM to get rid of it

My phone: ASUS Zenfone GO LTE
Model: ASUS_X003 (T500)
OS: KitKat - 4.4.4
ROM: WW-SKU

I am sorry what what you write in the section "My predictions" is totally nonsense, starting that a private IP address can't be "stolen", furthermore this address is usually not static and third - a private IP is by default not reachable from the Internet (as it is private).

Sorry @Robert. Am a rookie. Never mind. I didn't know that.

Honestly I don't see a specific problem with your device. Things you have described were very common in the days of KK. it causes troubles to other system apps what kind of trouble? i fequently get a message displaying unfortunately stopped what stops working? An app or some system component? installs some chinese apps without my knowledge it's alarming. May be the apps are from your OEM. They put more junk on devices than a normal user would do himself. Will have to look into the list of all non-AOSP apps on your device (system or user).

Lots of malware writers make malwares to make money, so developing a virus would do no good to them. Better ways of making money is to force installation of some apps which loads ads for you, or collects your personal data and sells it to third-parties, or just plainly demand ransom for your personal data. Check out this list to know the categories of Android malwares.
Whenever you get into a problem repeatedly you should wonder why so? In this case the biggest problem is you (the user) using an archaic version of Android that was launched in 2013 (6 years ago!). Neither Google, nor your OEM would support the device for that long. Meanwhile, since OS is actually a software built using codes,and because codes can be buggy the bugs get exploited by some malwares writers and the result is what you are experiencing with your device.
The only solution as I see is to keep reviewing the code for vulnerabilities and fixing them. This is near impossible for users so we expect OS developers or OEMs to do this for us. Some OEMs support the device for some period, others don't. In that case, the user can turn elsewhere and see if some third-party is doing this job (custom ROM developers). If even that doesn't work, one should either stop using the device with any new app or updates or with internet connectivity, or to personally port a custom ROM built using secure and new OS code, or simply switch to a device which uses the latest Android version and would be supported for a while.
To summarize, there is no point in fixing this problem technically because your device is asking itself to get compromised again, sooner or later. Switch to a newer Android version.
Note: it may be possible to prevent exploitation of some vulnerabilities in an older Android version using SELinux or some other security framework, but I am not aware of any attempt in this direction.

+1 for the older OS. But i would like to know which app is it that is exploiting my code creating trouble. Is there any way I can find it ?

@Thameem It does not have to be an app. Exploits especially on old phones can be triggered via Wifi scanning (depending on the used Wifi chipset you have), SMS receiving, browsing the Web, and of course installing a malicious app. As malicious apps mostly don't start directly to behave bad (they are waiting some hours or days) identifying the malicious app can take some time...


text:
How to leave a Whatsapp group without informing the entire group?
Gradually we realize that some Whatsapp groups are useless because what could be an important post is lost between tons of offtopic silly videos and images.
Mute the group still shows new images about new conversations.
Leaving the group creates discomfort among the participants.
How to leave a WhatsApp group without the other participants knowing?
Or is there any way to hide the group from the conversation list?

What you are asking has not been implemented yet.

How to leave a WhatsApp group without the other participants knowing?

Sorry. They will know when you leave: "Rogério Dec has left the group" will be there for all to see and know.

Or is there any way to hide the group from the conversation list?

Partially. If you archive the group, it will disappear (actually go to the bottom) from the conversation list. However, when someone in the group sends a message, it will be seen again. Archive it again.


text:
Is it possible to do in-app purchase via play.google.com using my desktop browser?
I can buy applications for my devices in play.google.com using my desktop browser, then those app automatically installed on my device.
Now I would like to buy the professional version of Car Scanner (which named Car Scanner Pro).
The app offers in-app purchase, but I would prefer to use my desktop browser. There is no such app in the play.google.com Car Scanner Pro.
Question
Is there any way to accomplish the in app purchase via play.google.com using my desktop browser?

Possible update: How to make in-game purchase items tab, appear directly on the play store page?

As far as I know there is no web-based interface for performing in-app purchases.
In-app purchases are only triggered by the app.
The only chance to purchase an in-app item on your computer would be to use an Android emulator with PlayStore installed (Google provides images with PlayStore) assuming that the app you want to purchase items in is available for x86 devices (the emulator is not an ARM device).
In this case you could set-up the emulator with your Google account, download the app, start the app and purchase what you want from inside the app.


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Where can I change the timezone in Microsoft Outlook for Android?
Where can I change the timezone in Microsoft Outlook for Android?

Unfortunately up to the writing of this answer, there is no option or setting on the Outlook app for Android to change the timezone directly from the app. To change the timezone, you must do it from Outlook on the web. There are threads such as provide instructions on how to change the time zone in this application and Time Zone Support for Calendar from Uservoice opened in 2018 and 2015 repectively, but the Outlook team has not provided the options yet.


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How to disable sound during screenshot in Android 11 on Pixel 3?
I've already followed the steps here (although modified a bit, since I think that example wasn't using Android 11) to disable screenshot sound notifications:

But the setting seemed to have no effect.
There is still a sound whenever I take a screenshot by holding the power button and the Volume Down button.
How can I disable the sound?

Did you try 3 finger screenshot. Do they too make noise?

This is not possible unless:

You have root access (delete the sound file), or
Use a 3rd-party trusted screenshot app, or
Disable system sound (yeah, it will disable notifications sounds and all too)

I'd recommend you to use a 3rd-party app (you can use power and volume button to take screenshots by the app by over-riding system's screenshot system). You can try Screenshot Assistant from F-Droid, or Screenshot or Screenshot sharer (super helpful if you don't use Google Assistant much) from F-Droid. FYI, F-Droid is super trusted.

The Silence option refers to the notification you see with the preview of the screenshot. Try editing some other options in there (try making it alerting and then enable 'Pop on screen'). You will see what I mean. And yes, you're correct in saying that setting it as Silence or Alerting doesn't actually make a difference to the sound - it doesn't occur anyway.
There is no user facing control to silence the sound emitted while the screenshot is being taken.

Source - Pixel Phone Help - How to turn off screenshot noise


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Fastboot flash boot (FAILED)
I am using Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS and when trying to boot into, or flash, the TWRP recovery bootimage image I compiled.
I have no additional information on why I got this error.
Just flashing twrp bootimage on moto g(40) fusion.
Error I received on executing fastboot boot boot.img:
$    downloading 'boot.img'...
$    FAILED (command write failed (Success))
$    finished. total time: 0.000s

the reason is you compiled yourself

Do you know on which partition you have to flash boot_a or boot_b

afaik in active slot

on partition boot_a

Should I use fastboot set_active a

My error was resolved on using different usb slot to connect my device via usb cable.
I still have no idea on why I got this error but it was resolved.
Maybe using a different usb cable might also solve this error.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/fastboot-problem-on-usb-3-0-ports.3859995/ also talks about this problem, although it might be a different case.
In their case, it was a Poco F1 phone, a computer with a AMD CPU, and a USB 3.0 port. Downgrading to USB 2.0 fixed the problem
The thread also offered a way to fix it on Windows by running these commands as administrator. I'm not sure what they do, but they seem to force USB 2.0
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbflags\18D1D00D0100" /v "osvc" /t REG_BINARY /d "0000" /f
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbflags\18D1D00D0100" /v "SkipContainerIdQuery" /t REG_BINARY /d "01000000" /f
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbflags\18D1D00D0100" /v "SkipBOSDescriptorQuery" /t REG_BINARY /d "01000000" /f


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How can I jump to a given year on the Google Calendar application on my Google Pixel 6 phone?
I  use the Google Calendar application on my Google Pixel 6 phone. Sometimes I want to look at some event a few years ago. How can I jump to a given year on Google calendar?

On the web, you can press the g key to go to a particular date.

From Google support How to navigate to a specific date in google calendar Android app. E.g going to Aug-14&seeing events

... there's no way to do this in the Android app, but you can ask Google Assistant to list events from a given month or date. For example : "OK Google, show my events in August this year", then click on a result to open that event.

I didn't fully verify this as I don't use Google assistant but by invoking it on long press of home, and keying in as advised, I could see events upto two years ago.

The fact that the android app doesn't allow this is so stupid. It would be so easy to implement a picker that you could show tapping on the top bar to select a date and move the calendar to that date, like the material date picker.

This is not an answer the question, since that is app specific. However a 3rd party app like aCalendar (which is just another frontend for google calendar) offers years to pick from the hamburger menu, which might be quicker for selecting a specific year than an assistant. Maybe it is worth taking a look at this or other such apps.


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Where is the Google Tasks folder on Android?
According to this website, it's
/data/data/com.google.android.apps.tasks/.
On my phone, there's no such folder anywhere. In fact, there's no /data/data anywhere. I do have the Tasks app installed. My Android version is 9, my phone is a Samsung Galaxy J5.
I am hoping that I can recover an older version of Tasks' database, because something very important was somehow deleted, that's why I am looking for the folder. Anyone knows where it is?

I thought as much. Not going to root the phone. Any way I can access the folder if the phone is plugged in into a Windows machine?

/data/data contains the app-private folders. On devices without root you can not access this folder, neither on the device nor using a connected PC.
But there may be one way to get indirect access to the data:
Google Tasks app seem to have backup enabled, so you could try to get the private app data via adb backup:
adb backup com.google.android.apps.tasks

If the created file is larger than 1KB the backup may contain the file(s) you want to get access to. You can decrypt the created backup file using this command-line tool: https://github.com/nelenkov/android-backup-extractor
Using adb requires an USB connection to a PC, activated developer options on the phone and inside the developer options  an enabled "Android Debug Bridge" option. On PC side you need adb installed from Android SDK and the adb driver assigned to the correct device manager (assuming you use Windows).

Unfortunately, the backup returns a 1KB file. Still, the app data takes over 3MB and the cache 311 KB, so I would like to try to extract them and see what's there. I tried adb pull and that doesn't work essentially because the phone is not rooted. I tried to use run-as, but I was told the package is not debuggable. I can't even list the directory contents. Any idea that doesn't involve rooting my phone?

@Nicola As I wrote adb backup is the only chance to extract app data on an unrooted phone. There is no other way. The security concept of Android does not allow user access to app-private data.


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Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc ROM change
I am interested in buying the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc in a couple o f days, but I have a few questions.
I have heard that it runs Android 2.3, but with a Sony Ericsson shield around it.
I was wondering if there are good ROMS by professional developers that you can flash onto the device. Roms that are not bloated with all the Sony Ericson crap.
--
The smartphone I own now is a HTC HD2, I can flash good custom roms on the device. I download my roms from XDA-Developers.

possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/17152/where-can-i-find-stock-or-custom-roms-for-my-android-device

For sure! Hopefully there are professional ROM cookers at XDA-Developers that cook ROMs without any kind of bloatware. Here are some articles that I recommend you to check before flashing a new ROM:

Unlocking The Bootloader
Updating Firmware/Flashing ROMs
Optional: A Beginners Guide To Modding And Tweaking The Arc

After you done all that you are good to go flashing a clean ROM, my suggestions are:

[DEVELOPMENT] - CM7.0.3 - Free xperia project

+1 thank you. I thought xda was only for htc devices. I am going to check the links out. Although I am not sure which new device I should choose. The Xperia Arc of the Samsung Galaxy S2. I like the Arc a lot, but the software on it looks so darn cheap. SE should not have messed with the look of the OS. Maybe just added a few of there own widgets.


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Android losing BT headset password
I have a Sidekick 4G running 2.2.1.
I've had a problem with both stock and custom ROMs randomnly losing the BT connection to my Plantronics Pro headset.  Sometimes hitting the connect button on my headset will reconnect it, but eventually it always loses it permanently and I have to unpair, delete it and then re-pair it.  If I try to just re-pair, I get this message: "Unable to pair with PROPlantronics. Incorrect PIN or password."
This is, needless to say, hugely annoying and oft times very inconvenient (such as when I'm driving and discover my headset can't be used).
Anyone have an idea of how to fix this?  I never had this problem with the headset on either my G1 or my og Droid...

Seems to have been a common problem with Plantronics Pro Voyager series headsets, not specific to Android.

If you are sure that the Bluetooth device works perfect with other devices, and you have tested with stock- and custom-rom. Then you have only got one option left, deliver your smartphone for repair/guarantee.

I'm not sure that's it. I've googled and seen others with similar issues on other phones, but no resolutions. I think it may have to do with the version of Android I'm running.

why not try to update your android version? if there isn't a newer version for your device, i would recommend Cyanogenmod

CM isn't available for the SK4G, or I would be running it :(  The hardware profile is unusual, and no one's reverse engineered the drivers for it yet.  I'd say I'm an intermediate level power user, and none of the obvious solutions have worked so far, alas.  Hence the question here.


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How do I root a Huawei X3?
I have a Huawei X3 (U8510) which I've purchased for testing Android applications I'm developing. I'd like to root this, but as I've not had any experience with rooting Android handsets, its something I'm approaching with some caution.
What is the recommended way to root the X3? I've found mention of a Windows app called SuperOneClick, which looks like it may be useful. My development machine is a Mac, but I'm not adverse to using Windows apps to do this if its easier.

Full rooting instructions for Huawei IDEOS X3 (U8510) are posted on this thread over at XDA:

Download the Automatic Root Enabler for the X3. For more recent versions I suggest checking original thread and the forum
  it's in as I may not be able to update this thread all the time.
Install the latest USB drivers for the X3. Search for the latest version of "HUAWEI Android Phones USB Driver" from the Huawei
  Downloads site.
Turn on USB Debugging from Settings -> Application -> Development on the X3.
Connect the X3 to your PC via microUSB.
Run the Automatic Root Enabler and it should start rooting your phone automatically.

I'd love to accept this answer, but I've encountered these instructions already, and have been unable to find a valid download link for the Automatic Root Enabler app mentioned in the steps. Are you able to provide this information?

Looks like that one was taken down. Try links from this post: http://www.android-hilfe.de/root-hacking-modding-fuer-huawei-ideos-x3/165642-automatic-root-enabler-von-0-auf-root-40-sekunden-7.html#post2489834

Thanks, we're getting closer. However when I run Automatic Root Enabler (v1.1) it seems to be stuck at the waiting for device stage. The phone has initiated a reboot, but is stuck at the Huawei logo and doesn't progress from there. I'm currently attempting this on a Windows VM hosted on my Macbook Pro, so if I have no joy, I may attempt it on my daughters Windows netbook instead, just so I can rule out any VM related issues.

Try a native Windows host. Also, make sure to check your Windows drivers and don't be afraid to give it a few tries.

It seems to have worked on my native Windows machine, but only after I prompted Windows to find drivers from Live Update, after failing to successfully install the drivers when the phone boots into Fastboot mode. Thanks for all the help. I'll mark this answer as the correct one, and will award the bounty.

I found this really good tutorial, but its german ... I translate:

prepare phone, go to settings > apps and disable "fastboot".
shutdown phone, completely (if you want to be safe, remove battery and plug it in back)
Boot into fastboot mode (press and hold VolDown + Power)
plug usb to phone, windows will show up a new device. If the driver is not installed properly, install it via device manager (Download driver here). Now the device should show up as Android Sooner Single ADB Interface
Download this and navigate to RecoveryClockmodByZaDkYn and start Instalador.bat
Now open a command prompt, press any button. Now the progress is started. If its finished, press any button again.
Now you have ClockWorkMod installed, download this file, copy It to your sdcard. Boot into CWM, select install zip from sdcard and chose chose zip from sdcard select su.zip and press power to flash it (you can navigate in the cwm with volumeDown and Up)


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"Local calendar cannot sync with Google calendar..." but it can? What?
On my totally stock Bell Samsung Galaxy S2 I have my main GMail account synced to it, it is also synced to my iPod using Exchange ActiveSync.
My phone's default calendar has all the events from my Google Calendar that I had been organizing and creating events from my iPod calendar with. However, when I create a new event I get this error. I tried going to the Account and Sync settings, then syncing the calendar, but the wheel stops spinning after a little bit, then just disappears and the problem remains.
I tried creating a test event, then checking Google Calendar on the website from my laptop and the event was there. Even today, I made an event on the phone and it's on the web page. In fact, I just corrected the time of the event from the web page and the change was reflected almost instantly on my phone.
I tried unchecking the account sync and then deleting local calendar data, then rebooting and resyncing. But the problem persists.
What's wrong? Is there anything I can do? (besides factory reset please!) Or should I just check the "Do not show again" box? Or would that cause a problem later on?
As a side note Samsung Kies popped up first saying it couldn't sync, but I couldn't care less about that since I only made a Samsung account for the find my phone feature and the developer stuff.

If you go into the Calendar app and press the Menu button, then select Settings you should see an options at the top for Calendars this should show all of the individual calendars on your device that are being merged together into the Calendar displayed.
The top one is probably My Calendar then below that should be an entry for your GMail calendar, then maybe Facebook, or Contacts' Birthdays, and any other calendars you may have access to. The My Calendar calendar is purely held locally on the phone, it doesn't sync to GMail at all.
If you don't want to use that, then take the tick out to stop showing it as it sounds like you'd rather have everything syncing to the GMail calendar. Next time you create a new appointment in your calendar scroll down the Create screen to where it says Calendar with a right poiting arrow, select that to make sure that it is saving to your GMail calendar. If so, then you can safely tick the "Do not show again" box on your warning, as you don't care about the phone's local calendar you're saving straight to your GMail calendar anyway.

Some calendar apps also have a Default calendar option that selects the, well, default calendar. I think on your phone the default is the one where the last new event was saved.

All I have is "Calendars" which lists: All, my, email@gmail.com, Canadian holidays, phases of the moon. I tried un-ticking all calendars except the gmail one and all except my calendar option. Neither solved it.

I honestly couldn't fix it but it was saying to my email bu default so I told it to not bother me again.

@Portaljacker the point is that I don't think that message is telling you that there's a problem that needs fixing, it's just a badly worded way of letting you know that if you save to the local calendar it won't sync to the web, and that if you want to sync to the web you should save appointments in your GMail calendar. Once you've read the message and decided which you want to do you can safely tick the Don't Show Again box and forget about the whole thing.

related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/25210/how-to-backup-the-android-calendar-file-is-there-such-a-file

I experienced the same, and followed your suggestion to ignore the message.  Now it works fine!  You should do that as well; no sense in not ignoring the error message if everything else works.


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Pressing backspace whilst typing an SMS causes the screen to exit to the "Delete by Selection" view, how can I stop this?
As in the title -
When I'm writing a text and hit backspace, it always exits to the 'delete by selection' view for the person I'm writing to. Which is especially annoying b/c when I hit back to escape that screen, it takes me to the top of the list of conversations between me and that person, necessitating me spending either a long period of time scrolling, or exiting the menu entirely and beginning again.
Any tips on how I can get it to stop doing this? I have a HTC Desire HD.

Found a thread of people with the same issue.
HTC was contacted an to fix they said factory reset your phone:

With the phone turned off, press and hold the Volume Down key.
Briefly press the Power key.
Wait for the screen with the 3 Android images to appear.
Press the Volume Down key twice to select CLEAR STORAGE.
Press the Power.
When asked to confirm, press Volume Up

HOWEVER this has not worked for many users.
The second fix would be this:
*hey i will GWY<----- when you make a mistake like that instead of tapping the backspace button to get rid of your mistakes. Press AND HOLD it until it gets rid of your mistakes its a SLIGHT fix but its ALOT easier to have to deal with the whole delete by selection issue


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Easiest way for testing the internal GPS
What is the easiest way to verify that the internal GPS module of an android device works correctly (possibly before buying some expensive navigation software)?
Geotagging a foto?
Running some free diagnostic tool?
Please note that I'm referring to internal GPS, not the bluetooth ones or the A-GPS.

If by internal GPS you mean the postion fix using GPS satellites, you can use "GPS Status & Toolbox" app to get a fix and also know how long it took to get the fix.

sorry, don't know how I didn't notice you suggesting the same app. I've given you a +1

I'd say fire up Google Maps and see if you are where it says you are.

Definitely. Open GMaps and press the push-pin icon to the right of the search box.

Careful, Android can very good at determining your location from WiFi signals, even without a working GPS.

Depending on the model, you can get into the GpsSetup2 with the code *#*#1472365#*#* (works at least with Android 2.1 on a samsung galaxy 5 device), and inside it you go to:
Commands -> Get position -> Start GPS

where the device will try to connect to the satellites nearby, and will tell your position.
First time I did it, it took more than six minutes to get it done.

The (free) GPS Status app gives you all sorts of stats about your GPS, including time-to-first-lock, current accuracy, signal strengths, etc.

It's not always sufficient to confirm that the Maps app shows your location.  You also need to ensure that your location is transmitted back to the server, otherwise real time navigation won't work.  Under "Location and Privacy" there should be a setting "Location" which lets you choose either "E911 Only" or "Location On" or something similar to that.  You need to have that set to Location On in order for real-time navigation to work.
In the custom ROM I last flashed, there's some kind of bug concerning GPS, and navigation doesn't work. In my settings I can't even find the option to toggle between E911 and "Location On". I really hate having to do this, because I like my current ROM for other reasons.   But I'm going to have to go back to HydroRom because I really want to have navigation working.

GpsIsUp uses the GPS hardware exclusively and it has a handy user's guide


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Can i mount loopdevice in Android?
I have rooted my android phone and get a shell thr adb. I wanna mount a ROM image in android. But I always fail:
mount -o loop /sdcard/myimage.img /mnt
mount: can't setup loop device: No such file or directory

Try: mount -o loop /sdcard/myimage.img myimage. "myimage" is where you can view the contents afterward.

You would need to compile a custom kernel that is capable of mounting loop devices, or find a custom kernel for that device that already has that feature built-in.
After a bit of digging, I found this guide on my phone's support forum.  It's a bit dated, but the information is still relevant.  It shows how to boot a Debian .img file.  Unfortunately, it doesn't really detail EXACTLY what's needed for loop support, just that loop support is needed.  But it is definitely possible, as I've personally run this on my phone for a short amount of time.

I was able to use mount on my Galaxy S with a stock ROM ...

Mounting, sure.  Mounting on a stock ROM is not a problem.  But mounting a loop device?  Most of the stock kernels I've seen don't have loop device mounting enabled by default.

@c0mp13371331337 the problem I found in my Android 4.2.1 device was with the mount binary that came with stock ROM. It was simply not capable of mounting a loop device but busybox's mount does.


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How to disable Gtalk chat history?
Am I missing something or is there no way to disable Gtalk history by default? Clearing separate conversations is a pain. If history can't be turned off, is there at least a way to wipe the whole Gtalk history at once somehow?
(using android2.2)
thank you

What version of Talk do you have?

it's gtalk version 1.3

I think the only way is to do it for each conversation, alternatively next time you start a new chat you could use the option do go off the record (haven't try that though).

@janfsd - off the record means something like 'off the server record'.. unfortunately has nothing to do local history.. oh well, we'll just have to wait for some better days I guess =)

Oh, good to know that it will still be in the local history. I have tried wiping the data for talk also but still did not work :(

Signing out and exiting (may need to check the task manager to make sure it's closed) should clear the local history.

nope, does not work.

Updated my answer.

works :D thnx =)

You can turn off gtalk logging via Gmail, Settings > Chat > Never save chat history. To close all chat windows, you can use (in the gtalk application) option button > More > Close all chats.

chat history is already turned of in my gmail account, and when I use gtalk app on android - it still keeps history logs

You'd think Google would've made the app check for this setting or something.


text:
How can I get word completion with physical keyboard?
Is there any app or method that provides word completion when using a physical keyboard?

No one's come up with an answer, but I think your question may be a better worded version of this one: "Spell Check app or setting while using drop down keyboard"  http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2254/spell-check-app-or-setting-while-using-drop-down-keyboard

I believe Better Keyboard and Smart Keyboard Pro offer suggestions even with the use of the hardware keyboard. This is a user configurable feature available in the app settings.


text:
Odin not allowing firmware to be flashed
I'm following the instructions here to try and upgrade the firmware to I9000XWJS8:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=846913
As soon as I hit start it does nothing, as you can see in the message window it says it's failed. It does this with JS8 or with the Gingerbread download, in Odin 1.7 and 1.3.
What's going wrong? Also, should the phone be in USB debugging mode or regular? I've tried both to no effect.

What phone model?

The phone should be in Download mode:

Take out the battery
Plug into USB (apparently skip this if you have an i9000 -- see comments)
While holding both volume buttons (Note, you may need to hold Home+VolDown instead)

Insert the battery
Click the power button

Phone should go into Download mode after a few seconds:

You may need to disconnect from and reconnect it to the computer after this for Odin to see it.

Additionally, I've heard the phone should be in USB Debugging mode but I don't see how that could affect Download mode since the OS is not running in that mode.

According to: http://www.prlog.org/10807241-how-to-root-samsung-galaxy-i9000part.html to enter Download mode in I9000 you press "Home key and power key and volume down key" (which I can confirm on a slightly different model, on Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700). And on my model, the phone must be unplugged to enter download mode, otherwise it boots to Android. Also, this is probably a better tutorial than xda-developer, as it has photo of how download mode looks like: http://androidadvices.com/update-samsung-galaxy-s-gt-i9000-to-froyo-xwjs5-2-2-1/

@Lie Interesting ... I recall now about the Home key, but I've always heard that without USB it won't go into download mode.  I guess it's just another random difference between the international version and the US versions.


text:
Is the Galaxy S II stable?
I am thinking about getting a Galaxy S2. It seems like a great phone, but I have some concerns about the system stability.
I hear from Android users that Samsung's original ROM is very slow and heavy (and doesn't handle right-to-left languages very well - I speak Hebrew), and that other ROMs have their own problems and the releases are not so reliable.
Is any of this true?

As an Android user for about 2 years (and an iPhone user for 2 years before that), I feel that Android is very stable.
BUT you have to remember, that with the ability to load widgets, and background applications - you can certainly bog down your phone and decrease its performance.
In Apple's walled garden this isn't a problem, but you also don't have the freedom and choice.
As a modern computer user, I want the choice to slow down my phone if I want :)

The best part about android is first the freedom, second the community. Like NPike said, you can do whatever you like with your phone, causing it to be more or less stable. You can customize as far as you can imagine (and possibly program), but if you do too much or incorrectly, yes, you will bog down your device. But there's nothing a good wipe can't fix :)
Second is the community. If it's roms you're looking for, there's always one that you'll like, or there's one being developed with new features you want. Or you can make your own! Android enthusiasts are always innovating and finding new ways of helping each other out. So if you do have stability issues with your device, chances are there's someone who can help you :)

I run a custom ROM on my Samsung Galaxy S.  The hard part is knowing which ROM to pick.  If you want stability, I would stay away from Cyanogen, because they tend to be more experimental and bleeding edge.
If you visit the XDA forums for Galaxy S 2 and go to the Android Development page, the most popular ROMS will be on the first or second page.  Typically you can get an idea of the stability of the ROM by looking at the change log and how frequently bug fixes have been made to the ROM recently.  For instance, if a new ROM was just released, or it seems to have very frequent serious bug fixes, you may want to stay away for a while.  However, if you find one that has been out for a while and the serious bug fixes have died down (as opposed to feature updates), then it is probably okay.
You can usually find reviews of ROMs on various Android community sites, but I'm not familiar enough with where to go.

To reply to your question,
I just got a Samsung Galaxy S2, and it is amazingly fast!! and of course very stable, as any other android phone I tried.
I am not sure about right-to-left languages, but the original Samsung rom on the Galaxy S2 is nothing like "slow and heavy", it offers really good performance in every aspect, this is certainly the fastest Android phone I ever tried (or fastest smartphone, all platforms included)


text:
Do Android-enabled smartphones support other operating systems?
Are there smartphones which support Android and, in addition to it, some other operating systems, in particular Symbian and RIM Blackberry? Or, maybe, the last two are constrained to devices which don't support Android?

Are you asking if there is a "dual boot" phone?

RIM only make Blackberry OS for their own specially-designed hardware, they don't release their OS to be installed on other people's hardware. However the new Blackberry Playbook (running their brand new QNX OS) can run Android apps as well as Blackberry apps, I don't think there are any phones running their new OS yet, but they will be coming soon. So that could do some of what you want to do with dual booting?
Phones designed for Symbian often have much lower hardware specs than ones designed for Android, so you're going to struggle to get Android running on them. See this previous question Is it possible to get Android on a Nokia e65?
Phones designed for Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7, however are a different matter. They do (mostly) have high enough specs, and a lot of the time are almost identical hardware-wise to Android phones from the same manufacturer. In these cases all that is needed is for someone to spend some time gathering (or writing) Android hardware drivers for the specific hardware in the phone, and then porting an Android build onto them. There are a few websites that co-ordinate projects to get Android running on these phones, XDA Devs being one of the biggest.
See this previous question which does overlap with this one by quite a bit Can I install Android on my non-Android device?

In practical terms, there are no Android phones that support other popular operating systems, because the other OSs are closed source.  A possible exception is, for example, the HTC HD2; it's almost identical to the HTC Desire Z, and Android can be run on it, so it's entirely possible that ripping Windows Mobile 6 from the HD2 and flashing it on a Desire Z would work.
As GAThrawn notes, the reverse (getting Android onto other phones) has been done; check out Can I install Android on my non-Android device? for that.

The phones doesn't support an operating system, It's the OS that support the phone. You can run any OS on a smartphone as long as someone ports the OS to that phone

OK, I may phrase my question in the following way: are there smartphones which are supported by Android and other operating systems?


text:
Can I use Gmail while offline?
Is it possible to download the new emails from the Gmail account while online, and then read them while offline? Is it possible to write emails while offline that will be sent when online?

Yes.  And not just for the inbox, but inbox and sent may be the only folders synchronized by default.
From within the android gmail client:
Press menu
select more
select settings
scroll down and select labels
change the number of days from which you want messages kept on the phone
change individual labels (effectively folders) to none, this number of days, or all

NOTE: this answer was written about a now obsolete version of the gmail app, which continues to change in its user interface over time.  The answer will not be updated to track that evolution, as there are multiple versions in use at any time which behave differently, and it is ultimately the idea rather than the specific steps which are important.

Good catch, dude.  I totally overlooked this.

You had the right idea, almost posted it as a comment to yours.  Oh, got to remember to take my phone back out of airplane mode ;-)

As far as I know, gmail will "cache" your most recent emails.  If you have to "search" or browse through any labels, you probably won't be able to get to those emails. But your inbox (or at least the most recent in the inbox) should be available to view since your last sync.  Additionally, you should also be able to draft emails while offline (and save the drafts), you just won't be able to send them until online again.

Yes, you can view locally cached emails, even those from years ago as long as your sync settings allow. But you can't do offline search!

Is it possible to download the new emails from the Gmail account while online, and then read them while offline?

Yes, but only for your inbox I think.  If you open your inbox on your phone while you have a connection and let all of the messages you have unread propagate to your phone, then close the Gmail app and put yourself in airplane mode you can reopen the Gmail app and read through your unread messages.

Is it possible to write emails while offline that will be sent when online?

Yes.  If you compose and send an E-mail normally the messages that say "Sending..." will go out as soon as you have a connection again.  I just tested this by using airplane mode.

The MailDroid app gives a lot of storage options to allow offline caching.