text:
Where do I turn route highlighting on / off in Google maps?
How can I show / hide the blue line representing the current route in Google Maps route planning and navigation screens? Essentially I want to toggle between the two views below:

Background: I somehow managed to switch route highlighting off and now I want it back. It doesn't seem to be a bug in Google Maps, at least a phone restart doesn't restore the highlighting. I know I can just wipe Google Maps user data, but I prefer to learn how to do it properly.

The route highlighting reappeared when my phone went back online, so apparently it's not something one can configure. Note that simply being offline is not enough to make the highlighting disappear: I have used Google Maps with offline maps many times, and it was never disabled before.


text:
I keep getting alerted regarding unread Facebook messages even though there is none
My phone beeps and tells me I have an unread Facebook message even though I don't. I've got a hunch what the source of the problem is. I have both the Facebook app and the Friend Caster app and they are connected to different Facebook accounts (one's for work one's for my personal life). Is there way I can stop getting these false "new message" alerts?
I want both my Facebook accounts on my phone because then all the contact numbers get pulled off both accounts. If anyone can think of a better way I'm open.

It looks like Friend Caster is considered end of life so that may be the problem. Facebook apparently made changes to their api, so it has been discontinued. Source https://support.onelouder.com/hc/en-us/articles/204558634-What-Happened-to-FriendCaster-
You should be able to have 1 account on the app and one on the preferred web browser, or you could go the route this page talks about https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/set-up-two-different-facebook-accounts-one-android-device-0161254/
There are probably other workarounds but these are the ones I found with a quick google search.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
how to transfer files to new external sdcard
I have an old 64 GB sdcard and a new 128 GB sdcard, how do I copy over all files from my old card to my new in a way that makes android treat the new card just as the old card.
I tried simply copy-pasting over my DCIM folder, then I put the new sdcard in and rebooted my phone, on startup the phone recreated the /Android folder and all apps had rights to their new folders.
Ways I tried to move the files:
1)

dd old card to disk
dd to new card

after this the card works but is seen as having 64 GB instead of 128 GB
space

use gparted to resize partition

this makes android see the card as having used 64 GB space but with no files or folders

2)

dd old card to disk to disk
dd to new card
use fdisk resize partition

this makes android see the card as having only empty folders, but still used 64 GB space

3)

create 128 GB partition

this I have tried with both FAT32 and exFAT

mount via mtp

Update: I have also tried to copy paste all the files and folders directly to the sdcard from the old card via the cp comand on linux (that was the very first thing I tried... I only tried all the other things because this did not work)

rsync all files and folders to the sdcard

this seems to make android see all the folders and files, but now my apps can't write to their own folders
eg
the problem in all of the above cases is that android eigher a) does not see the file, simply sees the card as a file with 64 GB used space but it cannot see any of the folders, or it does copy it over but the apps does not have 'access' to their own directories eg Android/data/com.bambuna.podcastaddict/files/podcast/ is where my podcasts are, but the app podcastaddict does not have write premissions for the folder.

so in short... how do I copy over all my files from the old sdcard to the new one... or do I have to factory reset my phone and redownload all my apps such that all the folders and appropriate premissions are created by android... which seems to be my only option
additional information

my phone is a unrooted z5 compact

it runs android 5.1

I have access to a Linux and windows computer, but would prefer Linux solutions.
I don't care what file system is on my external SD card.
I am familiar with the command line and would prefer solution listing a few commands I need to copy-paste

As Firelord suggested, rebooting the phone makes android "display" the DCIM folder, so this one can be copied over, however it still seems that the /Android/data/com.company.app/ folders have to be created by the apps themselves, otherwise they cannot write to them, but you can subsequently copy files into these folders
Factory reset and restore from backup did this for me... it is an ugly solution... but at least it works.
I erroneously assumed that file permissions werehidden somewhere on the SD card and therefore tried to find the 'correct way' to copy, but it seems that the folder permission is saved on the internal card, or they are tied to the application in some non-trival way.
I restarted my phone again, and then some of my apps lost permissions to write to their SD card folders?!?!, ie podcastaddict which had downloaded 300 podcasts overnight could not write to sdcard1/Android/data/com.bambuna.podcastaddict/files/podcasts
By deleting and reinstalling podcastadditc it regenerated its folder and it has been working since.

Wow, this has a downvote!  I'm bit surprised. Anyhow, jcr, does your device have OTG support? Although I believe that plainly copying the files from one card into another followed by a reboot should work, I want to see what would happen if you copy the files from one card to another when both are connected and mounted into Android?

@programming good point what i did was "rsync -rtvu --size-only /media/local/Share/microSD/ SD\ Card/", I will try to add a "-a" or is there a better flag to set... I am in the midst of factory resetting my phone to make sure that it is not because android was somehow corupted

@Firelord I don't know it I have OTG support, how would I go about mounting both in android?, I do have MTP support as that was the protocol I used to mount in linux

DCIM folder issue is fixed because mediaserver (indexes multimedia files and images) is run on every reboot. How it did  fix the Android/data/ issue is not sure to me.

No offense, but I have done this many times in my Linux box, all I have ever done is power off the phone insert the original SD card in the computer, make a temp folder in my home directory, open a terminal and cd to the temp folder, then issue the command cp -r /media/.../* (adjust for proper mount point) then remove the card, insert the new one, format it as FAT32 with the same volume name, and then reverse the copy process, then reinsert the new SD card in the phone an boot. Done. It should not be more complicated than that.

I got a real 128 gb card, here I simply copy pasted over my DCIM folder, then I put the new sdcard in and rebooted my phone, on startup the phone recreated the /Android folder and all apps had rights to their new folders.
so my method:

backup and delete all aps that use the SD card
format the sd card
take a photo to generate the DCIM folder
insert SD card in your compuer
delete the /Android folder (it will be regenerated when you insert the card in your phone)
move relevant files to the DCIM folder
insert sdcard in phone
restart phone
reinstall aps from backup
do something that makes them regenerate their folders (ie down load a file, take a picture ect)
restart the phone
for all aps that cannot write to their own folder, delete he app and delete their /Android/data/com.company.app_name folder then go to 8

how come you deleted guide to detect whether the card was fake?

Detecting fake sd-cards is another topic. This is not a forum. One question, one answer. By the way my method below seems to be much easier.  Copy the volume id followed by a straight copy, that’s it.

TLDR

copy the volume id of old card to new card
then copy the whole content of old card to new card (or copy it first to a harddisk and then from the harddisk to the new card, doesn’t make a difference).

Step by step
I used my Fedora linux computer to do this, as it is a Thinkpad with SD-card slot.

First I looked what the volume id of the old sd-card was. I haven’t found a commandline tool for this, yet. So I used (KDE) partitionmanager (as gparted is not supporting extfat). Installed it with
dnf install kde-partitionmanager

Then I inserted the new sd-card and formatted it adding the volume id of the old sd-card. For that I had to install several exfat tools.
dnf install -y fuse-exfat exfat-utils

Then I formated new card with the old volume id (in the example the volume id is 01234567)
mkfs.exfat -i 01234567 /dev/mmcblk0p1

I then tried to copy from old to new sd-card with rsync -aP but astonishingly that didn’t work (data rate was really low (20–40 MB/s) and it seamed that only some files were copied to the new card, I have no idea why that happened, first time to see that, but as I didn’t have time, I didn’t further investigate). Then I just copied it with cp -a, which was at a rate of 100+ MB/s.
cp -a /mnt/oldcard/. /mnt/newcard/

Inserted the new card in the phone, restarted it (didn’t have to, I think). Worked like a charm. Everything worked as before (Antennapod, Osmand, MapsMe, Aard 2 dictionary with offline Wikipedias, photos, etc.). Nothing was missing. But I have a lot more space left on the sd-card now. :-D

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


text:
How to ensure a factory reset wipes /data/media?
Now, those who use custom recoveries often know that a factory reset tends to keep a good deal of data in /data/media/.  However, I would like to ensure that this location gets wiped so that all of my storage (besides the actual Android system of course) becomes available again.  Is there a way to do this?
I'm using TWRP 2.8.7.0 on a Samsung Tab 2 running Android 5.1.1, if that helps.

/data/media is actually your so-called "internal SD card" space.  It's not wiped by default because, as the name implies, it's intended for media storage like photos and music.  It usually should not contain any personal account information or important app data (that isn't encrypted).  Many custom recoveries do have an option to wipe the internal SD card, you just need to select it when doing your factory reset.
TWRP actually has a detailed post about this at https://twrp.me/faq/datamedia.html.  The most relevant excerpt:

In TWRP we also have a wipe internal storage option that rm -rf's the media folder and a "Format Data" option that formats to recreate the entire file system in case something goes completely wrong or to remove device encryption.

If you just want to free up the space, you could also simply use a file browser to deleted everything on your internal SD card.


text:
Uninstall marshmallow updates
I am using motorola Moto X Play it is shipped with android lollipop 5.0, recently I got notification to update to android marshmallow 6.0, after update I am not able to move applications to memory card and many other issues..
Is there any way to switch back to lollipop?
Please help!

You'll need to get a Lollipop ROM for your device and flash it, that's the only way do downgrade. There's no such thing as "uninstall updates" for the OS.

I doubt it will void the warranty, Is it?

Depends on the ROM. Flashing an "official image" provided by the manufacturer shouldn't void the warranty. Flashing a 3rd party ROM probably will.

Whether it will void the warranty or not is something we cannot deal with since legal issues are off-topic here. You may want to browse Motorola's website to find out warranty details and related documents to ascertain whether unlocking bootloader or flashing the device would void warranty.

Sorry, but that cannot be helped. Alternative is approaching support with your issues and having them sort it out – giving them the option to downgrade if everything else fails.

Please don't remove relevant tags.

Why it is downgraded?

There is no way to revert back to Lollipop without rooting your device and using a custom lollipop ROM.
If you're not familiar with rooting see: http://theunlockr.com/2015/09/21/root-motorola-moto-x-play/


text:
Why does my Xiaomi phone have a "Skip Lockscreen" developer setting?
I am using an unrooted Xiaomi phone running Android 4.4, and activated developer mode.  The development options include "Skip Lockscreen". What is this?  Will it this cause any functional problems for my device?

Typically, Android devices default to having no lock screen.  Apparently Xiaomi didn't like this; it is a pretty terrible idea to leave your phone unprotected from others, after all, unless you don't care about theft or its contents.  As such, the option to disable the lockscreen is "hidden" in the developer options.  Presumably this is to help developers who need to go through the load → test → modify → reload cycle often and don't want to be constantly unlocking their devices.
A lock screen is also required to make use of Factory Reset Protection; see this answer for more details.  Otherwise, there is no other functional issues.  The lock screen is purely for security and privacy purposes.

I have provided PIN for security while unlocking. It performs the same operations while I were in Lock screen mode and Skip Lock screen mode.


text:
Can't save my photos from bricked phone
My unrooted phone is stuck on Samsung logo. I have TWRP. I backup now and restore but it still does the same. I have photos in the phone. How can I save them?

Boot into TWRP, mount the /data or external SD card if the photos are there, then pull them using MTP or ADB.

@Firelord how do I sir?

No need to be so formal, Jeremy. You need to find a way to setup ADB in PC and make [tag:ADB] detect the device. Start from Is there a minimal installation of ADB? Then boot the device into TWRP, connect it into PC, launch a shell on PC and do adb pull. Search the web and you would know the complete idea. Otherwise, see if device is getting detected as a portable media player or something when booted into TWRP.

Samsung phones don't come with TWRP , they have a stock recovery.To install TWRP, you need to be rooted. Unless the phone was previously rooted and root removed now? Please check the root status using apps on play store..search for root checker

@beeshyams Are you sure about the To install TWRP, you need to be rooted. part? Because I as far as I know root is not needed to flash a custom recovery?

@SarpSTA.  You are right, it is not mandatory . Should have said probably, since one doesn't normally flash TWRP, except to flash ROM, on Samsung for fear of tripping Knox and of course losing updates. Technically, you are correct and thanks for that, but my gut feeling is that it is rooted, and definitely not right to express it as a sure thing

If you still have access to your recovery it means you are not bricked. Far as I understand from what your say is that it is a bootloop. I don't know what caused it but if you want to save your photos there are multiple ways of doing it. I will suggest adb (as I was typing this, so did Firelord) Having access to TWRP means you can use adb. Use adb pull to pull DCIM folder in sdcard to have photos your camera took and other folders you need.

how will I fix my phone after this sir?

@JeremyC Depends. That's too long to answer in comments. Try asking another question.

i was rooted but i did factory reset

@beeshyams was right obviously then. You are still rooted since factory reset doesn't unroot your phone.


text:
What is this port on my Samsung phone?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, what's this in the screenshot below:

Have you looked into the manual that came with your phone..? or Online Manual?

@Lucky I can't find anything in the guide.

Isn't that an antenna of some kind? I believe there are two other antenna's up top, WiFi, GSM and I think the bottom one is Bluetooth.

@Tom if it's a GSM antenna can someone confirm that for me?

Just saw the whole back of the Samsung S4 mini and I believe that is the only one there on the back.
It's definitely the GSM antenna.
The hole there is on purpose. This way the phone gets a better reception.
Sometimes, a void sticker gets put on there.
Check this video to hear about this port (on the S4):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9pDB1kGmLY
More questions answered about these kind of ports:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2342889
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1625663


text:
IM-A870L Radio Interface Layer broke down
I am having this weird problem with my Vega Iron since a couple of days. Past 2 days the battery was down and phone shut off. I put it to charging and when I came back after couple of hours, the led indicated green and I pulled it out of charging and powered on. Since then, the phone is not working normal.

It does not show/connect to cell network, thus cannot call or sms
If I try to go to mobile network settings option, the phone hangs (white blank page then black blank page) and I can only manage to get away by using task manager (after pressing back and home keys few times, it shows me the recent tasks where I can close the settings page)
The phone hangs every now and then. For e.g. if I hit power once to close the display, then hit again to open, it takes couple of minutes before it can come back to life
I tried the phone secret info menu *#*#4636#*#* then "Phone information", but the same happens and it hangs.
I tried the secret UMTS menu (##7593#), and it opens with a message "ril socket is not available", if I click the network option (that sets automatic/wcdma/gsm/etc) then same message that ril socket is not available

I tried all this:

Phone restart
Batter removed and then put in again
Sim card and SD card removed
Airplane mode turned on (even on airplane mode, the phone hangs)
Factory reset

The phone battery drains very quick and gets hot as well. I guess phone trying to access RILD again and again.
Is there some way this can be fixed, or at least the RIL call events be shut down? Could the phone be set to work without radio?

I took my phone to some firmware flash experts, and I found out there that the baseband is not showing up. Means when I go to the About phone menu, it shows "unknow" for Baseband. I could not reach the "Status" option but I am sure that IMEI is also gone, as I can see on many forums that people say that baseband and IMEI is related and lost together.

Forums suggest to use MTK Droid tool to restore IMEI but the IMEI/NVRAM button is not enabled when I connect my phone to the tool. Also one weird thing is that I cannot find any nvram folder in my phone.

Finally I found the answer to my problem!
I took my phone to another expert and he told me that the Baseband IC is gone and it is a hardware problem. He could fix it if I can get him the IC as it is not available in our markets because of being a rarely used korean phone.
This thing is confirmed by another forum post here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=26827676&postcount=4512%22
where they say:

type *#06# , and IF you get message "imei null" or imei starts by 0049XXXX or 00000 it should be resolved by software .
  but IF nothing is shown when you type *#06#, that is a hardware problem or look at attached picture below. .

When I dial this code on my phone, nothing happens, so it confirms that it is a hardware problem.
I will try to get the hardware component somehow and see if it works.
My actual problem is not solved but I got answers and atleast I am comfortable that I given it a try!


text:
Deleted Contacts on WhatsApp but Chat not deleted
Someone deleted me on their contacts because I can't see their profile photo anymore. I just want to know if ever our chat box is not deleted on his/her WhatsApp app, Will he/she see changes on my profile photo or status after deleting me on his/her contacts if he kept the chat box?

Not being able to see someone's profile picture does not mean they deleted you from their contacts. It's possible they simply removed the picture and no one can see it including you.
If the person still has the chat saved, then yes they will see your profile picture.
If you don't want someone to see your profile picture you can delete their contact, and in WhatsApp settings select that only your contacts can see your picture. Alternatively you can block that person's number and they won't be able to check your profile picture

So even if for example he/she deleted me on his or her contact list, but still have the chat logs on his or her chat section, he or she will see if I changed my profile photo or if I am online or not?

That's correct. They can open the chat with you and see your new profile and last seen

Thank you for your help!

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


text:
How can I remove vibration when the phone is turned off on my Samsung Galaxy S9 (non-rooted Android 9, One UI 1.0)?
How can I remove vibration when the phone is turned off on my Samsung Galaxy S9 (non-rooted Android 9, One UI 1.0)?
I don't have any option item Settings app > Accessibility > Vibration.

I don't understand this part "when the phone is turned off". If it is off, how will you change any setting?

@ReddyLutonadio I meant: when I turn off the phone, it vibrates right when the shut down is complete. I can change settings when the phone is on.

This is option is not for user’s control. It’s default for all smartphones.
The main purpose is to alert the user when their phone shuts down otherwise there is a chance that users may not know whether their phone is off or on.
So OEM provides this feature as default and cannot be controlled until the phone is rooted. Rooting a phone will give you a full control over the phone. But this is helpful. If you feel to remove this option, root your device but that is difficult fix to this. Mainly it is not a bug.
Hope it helps!


text:
vcast media manager huge log files: safe to delete?
Device Info

Phone: Samsung Galaxy S7
Carrier: Verizon Wireless

My issue
My phone is low on available space, so I wanted to delete some things. I noticed that the path Android/data/com.vcast.mediamanager/files/instabug/logs is taking up 1.47 GiB of just .txt log files! What is generating these, and is it safe to delete them?

Instabug is an app component for bug- crash- and app performance-monitoring.
Therefore it should be safe to delete this file.
I would also send a bug report to Verizon as com.vcast.mediamanager is their
Verizon Cloud app. May be they forgot to decrease the logging verboseness which leads to such a big log file.


text:
How can I transfer the numbers from my old Android phone onto my new iPhone if I lost the old Android phone?
I lost my old android phone. Decided to try out an iphone just to get literate. I'm wondering what the process is for transferring my contacts from my old android phone (which i don't have access to) to my new iphone.
I'm using Verizon as a provider, so might be able to leverage their cloud, though I am not sure if that's an option. I'm wondering if anyone else has done this before, and / or knows of a standard way to go about it.

Does this answer your question? How to transfer Android contacts to iPhone?

If you lost your phone then everything that was on it is lost the only way to recover things from it would be if they were saved to the cloud so check in Google contacts if your contacts were saved there and then move them to your iPhone

@ReddyLutonadio good recommendation! unfortunately that one doesn't solve my problem, because it requires you to have possession of the old android device

I was able to accomplish this on my iphone through google.

I went into the Settings App of my iphone
Went into the Passwords & Accounts section, and hit the Add Account button which allowed me to add my google account,
A screen popped up which let me choose what to pull over (mail, contacts, calendars). Via this method, i was able to update my phone with all my old contacts.

I was able to do this because android had either auto-backed up my contacts through one of my google apps, or because i had initiated that process manually in the past (don't remember which).

Glad to be of help

If you were syncing contacts with your Google account you can login to your google.com account. In the top-right corner, just left of your photo there is a menu, where you choose "Contacts". You can browse your contacts there and even export them in CSV format.
You can than import these contacts to your Apple Accounts and voilà, sync iPhone with the account.
Please note that CSV import in Apple Account is limited to few contacts at a time, so without programming the procedure is practical only for relatively small number of contacts.
I wonder if there is an iPhone app that would sync directly with Google Account - good candidates are Outlook Client and some other e-mail clients that can use gmail. If you find something like that please post another answer to help others.


text:
adb sideload lineage.zip yields adb: failed to read command: No error
TL;DR
Trying to sideload Lineage, I hit a brick wall getting the following error:
D:\Setups\XXXXX\Lineage FP3\platform-tools_28.0.2(ADB_1.0.41)>
    adb sideload lineage-17.1-20210104-nightly-FP3-signed.zip
adb: failed to read command: No error

The phone displays Timed out waiting for fuse to be ready. simultaneously.
Setting:
I'm trying to install LineageOS on my Fairphone FP3+ using Windows 10. Through workarounds including first difficulties and exploiting the manufacturer flash all .exe, I was able to boot the Lineage recovery and start sideload. adb devices returns the following:
List of devices attached
A2XXXXXXXXX1    sideload

The phone display prints Now send the package you want to apply to the device with "adb sideload <filename>"...
Problem:
I now enter adb sideload lineage-17.1-20210104-nightly-FP3-signed.zip, paying attention on having the archive in the same folder as adb (that's the default way, even if about to change). The result was

either adb: failed to read command: Connection reset by peer with aparent restart of the recovery boot
or a adb: failed to read command: No error in the cmd, giving me Timed out waiting for fuse to be ready. on the phone. I don't trust that error as it doesn't time out by waiting but in an instant after sending the sideload command.

I also double checked and cross-switched the cable, USB port, downloads, software versions (Lineage and recovery/ADB), as well as un- and reinstalled all respective drivers.
More references:

Manage the bootloader of your FP3/FP3+
Manually install Fairphone OS on FP3/FP3+ (from part "Setting:", in the process leads to this link from above for Windows)

I also went through these possibly related questions on this site among others:

Android adb sideload command
adb sideload CM,it shows error

sideload is broken, adb push file to /cache /data or /tmp

TL;DR:
Try a different host device or new installation (of the host OS) instead of giving up!

The solution in this very specific case seems to have been reinstalling the host OS (in my case Windows 10). I suspect it to be a driver issue of some sort as the reinstallation of everything used the exact same setups, files etc. I could guess into some of the multiple DisplayLink-ish software I tried to use for my tablet as secondary USB PC display. (Such as Superbrush, Super Display, VirtualTablet, WiredXDisplay, spacedesk and so on, I tried a few.)
While this is not a direct answer to the question, I hope, it could help other people stuck like me. The exact same procedure led to the desired, previously blocked resullt.


text:
Can anyone explain all these Developer Options?
Can anyone explain these developer options?

Force GPU rendering
Disable non-rectangular clip ops
Force 4X MSAA
Disable HW overlays

What are the possible effects that can be seen in my device by disabling/enabling them? [Note: I've found other options by Google-ing but not these.]
Do the developer settings affect battery life by using lower animation speeds (all to 2x precisely) or higher animation speeds (0.5x precisely) at the expense of user experience?

Please keep in mind these are Developer options, and may be of no use, or have a negative impact on the performance of your device.
Force GPU rendering
The GPU is the Graphics Processing Unit. It's very much like the CPU, but instead of crunching numbers and taking care of tasks for the operating system and hardware, the GPU renders graphical information and puts it on the screen for you.
The CPU can process graphical instructions just fine, but doing so takes time away from doing other computations, and can lead to lag while graphical instructions are processed
In Ice Cream Sandwich onwards, developers (or power users) are given the option to force apps to use GPU rendering, whether that bit is on or off in the app's manifest. This does not necessarily make the app faster, and may cause issues.

Disable non-rectangular clip ops
This is too technical for me to explain in great detail. Basically a "canvas" is used for drawing. The source Code for Android contains this:
/**
     * Turn on to **debug non-rectangular clip operations**.
     *
     * Possible values:
     * "hide", to disable this debug mode
     * "highlight", highlight drawing commands tested against a non-rectangular clip
     * "stencil", renders the clip region on screen when set
     *
     * @hide
     */
    public static final String DEBUG_SHOW_NON_RECTANGULAR_CLIP_PROPERTY =
            "debug.hwui.show_non_rect_clip";

You could turn it off to create unusual (non rectangular) canvas areas. See here for more details on this
As  per @IanNi-Lewis points out in his comment:

It's probably worth pointing out that "non-rectangular clip regions" is a little misleading. It should be "clip regions that aren't screen-aligned rectangles." If you have a rectangular clip region that's rotated by some non-multiple of 90 degrees, then it goes down the same slow path as a clip region shaped like a donut or what have you. (The "slow path" uses the stencil buffer, and probably doesn't need to be as slow as it is; it's a good area for future optimization.)

Force 4X MSAA
Force 4x MSAA  does not require a rooted device. This option does the same as any Anti Aliasing filter in PC games - smooths out all the pixelization and provides better rendering, which means better looking graphics. Users should know that this function is only recommended for devices that have GPU capable of native MSAA support.
From Wikipedia:

In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing is an effect that causes different signals to become indistinguishable (or aliases of one another) when sampled. It also refers to the distortion or artifact that results when the signal reconstructed from samples is different from the original continuous signal.

Disable HW overlays
Without a hardware overlay every application that is displaying things on the screen will share video memory and will have to constantly check for collision and clipping to render a proper image, this can cost a lot of processing power. With a hardware overlay each application gets its own portion of video memory, getting rid of the need to check for collision and clipping.
As @DanHulme put it: Windows in Android are always composited rather than rendered into shared video memory. Normally, SurfaceFlinger uses the GPU for composition, but it will use a hardware overlay when that's possible, which is faster and uses less battery. Disabling overlays means it will always use GPU rendering. It's only useful for debugging system integration or HW video decode: even app developers don't need to turn on this option

4xMSAA might not actually be slower. On certain GPUs such as Mali-400, the speed difference between 4xMSAA and no anti-aliasing is negligible because of how fragment shaders execute. It's also worth mentioning that this only affects GLES applications, and won't make text and icons in normal apps any crisper.

I don't think your description of HW overlays is correct. Windows in Android are always composited rather than rendered into shared video memory. Normally, SurfaceFlinger uses the GPU for composition, but it will use a hardware overlay when that's possible, which is faster and uses less battery. Disabling overlays means it will always use GPU rendering. It's only useful for debugging system integration or HW video decode: even app developers don't need to turn on this option.

I'm away from my PC I'll edit as soon as I can, got a bit muddled. Or feel free to edit

Well updating to use gpu processing made the se app not crash on this question :-)

@RossC - Thank you for the answer. Everything is okay except 'Disable HW overlays'. Could you expand it for me? And 'Disable non-rectangular clip ops' is way too technical for me to understand as I'm not a developer. I've added one more point in my question. Check it out.

@DanHulme - Thank you too... for clarification.

Updated answer now, however, @MANI I don't know if I can answer what effects the battery more with the animation speed. The screen being on uses so much battery that it loading a quick animation at half speed or twice the speed would only have a negligible effect AFAIK. Unless anyone can advise me on that in more detail. Really the screen uses so much battery that most other things really don't matter once it is on (excluding very intensive games etc obviously)

@Ross I don't think it has a huge effect on battery just some battery saving like in Windows wherein we disable the Transparent graphics(I.e. Aero theme is suggested to disable for improving battery time)

@RossC it's probably worth pointing out that "non-rectangular clip regions" is a little misleading. It should be "clip regions that aren't screen-aligned rectangles." If you have a rectangular clip region that's rotated by some non-multiple of 90 degrees, then it goes down the same slow path as a clip region shaped like a donut or what have you. (The "slow path" uses the stencil buffer, and probably doesn't need to be as slow as it is; it's a good area for future optimization.)

@IanNi-Lewis whew, this is getting very technical. Many thanks for your input, I have posted what you said (with credit) into the answer directly. Much appreciated!

So when we say that "Disable HW overlays", then does that mean that application (eg. VLC player) should have code support so as to make it possible to run it on GPU insted of CPU OR does the android internally converts the CPU specific code into GPU understandable code?

@shingaridavesh as far as I understand it, this is done at an OS level so, in theory, requires no extra code. Disable HW Overlays doesn't force any rendering as far as I can tell. I am open to corrections though.


text:
How frequently are Android apps in Google Play updated?
I wish to know how frequently apps in Google Play are updated on average? For instance, statistics such as average number of apps updated per day or number of days in-between 2 successive updates of an app (on average) might be useful to deduce this.
An example number that I wish to see is: 0.5% of apps in Google Play are updated every day (or something like this).

I hypothesize that Android apps, given the easy development and
  distribution infrastructure, are updated much frequently than the
  desktop apps.

I wish to have more evidence to support this hypothesis. Please suggest link to any official information (or reliable from tech blogs) that would give insight into such statistics. Thanks.

From my observations of ~10,000 apps listed at my real-life categorized app-listings, the average app...

requests ~7 permissions
costs USD 0.88
was last updated ~1.5 years (~17 month or 492 days) ago

The last item, a little more detailed:
┌───────────────────────────────────────┬────────┐
| last updated more than 2 years ago    | 24.51% |
| last updated 1..2 years ago           | 20.27% |
| last updated 6..12 month ago          | 17.84% |
| updated within the last 6 month       | 34.87% |
└───────────────────────────────────────┴────────┘

As you've correctly pointed out in your comment, that doesn't sum up to 100%. The difference are apps currently not listed in any of the markets I cater for (i.e. Google Play, F-Droid, Aptoide). As unlistings may be (and sometimes have been) temporary, I still keep those for a few month before removing them finally. Plus add a little "rounding blur" ;)
So I'm afraid I just spoiled your theory...
BTW: Though you didn't ask for: Top categories of "max permissions per app on average" is, after "personal assistants" (31.7 perms/app) cheaper calls (22.2 perms/app – shame to him who thinks evil of it ;)). Only then come apps to remote-control your device (where many permissions make much sense, considered you want to control as much as possible), and "Antivirus", with ~19 perms/app each.
(Statistics as per November 5, 2014)

Thanks for a detailed reply, Izzy. I have the following questions:
(1) The sum of all the percentage splits (2.51+20.27+17.84+34.87) is 97.49 and not 100. Hence, I am not able to completely make sense of interval in which apps are updated.
(2) Actually, you helped my hypothesis by suggesting that a large fraction of apps are updated frequently i.e. more than 1/3 of apps are updated within a time frame of 6 months (shortest period in your list). Thanks again and let me if I have misinterpreted any of the figures.

(1) are apps still in my lists but currently not listed on play (might be temporarily removed, which is why I still keep them for a while). (2) there are even some with 1+ weekly updates, but those are rather rare exceptions. And yes, ~1/3 was at least updated once within the last 6 month – but that doesn't say anything about frequency (might have been a) just the initial release of a new app or b) the only update an app ever got :) I don't keep track of frequencies, just the "last release".

Oh, I see. Now, I get a clear idea of what was happening! As you mentioned, there is no information regarding the frequency of updates. I'll look forward more responses to this question and see if they point to any such info on frequency. Thanks.

Good luck! Though I doubt there are such stats available. Please remember to "accept" the answer solving your question then ("tick" the check-mark next to it). As you can always "adjust" that when a better answer pops up, you might consider doing so for this answer now, so you can't forget ;)

Yes Izzy, I could not find any stats so far on this. But, still I would like to look forward to any useful responses here. FYI, I have accepted your answer.

Thanks, Annamalai! If I find something, I will update it here. Would be nice if you do the same in such a case, as we're all a little curious ;)


text:
How can I run Android applications on my computer?
Is there any method for using Android applications on a computer, because I found this tutorial but my laptop just has 1 GB of RAM and works very hard. I want to use WeChat on my PC because I like it very much.

You need either Bluestacks or Youwave. I think Bluestacks can not be installed on your PC because of less RAM (minimum of 2gb recommended). So Youwave is your only option. It is easy to install and use.

Click here to download YouWave for Android on PC

Bluestacks is the best so far, but I don't think it will run on a PC with 1GB of RAM.
As for YouWave, you need a few bucks to use it, so it's not a free tool. But there is another tool that might work well on your PC, it's called Andy and it's the best free alternative to Bluestacks so far.

here is a link to Andy http://www.andyroid.net/ good luck bro.

You might wish to take a look at my list of emulators – the ones you will need are to be found at the end of the page. I personally use android-x86 in VirtualBox, which works fine – but you might have different demands. For just one app any of them might be a little "overkill" – and you might find it easier to install a VNC-Server on your Android device to access the app via that. Which would have the advantage of doing even more on your device remotely ;)

authors: Сергей Карманов


text:
chrome://downloads/ does not available in Google Chrome for Android
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab s2 and Google Chrome for Android is compatible with my Tab, so I installed it.
I clicked on a link to download a video file. Google chrome showed a toast message that the download has been started.
However, after this toast, I can't find where chrome downloaded the file.
I query chrome://downloads , but the browser displays "This web page is not available "

If you download a non-video file, are you able to download it? The video that you downloaded should be in that same folder.

If not, take a look at this question: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/49774/how-to-download-via-chrome-on-nexus-7-with-jelly-bean-4-2-2

If you prefer having Downloads be available in the browser menu under 'Downloads'  you can still get that with Chromium. Install the latest build and navigate to chrome://flags. In the menu hit 'Find in Page', search 'downloads' and locate 'Enable downloads manager UI in the app menu'. Enable it and hit the blue button marked RELAUNCH NOW. Now downloads are back in the menu just like old times.

There's a separate Downloads app, which shows a list of downloads from all apps. Downloads are saved in the "Downloads" directory in the SD card, which means that downloaded videos show up in the "Downloads" album in Gallery.

On Android 4.4, you can access the download history in the App titled “My files.”

It's not universal.


text:
Setting contact picture from linked contact
I use Local Sync as my main address book. Several of my contacts are linked to different address books (e.g. LinkedIn, Skype, Whatsapp, Viber).
In my case, I found a contact having a very beautiful photo in Viber but I chose to set an old ugly picture in my address book
The question is: how do I tell Android to select the contact picture to display for a given contact not from Gallery/Camera apps but from that same contact's linked Viber account?
The question can be generalized and rephrased to cover not only Viber:
how do I tell Android to select the contact picture to display for a given contact not from Gallery/Camera apps but from one of that same contact's linked accounts?

It seems that the app "Local Sync" doesn't exist any more in the Google Play store.

yes, rip Local Sync. The best Android/Outlook synchronizer I ever found

I just found the answer, which is a little tricky.
In general
When you need to set a default picture t oa contact who is linked to others, simply press MENU and go to Defaults menu. There you have the Caller ID setting in which you can choose the picture being displayed on call.
In the Viber case
That is not possible, since Viber doesn't actually create linked accounts, unlike Whatsapp. If the application that allows people to set a photo to themselves and manages contacts doesn't implement writing to address book that won't be possible

I don't see a "Defaults" menu. Could you share a screenshot of where you found this menu?

I discovered that it depends on the Android Contacts application in use, which varies among Android version and phone vendor

For Viber, use Viber Contact Photo Sync.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.booleanaxis.vibercontactphotosync2
For Whatsapp use:
Contact Photo Sync


text:
What is the status icon that looks like a house?
There is a strange icon that shows up in my status bar only when I'm at a certain restaurant. It looks like a cross between a house and wifi.
I suspect it might be a free wifi hotspot or something related to a nearby phone store, but I can't find any information about it in manual for my phone.
See the following screenshot:

What is your phone brand and model? What version of Android? Have you installed some custom ROM? If so, which one?

I'm using a Samsung Droid Charge running 2.3.6, no custom ROM. I had a tag with the model, but it looks like the question was edited to remove that tag.

This is the icon that symbolises that the Verizon Network Extender is in use - could it be possible that the restaurant you visit has had one installed/set up?
Source

That may be it. I'm marking this as the answer, although I have no way of verifying.

@MattCasto The next time you visit the resturant, ask if they have a network extender :)


text:
Adding web shortcuts with icons similar to chrome's new tab thumbnails
I have a Droid RAZR MAXX, and there are a few shortcuts to web pages on the screen. They have been there since before the phone got ICS.
Under GB one could long tap the screen, add a shortcut, and choose a web site rather than an app. This created a shortcut with the name of the site, and the icon looked like a screen capture of the URL that the shortcut targets (like the chrome new tab page).
However in ICS I can't see way to do it, I can add a bookmark to the home screen through the browser, but the icon is different. I tried adding a bookmark through each browser, chrome, default, firefox, opera, dolphin. None of them produce this icon.
Anyone know how to do it? Or is this something that Moto threw in to the software, but didn't keep in ICS? (Though in that case why do the old icons still work?).

Can't see how to get an individual bookmark with a thumbnail screenshot of the webpage, but there are a couple of similar things you can do with the default browser in ICS.

In the screenshot above the top row are bookmarks added to the home screen by going into the browser, opening the bookmarks list, long pressing on a bookmark and selecting "Add to Home Screen". These appear to be the using the site's "Favicon".
The next two rows are the "3x2 Bookmarks" widget, that just lists the contents of my browser's bookmarks folder. Add that by opening your apps list, selecting the Widgets tab at the top and then long pressing to drag the "3x2 Bookmarks" widget to a home screen. It then gives you a chance to pick a folder in your Bookmarks to show (you could create a new folder in bookmarks beforehand and fill that folder with only web pages that you want to show on your home screen).

You could also try Visual Bookmarks, although some users have found that it no longer works for them. YMMV.


text:
How do you clear .thumbnails folder without hanging Windows Explorer?
Is there a recommended way to clear out the thumbnail data that I have in DCIM/.thumbnails folder?
It occupies about 50 MB and I want to clear it out but when I press Ctrl+A in Windows Explorer it stops responding. There are maybe 10,000 files in there.
Is that enough to cause this problem where Explorer just hangs?
I read in another post here at AE that you're supposed to go to Settings, Applications, and then pick the Gallery app and tap Clear Cache button.
I tried this and it didn't help. Also it said in the dialog that the size occupied is like 170 KB or so. So I don't think that's it.
But this is on Android 2.2, just for the record, so maybe it doesn't work that way in this version.

I realize that this might be more of a Windows problem than Android problem. But is there actually a recommended procedure of clearing out this space? What I do is I mount the Android device as a USB mass storage and then try to delete these files with Windows Explorer and it hangs it. But maybe there is another way? From within Andorid? Am I even allowed to delete these files? Also, the Gallery app is the one that uses this folder, right? I didn't find any options for clearing out this stuff in the app.

You could use any file explorer directly on your Android device to do this. A good choice is e.g. ES File Explorer File Manager, which as a side-effect also enables you to directly access your PC from the Android device (accessing your Shared Folders via WiFi), and has many other nice features:

Start the app
Go to Settings → File Settings, and enable Show Hidden Files option
Navigate to the folder
long-press the folder name, and select "delete" from the pop-up menu
Confirm the deletion of folder and contents, if asked for
for "normal operations", you might want to disable Show Hidden Files again

It is pretty safe to delete the entire folder (instead of deleting all files separately). After all, with a new phone/sd card, the folder won't exist either. The app/service using the folder will simply re-create it if it does not (longer) exist.

Is it safe to delete the whole folder? Shouldn't I just delete the files? Does it matter? I will try this.

Consider the following: Your sd card "breaks", and you have to replace it. Or your device never had an SD card, and you decide to use one. In both cases, the (new) SD card most likely is completely empty, with no directories/data on. So yes, it should be pretty safe to delete the entire folder -- moreover it saves you from marking all files manually to delete them ;) If the folder is needed, the corresponding app/service will simply re-create it. // added that to my answer.

When I go to DCIM in ES File Explorer I don't see the thumbnails folder.

Never mind, I've found it. It was hidden so I had to go to Settings, File Settings, and enable Show Hidden Files option. I managed to delete all the files in this folder using this app.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that with the "hidden" stuff. Will add it to my answer as well -- thanks for pointing it out!


text:
Battery consumption
My stats are the follwing:
Android system 37%,
Stand by 36%,
Inactivity 14%,
Voice call 3%.
I touch in android and appears a lot of programs like
alertrecipients,
google backup transport,
error,
?Perso?,
Tasks,
bluetooth test,
popupuiReceiver,
wssyncmlnps,
mobile tracker,
DRM,
definitions,
wlan test,
self test mode,
wipeoutreceiver,
VPN services,
android sistem,
facory test,
preconfig and
service mode.
Can I turn off some of those tasks in managment, or better asked, is there any of those I cannot stop, that is essential to the phone?
Mostly I just need phone, some ocasional pictures and sms, maybe 2/3 times a week use an app!

What? I'm sorry, but your post is completely incomprehensible. (I understand that English may not be your first language.) Fixing the formatting would go a long way, but I really think you need to clarify what it is you're after.

markissimo, helped a lot, thanks and yes its not my native language, sorry for the incovinience.

You can go in settings, running applications and close the ones that you don't need. The application that the system needs you won't be able to close.
Or you can just uninstall the undesired ones as well.
And reformat your question so it makes more sense and it's understandable.

i´ve done that and for now is working just fine with Android system just 4%. At the end of the day ill post here if this have reduced the battery consumption.

After 1 day and 3 hours and follwing your advice i have full battery and android consumption is only 7%, thank you all who helped me.

This was my first cell phone with android sistem (Samsung Galaxy Ace android 2.3), i just have for 4 days, so some questions arose, like this one but is pretty simple to solve, and i hope that can help another people. To solve the problem is going to settings, turn off some applications that i/you dont need, if you like me dont need 3G always working as the GPS or WiFi, just turn them off, but pay attention if you run out of battery the app's will turn on when you turn on your cell phone.


text:
Droid X attachment download location
I'm just trying to figure out where in the phone the attachments get saved after you open them?
I remember opening a PDF attachment from my email using my Droid X. The email was deleted so I'm trying to find the PDF that was downloaded by my phone when I opened the attachment.
I have an MSN account.
Anyone knows the default location in the phone?
Thank you

Via the GMail app? I'm not sure that it keeps the attachments it previews.

By default, email attachments and browser downloads are stored at:
/sdcard/download

Can also be identified by some File Managers as:
/HWUserData/download

If the device doesn't have a user-replaceable SD card the location should be:
/mnt/sdcard/Download

Some apps may have their own default location, or save to appropriated locations based on the file extension.

Mine is at /mnt/sdcard/Download, presumably because I don't have a removable SD card.

@AlEverett Yes, you're correct about that! I just recently added a removable SDCard, and my previous locations was the one you've mentioned. Thank you for the comment, I'm updating the answer now.


text:
How can I study or prepare myself for an exam with the help of my Android device?
I want to learn a language or prepare for an exam with the help of my Android phone or tablet.
Are there any efficient and fun methods out there to do so?

Slightly OT, but they are going to eventually have Android apps.... I highly recommend http://memrise.com and http://duolingo.com for language learning. I think they do work inside of an Android browser

Note to fellow reviewers: Please view the answers and the vote cound before VC'ing...

What ce4 said and please leave a comment why you are VC'ing. Not sure what should be wrong with this question, even if it wasn't that popular or didn't have any quality answers.

It's essentially a poll. There's not an actual Android problem to be solved here.

I beg to differ: I want to use my Android device(s) to prepare for an exam. Isn't that an actual Android related problem to solve? At least I think so.

I could list up a bunch of stuff here now, but that would get quite long. So let's better organize it by groups:
Covering multiple topics
First, of course, there are mentioned Flashcard apps (best-rated here are probably Learn Easy and AnyMemo -- a longer List can be found at my AndroidPIT overview Vokabeln & FlashCards (Google Translate version here).
These are not only restricted to languages, as mentioned AnyMemo shows1: being able to also use images, you can use it for everything -- think e.g. of images of molecules, electronic wiring examples, and others.

Languages
Second, there are the "big language guides" -- again I can refer to an overview at AndroidPIT: Sprachführer (and the Google Translate variant here). Though this latter mainly addresses German native speakers, the end of the list has some generic hints.

While FlashCards & Co focus on learning words, the more complex language guides also cover grammar and complete phrases. I guess best is to use a combination. As for the FlashCards, any solution should do: they are mostly not language specific. Other with the language guides, where it lies in the nature of this type that it has to be specific at least to the target language you want to learn. Examples here include French Class Demo3 and Italian in a Month Free4.
A third category should not be forgotten to mention here: Get yourself a good eBook Reader, and add some books to it which are written in the language you want to learn. I recommend Moon+ Reader5 here, which already includes a huge Online Library list for multiple languages (which actually is sorted by languages even), so the reader immediately has some ressources at hand. Having trouble with some words while reading? Simply long-tap the word to open a dictionary -- either online translation, or an offline dictionary like Fora or ColorDict6, which both can deal with StarDict files saved on the sd card. Being able to mark and even annotate with Moon+ Reader (see the picture5), one could also use this app for other subjects/classes.

Number four now should be obvious: There's that Youtube app one could check some language specific movie[clip]s with. Or get some other movie player (MoboPlayer probably being a good choice), plus some videos in the targeted language.
Guess number 5? Right: Music. There are plenty of music players around, and songs to pick. Repeating them over and over is baking some phrases to ones brains :) Beside this fact, there are also some audio books and language-learning audio files around.
Science
So far on language-learning -- but your question was not restricted to that, as I just notice. So let's go for some more possibilities -- pointed out in the AP overview Formelsammlungen & Referenzen (Google Translate: formulas & references). There are tons of references for chemistry, like e.g. the very famous Merck PTE HD (periodic table)7, mathematics calculation helpers and references like e.g. Mathematics8, physics references, electronics, stuff for engineers... So learning is clearly not restricted to languages.

School Organizers
Learning for school or study? Multiple subjects to cover, and courses to keep track of? This also can be covered using your Android smartphone or tablet. The AP overview dealing with this would be Stundenpläne und Schul-Organizer (Google Translate: school organizers). From simple timetables like School Schedule9 to just keep track of what subject is running when and where, to apps also keeping track of related tasks and even silence the device during classes (e.g. My Class Schedule -- note the tiny numbered boxes on the blue items in the screenshot10, which indicate connected tasks), you can find many solutions.

Summary
To sum up: There's a lot of stuff you can pre-load to your tablet -- and then use to learn on-the-go.

Add Wolfram Alpha in atleast science section..

Flashcards are a great way to study. I can recommend Anki and Ankidroid (Google Code Project Page) for Android. It's fun to use and really efficient. There are even existing card decks from various topics that you can use to learn, extend with information and then share again to the community.

Some are good, some are bad. But sometimes a good starting point.

I highly recommend Anki

Check with your local Public Library (talk to your librarian). Many offer research apps, or free access to language tools. My library gives me free access to Mango Languages for example. Unless they are very small they will likely have a ton of other resources educational and informative as well.
If you are in the US, you might look up semi-local libraries in the same state. Most libraries in the US will give cards to anyone in the same state. If the library has useful apps available for free, they'll likely also have a good web presence that will tell you what you need to do to access the apps (probably just have a library card) and what you need to do to get a library card.

For learning a new language, Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone approaches are considered to be widely accepted (can't avoid Weasel words).
I've used both in computer and I am glad to know that Rosetta Stone has an android app named TOTALe for this purpose.
While Pimsleur's approach involves listening to audio and referring PDFs, this approach can work out on any device.
Where as Rosetta Stone's approach is little bit interactive and can be done only through an application.

Learning a language could be really fun if you could snap a photo of a word in your native language (I've only tested to translate from English -worked- and from Arabic -didn't work-) and find a translation quickly to another; for that I found Google Goggles ; a convenient solution that also doubles as a QR-code reader (requires Internet access). Google Goggles only makes out the words in the image taken, and thus you would need to also install a translator Google Translate  to direct your image's text to for translation (I presume it isn't narrowed down to only Google Translate, of that however I am unsure).
Also organizing to-do lists could be nicely done on tablets/phones. Wunderlist is my current choice to managing to-do lists, since it has both a chrome add-on (found here) and a mobile app (here's the link to that on Android). It helps you categorize your to-do's through separate lists, prioritize to-dos (only 2 priorities: either important by clicking on a star, or normal priority), and easily view/add tasks for nearing times, such as "Today", "Tomorrow" and "Next 7 days". You need internet connection for syncing.
Of the most obvious features for a tablet (or phone) is to have any needed reading material on the go, and easily accessible. If however you're reading from your computer, it could be more convenient to have a remote to help you navigate through your documents/presentation slides; reading easily without having to reach out for the keyboard. Although this might seem as lethargic behavior, it could be used to the contrary of purposes; for example using a treadmill while flicking through presentation slides or perhaps rehearsing a presentation (where there would be someone assisting with the slide navigation) without the need to reach out to the keyboard/mouse. Such apps would need wireless connection (WiFi and/or bluetooth; I think it varies- I haven't tried out remote apps much). The remote app I've recently came across is Unified remote for which you should need to download a server on your computer (it also has a portable version). I haven't quite tried out this remote (or others), so cannot give a review.
Hope this helps. Happy learning!

Apologies for the inconvenience although may I ask why so? I consider them neater given that they're condensed.

Check this app for vocab building(English)...
Link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wordLearner.Free
Description:
Word Learner helps you build and retain a strong vocabulary.
Prepares you for competitive exams like GRE, CAT, CMAT, XAT, SAT, GMAT..etc.
This free app has the following features:
1.A collection of 380 words categorized as Beginner/Expert.
2.Filter-Based Search Mode.(similar to a dictionary)
3.Daily Word Notifications- No more widgets required, instead get notified with a new word daily.
4.Learn Word Mode.
5.Test Mode - Test based on the words learnt by you.
6.Review List - Lets you easily access all the words you find difficult at one place.
7.Statistics regarding your performance.
8.Integrated with Wiktionary - Long press a word to get more details about it like
Etymology(i.e word origin).
9.U.S & U.K vocal pronunciations


text:
Can I use my phone as a bluetooth game controller for my computer?
I've seen BT Controller but I think it only allows users to use their android as remote for other androids. I just want to use my phone as a bluetooth controller with up, down, left, right, L, R, start, select, A, B buttons for my computer. Is there an app that makes this a possibility?
Basically, there are generic bluetooth game controllers that can be bought on stores. I was wondering if I can make my Android phone act like such and be used on computers.

nJoy is a very good app as well, it uses WiFi but you can just use your own hotspot if you're not using WiFi atm and turn off data if you don't want extra charges.

I think nJoy is the thing I'm looking for! :)

Glad you like it... It's customizable per-game and it has some cool features including an extra 2 button setting for gaming. Enjoy!

I don't think this is an answer for [bluetooth](!) question.

There are a bunch of apps available on the market. Some examples include...

BT Controller: "BT Controller allows you to use your android device as a gamepad controller for any other android device." (well, you already saw this)
Bluetooth Remote PC: "Bluetooth Remote PC is an app which allow you to remotely control your PC.
Get access to the computer and use your favourite programs from distance. You can control mouse, keyboard, multimedia, presentation or power system commands."
PC Remote Controller (doesn't use Bluetooth, but rather WiFi)
BlueControl looks like exactly matching your request: "Blue Control is a basic universal Remote Control
for Blue-Tooth enabled serial devices such as
Blue Tooth modules connected to a micro-controller.
For each button pressed the corresponding ASCII code
for the label will be sent. For example pressing
buttons A-H will send the charactes "a" - "h".
The up, down, left, right, and center buttons will send
"U","D","L","R", and "C" characters. Hopefully this
will inspire people to create alot of fun Blue-Tooth Controlled devices."

A lot more Remote-Control apps can be found e.g. in this listing at AndroidPIT (Google translated) (original link). Though descriptions are in German, the general groupings and items should be recognizable ;)

You haven't mentioned which types of games you need this for but there are several possible options:
Gmote 2.0, which is a client/server type system which would let you use your Android tablet to control your computer.
RemoteDroid, which is similar to Gmote, it also uses a client/server system.
GRemotePro may be the right choice for you as it is but you need to pay for the server software. It is specifically advertised as being for game control.

There are questions on Stackoverflow and Serverfault regarding the same topic but for regular linux. Some of them may apply, however they're not production ready and definitely need adjustment for Android.

Download "PC Remote" from Play Store. It's free. It can use Wi-Fi but it can also be connected with Bluetooth. It has many types of game controllers in it for different types of games like fighting type, shooting type, racing type and flying type and more. .

Please don't recommend specific apps here, it is considered off-topic. Instead, flag the question as such for moderator attention.

Yes you can with Wand Player, it is described as "a console right in your phone that lets you play games on any screen".
http://www.wanderplayer.com/
You can even email the developers with any questions you may have

Did you try Aio Remote?
It supports controlling PC, another Android device.
Supports Windows, Linux, Mac
Supports WiFi, Bluetooth
Supports custom remote design and share remotes with all users around the world.
What do you need more than that?

What's your relationship with this software? Are you the developer?

You can also try GestureWorks Gameplay. It's a fully-fledged utility for creating controller overlays on touchscreens, but they also have an Android app that's free with the utility - it can use keyboard controls or XInput and is customizable so you can make whatever kind of gamepad you like.

The best and most complete program I have used so far (and I've tried many) is called Monect.  I can't remember if it is able to connect through bluetooth...but...I had no issues with it when it was connected using wi-fi which, of course, is pretty common technology.  There are a vast array of features included.  There are two main editions:
       1. Monect PC REMOTE(free)  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monect.portable&hl=en

       2. Monect PC REMOTE VIP ($5.28)   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monect.vipportable&hl=en

I bought the VIP edition, which included features which utilized my phone's sensors so I could tilt-to-steer in my racing games on my PC.  The remote pc control features were buggy from time to time though.  All in all...if your looking for an app to control your PC games with...this is the app for you.  Note: Some phones may not have the necessary sensor for certain features.  Worth a try either way.  Good luck!!!

You can try Androg Controller.

Could you please include some details on your recommendation? What makes it a good choice?


text:
What are the pros and cons of running LineageOS?
Specifically, do Google apps (Maps, Play store) and third-party apps (Skype, Viber, etc.) work as reliably with it as they would with, say, Android One?
Or is it more of a hit-and-miss situation?

Pros:

you can run latest android OS on your device even after your manufacturer stops security patch/ os upgrades.

Experience pure stock android.

Nowadays builds are mostly stable with less bugs.
You don't have any bloatware on your device.

(Download from sites like xda, and official builds are best, for which developers release nightly, after bug removal.)

By rooting, you can take over control on everything on your device.

Cons:

If the developer stop support, you need to switch to another build (pixel experience, havoc etc)

You need to unlock bootloader which is a security issue.

Rooting also a security issue, some banking apps doesn't work on rooted device (This can be solved using MagiskHide method from Magisk Manager).


text:
/sdcard/alt_autocycle - what is it?
I have an empty folder called /sdcard/alt_autocycle.

What creates it?
What is it used for?
Can I delete it?

Are you using a Motorola device? This seems to be related only to Motorola devices, per the threads across the forums on Internet.

Yes, I am. I searched just now but couldn't find the purpose of the directory.

This folder is created by CQA-Test. It has a service called com.motorola.motocit.alt.altautocycle


text:
How to boot system-as-root device always as rooted?
I have a Samsung S10 5G device that is actually a system-as-root device. I have rooted it by following the instructions given here.
As the system-as-root devices have no ramdisk in boot.img but in recovery.img so, I have to always boot the device with a recovery combination to get the root access.
Is there any way to achieve the root on a normal reboot?
I have a full ROM image of the device so, I believe there should be some way. Please share your thoughts.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/how-to-patch-system-img-to-root-the-samsung-s10-5g-qualcomm-device.4005919/post-81742693

If you go through How Magisk works and How to manually root a phone it would be easy for you to figure out why it's impossible to achieve what you are looking for.
init is the very first process started by kernel, which at its early stage sets SELinux enforcing (if it's not already enforcing). Before that happens, we need to modify SELinux policy so that it doesn't restrict the root daemon (magiskd) from running. Also init.rc needs to be patched to inject magiskd service.
A simple option is to patch /sepolicy and modify /init.rc when rooting the device and save the files on device. But on system-as-root devices both files are on system.img (and possibly vendor.img), not on boot.img. So modifying them would break "systemless" approach and other related things, in particular dm-verity and OTAs.
Another option is to run a process even before init which patches SELinux policy and changes init.rc on the go. And the easy way to achieve this is to replace original init file with Magisk init so that kernel executes the latter. However on SAR devices init is also on system.img, so we can't replace it. But we can always boot to recovery mode which does have a ramdisk where Magisk's init can be placed and executed before any other process. On A/B SAR devices recovery ramdisk is in boot.img, so Magisk always boots to recovery by forcing kernel to ignore skip_initramfs cmdline parameter received from bootloader.

Is there any way to achieve the root on a normal reboot?

On non-A/B SAR devices (like yours) there is no ramdisk in boot.img, so the only option to retain systemless approach is to place Magisk init in recovery ramdisk on recovery partition, and always boot to recovery mode. From there system.img is mounted at /system_root by Magisk init, contents of ramdisk are then copied to / cleaning everything previously existing, files are added / modified in rootfs /, /system_root/system is bind-mounted to /system, and finally [/system]/init is executed for normal boot.
However things have changed with Android 10, now system.img is mounted at / but the files to be added / modified like /init.rc and /sbin are overlaid with bind mounts as tweeted by Magisk developer.

You have mentioned "So modifying them would break "systemless" approach and other related things, in particular dm-verity and OTAs." so, Is it possible to root the device with the system-modify approach, disabling dm-verity and not updating the device with OTA updates?

@VatishSharma yes definitely possible but manually, no automated way.

Also, Is patching only Magisk policies on system.img is enough for service with Magisk context to work?

Not enough. Do allow magisk * * * and allow * magisk * *.

Stuck here: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/218371/stuck-in-boot-loop-when-unpack-and-pack-system-img


text:
How to resize the width of several frozen columns in Google Sheets app?
I am using Google Sheets on Android and have several columns frozen on the left, but the app seems to have a fixed width for the frozen columns. Is it possible to change this width?

Unfortunately, you can't with the current version (1.19.432.04.34) of Google Sheet. Maybe it will be possible to do it with future version. For a once off (or maybe permanently), WPS allows to increase the width of frozen columns.

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately this changes the columns themselves, but not the width of the frozen area, which is what I am looking for.

@aronisstav I understand better now and have edited my answer.


text:
Android x86 Oreo (8.1) stuck at _ (underscore) after GRUB
I'm trying to install Android x86 on virtual machine in VirtualBox 6.0.
The image I've downloaded is android-x86_64-8.1-r2.iso from android-x86.org
The installation process I've followed is similar to this video
But when I'm reaching GRUB boot option selection and choose Android-x86 8.1-r2, it stops working and hangs on underscore before "Android" logo, which never shows to me.

I've tried this and this fix, but it didn't work. Also, there's a post regarding similar issue on Android Enthusiasts, but it never was answered.
Stack, what do?

Set VM Settings > Display > Graphics Controller to VBoxVGA. Unless done so, Android x86 won't launch.
More here.


text:
Cannot skip WiFi in Google Setup Wizard after Factory Reset
I own a Klipad KL4888 tablet running Android 6.0.1
After a crash, I had to do a factory reset and a wipe cache from the recovery menu.
However, when restarting and running the setupWizard, it asks me a Wifi/GSM, but systematically the message "Can't connect to the internet" appears.
So I went through ADB (the device is unfortunately not pre-rooted), and in the logs I noticed this :
02-28 23:03:25.995 2784 2929 I SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: connecting to walled garden server. retries=0
02-28 23:03:26.246 970 1174 D WifiService: acquireWifiLockLockLocked: WifiLock{NlpWifiLock type=2 binder=android.os.BinderProxy@52836c}
02-28 23:03:28.123 970 1176 D WifiService: releaseWifiLockLocked: WifiLock{NlpWifiLock type=2 binder=android.os.BinderProxy@52836c}
02-28 23:03:36.239 2784 2929 W SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: IOException e=java.net.SocketTimeoutException: failed to connect to status.eqoe.cn/185.234.212.233 (port 80) after 10000ms
02-28 23:03:36.239 2784 2929 I SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: connecting to walled garden server. retries=1
02-28 23:03:46.301 2784 2929 W SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: IOException e=java.net.SocketTimeoutException: failed to connect to status.eqoe.cn/185.234.212.233 (port 80) after 10000ms
02-28 23:03:46.301 2784 2929 I SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: connecting to walled garden server. retries=2
02-28 23:03:56.360 2784 2929 W SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: IOException e=java.net.SocketTimeoutException: failed to connect to status.eqoe.cn/185.234.212.233 (port 80) after 10000ms
02-28 23:03:56.360 2784 2929 I SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: connecting to walled garden server. retries=3
02-28 23:04:06.421 2784 2929 W SetupWizard.CheckConnectionTask: IOException e=java.net.SocketTimeoutException: failed to connect to status.eqoe.cn/185.234.212.233 (port 80) after 10000ms

I also tried to disable Wifi, in order to be able to choose the "Ignore" option but obviously not enough rights.
The problem is that this famous site that is being tested is obviously no longer reachable.
Is there any way to get out of this situation?
An upgrade, but is the hardware compatible?
Modify the Java sources, in order to ping another site?
Thank you !

I was stuck with the same device for 1 month.
I finally got rid of this by DNS cheating.

Setup your own DNS server
Add a primary zone named status.eqoe.cn
Add a ressource record A type on the zone with target 216.58.204.110 (IP found resolving clients1.google.com, setup android site)
Declare your own server as DNS in your wifi setup
Now setup your device and don’t forget to forget your wifi settings (in order to flush dns cache)

You will access standard google android setup, instead of unresponsive eqoe.cn one.
When your device is ready to work you can discard DNS setting on wifi setup

Oh, my God, you're a genius! Thanks a lot, the solution works perfectly (remember to leave the Wifi terminal to empty the DNS cache), and it works like a charm !
Too bad I can't give you any points yet, thank you very much !

I had the "no internet" WiFi icon when the tablet came back from having the screen repaired. Internet worked, but automatic connections to WIFi didn't.
And then [recently] I started getting "open captive portal" messages
connect with adb shell:
adb shell

use superuser:
su

Check what setting is set (just out of curiosity):
settings get global captive_portal_server
status.eqoe.cn

I didn't bother with any of the fallback or http/https settings, I just did the following setting:
settings put global captive_portal_server "connectivitycheck.gstatic.com"

and it worked! That's a relief!

I had this problem after factory resetting my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and trying to install a Marshmallow custom ROM (Slim6). The setup wizard successfully connected to wifi, but then hung at the 'Checking connection' stage, with no option to skip having to use wifi. The tablet doesn't have GSM, and there isn't any way of turning the wifi off before the setup wizard automatically starts.
I found a few potential solutions, hopefully at least one of which will be helpful to someone else:

Rename SetupWizard.apk so that it never starts.  Using the TWRP custom recovery, mount the System partition read-write, then from Advanced/File Manager, navigate to /system/priv-app/SetupWizard/ and delete or (safer) rename the .apk file.
Edit the /system/build.props file to make the wifi part of the setup wizard optional. I didn't actually try this, but you can use Advanced/Terminal in TWRP to get a command line that will let you edit the file, and this gist suggests some ro.setupwizard keys that look like they would do the job.
Try using a different GApps distribution, e.g. Open GApps or Delta GApps.

In my case, the first option worked, but it turned out that the real problem was that the version of GApps that I was using (Open GApps) wasn't compatible with my ROM; switching to Delta GApps fixed the problem with the setup wizard, as well as various other bugs.
Any of these options have the possibility of bricking your device if you get them wrong, hence I haven't described how to do them in detail. If you don't already know what TWRP or GApps are, or how to install them, then you need to do a lot more research first, until you are confident you understand the risks!  Look for instructions that are specific to your model of device, and versions of the software that are known to work with it.

Thanks for posting your experience! I was working on the same Slim6 ROM on the same device (Tab 2) and hit the same issue. Reflashing with the Delta GApps solved the problem for me as well.

Amazing, thanks for your feedback! Were you able to fully use your Galaxy Tab 2 without any slowdown ? I have the 7" version and I want to integrate it into my home automation system, the average Load Average of the OS being > 5 all the time, it is excessively slowed down whatever the use.

Yes. I have the 10" (GT-P5110) and had tried Slim7, which worked but suffered from lots of random lags, which made it annoying to use.  Slim6 seems much faster, but I am not doing anything very intensive (mainly using it with the web interface for my home automation system too).


text:
What's the correct stock ROM for my unlocked Moto E5 Play?
So I was working on backing up my phone after installing TWRP so that I could restore it if it had an issue, but it had an issue. It thinks its decrypted and I can't get it to boot, wiping does seemingly nothing.
My next step to troubleshoot is to reflash a stock ROM, but here's the thing: I bought my phone unlocked with no carrier.
$ fastboot getvar product
product: james

According to the fastboot menu, I have the XT1921-2, which according to Motorola's documentation, is the Cricket Wireless variant, which seems to have ROMs here: https://mirrors.lolinet.com/firmware/moto/james/official/Cricket/
I don't want the Cricket Wireless ROM, and my device is not subsidized (as indicated by the filenames), it's wholly owned and hasn't ever really been used to connect to a network. Which ROM am I supposed to use to restore my device?

I've figured it out. Besides the carrier-specific ROMs, Motorola has a "retail channel", called RETUS (Retail - US, I believe).
This is not tied to any carrier, and you can match the factory version by comparing with what you get here:
# fastboot getvar ro.build.fingerprint
(bootloader) ro.build.fingerprint[0]: motorola/james/james:8.0.0/OPP27.9
(bootloader) ro.build.fingerprint[1]: 1-121/42:user/release-keys

Combine the two lines, and we have
motorola/james/james:8.0.0/OPP27.91-121/42:user/release-keys


text:
Can I repurchase apps so they can be shared with my family library?
The documentation states:

Any apps or games purchased after July 2, 2016 are eligible to be added to Family Library. If you purchased the app or game before July 2, 2016, it’s eligible for Family Library if the developer has made past purchases available. You can find out whether this is the case by tapping Read More on the app’s details page.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7007852
I have apps that I purchased before this cut off date that I would like to share via my Family Library.  Unfortunately when I visit the Play Store page for these apps I am offered either an Install or Uninstall button instead of the Buy button.
This leads me to ask:

Am I able to repurchase these apps with my primary google account so that  I can share them via the Family Library?
If I purchase them with a Family Linked child account will they be shared with the other members of our Family?

Yes
The solution I have found is to purchase the software with another family member's account and from there set the Family Library toggle to true.
This can be done from a child account with the caveat that parental permission will be required if their account has been configured with that option.


text:
Why Do Cables Affect Charging Speeds?
I had P1 Turbo with 5000mah battery. It's SC-13 could  0-100 in under a hour even with wifi enabled.
The charger is broken but I keep the cable. I use a third party 2.1A charger with dual ports. The weird thing is. My G7102 and Note 3 N9000 gets charged slowly with that cable compared to the original cable of Ace 2. Ampere says Samsung cable gives more than 2 times amperage.
Why is that? I don't know electronics can someone explain it to me why is that?

i can confirm this behaviour. i have noticed that Samsung phones charges only with Samsung cables, but i don't know the reason. and i am talking about "normal" microUSB <-> USB type A data cable (not the charger) maybe there is a tiny difference in length of contacts? on the other hand the samsung cables works fine for other devices

@Turkeyphant i believe this is more related to USB Charging Protocol than resistivity laws. the resistance does control the charging mode https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/177788 but this doesn't explain why Samsung isn't charging at all with non-samsung cables

@alecxs the only difference  I saw was the three pin design. 2 Power pins and a third pin probably for quick charge communication. So I believe its an internals thing.

Because some cables do not meet USB spec and are unable to negotiate faster charging protocols. Faster charging protocols such as USB-PD allow higher voltages and currents which provide a greater charging power to the device and increase charging speeds.

In addition, all cables have a resistance. This is affected by the length and cross sectional area supplying the power pins.

The formula is:

R =  ρ L / A

(Where R is resistance, ρ is resistivity, L is length and A is cross sectional area).
Other factors are the plug itself and the amount of power it can draw. Also, factors like QC 3.0 compatibility allow the phone to pull more current at a higher voltage. Phones intelligently decide how much power to draw as well based upon their own tables, the temperature and charge and other properties of the battery.
But, in general, a cable with higher resistance or unable to pull as much power will charge more slowly. Just because a cable is rated for 2A doesn't mean it will achieve this.
To see more detail, I suggest you get a meter that will allow you to measure the precise current and voltage using the same USB plug and different cables.


text:
What info does a Mobile Browser send to the Web Server
What info can be gleaned from a Mobile Phone by a website? (Not an app).
Is user specific information such as Phone Number, IMEI, Google Account info etc obtainable via HTTP headers?

Visit https://whoer.net/ from different browsers.

You only get very basic information on the device.
See for example the following sample requests from a Samsung Galaxy S7:
Samsung Browser:
Accept-Language: de-DE,de,en-US,en
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 8.0.0; SAMSUNG SM-G930F Build/R16NW) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) SamsungBrowser/9.2 Chrome/67.0.3396.87 Mobile Safari/537.36
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

Chrome:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 8.0.0; SM-G930F) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.143 Mobile Safari/537.36
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: de-DE,de;q=0.9,en-US;q=0.8,en;q=0.7

Firefox:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 8.0.0; Mobile; rv:68.0) Gecko/68.0 Firefox/68.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: de-DE,de;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.5,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

Firefox Klar:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 8.0.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Focus/8.0.15 Chrome/75.0.3770.143 Mobile Safari/537.36
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3
x-requested-with:
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: de-DE,de;q=0.9,en-US;q=0.8,en;q=0.7

As you can see the HTTP headers of some browsers contain the device model and the Android version number and the used browser app.
Note: Other web browsers may send additional headers.


text:
What is the small hole on the top of the pixel 3a?
Many reviews note the pixel 3a has a headphone jack on top. Yes, I like it, too.  But I can't find anywhere that describes the other little hole, the one on the right in this picture.  What is it?

If you look at the specs for the Pixel 3a and open up the Media & Audio section you'll see:

Stereo speakers
2 microphones
Noise suppression

The small holes are for microphones, usually multiple ones are used to improve call quality, i.e. suppressing background noise.


text:
instant upload of camera pictures into Google picasaweb without Google+ app?
Is there any option to have instant upload of camera pictures into Google picasaweb without the Google+ app? I have an HTC Chacha 2.3.5 which runs short of memory (even when moving apps to SD), and I can't be bothered of having Google+ installed, but would like to keep the instant upload of camera pictures into Picasa. Right now the Camera app (HTC Version 2.6.2119262927.162876) in the phone can only do instant upload into Flickr or Facebook, but I would rather prefer have them in Picasa. Any ideas?

Just to clarify, you mean instant and automatic, that is, photo is uploaded as soon as you take picture?

Yes, I mean instant and automatic

There is an app for that.
PhotoSync (Sync to Picasa) automatically syncs local folder to Picasaweb, so you can select your camera folder. It's free and not so huge as G+ app. You can set your local folder and Picasa folder and sync them on eg. hourly basis.

I agree with Tschareck and with @louielouie (below) - a separate app is required, you cannot modify the behavior of HTC's software AFAIK. The choice, then, would be which app suits your needs while taking up the least space.

I would bite the bullet and install the Google+ app.
In addition to Instant Upload, the Google+ app will give you unlimited storage of the photos that are uploaded via Instant Upload:

All photos uploaded in Google+ will be automatically resized to 2048 pixels (on their longest edge) and won't count towards your free storage quota.

Source: http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1224181
I don't think you have to use Google+ other than register online and install the app for this to happen, so there's really not much effort on your part needed to get the benefits of Instant Upload.
You can also manually "share" photos from the Gallery app to Picasa, but that's more tedious.


text:
Gmail has gone completely crazy
Gmail went completely crazy, I don't know what to do.
When I open it I get the inbox, but the app is almost unresponsive: whatever I do, be it opening the menu, scrolling or opening a message, it starts to do it (the menu starts opening, the message gets highlighted) but after a fraction of a second it flashes and gets back to the inbox itself as if nothing happened.
I still receive new mail notifications in the top bar, but clicking them prompts the inbox anyway, with the same problems.
Even after managing to evade the application using the home button, sometimes it pops up again, going crazy even if I don't touch it (flashing repeatedly the inbox, doing a "left to right" slide-like effect), and the whole system can be unresponsive for a while.
Other applications, including google ones (calendar, docs, contacts), appear to have no problems.
Phone is a Nexus S, was running android 2.3.4, I upgraded to 2.3.6 and upgraded the gmail app too, but nothing changed.
Doing a "clear data" prompts the "mails will appear shortly" screen, and there the menu works, but as soon as I receive the emails, it goes crazy again.
I'm clueless, what could I do?

apparently I'm not the only one with this problem: http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/d/topic/mobile/WbS58lDO2VY/discussion

That's seriously weird. I had some problems with Gmail too recently but nothing like this. One poster there mentioned changing the account password hlped, did you try that?

Have a look at this discussion.
Is your problem same as the one discussed here? If so, Google is working on a fix.

This thread apparently is more up-to-date than the one I linked, thanks.


text:
New phone: How to transfer game progress?
I'm planning to buy a new Android phone and I'd like to be able to transfer the progress I have made at several games to the new device, so I won't have to play all the levels again from scratch.
I currently have an HTC Desire and will buy an HTC Evo 3D.
There's probably no simple/general solution to this.
But I was wondering if anyone did something similar and could provide some advice (e.g. where to look for files that might hold game progress information).

There are two places you should look for, the external memory (SD card or a directory that is used for similar purpose) and the internal memory (the /data/data directory). You may need to be rooted to access the latter.
In the best case scenario, the game saves all your progresses in the cloud, then you just need to reenter your login and it's all restored. This is typically only the case for online games.
Some games may provide a menu to export the save data or an external app to do so, if they exist then you should preferably use them.

If you are on Android 4.0 or up, you can use the adb backup resp. adb restore command even without rooting your device. The syntax is:
adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|nosystem] [<packages...>]

To do a full backup, this would e.g. mean adb backup –apk –shared –all –f /backup/mybackup.ab (resp. adb restore /backup/mybackup.ab to restore the backup on the new device). But keep in mind this would mean "all-or-nothing" -- you cannot restore single apps this way. So you rather might want to include the package names of the apps to transfer. To find those, e.g. look up the apps on Google Play -- you'll find the package names in the URL (id=<package_name>). Your backup command then would look like:
adb backup –apk –shared –f /backup/mybackup.ab com.foobar.app1 org.foobar.app2 net.foobar.app3

Restore stays the same, as adb restore always restores everything from the backup file (no selection of parts available here).
For a list of available ADB commands, see e.g. here.

Awesome! My EVO3D has Android 4.0, so when I upgrade to another device, this will come in handy.

This is the best answer for those with adb. For instance, backup/transfer Square Enix Final Fantasy 5 game savecan be done without transferring apk or extras: adb backup -f backupfile -noapk -noobb com.square_enix.android_googleplay.FFV_GP and then restore it to another device that has FFV installed already: adb restore backupfile -- the whole file is about 8KB and the game will be right where you left it on your other device.

Exactly. That's the way Koush's Helium Backup and Sync works, by the way. So you start the game on your phone while on the bus, and on reaching home continue on your tabby exactly where you left on the phone :)

If Helium Backup and Sync doesn't work, it might be worthwhile trying out this manual way. I backed up and restored ONE app successfully using this method and from then on, Helium worked...

I recently transferred game progress using my computer from an LG phone to a Droid Maxx. I will use Fallout Shelter as my example because the website said game progress/purchases could not be transferred.

I created a folder on my desktop for files from the LG and looked through the phones files until I found com.bethsoft.falloutshelter.
I moved that to the folder I created on the computer. I had started a new game on the Droid Maxx so I could find where to put the file from the computer.
Once I found the com.bethsoft.falloutshelter file on the Droid Maxx I replaced it with the copy I put on my computer.

I loaded up the game and all of my progress and purchases had been transferred to the Droid. This works for games, photos, and music. I do not know if this works with iPhones.

You might also look into an app like Titanium Backup or MyBackup Pro and choose to save user apps + data and then restore to your new phone.

+1 My Backup Pro looks like a viable option, even for non-rooted devices. However, I'll first try to find and transfer the data manually and if that doesn't work I'll consider purchasing the app.

You should check out Helium - App Sync and Backup which work's without root. The Google Play Store page for Helium has a video showing you how to use it (or click here).
It's worth mentioning, if you don't want to purchase premium use the PC download feature, which let's you store the backup on your PC, then restore it on another device.

This really deserves more upvotes

Honestly, if you don't want to root, you're screwed, and even then it rarely works properly.
You can manually back up some of your games or use non-root backup apps, and the few that use the cloud are a blessing, but most game progress just won't back up and is lost in the process due to lack of root access.
Backup apps work for about 30-40% of games but aren't worth violating your warranty by rooting IMO. If you want to violate your warranty on your new device, go right ahead, but don't say I didn't warn you. If your phone decides to brick on you one day, you lost your money.

This is nonsense -- at least with Android 4.0 and up, a complete backup is possible without rooting (apps as well as their data -- see my answer). And whether one needs root or not is quite subjective. Also the "warranty argument" is relative: it doesn't count in the EU, for example.

If you use Dropbox, Astro File Manager, and APK Extractor apps, you can move games and all saved data to your new device without root.

Open Astro FM, hit the top-left button, then hit location
Open Dropbox and set up an account
Find the game files/folders in Astro FM and long-press, copy files to the new Dropbox account
Download APK Extractor and open it, find your game, and hit extract
Go back into Astro FM and find the extracted file and copy that file to Dropbox
On the new device, open Astro, go into Dropbox, and copy files to new device in the same location they came from on the old device
Finally, copy the extracted APK file to SD
It will ask if you want to install, hit yes, and enjoy

Note: you need to allow outside apps by going in settings then apps, check the box that allows outside apps

I did it with Minecraft, you just have to find your game progress in your old phone storage (I recommend you to do this with a File Manager). If you can't find it, look for it on Google for a specific game (find on Google where is the progress for that game stored).
Then install Wi-Fi file transfer from Google Play on the old phone so you can access your old phone from your new phone. Then download data progress on your new phone. And then just put downloaded data on the place where the game progress is on the new phone.