text:
How to stop speech recognition download?
http://postimg.org/image/qyxwjj2f1/
Here is a picture of the screen.
It says Downloading English (US) Offline speech recognition data 108%.
When the download started itself I lost the internet connection so it never succesfully downloaded. Now even after I restart I still get "Downloading..." in the status bar but nothing happens (even when connected to the internet).
I just want to clear the status bar of this stuck download.

Have you seen How do I stop a download? / How do I force stop an application downloading from Android Market?

Yes. It doesn't appear in the download list. Also, I don't know what app to stop. I tried google search but it's still there.

Usually you don't stop "an app", but "a download", as far as I understood. As I never had that issue, I better leave a good answer to someone who really can give it – unfortunately, I was only able to provide you with some links. You might wish to check other questions tagged downloading, with some luck you find a better hit.

Tap and hold , then a window will appear, "App info". tap on it, it will bring you to the app manager, then tap on "Force stop"

Settings > Language & Keyboard  > Voice search > Offline Speech recognition > All.
Cancel the download and restart the download if required.


text:
Will installing Cyanogenmod speed up my Galaxy S?
I recently purchased a used Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. While it seems fine for my purposes, it would be nice if it were just a bit faster, in terms of loading different pages more quickly. From what I've seen, Cyanogenmod claims that it's faster than many stock roms, since it doesn't use the company's extra interface, which, in this case, would be TouchWiz. However, Cyanogenmod would also bring my operating system up to Android 4.4, and I'm not sure how much additional power that would take. I'm also open to using older versions of Cyanogenmod, if that's feasible.
Would it be better in terms of performance to keep my phone at the stock rom or to install Cyanogenmod?

Actually it's said 4.4 is well suited for "smaller devices" (not using as much resources), so that should even be on the "pro list" – especially in case the device is currently running JellyBean. But having neither that device nor Kitkat, I cannot give a definite answer, sorry.

Chances are this phone is out of warranty by now, so there is nothing preventing you from trying CyanogenMod and seeing if the phone feels faster. You can always revert to the stock ROm if you find CM not to your liking.

In theory, your phone should perform considerably faster with CyanogenMod 11, because KitKat was designed with entry/mid-level phones in mind; requiring only 512 MB of RAM to run. (See this page about Project Svelte for more information.)
CyanogenMod also adds a whole slew of features like Heads Up Notifications and Privacy Guard on top of the AOSP code, so your phone will not only be fast but also be very useful.
Keep in mind, however, that CyanogenMod (along with others such as PA and OmniROM) are third-party ROMs, and therefore lack the various "enhancements" that the manufacturer has made in the stock ROM; so don't be surprised if you see that the camera doesn't perform as well, the battery drains faster than usual, etc.

+1 for mentioning the theory and the actual reality for custom ROMs (not all of them of course)

Never do that. Perhaps it helps to increase your speed but it consumes much more power.
If performance in CPU increases, undoubtedly,the power usage will increase dramatically. Try to keep your factory ROM and looking for some good free app in the market for increasing the speed.

Why not do  it? You haven't explained any reason not to? If anything Kitkat should use LESS resources on the device. Apps for increasing speed are notoriously bad, and task managers are absolutely rubbish. Also if CyanogenMod doesn't suit the OP there are other roms available from AOSP that should be better than Samsung's awful resource hog Touchwiz.

Can you name any sources for your arguments? They don't sound convincing. Performance enhancements are not made by heavier CPU use, but by cleaning up/rewriting code so it behaves "friendlier" to resources like CPU, which makes it snappier and more battery-friendly – just the opposite of what you write. Are your claims based on personal experience (then please elaborate), on some tests published somewhere else (please name the link), or are they "just assumptions without a base"?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Disable android.hardware.foo feature to hide hardware from ROM?
Is it possible to tell an Android ROM (without recompiling it, but repacking is okay, I guess) that the device it runs on does not have a certain android.hardware.something feature?
I want to disable android.hardware.telephony, so that the ROM (CM11) does not start the telephony infrastructure (RILJ etc.) at all.

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


text:
Possible to share mobile internet (tether) while connected to existing wifi network?
I have an existing wifi network and a Google Nexus 5 (un-rooted, stock android) with 3G data connection.
I would like to tether my mobile to share internet to all devices in existing network which have a custom route or proxy, maintaining default route for all other devices. This existing network also has another fixed connection (default route).
This means Android should effectively connect as a guest to existing wifi network, maintaining 3G/4G data connection and allow data to traverse through its mobile network while providing Gateway / NAT function for any devices which have an appropriate route / proxy set.
Configuration for the other devices (setting routes or configuring proxy) can be managed by hand (manually) as I am a capable network administrator.
As this is typically a consumer device, is this possible? and can anyone provide suggestions on software / howto's / information for this? Technically, my knowledge of computers networks and linux tells me this should be 100% possible, and relatively simple to achieve.
The cost of data here is not in question, I understand that connecting a mobile to an existing network could use a substantial amount of data and may impact my contract and data allowance.

I am very confused at what you're trying to accomplish.  From what I'm understanding, you want to use your phone basically a gateway for devices with a specific route set?

Yes correct. I want to share the mobile internet with other networked computers behind an existing network - the same network my mobile would otherwise connect to as a guest.

I don't believe that is possible, at least, with existing applications/APIs.  When carrier tethering is enabled, the card switches to infrastructure mode.  You'd have to somehow have the radio connect as a bridge to an access point.

Maybe I am not understanding correctly, but you could set your phone as a Mobile Hotspot and configure a wireless router as a bridge between your existing network and the hotspot. In this scenario, all devices on your network would be using the wifi signal of the router and only the router would need to be configured to reconnect to the hotspot.

That could work! It adds more hardware, but it makes sense. Thank you!

authors: Самуїл Корноух


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Would updating my rooted Sony Xperia Z brick it?
I updated my phone, rooted it and then realized the current version isn't the latest, so I would like to update it. Is there any chance my Xperia Z would brick? Or do I have to unroot it first?

Do you have a custom recovery? There is a chance it won't allow you to install it with a custom recovery, you'd need the stock one. You will lose root possibly but can re-root anyway.

@RossC No I don't have a custom recovery. By the way, I'm using custom fonts so when my root is lost after the installation, the font will be using the default font, right

I'm not 100% sure. It most likely will install the stock font, but I'd need someone more knowledgeable to confirm that. I guess it depends on what's included in the OTA update.

No.
Instead you may lose your root access in turn, because some system settings go back to default when updating a device, which will probably include your superuser.
Your personal data and installed apps will not be affected.

Thank you for your answer. How high are the chances of losing root access? Also, my personal data won't be affected, right?

Very. And here is the reason why.


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Gmail asking for authentication after changing SIMs
To recreate issue:

Start 2-factor authentication
Generate app-specific code
Use that to sign into your device
Change the SIM

I have two SIMs, and I sometimes switch between them. The issue is that once I do so, it prompts for the password. I then have to create a new app-specific password using my computer to access GMail.
Is there any way to fix this bug? If so, how can I do it?
I appreciate any help.
Note: This question is not a duplicate, as all the other apps are working, I have multi-factor authentication and


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HTC Desire 816 -How to use a particular sim for data usage and restrict the other?
I have got an HTC Desire 816 phone. I am not able to restrict the data usage to only one sim. If i enable the data usage for the Slot1 sim, the Slot2 sim also gets enabled for data usage. Any idea how to restrict this?

In the dual network manager, you can specify which sim to use for data network connection.
In Settings > dual network manager > Preferred data network > select either slot 1 or slot 2.


text:
Stop a mailbox syncing between 9am and 5pm
I have my work emails set up on my LG G3, but when I'm at work I don't want to be getting notifications on it whilst getting them on my laptop as well.
Is there a way to stop a mailbox from syncing for a particular period? E.g., from 9am to 5pm?
I still want my other accounts to sync and notify me though, like my personal/other work email addresses.
Is there an app that can handle this? I've just come from an iPhone 4s (yesterday) so I'm still getting my head around the Android ecosystem.

That sounds like a perfect job for tasker (see the tasker tag-wiki for some background). Example profile in "Pseudo-Code":

Condition: Time, start: 9am, end: 5pm
Task: Sync off
Exit-Task: Sync On

Notes:

"Exit-Task" is optional. If not defined, Tasker restores the state from before the Task started.
"Sync Off" applies to more than just mail (includes e.g. contacts, calendars, etc.). If you want to only pause mail sync, you need a mail app with Tasker support, e.g. K-9 Mail, maybe with some additional plugin. I know that's possible with K-9, and it's more than likely there are some other supported Email Apps. If using such a client, replace the "Sync off" / "Sync on" with the corresponding plugin action.


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Unexpected touch behavior in Chrome
On my 2012 Nexus 7 running Android 4.4.4 and the latest version of Chrome, I've noticed that when I touch and hold links that are close to each other, it may not select the link I intend to select. Instead of activating the link at the center of the touch area (the behavior I expect), Chrome seems to select the link based on the entire area covered by my finger:

Is this (counterintuitive) behavior normal? Can I configure Chrome to simply use the center of the touch area instead?

Going by the unexpected touch behaviour you provide it seems that your multi-touch screen is not responding properly to your inputs for this you need to confirm it by doing a small and freely available  multi touch  test.
Download the app and check whether the touch is shown exactly where you selected. The two dots are drawn exactly where the phone reports you are touching.
or else you can simply do the following
1- Go to the developer options section in settings.
2- enable pointer location.
3- touch the screen as lightly as you can. you will notice a red number on the upper right corner of the screen named ""Prs:". this indicates the level of contact needed to register a touch.
4- do the same on different areas of the screen & remember try to touch the screen as lightly as you can (the goal here is to find the lower number that registers a touch)
If you see that at one point of the screen the screen is not responding according to your input then you need to get in contact with your Authorised service centre and report the issue.

I highly doubt this is the issue. I was using the pointer location dev tool to show the image shown here and the touchscreen is clearly working, This is a software issue (possibly by design, possibly a bug).

@DragonLord possible update will help resolve it.


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If I hide a contact on the LINE app can they still send me messages?
If I hide a contact for LINE can they still send me messages?

Yes, they can. Hiding a contact only removes them from view, but you can still send them messages and they can still contact you.

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


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ICE-Emergency contacts
Need Help - How to remove contacts from Emergency list
I have S5 , I have added couple of numbers under “ICE-Emergency contacts “ groups. Its was displaying under Emergency Contacts.
Now I want to remove those names form emergency list . ..opened contacts and removed the names from that group but those numbers are not getting removed the screen ( Local Phone and Click Emergency call) same list is getting displayed .
Even restart of the device is also not working .. Any idea how to remove the numbers from that group.

On the Samsung Galaxy S3, you have to do this from the Contact, and re-save.
From the ICE list that contains the contact, click the contact and Edit it (S3 uses a pencil Icon to indicate editing). See the Groups area for the contact, and uncheck. Save the Contact/Group association. Save (again) for the Contact.
The contact should now show as removed from the ICE list.

Thanks. In fact on the Samsung Galaxy SIII, from the Contacts -> Groups -> ICE - emergency contacts screen you can simply tap a contact, and then from the Groups section of that contact you can click on ICE - emergency contacts, My contacts, and then uncheck the checkbox next to ICE - emergency contacts and click on Save to remove the contact from the ICE emergency contacts list. Regards.


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Need help in unlocking LG G2 LS980ZVC, running on KitKat
I am looking for a working link to a tutorial explaining how to globally unlock LG G2 LS980 (Android Version 4.4.2, Software Version LS980ZVC).
I tried several, but can't unlock the phone. Most pages say "Total Commander doesn't work on KitKat". I've rooted the phone already. And Root Checker confirms the same.
Can anyone suggest a link or method to unlock the phone?
Thanks in advance.

Just for clarification: What does "Total Commander" have to do with "SIM lock", as you've used that tag? Could it be you rather mean bootloader-unlock?

Total Commander helps copy/delete files to/from the phone, via PC, to make phone skip the locked network registration process.

I have come down to this. As soon as I restart the phone after deleting the telephony.db file (which should stop the phone looking for Sprint), the file gets regenerated. And also, Kitkat does not allow Total Commander to copy files to phone. I had to do that in Root Explorer.


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How to import photos from a digital camera using USB OTG?
I have some simple digital camera for my kids with only internal memory. I do have some windows software for it to import the photos. The windows software looks a bit outdated, but it works.
When I connected it on an Ubuntu machine to read the USB ID ("ID 0979:0227 Jeilin Technology Corp., Ltd JL2005B/C/D Toy Camera") it worked instantly. The memory was mounted as a drive, I could see the photos and copy them!
But when I go on holiday I will have neither a Windows PC nor an Ubuntu machine nearby. I will only have my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, which supports USB OTG.
When I connect the camera via the USB OTG connector, the camera gives a bleep and on my tablet I see a message "USB connector attached". But I don't see a mounted drive (which I do see when I connect a simple USB memory stick).
Is there some kind of app to import the photos from a digital camera?
Regards,

The camera may be connecting on PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) or MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) mode, not as a normal USB drive (which uses USB Mass Storage drivers). It shows up in Ubuntu similarly to a USB Mass Storage device, but Android has no support for this out of the box.
You could try an app that supports PTP, such as DslrDashboard, but I haven't tried these personally, so no guarantees.

Thanks for your answer. The camera is a very simply thing, produced probably during the Windows XP era. Do you think it will support PTP or MTP then?

Sorry, no luck. I cannot see the camera with DslrDashboard.

@onik: AFAIK, MTP and PTP are available when Android becomes slave and PC becomes host. In ffonz's question, Android is the host and camera is the slave, so I don't understand how come PTP and MTP would be available other than OTG USB Storage mount. Care to explain.

@Firelord If the camera itself supports only MTP or PTP slave mode, it needs a host that can act as a MTP/PTP master. I don't mean the USB connection mode in Android settings, but an app that emulates a MTP/PTP master.


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How can I disable usb charging on Android phone (Nexus 5)
I use my Nexus 5 as development device, so I plug-in and plug-out into computer usb very often.
What makes me worried is that too many this way "li-on" battery charging cycles get wasted too fast.
My Nexus 5 is rooted.
I want it to charge only when connected to wall socket.
I saw there are similar questions but I haven't found any concrete solution yet.
Apart "sync only cable". but does it really exists?
Thanks in advance

It is possible in theory, but I've yet to use any app that actually works. How about leaving it plugged out altogether and use something like AirDroid to transfer things between your computer and the phone? For this to properly work you would need a customised Kernel that supports this feature. A custom kernel would be device specific so you would need a Nexus 5 kernel with no USB charging. I've yet to find one and I think you need a different solution to this. I will keep looking though! You could try https://github.com/t0mm13b/USBChargeCommander/blob/master/README but I haven't seen it work

Don't worry about battery. There is nothing like fixed cycle count counter. Plugging it very often is actually better than cycling it 10%->100%->10%->100%.

Could you point to some documentation to support this?


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Samsung Galaxy Ace Internet Connection Problems
My mother owns a Samsung Galaxy Ace(GT-S5830) mobile phone and we have a wireless modem from Airties with model number Air5343 broadcasting its SSID. The wireless works fine with all devices except Linux Mint 16 which has hard time connnecting automatically. The mobile phone recognized the broadcasted SSID but is unable to connect to it. The network uses WPA2 encryption with a password of 10 characters of length. The phone used to connect to the modem but the modem has been replaced two times. How can I make the phone connected to the home network?
Thanks in advance

Have you tried letting the phone forget the Wi-Fi password, and setting it again? [not sure if this will help though]

@geffchang Yes, I have tried it but it did not work.


text:
Chrome pages turns blank after loading
I have been having this happen to me for a long time now but recently it seems like it has gotten worse.
What happens is that
A page loads, and you can see the webpage and almost all content while its loading. You can scroll and use as normal, but once the page fully loads it turns to a fully blank page.
Sometimes it happens really fast on light pages, other times on heavy pages you are able to see the page then when it does load it goes blank.
Even with a refresh the same thing happens.
The way to fix it is to clear the app from recent apps. Open back up chrome then it loads fine.
Its not every page its not all the time but its at least everyday. Its happened with 1 tab open to 10 tabs open. On all kinds of different sites and pages.
Any ideas on why this is? Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

Yes, I've seen the same behavior. If I open a new tab and go to a different site it usually works. Otherwise, I just fire up Opera instead.

I've been getting the same problem on moto g. Had to uninstall updates (back to version 34) in the end which fixed the problem. Waiting for version 37 before I try again.

I usually get around it by copying and pasting the URL into a new tab.

A bug in the latest version of Chrome can cause this in certain circumstances (low memory being one). Details here:
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=342190
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=399521
Seems like a fix should be making its way into the beta soon.

I wouldn't say latest version because I have updated my chrome many times and the problem has been around for a long time now just in the latest update.

It sounds similar to a bug with 16-bit transparency. If your phone has this setting, turn it off, then try again, but your bug does seem a little different, so no promises.

I have the same problem. I usually just press the home button to go back to my home screen of my phone, then I hold the home button and clear apps running in the background. Then I open chrome again and the screen is displayed properly.
Only solution I have until the bug gets fixed in beta.


text:
How to fix a consistently freezing app download?
On my new Motorola X, I am downloading an app (Amazon's Kindle app) from the Google Play store and it is consistently getting to 91% downloading and then freezing there.
I can cancel the download and try it again, but it always stops at 91%.
Is there a way to reset the download so it truly starts from scratch? Or is there something else I should try?

I would download the apk from somewhere else and install manually, then try and install from the Play Store when an update is released.

You don't state whether it freezes up while downloading of other apps. I'm assuming it does.
What I had to do when the PlayStore froze(halted) on every download was as follows:
1) force close PlayStore, Play Services, and Services Framework
2) clear data PlayStore and Play Services
3) reboot into recovery
4) wipe dalvik-cache and cache
5) reboot
6) check the PlayStore again for working download
I've had that happen a couple of times when flashing the wrong GApps package or by not doing a simple wipe before and after flashing.
If the problem persists you will need to access your Google Account through the browser, not on your Android, but on your PC and clear your data. I don't remember the exact steps that way, but I did find info in the help files there.
The only other solution from there is to do a factory reset, just make sure you do a backup of your device before resetting. Only do the factory reset as a last resort.
Edit: one more thing you can do is run a logcat, basically a running list of what is happening at specific times during application operation. I'm not qualified to give you the right means of accomplishing that, just too much info, but I have found a wonderful write up from the XDA forums on this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1726238
This should show at what point the app is freezing and what is going wrong.
Good luck

Apart from these make sure you are having a stable internet connection because an un-stable internet connection (keeps turning off and on) is most likely the cause of incomplete download.

@user285oo6 the question stated that it would get to 91% each time, which would mean that the internet connection is fine. Otherwise he would end up with different completion percentages. Although more often than not, internet connection is the culprit for incomplete or failed downloads. This isn't the case with his problem, sooner or later he would eventually end up being able to complete a download.

k coz I faced a similar issue the app downloaded only 91% to 95% and my issue got resolved just by getting a constant internet connection.

@user285oo6 " I can cancel the download and try it again, but it always stops at 91%."-direct quote. So the internet connection wouldn't be an issue then.

Ok this happens to me all the time I just go to app settings and then go to google play and them force stop and there it works

If you use an adblocker like adaway, it could be the cause. stopping/removing mine solved the problem.
If you still want adblocking, some browsers come with an internal ad blockers, and that doesn't seem to interfere with the store.


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Setup VPN access through SSH
I have a Samsung S4 with last kitkat update. I would like to set it up so that I can access my University services. For that, when I use my laptop, I just set up a ssh tunnel like:
ssh -D 8081 -f -C -q -N work_machine.edu

I wonder if this can be done in android and how, or if there is any app for doing this. I had a look to some VPN apps but found anything useful.

The command you typed just does dynamic port forwarding through SSH connection. That's equivalent to SOCKS5 proxy. But you need to redirect your traffic towards this tunnel using VPN or iptables. Latter requires root access.
One such free and open-source app which makes use of VPN is SocksDroid. SSH tunnel can be created using some GUI or CLI app like Termux. For more options see How to set up a socks5 with Android cli?


text:
How to identify the cause of entering Safe Mode?
I have a Motorola Xoom 3G tablet running Android 4.04 (latest system release) that has been stuck in 'safe mode' for some time now no matter how many times I restart the device.
I have been through the apps list and uninstalled anything I could remember installing recently but still the problem persists.
The device is primarily used as a wifi hotspot with my 3G internet around the house which still works fine - but I would also like to use the screen as an ereader from time to time - which the permanent 'safe mode' message gets in the way of.
Is there any way of tracing the cause of this safe mode loop?
Alternately is there a way of just getting rid of the 'safe mode' message while leaving it in safe mode?

I just performed a factory reset - lost all of my data and the device is still booting to 'safe mode' ... GRRRrrrr

No removable battery, I guess, so taking that out for a while is no option. Have you tried poking the reset hole with some paper clip or the like for at least a couple of seconds?

Turned out to be a hardware fault in this particular circumstance a faulty connection between the flex cable that connects the volume buttons and the motherboard... Reseated the connector and 'safe mode' was gone next time I restarted.
Found this by trial and error - don't know of any way to narrow down the cause with the help of software.
So wish I had checked that connector before I went and wiped everything... Doh!

I had the same problem. Spent a night to fix it. First i thought it to be a software issue.. browsed and tried infinite fixes. I tried re seating flex cable that connects the volume buttons and the motherboard.I tries to factory reset through boot loader. Thought of flashing a different ROM. Dint work out for me.
Here is what worked for me.

Open the back panel of the tablet.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nexus+7+Power+%26+Volume+Button+Cable+Replacement/9926
Flip up the retaining flap on the 'power and volume button ribbon cable' connecting to the mother board. DO NOT PULL OUT THE CABLE NOW.   Be ready to pull out the cable.

3.Press the power button to switch on your tablet.
4.The moment you see Google logo, pull out 'power and volume button ribbon cable'. This will disconnect volume down key, which forces the tablet into bootloader.
5.Now the tablet is ON in normal mode.
6.Plug the 'power and volume button ribbon cable' into its mother board socket.
7.Close the panel and enjoy using your tablet.
Be very careful with 'power and volume button ribbon cable'. A slight twist or bend will short the connections inside the cable.
P.S : After powering on, Try not to switch off the tablet. The volume down key might malfunction again and your tablet might go back to boot loader. Charge it before the battery dies out. In worst case, you'll have to repeat the above steps again. Messing with the power keys cable is not always a good idea :D
The volume down key and power key combination lets you to go into boot loader. So when volume down key is malfunctioning, your tablet might go for a toss. This could be for various reasons ,
a.Volume key is abused
b. volume key cable is damaged
c. Mother board is unable to supply enough power to volume keys.
d. volume keys socket in the mother board is damaged.

Make sure you booting your Device only pressing Power Button , without pressing any additional button like Volume Up , Volume Down , Home button
If the device keeps going automatically to Safe Mode , probably one Application is causing this or is a Hardware problem...
Note
Don't flash any custom rom or kernel ,  that your Device doesn't meet the hardware requirements


text:
Use camera from web page?
Is it possible to use/control the camera from (or at least initially from) a web page? I'd like to come in as a web page (not an app) but then be able to take a picture or pictures and package them into some web service calls.

Yes, websites can use the WebRTC extension to access the phone's camera, with the user's permission. Not all browsers support this extension, but Chrome for Android does.

There are different approaches to achieve that goal:

using a "Cam Server" app on the Android device, and have it uploading pages to a web server
same, but streaming
same, with integrated web server (so no separate upload)
having a fully integrated and programmable solution

For all four approaches you'll find matching apps. For the latter, I think e.g. of Paw Server, including a web server with scripting support. For "Cam Servers", you might wish to take a look into this list.


text:
S3 LTE keeps rebooting
I bet this problem has been posted many times but my galaxy S3 keeps rebooting the samsung logo over and over again. I've tried entering recovery mode but just when I'm about to select an option it reboots again...I thought it could be the power button so I opened up the phone to see if it's not being pressed down but it looked fine, I even removed the button to make sure(using a toothpick as a replacement button hehe).
So where could the problem be?!

If it's not an empty battery, it's most likely a case for the service. Did you do anything specific before this issue came up? From what you wrote, it's hard to see what could be causing it.

Have you put any custom rom's on your phone?
Could be a bad one which is causing this
Either way your best option is to download stock rom for your device and flash it over via Odin

Nope haven't done anything to it really..it just started acting that way all suddenly yesterday...
never flashed a smarthphone..could you provide me a good step by step guide?

Hi try putting your phone into download mode, using power, home button and down volume all at once, if that work ill provide you with a guide tomorrow morning

Any luck @MizziPizzi


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Make the notification drawer animation faster
I'm running a SlimKat ROM on Sony Xperia Z Ultra. For me the open animation of the notification drawer is too slow. Is there any way to make it faster or disable at all?

There is a very simple solution to your this wish.Just simply head over to your settings .
After headed, go to DEVELOPER OPTIONS. If you do not have the DEVELOPER OPTIONS then simply go to ABOUT PHONE>BUILD NUMBER and tap the BUILD NUMBER  several times until you see a message that now you are a developer or something like that. Now go to DEVELOPER OPTIONS and Enable it. Now scroll down until you see WINDOW ANIMATION SCALE. Tap it and choose the time you want. You can even disable it(set it to off. Do the same to TRANSITION ANIMATION SCALE and to ANIMATOR DURATION SCALE. You can even set different scale to different animations. And VOILA there you GO!! Hope it helped ;) :D


text:
Android 4.4.x - block software access for user
I want to setup as "Admin" the tablet and like to have an "User", who don't has access to the setting and/or Google Play. It means, I want to ban some features and software access.
Maybe for this step I need a setting like multipe user accounts. How can I setup this user group?

What you're looking for is called "restricted profile". See e.g. How do you configure a Nexus 7/10 for family use (Peanut's answer explains it quite nicely), and check our other questions on "restricted profiles" (currently 10, so shouldn't be that hard to do :)


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Can i restore more than one msgstore.db.crypt7 file in whatsapp?

Recently changed my old phone to new one (Samsung to MotoX). During this old to new phone conversion phase (for one month) I didnt use Whatsapp at all.
Before totally stopped using whatsapp on my old phone, I Had taken whatsapp database backup from my old phone.
But when I got my new phone, in a hurry I totally forgot about whatsapp backup (which i had taken from old phone) and installed whatsapp on my new phone.
As per process it's got created new msgstore.db.crypt7 (just for that one month, during I didnt use whatsaap at all) file in database folder of whatsapp on my new phone.
Then I recollected about old whatsapp backup file (from old phone), so i uninstalled whatsapp on my new phone, again took a backup of newly created msgstore.db.crypt7 (from new phone), rename it as msgstorenew.db.crypt7 and kept in the same database folder of new phone.
To get all the older whatsapp message, i have kept old backup file msgstore.db.crypt7 (from old phone) in database folder of new phone and reinstalled whatsapp again on new phone.
I successfully able to restore all my old whatsapp messages.
But now along with the old whatsapp messages, I want to restore newly created whatsapp backup file (for one month) as well which i renamed it as msgstorenew.db.crypt7 (in the same database folder), so that i can have all the messages (old+new). But i am not able to find any option for the same.

Kindly help.
Thanks.

Install the latest version of WhatsApp from Google Play, then try restoring your backup. It fixed the issue for me.


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How to prevent S3 from turning on when charging
I'm trying to charge a new battery with my phone turned off.
As soon as I plug the phone in to the wall charger, the screen turns on and the phone tries to immediately boot instead of staying on the 'battery' screen pre-boot. I've tried an XPosed module to disable the dock settings to see if that was the problem but it's still attempting to boot when plugged into the wall.
I just want to charge my battery! The SuperAmoLED screens are battery hogs and having it on with a dead battery is really going to affect the charging speed. :(


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Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition won't play video fullscreen
My galaxy note 10.1 (2014 edition) tablet used to be able to show netflix and youtube and other video links fullscreen. Now, the video quality drops dramatically and skips to black screens between some frames quite often. Some video streaming pages (the FIFA world cup website) will not even run fullscreen at all on my tablet. They go full screen, then stay black. Sometimes audio plays without video, sometimes nothing plays.
Is this a common issue? Is there an easy way to fix this? Or do I need to somehow have my tablet reloaded (where could I do this?)?


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android samsung note 2 unsync gmail and other accounts
My phone was stolen and I want to unsync my gmail and other associated accounts in it. Is there a way for me to do that even if my phone is not with me?
Thanks in advance!

Change your password online.

Related: How to prepare in the event of stolen phone


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/data/sdext2 mount not found link2sd
I installed cm 7.2 stable (android 2.3.) frome here. Then i followed this guide to prepare my sd card for link2sd. Then i installed link2sd on my phone and created mount script for the ext2 partition. It generated fine and i rebooted the phone but still the ext2 partition was not mounted and it never gets mounted.
Root access is available to link2sd.
No error appears while mounting or creating script.
But when i try to create link for an app it says "/data/sdext2 not found".
How can i get my 2nd partition mounted. I have tried ext2,ext3,ext4 already.


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Gingerbread 2.3.4 To Gingerbread 2.3.5/2.3.6
My Mobile Is A Galaxy Y. The OS is 2.3.4 Gingerbread. what i wanna do is Update it to 2.3.5 / 2.3.6 . By Updating Will I Loose My Applications Which Are On Mobile?

It depends on the update. Over-the-air (OTA) updates do not wipe your data, so you should definitely accept such an update if there is one. Updates which you have to flash yourself (e.g. using Kies) usually do wipe your data, but the documentation that comes with the update will confirm whether it does.
Installing a custom (third-party) ROM almost always requires you to wipe user data.

Its definitely a YES as Dan has rightly said and as its a Samsung Device you will mostly do the update through Kies (comparatively easier when compared to other update) so just make sure you have the backup ready before doing the update and have a 100 % charge for a successful update.


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Copying a file to a system directory
Is there a way to copy a file into a system directory without having root?
I'm interested about any directory, but specifically about /system and /etc.

There is no chance to access system folders without root.


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replace app it was removed by mistek
When I was going to factory setting for reset my mobile system after setting my previous aap is not present in my mobile.
So now what I do for recover it.

Of course not, that's what factory-reset is for. So no recovering, but re-installing.

No replacing possible .
Factory reset will clean all apps and data. The only possibility is re installing.
Next time backup your apps and data.


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Capturing LTE(?) voice packets with Shark for Root
I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 LTE. I installed Shark for Root but it only captures web traffic. I am assuming that LTE uses data to transmit calls as well (probably SIP) as everything is data these days, but it would be neat to see these packets and what they look like. Is there any way to do this?

No, calls don't work that way. They don't go through the same network interface as internet data, and they're treated completely differently by the modem. Phone networks are circuit-switched, not packet-switched like IP, so there aren't any "packets" to examine.

You're wrong, LTE does use IP packets for voice.


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Charging Nexus 5 to 100%
Is it wrong to fully charge your android phone in general to 100% will it hurt battery life? and is it also to drain your battery to below 20% will it also hurt the battery life?

Answers to this you will find in our charging tag-wiki. Other questions you might wish to see: Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone? / When should I start charging my Lithium battery? / How frequently is it okay to let the battery discharge fully or as low as possible?

As derived from this battery-related answer:
Li-ion batteries, unlike former battery technologies, do not need full discharges - actually, it's better if you don't let them drop below 40% (it's kind of like a sweet spot for batteries; you'll age your battery if you store it below 40%). It's also unhealthy for the battery to be left at 100%, that's why a number of phones (Nexus devices, to be exact) quickly drain the battery down to something like 98% or 95% after you unplug the charger.


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Micro Usb to HDMI without MHL
I've got a cable without MHL adapter. I just want to know How can I connect it with TV.
Of course I've tried much but it was incompatible. Is there any way to make it compatible.
I've Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Bravia, Samsung LED on other side!
IF there has to be some signal conversions, can an android app do that ?

To connect your Samsung Galaxy S4 to a TV, you need to use an 11-pin MHL cable. 11-pin MHL cables are usually Y-shaped, and state specifically that they're for Samsung phones.
That's the only way. You can't use a 5-pin MHL cable with this phone. You can't use an app or custom ROM, or any other kind of software on the phone, to get around the need for the right cable.
See How does MHL work? for more information.


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Qi Charger is Cycling
I have a Samsung S5 with a WOWTOU receiver.  It was working fine, but after a week or so, it now cycles, even when the S5's battery is not full.  I've tried multiple different brands of Qi transmitters, and they all do the same thing.  It does get hot at times, but there is no correlation with the temperature and the cycling.  Different transmitters seem to cause different rates of cycling, but I haven't done a real experiment to see what those are.
Any suggestions?

Do you have any sort of case on the phone?

No case. Just the standard back cover.

This depends on how you've placed it. On some Qi pads you can even hear the difference...try moving the phone around while it's charging...
you can read this post I made about the heat wasted during charging based on the inductive permeance the Qi pad "sees"

I switched out the Qi receiver from the WOWTOU to a CHOETECH, which seems to have stopped the cycling.  I will try the 2A charger to see if that makes a difference.

I feel like Qi is half baked...wish it weren't


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i8960 performing awkwardly
My Samsung Galaxy Core i8960 has a minor crack in lower right corner and sometimes has trouble detecting taps.
Once I manage to unlock it via pin I get to the lock screen that requires me to enter a password, now the problem is, my password is not accepted, apparently when setting it some keys weren't recorded and now I cannot get past this.
Is there any other way than to perform a reset? I have all my contacts on there and several photos that I'd preffer not to be deleted.
When I try to access files via PC, the phone is shown empty, so I can't just copy anything...

Worth a look, as it mentions a lot of methods: Can not unlock my Android device as have no internet connection?

thanks for this, I've checked it, but my wifi is off, to increase battery life, so the options with google play are not working. entering password wrong 10 times only locks it for 30s, so I can't even get to google play login, the phone is relatively new, so I haven't rooted it and the remaining solutions seem not to work

If you prefer reset, and if it's only about your contacts and photos, you can sync them to your Google account. Go to Settings > Select "Google" under Accounts > Click on your Google Account and now select Contacts and People Details. For backing up photos from your phone, you can upload them to Google Drive using Google Drive App.  After reset is completed, all your contacts will be automatically synchronized from your Google account.

the problem is, I can't get to settings, since my password is not accepted...


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Will switching to GSM only network switch off data access?
I'm using Samsung Note 3 N900 model and i want to make sure i don't connect to internet but continue to make calls & SMS/MMS. Believe this is opposite the query of others.

Option 1 (no data at all)
Go to

Settings --> More Settings --> Mobile Networks --> uncheck "mobile data"

The device will no longer connect to the internet, but continue to receive calls & text. MMS are not possible.

Option 2 (data only for mms) (source)
Go to

Settings --> More Settings --> Mobile Networks --> Access Point Names --> Select your data APN --> APN Type

Remove in the field APN type everything but "mms". You have to leave "Mobile Data" enabled (see Option 1)

You can't send MMS with mobile data off. Hence have mentioned an the app in my answer.

@Pam: Thank you for clarifying this, I edited my answer accordingly to achieve the goal using android tools only.

You can have a look at this app


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Polaris Office cannot set Date Format to UK
how can we change the input & displaying of dates in Polaris Office to UK format?
The devices are set in Settings/System/Date and Time/Select date format to UK style (dd/mm/yyyy).
The default within Polaris seems to be yyyy/mm/dd. Other android users wrongly think this is UK format.
You can change the date format of cells to be any of the following:

yyyy/mm/dd (default)
mm/dd/yyyy (US format)
mm/dd
dd-month-yy
dd-month
month-yy
month-yy
month dd, yyyy
dd month yyyy (almost UK format)

Ideally we need the correct UK date format dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy as this is already in our source files. We cannot change this (only the format of the cells) as users will be working on files generated from MySQL in MS Access and outputted to .xlsx
This seems an oversight on Polaris part, but I don't see much 'chatter' about it around the web, so should we notify Polaris of this?

Yes. If an app doesn't work the way you want, or you can't work out how to make it do what you want, it's always appropriate to contact the developer.
You can do this via Google Play: every app has to have an email address or phone number for support, which you can find on that app's page. Many apps also have a "support" or "feedback" option inside the app too.
Even if the answer is that there's no way to do this and they don't intend to add it, at least you know that from the horse's mouth, and of course if they get enough requests they may change their mind and add it. And going the other way, even if there was already a really simple way to do it, and they just tell you how to do it, it lets them know that they need to make it easier to find in future.

Thanks Dan, I've contacted Polaris and will post back here any response I get as an answer.


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How do I edit the urls of the speed dial buttons in Opera Mobile?
How do I edit the urls of the speed dial buttons in Opera Mobile?
For example, I have a url  www.economist.com/printedition which redirects to a different url on different occasions. If I use the standard speed dial functionality, I will end up saving the redirected url instead of the printedition url.
Is there some file where these urls can be edited?

Touch and hold the icon. A "Remove" and "Edit" should pop up. Drag and Drop the icon on the "Edit".  Now do your editing.


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Set Arrows 301F to automatically accept RSA keys?
Every time I unplug and replug my phone, it asks me to accept the RSA key for my PC.  It says "always allow from this computer", and I toggle that to on.  Regardless, I'm prompted every time.
Is there any way I can just enable my 301F to always accept any RSA key, or to at least always accept the RSA key from this pc?

Likely you started the ADB the first time as ROOT, and now the device doesn't have the permission to write on $HOME/.android/adbkey
now you have to change the owner of that file (and everything else in that directory)
$ sudo chown <your_username> .android/*
 and eventually:
$ chmod 777 .android/*

Yeah, now I'm just wondering if trying to brute force my sim lock will make the phone brick.


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Modifying a Stock ROM
I'm an Android newbie who has a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7" Wifi (SM-T210) and would like to retrieve its stock ROM, modify certain files and add some applications to the system partition, and then flash it into any other SM-T210 device. Is this possible? How can I do it?
Thanks for the help.

The second half is not the big deal. The first half is. To retrieve it, you'd need a custom recovery. So after that, it's most likely not stock anymore...

@Izzy No, he can retrieve it using ADB. Like adb pull /system for the ROM. Custom recoveries take a backup of everything, including data, which I think is not what @Storo wants to get flashed as well.

Apart from the fact that adb pull wouldn't have access to everything without root: how to get that back to the "other device" then? Don't try adb push, won't work without root ("read-only file system"). Storo explicitely wrote flash it into any other SM-T210 device, which means he needs an image, if I'm not getting things wrong here. // However, that's a pretty grey area for this site, very close to "building a custom ROM" (one of our closure-reasons).

Hmm, you're right. It's possible to get a firmware image from SamMobile and extract it using some ext4 imaging tool. Also, flashing on "any other X device" may either refer to using recovery (which is more likely) or using firmware flash tools, like Odin.


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Is there a way to verify the integrity of a TA partition backup of Xperia phones?
I unlocked the bootloader of my Xperia P (LT22i) before I could take a backup of the TA partition (which stores DRM keys, IMEI code, etc.)
Now I've read on several XDA threads and other websites that TA can not be backed up after the bootloader has been unlocked. And that once it's unlocked, everything in there is gone.
However, when I used the latest version of Backup TA on my phone, it could detect the presence of and backup the TA partition.
Now I'm not sure if the backup it created is a valid TA backup so is there a way to check its integrity and/or parse the contents of TA.img to see if it does contain valid DRM keys and other stuff?
P.S. I tried opening TA.img in a hex editor and searching for my phone's IMEI number. I found it in the file. I also found references to "marlin" and quite a few X.509 certificates. The uncompressed size of my phone's TA.img is 512 KB (5,24,288 bytes)
And if it helps, here's the part of the log from Backup TA where it finds and backs up the TA partition:

--- mmcblk0boot0 ---
Searching for Operator Identifier...-
Searching for Operator Name...-
Searching for Rooting Status...-
Searching for S1 Boot...-
Searching for S1 Loader...-
Searching for S1 Hardware Configuration...-

Partition found!

=======================================
 BACKUP TA PARTITION
=======================================
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
524288 bytes (512.0KB) copied, 0.030456 seconds, 16.4MB/s

=======================================
 INTEGRITY CHECK
=======================================
OK

=======================================
 PULL BACKUP FROM SDCARD
=======================================
2437 KB/s (524288 bytes in 0.210s)

=======================================
 INTEGRITY CHECK
=======================================
OK

=======================================
 PACKAGE BACKUP
=======================================

7-Zip (A) 9.20  Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov  2010-11-18
Scanning

Creating archive ..\backup\TA-backup-20140722.010348.zip

Compressing  TA.blk
Compressing  TA.img
Compressing  TA.md5
Compressing  TA.serial
Compressing  TA.timestamp
Compressing  TA.version

Everything is Ok

*** Backup successful. ***

Why is it important to you to make a backup of this partition?

@unforgettableid Because it's my understanding that this partition stores the DRM keys for several Sony proprietary software including Mobile Bravia Engine and without a backup of this partition, Bravia Engine functionality would cease to function.

It should be possible to check via the service menu of the phone.
Go to calls, enter *#*#7378423#*#* and go to service info-configuration (somewhere at the bottom). The lines should end with [Key OK][Active].


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Recording Screen on Android 1.6
I have an old device running Android 1.6. Is there any way that I can record the screen on this device? Most tutorials for doing this rely on having a more up-to-date version of Android.

(In order to comment as opposed to answer one needs 50 reputation points.) Unable to root my device I relied on a digital camera and edited to reduce byte size and to crop image to the screen.   Take pictures in dark to reduce reflections, use a consistent setup to avoid misalignment.  ( Only a few devices on Gingerbreadwill takescreenshots.)

Yes the min requirement is gingerbread. It's not possible on lower versions.


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Not able make conference call in Motoroal MOTO E
When i tried to make a conference call in Motorola MOTO E it is not allowing.
While giving the merge call option it says "Conference call is not allowed".
please clear my doubt  whether MOTO E supports Conference call facility or not .

That message tells you that conference calling is not allowed by your carrier; it's not that the phone doesn't support it. You need to contact your carrier to enable this feature.


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How to encrypt android device without screen lock?
I want to encrypt my phone to protect sensitive information. But I do not want to enter a password every time I pick up my phone. That seriously hampers the usability. Particularly because the password must be of sufficient complexity for the encryption to be secure.
What I want is a boot time only password.
Most thieves switch off the phone after stealing it. Or remove the battery to change the SIM (so it won't get tracked). When he starts it again it'll be locked. There is a risk that he may mail my sensitive information to himself before switching off the phone but that is a risk I'm willing to live with.
How do I encrypt my phone with only a boot time password?

Cyanogenmod has this exact feature

Set up encryption normally, then disable the lock screen via an app such as No Lock: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.jraf.android.nolock (Better test the app before encrypting,  try the different no-lockscreen apps to see which one works with your phone model)

@Colin: Cyanogenmod does not have such a feature. You are forced to use a PIN or a password after encryption. It might be achievable with some tools but it does not work out of the box, even for Cyanogenmod.

This is a known defect.
See this bug report. And this discussion here at google groups.

All you need (private space, anti-theft and much more):
Comodo Mobile Security
Also you can use Android built-in encryption which asks for password only on boot:
Settings ➡ Security ➡ Encrypt

The built-in encryption option asks for lock screen password to be set before encryption can be done.

Personally never used it since entire home partition would be encrypted and has performance penalty. For small size of sensitive data use 'EDS Lite'.


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What can i do to update the android version of my android device if there is no available update available for my device?
my device is ondo vi10. it is a android tablet i bought from a IT Fair. The current android version is 4.0.3. What are some ways i can update it?

If there is no official update available, your only option is to flash a custom ROM on your device. This operation is potentially dangerous if you don't know what you are doing and you may brick your device. The tricky part is not the installation (which is selecting the ROM into a software and uploading via USB, or even simpler, booting in recovery with the new software on SD Card - dead simple, a button combination). The tricky part is to find a correct new ROM/software/image for your device. ROMs are not available for less known devices such as "Ondo" vi10 (did you want to say Onda?). But there are ROMs available for some other --identical-- devices. With the same camera, cpu, chipset, ram amount, etc. And that will work on your tablet. Do some research, see what other people used with that tablet. I'm sure someone "flashed" some custom firmware on that Ondo/Onda before.

Hahah! Yupp i want to say Onda (Sorry typo) thanks alot. hmm i cant really find any other similar devices with flashed custom firmware.


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Emulator with Google Play Certification
I am looking for an Android emulator that has been authorized by Google to include Play and other apps. One I am looking into is called Andy.
Is Andy authorized to use GApps? If not, are there any emulators authorized to do so?
Thanks

Android package GMS will be only available on devices certifieds by google.. I think it will be hard to find officially

I'm using the images provided by the Android-X86 project. They run fine in Virtualbox, and ship with Google Apps pre-installed. For details, please see:

Android emulator for Windows (on our sister-site for Software Recommendations)
How to install Android in Virtualbox at HowtoGeek
Android Emulators at IzzyOnDroid (my site; scroll to the end of the page for emulations OF Android, as the list starts with emulators running on Android ;))
find Android-x86 ISO images on their Google Code site


text:
Factory reset upon unlocking
For security reasons, I want to be able to specify two lock passwords (or patterns) as follows :
One for normal unlocking the device.
Another one if entered, the device will factory reset itself (and maybe format the SD)
I want this to happen from the main Android lock screen, but with two passwords.

Interesting request.  This would require a device administrator, as normal applications do not have this access.  Personally, I don't know of any apps that have this support...

I do not know of any application that does what you request. Maybe "After Unlock" has a feature like that.
What I would do is make an Android application that is fired after unlocking the phone. The application would request a new password and if it is entered correctly do the factory reset and format the SD if needed.
Check this project for an example of how this could be done: myLock

Its possible with device admin & setting password policy. Im not sure I can post some sample code here or not as this site not for codes , for ex
mDevicePolicyManager.setMaximumFailedPasswordsForWipe(mCameraAdminReceiver, 2);

@MIH1406 If you want more help regarding code I can help you out.

This site is intended for end-user questions, so I would guess that the OP was not looking for code.

Well, personally I don't think that there is any application that can help you in putting the lock over your device when wrong password is entered your device gets factory reset. But yes I have seen that function available over the HTC one M8, if you put the password over the HTC M8 wrong for 5 times it gives you the warning and if you put the password wrong for 10 times then the device automatically factory reset your device. I would say it's not possible to till data but I think if you are hungry for the function like, you can either try creating and application which can do so (but I think that would be whole tough mess) or try getting an HTC one M8.

You might need to root your phone and find a way to add another password. You might need programming knowledge for this.

Down voted simply because it is entirely obvious. If you gave sample code or linked to a successful example, the answer would be have been up voted instead.


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Website auto redirects to playstore app
I have runkeeper installed and within the app they direct yoy to there website to create routes. However when I browse to runkeeper.com it redirects me to the playstore app automatically.  How can I force to open and browse the website?

Go to Settings->Applications, search for your browser and clean default settings


text:
Preventing certain WAKELOCKS (NlpCollectorWakeLock, NlpWakeLock) with shell? (e.g. pm command)
As some of you might aware of, the notorious 'NlpCollectorWakeLock' and 'NlpWakeLock' are often the cause of considerable battery drain. I personally make some custom ROMs, and would like to automatically disable these without any app, but by a simple shell script. I tried disabling some activities by pm command, but no luck so far.
So can anyone give me some insight in disabling components/services/activities etc, that is related to these two wakelocks?
Thank you!

Not sure if you're in the right tracks with your attempt. Apps aquire wakelocks for a reason (well, at least that's the idea behind). Trouble is not them aquiring them, but those wakelocks sometimes not being released – which you cannot overcome by that. Your outcome would more likely be several apps/services stopping to work correctly, acting erraneously, or causing other errors.

If you're rooted, there's an Xposed module that you can use to throttle wakelocks: http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.ryansteckler.nlpunbounce


text:
Searching for installed App by name
I used to have a HTC Hero with had it's own search button. When being in the application selection menu I could press the button and then search for an app by typing it's name.
Is there similar way to access apps in Android 4.x without a specific search button?

The Google Search app is able to search the applications on your phone. On 4.1+ this can be done through a Google Now search. On many devices, this is accessible by swiping upwards from the home button in the navigation bar.
When you search for the app on your phone, you can use the bar along the bottom to scroll to "Phone" to search your phone rather than the web.
You can also search "start " so for example if I had an app called (in your case) "Battery", if I typed into the search bar "start battery" it would give me a card showing the app name and icon with a button below saying "Open App"

If I search "Battery" in 4.4.4 it doesn't show me the App that I installed that named "Battery" but suggests a websearch.

When you start a search along the bottom of the screen you should see "Web Images Maps..." etc, if you scroll through that list, one of them should be "Phone" usually the last one. then you will get a section called "Apps" that shows all the apps with your search term in the title of the app.

Also if you type "start " it will give you a card with the option to open the app. So in your case search "start battery" and the top card should say the app name "battery", with the icon on the right, and a button below saying "Open App"

There is an option in Google Search / Now settings to allow you to search through apps as well as web (Go to Google Now settings, there you'll see phone search, open it and tick Apps)

Try  google gesturesearch using this you can  not only search for  an application but also contacts,music and bookmarks.
This has a cool feature that you can use natural hand writing to type the app name and keypad is not needed.


text:
Chrome save as PDF doesn't work
For some reason whenever I try to save a webpage as a PDF Chrome generates a 0-byte size document. And when I try to open the PDF in my Downloads folder QuickPDF tells me "Error while opening file. It appears to be damamged."
My phone is a Moto G if it helps.

Alternatively visit http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/ and paste the url which you want as a PDF.
Or
If you want to download pdf via app, try free app named "UrlToPdf" from play store.


text:
Im trying to download apps but it says insufficient storage but I have plenty of storage and an sd card
I try to download apps like Vine and other apps but, it continuously says insufficient storage and I have an sd card and enough internal storage to download. It makes me angry. Please help, I need don't want but need some apps and it wont let me download.  I have a Samsung galaxy ace style and I got it June 13th. Thanks.

As you've correctly tagged your question insufficient-memory: have you checked with the corresponding tag-wiki? That will give you some first-aid, and a.o. tell you the error has nothing to do with your SDCard (you could have Terabytes free there, it wouldn't matter). As this also is a somehow frequent question here, there are more answers already existing, see e.g. How can I deal with “Low on Space” messages on my Android?

A simple solution, don't know you have tried or not.
Install any Cache Cleaner apps if possible. Some uncleaned cache may take GBs of data.
If its not possible, delete the files from the cache folders inside the folders in Android\data\< some_folder > \


text:
Is it possible to copy files to PC when in download mode?
My LG E975 doesn't boot anymore after I tried to install CWM (6.0.4.5) with the help of ROM Manager (Method 1A from these instructions). I get stucked at the reboot into the stock recovery part and now the device doesn't work anymore. I get the message
Secure booting Error! Cause: boot certification verifiy

The available options are hard reset and the download mode. Recovery mode (in FastBoot mode press 2x Volume Down and than Power) doesn't work because the device doesn't get in the fast boot mode (Volume Up + Power). Safe mode (Power + Menu button) also doesn't work. Because I wan't to access the files (apps, data, ...) on the phone I thought if there is a possibility to copy the files if I'm in download mode? Or is there another way to access the data?
PS: Has this problem happened because the bootloader was not unlocked?

No, download mode doesn't provide you with access to the phone's files, and yes, the error message you see looks very much like it's telling you you're trying to boot an unsigned ROM from a locked bootloader.


text:
File signature for .db file needed after failed restore
I have just performed a factory reset and restore using CWM on Android custom ROM 'Neatrom'.
The restore deosnt seem to have completed properly, as the apps are there but the app data seems to be missing.
As a result, I have lost my notes and tasks ('My phone Explorer NOtes' and 'My Phone explorer Tasks').  I am trying to recover deleted and lost files using Yodot Data Recovery for android.  The files are , I believe, 'notes.db' and /or 'notes.db-journal', but '.db' or '.db-journal', are not default file types in Yodot, and need to be entered as a 'new file type'.
It asks for:
1) the file signature of this file type, in Hex,
2) THe file size
3) THe file offset
4) A Description of the type
Could anyone let me know what these details would be?  I have tried with the information on .db and .db-journal files in the online file signature database, but 'db-journal' isnt a file type in the database.  'db' has various signatures.  Using them, the 'notes.db' file wasnt found when I performed the search.
Thanks!

The format of these files is described in SQLite's documentation.
The db file is the main database and starts with the string "SQLite format 3\000" (note that \000 is the zero byte or ASCII NUL).
The db-journal file is the journal for the database. You only need it if the database was open when you performed the factory reset (that is, if the app was running and in the middle of writing the database). It starts with the following bytes: 0xd9, 0xd5, 0x05, 0xf9, 0x20, 0xa1, 0x63, 0xd7.


text:
Will my phone (carrier unlocked but initially locked to verizon) get locked after Kitkat update?
I've bought Motorola Droid Razr M from eBay. It is locked with Verizon by default, so seller unlocked device for me and it is working fine. It comes with Jelly bean 4.1.2 and I found that Kitkat update for this device. Now the question is Will my device get locked again after update from 4.1.2 to 4.4.2???

I unlocked my HTC One by "other means" and had no problem with updating/rooting/ROMing, so I would expect the same for you.

There's a 50-50 possibility of getting the phone locked because if the seller has unlocked through the proper way(legally) then you can go ahead and update your O.S else if your seller has unlocked by other means then definitely the phone will get locked to the Carrier with which it has the contract with(here Verizon).
I suggest you to get in contact with your device supplier and ask him his mode of unlock. An unlock never comes free of cost although some sites offer a legal unlock .The Same thing is what observed in other mobile OS(like ios) if you have unlocked it by other means and have updated your device then the phone gets locked to the carrier with which it was sold and you need to unlock it again.


text:
Is there any way to open recovery mode with only hard keys?
i had flashed a custom rom on my device. But unfortunately it does not boot properly. And suddenly i have noticed that my volume keys are not working. And i had'nt debug mode opened. so now what can i do? how can i open recovery mode with only one hard key?

What device do you have?

And what does "does not boot properly" mean? What actually happens?

Possible with command but there are conditions,

you have usb debugging enabled
you need to configure adb

if you have this two things configured then you can type following command to boot your phone into recovery mode
adb reboot recovery

or
adb shell reboot recovery


text:
push app from root adb terminal
So i have a rooted ms690, but su keeps crashing, the recovery is just a hard reset, I have no sd card, and metroweb is gone. The problem I want to solve is metroweb. I have the apk, and the only way I can get to root anything is this:
adb shell
$ su
#

What do i do from here?

And what to do before that, also important. OK, short guide – assuming your .apk has the name metro.apk, and you're in the very same directory on your computer where that file resides:
PC> adb push metro.apk /data/local/metro.apk
PC> adb shell
$ su
# pm install /data/local/metro.apk

What I'm just wondering: What makes you think you need to be root for that? Taking the shorter road:
PC> adb install metro.apk

Saves a few steps :)
OTOH, if you're talking about a system app, things might look different:
PC> adb push metro.apk /data/local/metro.apk
PC> adb shell
$ su
# mount -ro remount,rw /system
# cp /data/local/metro.apk /system/app
# exit
PC> adb reboot

I don't have an sd card, so /data/ is empty when I try this

Nevermind, it's there. I can't remount system as rw.

I used '# mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock0 /system' to remount system, but cp gives me 'cp: not found' so I used mv and I got 'failed on 'Browser.apk' - Cross-device link'

Ok, used dd to get browser apk where i wanted it, but it's not showing up in my apps.

Used es file esplorer to set permissions and now it shows p, but crashes on launch'

/data is the internal storage, and /data/local is a kind of "temp directory" especially for things like this; I specifically chose a place available on all devices. No idea why cp failed. As for the crashes, it might help to investigate the logs (e.g. via adb logcat). I suspect dependencies (it might need another app/service to work).


text:
Can you stop your phone vibrating when changing to vibrate mode (without disabling vibrate altogether)?
Samsung S4 running Android 4.4.2
I use the Llama app to manage my profiles depending on where I am (work, home, cinema, etc.).
This works well until Llama doesn't know where I am and can change between my profiles depending on where it thinks I am.
This is very annoying when every time Llama changes to a profile set to use vibrate mode, my phone (the OS not Llama) vibrates to say it is in that mode.
My question is therefore can you stop your phone vibrating when changing to vibrate mode (without disabling vibrate altogether)?
I know you can go to Settings > My Device > Sound > Vibration Intensity to turn off vibrate altogether but I only what to disable it when vibrate mode is being enabled if at all possible.

I solved this problem using an Android app called VibraFix, but this app requires root.


text:
What is the zygote process still doing in Android L?
I am trying to figure out the specific differences in the Dalvik and ART runtimes.  I realize that ART no longer uses the Dalvik VM, however, one of the first things I noticed after installing the Android L preview was that the zygote process is still running.  If they truly got rid of the Dalvik VM, wouldn't that render the zygote process useless?  Furthermore, upon inspecting the source code released via AOSP, a large portion of Dalvik still remains.

Hard to know, it's a developer release and FAR from complete. There's a lot of Kitkat / Jellybean stitched into it at the moment just to get it working and booting.

Being still a "developer preview", it might indeed make not much sense to speculate (though I follow Dan's explanation). It might be as Dan described, or it might be a "left over" not yet "fully obsoleted". When it still runs on L-Release, that's a different thing.

Zygote isn't really bound up with Dalvik, it's just an init process. Zygote is the method Android uses to start apps. Rather than having to start each new process from scratch, loading the whole system and the Android framework afresh each time you want to start an app, it does that process once, and then stops at that point, before Zygote has done anything app-specific. Then, when you want to start an app, the Zygote process forks, and the child process continues where it left off, loading the app itself into the VM.
Although this method was originally designed for Dalvik, there's no reason ART shouldn't behave exactly the same way. It doesn't have to JIT-compile apps while they're running, but it still has a lot of app-independent Java stuff to load (i.e. the whole Android framework), so it makes sense to use the same fork-when-loaded method to start new processes.
It's natural on such a large project that there would be other left-overs from Dalvik that are still useful in a post-Dalvik world, so you shouldn't be surprised that there is other code that was originally written to be part of or to work with Dalvik, that is still around for ART to use.

Matches my understanding of Zygote (being a non-dev). From the "user view", it probably makes it easier to think of Zygote as "application server", acting as an "abstraction layer" between the apps and the OS (somehow like HAL does to abstract hardware): it doesn't matter what's "below" (Dalvik or ART), the interface deals with "stuff"?

It might make it easier to think of Zygote as an application server, but it's not a very accurate description. It's just the part of the OS that starts apps, and it's very much on the OS side of the app-OS boundary.

Thanks, so at least my "basic understanding" was correct (I'm aware "application server" is not accurate, but easier to understand by a "normal user" – so let's make it "application service", to bring it further on the OS side ;)

What exists in the source code are not "left-overs", and we are not at the post-Dalvik era! Dalvik bitcode is still the IR being used. Even with the highest setting, not everything is AOT-compilied, and there are still some stuff that need to be interpreted. So, for these, there is DalvikVM. Also, devices with low storage, will be using less AOT more interpretation. Lastly, zygote inits heaps of frequently used classes, which  can save space as they can be shared between multiple applications.

@Paschalis you are confusing JIT compiling with DalvikVM. Just because newer versions of the ART do JIT (just-in-time) compilation, doesn't mean Dalvik is still around. Oracle Java does JIT compilation as well, doesn't mean it uses Dalvik

edit my previous comment: b̶i̶t̶c̶o̶d̶e̶ -> bytecode. D̶a̶l̶v̶i̶k̶V̶M̶ -> ART's Interpreter. DalvikVM is not used. But its interpreter and JIT are merged into ART.

DalvikVM used to do interpretation and JIT. ART does AOT, JIT (>=Nougat) and interpretation. A compilation (be it JIT or AOT) takes Dalvik bytecode (oracle takes Java bytecode) and transforms it. An APK contains just dalvik bytecode, and when dex2oat compiles it, filters decide what to AOT (and at runtime, the profiles decide what to JIT).


text:
Android App unavailable for download in Isle of Man
I'm having the same problem as the BBC iPlayer app for Android where our Android app is not available for download in the Isle of Man, from the Google Play store.
As IoM is part of the UK, it should be available already as the UK is a selected territory.
Does anyone know of a workaround apart from our users travelling to the UK and downloading it?

And apart from that, Issues with the Google Play Store (or any other app marketplace) from the point of view of a developer or publisher are off topic here, sorry.

I read that some internet providers on the Isle of Mann route their signal through Ireland disallowing the download of the software by IP address.
I'd recommended checking to see if you can download it through WiFi or finding an APK of the latest version and just installing it.
EDIT: Just provide the APK direct to them


text:
Can I use side buttons of my phone to turn (by holding) next/prev track without root?
I have xperia M. It has normal walkman player. But choosing music is not comfortable, it needs taking out my phone from a pocket. How can I custom side volume buttons to turn next/prev. track by holding it a while? (How it was in old walkman telephones)
Thank you in advance.

There are several possible approaches to this.
If you're using a headset (which I assume you are), there are several apps for headset control allowing you to use your headset button for that (e.g. one click = pause/play, double-click = next, etc.).
On the other hand I've seen C Locker is capable of exactly what you're asking for: using the volume rockers for that while the screen is locked.

Thank you. C-Locker is very close, what I want. But I must ask: is there a program without lock screen? It will be perfect)). (sadly I have a earphones without buttons, and can not use programs of first approach(( )

Our default answer to ~50% of the questions might fit that: tasker has music control and can play with (some) buttons. Not sure about volume controls, but "there might be an addon for that" ;) (plenty of Tasker addons available).


text:
all my headphones work on one side on htc desire but they used to work fine
i have a HTC desire and i had 5 pairs of earphones that used to work fine...basically each time i bought new earphones for my htc they would work fine and then after about 4 months one side would stop working and it works a little if i move the cable at the input jack. i only used my earphones on my HTC.....is something wrong with my phone jack?? im tired of buying new earphones...i also take really good care of them because at first i thought i was breaking them..please help me!

If those headphones work properly everywhere else, then your phone's headphone jack is faulty.

Your phone's headphone jack is failing.  When you buy new phones, the plug is a nominal dimension (3.5 mm is the standard, but the specification is surely much more precise than that).  After inserting and removing the plug a few hundred times, the tip and rings wear, reducing their size a tiny bit.  The same wear occurs on the spring-loaded contacts inside the jack.  After some number of cycles, it reaches the point where one of the contacts doesn't connect when the plug is fully inserted, but something connects on that conductor during insertion and removal.
In a new jack, there's plenty of overtravel in the contacts to cover this amount of wear, but if one of the spring tabs has gotten bent a bit (possibly by off-axis insertion of the plug at some point, or the headphone wire getting jerked out of the socket at an angle) it may make contact but have lost the overtravel that serves to take up wear.  The only real solution is to replace the jack -- which probably requires major work on the phone.  It might be possible, depending how the jack is made, to rebend the contact springs -- but that would require full disassembly of the phone and might not work, so it likely isn't worth paying someone to do.  Replacing the phone's motherboard may be the only solution, unless the phone jack is on a daughterboard.

Interesting. I always wondered why my earphones stops working in one side after being used for few months. Is this practical knowledge or have you read about this somewhere? Would you care to mention it in the latter case?

I've personally repaired this problem in devices much less compact than a cell phone.  It's only practical with "open" jacks, not in the ones that have a full enclosure (which is most of them, these days).

It's a pretty safe bet that something is going on with your headphone jack.  It could simply be defective or damaged but there is a strong possibility that it may simply need to be cleaned.  Pocket lint or other materials accumulating in your headphone jack could be the issue. This was a common issue I encountered when working with customers phones at Verizon and many times we would use compressed air to clean out debris from the jack, although occasionally we would have to actually insert a tool into the jack to clean it.  Debris shifting around inside the jack could also explain the intermittent nature of the issue.  Just be careful cleaning if you do find any debris and make sure you don't damage the jack or void your warranty.

Your Problem solution is :the wire is disconnected from the chip where mic and volume control buttons are given..open that portion on the backside of chip there are four wires you can find the disconnected wire simply solder them. or go to any shop to solder them.


text:
How to read contact details sent from iphone?
When someone with an iPhone sends me a contact, it appears as a blank MMS message. I found that this happens because group chat is on on their end, but these people are not always my friends, so I can't tell them to turn it off.
Is there a way to read these messages?

Some Android devices does not have support for handling MMS or SMS vCards in their native texting app. That is why you see it as "content not supported" or even blank message.
You can use third pardy app to handle MMS vCards if your Android device does not support it by default too. Search on Google Play. I've created such an app bizCard Manager. There are plenty more that handle SMS vCards but I've not found any that has MMS support.

Try Textra. This texting app also allowed me to import vcards in existing messages.


text:
How can I spoof my mac address on Bluestacks?
My Bluestacks is rooted already with terminal installed. (Busybox 1.21.1)
Thus far, I have tried

Mac Address Ghost - App runs, but simply does spoof MAC
Xprivacy - xposed framework keeps getting seg faults upon installation
# ip link set eth0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx - Operation not supported on transportation endpoint
# busybox ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55 - Operation not supported

Has anyone achieved this before or know of a way to change the mac address of Bluestacks?

Unzip initrd.img in c:\programdata\android\ folder (by default). It's a GZIP format.
Next, you should edit initrd file with hex editor.
Find your address,
for example
02C6400100C6400200C6400362C6400473C6400574
And Replace 02:00:00:64:73:74 bytes with your hex bytes (MAC ADDRESS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rVumD8tmjg
Gzip initrd to initrd.img and replace original file

and how to change the Wifi MAC address using the above method?


text:
Samsung Galaxy S3 SCH-I535, rooted, won't switch over to T-Mobile
Recently, I changed carriers from Verizon to T-Mobile. However, when I inserted my T-Mobile SIM card into my phone and rebooted, the status is always "Searching for Service" (not just for data, NOTHING works). I've looked on Android forums and they all have instructions for turning the SCH-I535 into a world phone, but that's not what I want. I just want to switch to T-Mobile (do I need to have a "world phone" to do this?)
I've installed APN Manager and tried to change APNs, but entering the details found here
The phone is rooted and not on a stock TouchWiz ROM (I'm using Paranoid Android, a JB ROM)
Why won't my phone recognize the T-Mobile SIM?

If you got the phone from Verizon, likely it's SIM-locked. You need an unlock code to use it with SIM cards from another carrier.

I don't think that's true. I put a T-Mobile SIM into someone else's phone just now too and theirs worked immediately, barring data (nonroot TouchWiz). Honestly, at this point I don't mind not having mobile data, I just want to call and text

@DanHulme Even if it's been rooted?

@AnotherUser Yes, even if it's been rooted. See the [tag:sim-unlocking] tag wiki for more about SIM lock.

SCH-I535 is not a GSM phone so will not work with any 2G or 3G T-Mobile tower. Also that phone only supports LTE frequencies of 700 MHz & 1900 MHz, neither of which are bands that T-Mobile use to any significant degree. Instead T-Mobile uses 1700 & 2100 MHz.
T-Mobile is however in the process of rolling out 700 MHz & 1900 MHz, so you might get data in the near future however you will not generally be able to make calls as that is currently handled by the 3G networks. And even where VoLTE is available this phone will may not have the software update to support it.
Update: Despite not being listed in the specs of Samsung's website, nor GSM Area, or Wikipedia SCH-I535 does infact support GSM beyond LTE. It appears that Verizon pushed out an update with 4.1.2 Jelly Bean which enabled support for GPRS/EDGE/GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and HSPA/UMTS 2100 MHz (band 1). T-Mobiles 3G support requires AWS-1700/2100 (band 4), however they do support 1900 MHz for GSM/EDGE 2G service.
So you can get EDGE but not HSPA, although you may soon get LTE depending on T-Mobiles rollout.

How does this explain the other SCH-I535 (someone I know) that changed from verizon SIM to t-mobile SIM today which works for calling/texting but not data?

Well if the below data is correct, SGH-I535 should not work on T-Mobile. There are GSM versions of the Galaxy S3, are you 100% sure the other phone was SGH-I535 not the GSM SGH-I747?
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s_iii_cdma-4799.php

I'm not 100% sure it was a SGH because I said it was a SCH, but I am 100% sure of that

Yes sorry this is a typo I copied off GSM Arena, the C is for CDMA and the G is for GSM, the frequency information however agrees with below. So it is truly baffling how you managed to get a CDMA phone working on a GSM network. Unless you are in an area where T-Mobile already has 700 MHz or 1900 MHz LTE and are using VoLTE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_III#Model_variants

So yer if you have 700 MHz or 1900 MHz LTE available then most likely the handset is locked, even though it is rooted the phone can still be locked to Verizon so you could try call them to get the unlock code.

@itdoesntwork Have you got it working?

yes, I have. The main problem was the custom rom. I flashed a stock rom via Odin and the problem resolved itself when I switched over to GSM. However, I can only get data on Edge, but that's a different issue.

@itdoesntwork Sorry about the misinformation my sources were out of date, after further digging I can see global GSM support was added by Verizon and I have updated the post to reflect this.

authors: ÖoĜyi Žâw Ÿęll Ĥtűñ


text:
Programmatically, how does "rooting" a device enable access?
From a layman point of view, one would say, "Oh, I'm unrooted so I am blocked and access is not allowed." I want the programmatic point of view; telling me how an unrooted device doesn't have access to the whole filesystem, etc., and how a rooted device has that access.
Examples:
1.Is the filesystem set by default to disallow reads/writes to /system, /sys, /data, etc.?
2.Is there something stored in /system or /data (such as a program, block device/file, etc.) that the unrooted OS runs that limits system-wide access on several tasks that rooted users have?
3.Does the default "unrooted" OS actually have system-wide prevention of unrooted access?
Because look at it this way: to "root" your device something must be changed, right? So the "rooting program" or process must entail how this restriction is circumvented. Does anyone here/can anyone link to anything (or explain it) that explains this process of how the rooting progress allows users access they weren't normally given by default (programmatically; not details on steps to follow in a rooting process and not info on how to root on your phone from a user's point of view; from a developer's point of view).
Best example: Say I'm an Android developer and I wish to learn how to create a rooting program. What would I, for example, need to know to do this?

The vendors want to make as much money off you as possible; and they don't want to have to provide tech-support if you shoot yourself in the foot. So the normal "user" of a phone does not have full rwx permissions everywhere. To root a phone, you need to "exploit" a mistake (a hole) left by the vendor in your version of hardware/software (they tend to fix them all the time) to run a program of your creation with full root (user id 0) permissions. That program can then leverage everything else.

Your question is less about rooting, as much more about how permission management works, and how partitions are mounted. You might wish to see our file-permissions tag-wiki for a start. These are rather generic Linux topics than an Android issue ;)

Root is a Linux term for the highest level administrator. To root your phone means giving yourself root level privileges. These privileges include being  able to manipulate the file systems protected partitions. To root is an exploit in Android to give yourself this ability.

authors: Алексеев Николай


text:
Can I copy/paste cyanogen files to another SD card, plug it into a rooted tablet, and expect it to work?
Long story short:  I've got 10 Nook Colors, each of which has previously been rooted, but of which 6 of the 10 SD cards have gone missing (don't ask me how).  I've also got 3 non-rooted nook colors that I'd like to root.  I'm using the tablets to conduct questionnaires using ODK.  If I take a SD card out of one of them and put it into another rooted one, it boots into cyanogen just fine.
Plugging the SD cards into my computer (I'm running Ubuntu), I see that they have a fairly complex partition structure.  How can I recreate both the files and the file structure onto new SD cards, so that I can boot my rooted tablets into cyanogen?
Following these instructions ruined the tester SD card that I bought -- the computer now doesn't recognize the card when plugged in.  Not sure why -- I umounted it.  I've got the disk image file, the gapps file, and the cyanogen file sitting on my hard disk.
Also, how can I root new tablets?  The uNooter file described here is a dead link.
Or is cyanogenmod old and deprecated?  Is there something else that I can do to get these tablets to run ODK?
Help!

You probably can't copy and paste the files, because the blank SD card doesn't have the same partition structure and filesystem flags.
What you can do, though, is clone the original SD card onto the blank one. Note: the new SD card must be the same size (or larger) for this to work.
These instructions will make an exact copy, including partition structures, partition flags, and even disk fragmentation. It is an exact bit-for-bit copy.
Warning: This could mess up your computer. If you put in the wrong parameter for the of= part of the dd command, you could completely overwrite your main hard drive. Make sure you triple-check the destination mountpoint. Especially if you think the mountpoint is /dev/sda
Option 1: Mount both cards at the same time
If you can mount both SD cards at the same time, you can save a step and some time.

Insert the original SD card on your computer and find out the mountpoint of the original SD card.

Open up the Disks application
Click on your SD card in the list on the left.
At the top right, just below the name of the SD card, it will list the mountpoint.

It will look something like /dev/sdc or /dev/mmcblk0 or similar.

Insert the blank/target SD card on your computer and find its mountpoint (using the same steps)
Open a terminal (aka command line)
Run the following command, but replace original_mount with the mountpoint you found, and also replace the target_mount with the mountpoint of the blank card.
sudo dd if=original_mount bs=128M of=target_mount
The command will not show any progress until it is finished, and it could take up to an hour, depending on the maximum size of the original SD card (a 1GB won't take that long, but a 64GB might).

Option 2: Mount one card at a time
If you only have one SD card reader, you'll have to make an image of the original SD card, then swap the cards and write that image to the new SD card.

Insert the original SD card on your computer and find out the mountpoint of the original SD card.

Open up the Disks application
Click on your SD card in the list on the left.
At the top right, just below the name of the SD card, it will list the mountpoint.

It will look something like /dev/sda or /dev/mmcblk0 or similar.

Open a terminal (aka command line)
Run the following command, but replace original_mount with the mountpoint you found.
sudo dd if=original_mount bs=128M of=/tmp/sdcard.img
The command will not show any progress until it is finished, and it could take up to an hour, depending on the maximum size of the original SD card (a 1GB won't take that long, but a 64GB might).
Remove the original SD card and insert the blank card. The mountpoint should be the same, but open the Disks app again just to make sure.
Run the following command, but replace target_mount with the mountpoint you found.
sudo dd if=/tmp/sdcard.img bs=128M of=target_mount
The command will not show any progress until it is finished, and it could take up to an hour, depending on the maximum size of the original SD card (a 1GB won't take that long, but a 64GB might).

I can't say why you might have trouble duplicating an SD card, but there are a few things I can say, based on both reading and actual experience, that might be helpful:

If you're talking about the original Nook Color, at least (I'm
not sure whether or not there are later models still called "Nook
Color" that work differently), rooting has nothing to do with it,
since the device will boot from the SD card, presuming it is
bootable, and not from the OS on the internal storage. (It is
actually the OS, not the device, that is "rooted".)
An SD card that will boot and run on one Nook Color should,
barring hardware problems, boot and run on any other, and a good
copy of an SD card that works should also work and provide the same functionality as the origina.

Also, I can see no reason why an OS, such as CM, that worked before to run a particular application won't be able, deprecated or not, to run the identical application with identical support files now.


text:
Boot a bricked s3 i535 for photo recovery
I know I need an sdcard formatted a certain way with a factory image and it will go into a safe mode; question is, does anyone know where I can find instructions or can instruct me what file and how to do this?

Wait, what do you mean by "bricked`?  Soft bricked?  If you just want to recover photos and not completely restore the phone, there are simpler ways.

Technically a hard brick. No Odin. Just that usb flag in device manager.

What model of S3?


text:
last seen time stamp
I got a message at 16:05pm, then my contact went offline again, but the last seen was showing 15:25, how is it that it hasnt changed to 16:05 when the contact left whatsapp and still showed the earlier time of 15:25,
It is now working correctly when the contact sends me a text the last seen time updates every time correctly.
Please help,
confused gary

I'm guessing your contact is in a timezone that is one hour behind you.

Apart from that, it's not really an Android question – but rather something specific to WhatsApp in general. You might better ask in some WA support forum.

Yup, it's a question for the WhatsApp peeps...

Sorry but they live 30 minutes away from me

Ok, well, I would go over to the WhatsApp boards and ask them.  We can't really diagnose a problem with a third-party app like that - if you're 100% sure that your contact is not in another timezone or connected to a network that resides in another timezone, then it's a bug in the software that should be reported.

Many thanks for the answer, will try the whatsapp Forums.


text:
Deleted Google Play Settings... Help!
I was trying to make room on my cell which is a Huawei Ascend Y215 and I deleted Google Play Settings, Now my Google Play won't work. Please help!

"won't work": What actually happens?

There might be a possibility that you just disabled google play settings.
To check just go into settings>apps>all and search for play settings .
If it exists click on it and enable it :) !

Follow the instructions on this website to reinstall Google Play on your phone.
http://www.androidauthority.com/install-google-play-store-312812/


text:
Permanently set USB connection mode
My phones touchscreen has been gradually failing for a few months, so before it dies completely I rooted it and installed Webkey so I can control it via a browser. Of course that requires the wifi to be on, so what I want to do is plug the phone into my computer and turn on the wifi on from the adb shell (which I've done, and it works fine).
The thing is, adb doesn't see my phone unless I manually set the connection mode to MTP, and I won't be able to do that when the touchscreen goes completely unresponsive.
So, how would I set my phone to automatically use MTP when I connect it via USB?
It's an Alcatel OneTouch 993, running Android 4.0.4.

Why not just leave the Wi-Fi turned on?

To save on the battery.

What about other ways to trigger WiFi? I think e.g. of using Tasker to toggle WiFi. Possible toggles (selection): Camera-button, NFC, Bluetooth. Would that be acceptable? Apart from that: Can't the connection-mode be made permanent? Most devices support that ("always use X").

Thanks, problem solved! I used MacroDroid to turn on the wifi when I shake the phone, which is even easier than using adb :)


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How to find an app is compatible with Intel based Android device or not?
Intel based Android devices are in the market now and I am drooling over new Asus Zenfone series (which packs Intel Atom processors). However, I am concerned with app compatibility issues.
If an app is developed using SDK, it'll run on Intel based devices, but if it's developed using NDK, it'll surely not run on Intel based devices as instruction sets are different.
Before purchasing any Intel based device, I want to see my favorite apps/games are compatible with it or not. How to get this info without really testing those apps in a virtual machine?

Most application will work fine except the ones which rely on libraries and do not have compatible libs packed in apks.
One quick way to check for a specific app is to open its generic-apk with 7z and check lib folder
Structure of /lib directory inside APK archive is:
/lib
    /arm64-v8a
    /armeabi
    /armeabi-v7a
    /mips
    /x86
    /x86_64

if it does not have x86 or x86_64 while it has libs in other folders, the chances are that it won't work on intel processors.
You can also use DroidInfo app from playstore to quickly check supported architecture for any installed app on current handset.