text:
Why does my Samsung Galaxy S crash ("Not enough space in music database") when sorting by artist?
Had my Samsung Galaxy S for a week or so, and my new micro-SD card arrived a few days ago, loaded all my music onto it, listened to various albums no problem.
Now when I go into the built-in Music Player app and select the "Artists" tab at the top, Music Player closes with a "Not enough space in music database" error in the notification bar with a red warning triangle sign.
All the other tabs (All, Playlists, Albums & Genres) work with no problem, but as soon as I hit the Artists tab it crashes out. It's a 32GB SD-card with about 25GB of music on it, the internal SD card is almost empty with no music on it at all. On the PC I'm a SqueezePlayer and Last.Fm user, so I'm pretty sure all my tags are setup right (Last.FM lets you know in your feed if you've got incorrect artist/track info, and SqueezePlayer lives or dies by the quality of your tagging).
Searching for this on the web, all I can find is other people with various sized music collections and SD-cards (8, 16 & 32GB) all having this problem and the only suggestions are to download different music apps from the Market. No one seems to have a real solution. That can't be right can it? I previously had an HTC Magic Android phone with a full 8GB micro-SD and much of the same music with no problems playing.
There must be some way to get the built-in music player app working properly? Does anyone know what file/where is this database and whether wiping/clearing it would help?

Found this thread on the Vibrant section of the XDA Devs forum: Not Enough Space in Music Database? (pretty sure the Vibrant is a US carrier-specific version of the Galaxy, with this weird obsession US networks seem to have for making up alternative names for devices).

Maybe it has something to do with how
  the app handles various artists and/or
  unknown artists.
I added all my music, then deleted
  tracks from various artist albums
  until it worked again. I then put back
  the various artist album track and it
  didn't work, as expected.
I thought this was artist based, but
  when I got it working again--by
  deleting the track mentioned
  above--and then added a track for a
  various artist album by an artist that
  already existed, the app crashed too.
I then thought it might be song based.
  So I removed that song and then added
  a set of songs. However, it
  unexpectantly worked.
The difference with the set of songs
  added above is that they weren't part
  of a various artist album. They were a
  new artist, but the main album artist
  wasn't Various with a Contributing
  artist of the actual artist name.
  Instead, the Album Artist was the
  artist name and the contributing
  artist was left blank (or had the same
  name).
So, it is that the music app doesn't
  understand how to handle various
  artist albums?

Plugged SD card into my PC, did a search for files named *.mp3 with "various" in the artist tag, moved all of them off the card. Plugged card back into Galaxy again, waiting for media indexing to finish, I can now view the Artists column without the app crashing. Still can't Search in the app without crashing, but I have a few more compilation type albums so will try spotting and removing all of them to see if it helps.
Update Nov 2010: The Music player included in the official Samsung Froyo (Android 2.2) update, seems to have fixed this problem, or at least made it so that I can have the majority of my tracks on the phone without this problem showing up.


text:
What does "to root a phone" mean?
I heard this phrase or the variants (rooted phone, rooting, etc.) in android forums but I don't know what it means. Can you explain it in simple terms?

Two great resources for understanding this more deeply are: http://code.google.com/p/android-roms/wiki/Obtain_Root and the CyanogenMod Wiki. The latter does a great job of defining terms throughout, so even if your goal is not to install CyanogenMod (which they also define :) ), the wiki is a great way to fill in gaps in your understanding.

Dead URL.  Cyanogenmod.com vanished recently.  Instead, try https://wiki.lineageos.org.

Related: HOW ANDROID RESTRICTS ROOT ACCESS? section in my answer to How Magisk works?

To 'root' your phone means to gain administrative rights on the file system of your phone (in linux, root is the username of the master admin).  With root access, you can install and uninstall anything you want on the phone.
Most phones come with limited access regarding what you can and can't do on it.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it can keep users from accidentally breaking something they shouldn't mess with on the phone, especially in regards to the operating system.  However, many manufacturers limit your rights to things that aren't really so mission critical, too, and rooting the phone gets around this.
If you have a few unnecessary applications (bloatware) pre-installed on your phone that you cannot uninstall, rooting will give you this ability.  It will also allow you to upgrade to newer versions of Android before your phone's manufacturer and/or cell provider make the updates available to you.  Be warned, though, that rooting may void your warranty.
For more info on what rooting enables you to do with your phone, check out this question.

Nice answer... I also like the part where you said  It will also allow you to upgrade to newer versions of Android.  Any good resources you can recommend for that ? (Hopefully One of your prior answer..)

Why is bloatware such a big deal for many users? As long as the phone works well, and one can disable the blatware (I do not because I do not pay attention to them), everything should be fine.

When you "root" your phone you are unlocking the administrative privileges of the phone which by default are locked by the manufacturer.  It's similar to "Jailbreaking" in the iphone world.
Rooting your device allows you to do things like overclock or underclock your CPU, delete those preloaded apps that your phone wont delete like Amazon MP3 or Corp Calendar, install certain apps that require root access, load custom ROMs...
The manufacturers don't want you to have access to these options for a number of reasons including but not limited to:

They want to control and ensure a specific user experience
Certain carriers require that certain functions are locked out because they want you to pay for them or because they are incompatible with their network
If you don't know what you are doing you can "brick" (render useless) your phone or at least cause enough problems where you'll be calling tech support demanding to know why your phone doesn't work.

A big one is that you can remove critical system components and require a wipe (reinstall). They don't want this. Too much dissatisfied customers and tech support calls :)

@DmitriyLikhten I doubt that its tech support and neither customers satisfaction, instead its making money on bloat and surveilance.

In short, it means to get administrator access to the phone.  To do things that a normal (non-administrator) user of the phone cannot do.

To gain root (administrator) access to a phone.
'root' is the user with UID 0, which is the equivalent of a full 'System Administration Account'.
It means you have the permission to do anything.
Anything includes opening protected ports (for example for WiFi-tethering), update and upgrade the OS and all software, replace the operating system with your own software, full access to every file on the machine, and the ability to delete any file, including the entire operating system.

" replace the operating system with your own software" is not true. Root is not required to flash new firmware. It may make the process easier though.

This is a bit of an amendment to everything. Essencially Rooting is Jailbreaking. You are a user, you don't have administrator access to your own phone. Rooting is the process of getting access to the "root" user. Once you have root, there are some fun things you can do.

Remove "system" apps like Sprint's Nascar or NFL apps.
Use tools like Open Tethering to do wifi tethering (for free)
Underclock or Overclock your processor (underclocking with SetCPU helps keep battery usage up while not really affecting performance when your phone is in idle/etc.)
Install a custom recovery tool.

Nandroid Backup -- A complete dump of your android's internal memory to the SD card which allows you to do a very clean backup and literally roll your android back to that point when needed. Also allows you to swap operating systems in minutes by having 2 backups, 1 of each.

Recently rooting is getting more efficient and with 1-click rooting coming up, it should be a breeze for most people, just set up and let it run for a half an hr.
The only risk is bricking your phone (screwing up some critical software thus making it impossible to start it up or install a fix).

Other answers are already correct, but just for a bit of nerd reference. In all Unix-based systems, there is a "root" user who has access to any and all functions available by the operating system. This is a very powerful (and dangerous) privilege because once you are root, you can do anything, and much of what you can do can completely destroy the system.
This is why when you administer a server, you usually don't do it as root so that you can take advantage of the operating system saying "umm... you don't want to do THAT!" when you accidentally ask it to wipe clean the entire hard drive at 3am.

This question is one of the most viewed on this site, yet all answers say the same: "getting admin rights, let's you do stuff like xyz and abc". The latter is not really part of a relevant answer, and indeed there is already a question here: what can a rooted phone do?.
Sure rooting equals getting admin rights, but let's add some more details: how admin rights are implemented in Android. Whats happens, on a technical level, when you root a phone? A new program/applet becomes available: su. It sits in the /system/xbin/ folder and allows users to switch to a different user ID --including root (aka admin).
Remember that in android applications normally run under their own user ID. So if 1) su exists and 2) an app uses it to change to root, then the app can do anything the root user could do!
Not all rooting methods produce the same change. For example many methods rely on an additional app called superuser.apk that has a custom version of the su binary. This lets the app act as a permission control manager whenever su is invoked by an app.
In addition to su and superuser (or SuperSu), often busybox gets installed as part of the rooting script. These three files (technically busybox is a set of files) are the most common additions when we talk about rooting a phone.

It is not trivial to just copy a su to the folder yourself, as the /system partition is mounted read only and you need root rights to (re)mount it as writable (and you'd need write permissions if it was).
One 'indirect' way of doing this is using a recovery with extended functionality, it can mount /system as writable and copy files to it. In most cases this means flashing a custom recovery, as many stock recoveries are limited to patching only specific (OEM) files.
A more 'direct' way would be to directly flash a new /system partition (with root files) using some flashing tool. Such tools include:

odin(PC--Samsung only)
fastboot(PC--Generic Android)
flashify(app--Generic Android)

It is relatively easy to copy the /system partition from your phone--or an image file from the web, and flash the root-modified partition back. Lastly you may be able to get a root shell using ADB, if the ROM was compiled to allow it (not common in stock ROMs). Using the root shell it is trivial to remount partitions and copy files anywhere you want--if you know linux commands.
These simple methods work for phones that are unlocked/easy to unlock. When a bootloader is locked the process of rooting can become a convoluted process that may differ between devices, see more specific rooting info here.
This is because any custom modifications to important partitions will break the OEM 'signature' and cause the bootloader to refuse loading (bootloop). Or, in some cases the bootloader will just undo any changes.

"Lastly you may be able to get a root shell using ADB, if the ROM was compiled to allow it (not common in stock ROMs)." -- the whole ROM is not responsible for that, only the kernel is. Make changes into the kernel and you would have insecure adbd running in your machine (adb root, that is).

"any custom modifications to important partitions will break the OEM 'signature' and cause the bootloader to refuse loading (bootloop)." - per Google's instructions here, in case of signature mismatch, the bootloader must issue a warning which isn't alike to  refusing  the user to boot into OS. Why would it cause a bootloop?

@Firelord You are right about boot being the partition that controls the ADB root permission. But I didn't wan't to get too specific. Feel free to suggest edits.

@Firelord Regarding the bootloop: because if all a locked bootloader did was issue a warning (and continue to boot), rooting would be easy. The reason simple partition flashes on locked devices fail is because the bootloader detects a change. Or am I missing something?

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text:
Sometimes Market update gets stuck downloading. How can I cancel?
Sometimes when I update an app through Market the download gets stuck at 0% or 100% and won't finish download or finish installing. The only way I've found to work around this is to uninstall the app, then reinstall from Market. Is there a better way to fix this situation?

On the "downloads" screen, long press the app in question and click "Cancel download."  Then try to update the app again and see if it'll complete this time.

If you have a lot of downloads stalled change the connection type between 2G and 3G/4G within
Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks > Use only 2G networks > Klick the checkbox
or turn Wifi off and on again. Also this keeps your stalled downloads in queue.
Also logging out and back into GoogleTalk has proven a successful solution to this issue sometimes.

Do note that the 2G only network is only available for some phones (GSM only, I believe).  It is not available on my Motorola Droid.

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text:
Why is Samsung Galaxy S (Captivate) USB not supported in my Honda Pilot?
Any thoughts on how to resolve the "USB not supported" error my vehicle (Honda Pilot) displays when I connect the phone (Galaxy S Captivate) via the USB jack?
Thanks in advance!

Are you using the same USB cable that you use any other time?  The reason I ask is because I have a Captivate and due to how the connection is recessed, it is very picky on the cable - the part of the cable right above the micro USB side, and it will report a bad device.  If you are using the same cable, then nevermind.

That USB input in the Honda Pilot only supports certain drivers.  It looks like it has support for standard flash thumb drives and iPod products.  Android comes preloaded with the drivers necessary to communicate with windows so until Honda updates the stereos driver support or someone puts the necessary drivers to interface with the Pilot on your device I believe you will be out of luck.

Thanks for the response... I guess I wrongly assumed that all USB connected devices follow some standard that allows for playing mp3 without additional drivers.

I think that for all intents and purposes it'll operate that way most of the time (when talking about conventional computers) because Android pre-loads driver for most OS's and most OS's probably have the necessary drivers built in to.  Good luck and I hope that Dr.Dredel's suggestion works.

if it has support for standard flash thumb drives, then the mass storage option should work, in theory.  The device behaves like a standard thumb drive in that situation, but of course, Eric is right and at the end of the day, if the driver is wrong then you're going to get bubkis.

I was under the impression that it operated as a standard thumb drive because Android has drivers for all the major os version preloaded.

do you have the USB set to the right setting?
settings->Applications->USB Settings->[Mass Storage or Media Player]
Try all the different settings, it's not obvious which one the car is happy with (if any)
Also under settings -> Applications -> Development try turning on [USB Debugging].

Thanks for the response...i'll give it a try and report back if it works.

After testing...it would appear that drivers are missing as Matt suggested.


text:
Sync setup question: will Android, Outlook 2010, Gmail, calendar and contacts sync?
my previous phone was a windows mobile 6.5 from HTC. so I had it linked to my computer (windows 7 x64 pro) and it used windows mobility center to sync with outlook 2010. everything was fine. I also added Gmail by IMAP in outlook.
but now I have this awesome brand new HTC Desire with Android 2.2 (Froyo) so it asked for my Google account. Now I ended up with contacts in outlook, phone and Gmail. calendar in outlook and Google Calendar and I have HTC sync and Google Cal sync and I don't know what the best setup is. anybody an idea?
I'd like to have the same in my outlook contacts as in my Gmail, Google Cal, phone etc. so I'd like to sync everything with everything and could use some help. because I have contacts in outlook that are not in Gmail and people on my phone which are not in Gmail etc. and since I am an android n00b it's kinda hard to get myself an ultimate sync setup with outlook 2010 and my phone and Gmail stuff
Edit: as pointed out in the answers, I should NOT sync my phone with outlook, but should sync outlook to Gmail. Google has a calendar sync tool, which is great, but does not sync the contacts. No I've found KiGoo but I don't trust them yet. Does anybody recommend a good preferably free and/or open source application for syncing outlook 2010 with Gmail?

Android syncs to Gmail, Contacts, and Calendar nearly effortlessly. It seems like in your case it's Outlook that is the problem child. Do you need to sync contacts with Outlook too? If not, a one-time export/import from Outlook to Gmail should meet your needs.
I would say have Outlook sync with Google and have the phone sync with Google. Syncing the phone to Outlook too will probably duplicate data and/or leave gaps in your data.

I agree.  Your phone will always sync with Google.  Setup Outlook to sync with Google too and leave the phone <-> outlook sync out all together.  Outlook to Google sync has been something people have been working on for years so it seems to me that those solutions are going to be more refined than the newer android/outlook solutions.

Agreed as well. In fact just take Outlook out of the picture all together. It is not providing any necessary functionality here, unless JP has other email accounts in Outlook. In which case just add those email accounts to the Mail app on the phone and stop syncing between Outlook and phone.

@Webs: I have about 10 email-accounts setup in outlook, so i still need outlook for my profession. i need to sync outlook to gmail. contacts and calendar. but google only has a calendar sync. what is the best app to use?

just read about KiGoo but I don't trust them yet. http://www.kayxo.com/ anyone good experience with a good (free/open source) app for syncing the google cal + contacts with outlook 2010?

Syncing Outlook and Gmail isn't a question for the Android Enthusiasts. I suggest either http://webapps.stackexchange.com or http://superuser.com.

@Al E. i thought it was android related since i'd like to have everything in sync. but i have posted the question back to it's origin at http://superuser.com/questions/189287/sync-setup-question-outlook-2010-gmail-calendar-and-contacts

@JP what we are trying to tell you is don't sync Outlook to your phone. Just have Outlook connected to your gmail account, and your phone connected to your gmail account. Then all should be well right? Then for when you need contacts and such you can do the occasion HTC sync and manually push items over.


text:
How to recover a deleted file from /data partition on a rooted phone?
I factory reset my rooted Android M phone but now I realize that there was a file in the /data directory which I need.
Is it possible to create an image (.img or something similar) of the /data partition so that I could run some recovery software for ext4 on that image? I have a little knowledge about ADB.

Duplicate: Recover deleted content from userdata partition?

First to clarify root and data:

Root directory / of Android devices is a read-only pseudo (temporary) filesystem (rootfs) that lives in RAM and is vanished when device is powered off. When device is powered on, it's again extracted from initramfs that lives in boot partition along with kernel.

On newer devices with system-as-root, system partition is mounted at root /.

/data directory is a mountpoint, where largest partition, usually named userdata is mounted. This partition contains all user apps, their data (settings, databases, caches, temporary files etc.), system apps' data and all other configurations we make through Settings. /data/media/0 is the directory that we see as /sdcard or /storage/emulated/0 through emulation.

... there was a file in the /data directory which I need. Is it possible to create an image (.img or something similar) of the root directory ...

If a file is deleted from /data, you need to create a dump of data partition, not that of root directory.
You can do that in multiple ways described below. All require root access.

But first of all, see this answer to make sure your data is recoverable.
In short, recovery is more or less possible only if (1):

Your deleted data hasn't been TRIMmed or discarded.
And you haven't done a factory reset on encrypted /data partition.

What you should do immediately:

Switch off phone to make sure the deleted data isn't overwritten.
Don't install data recovery apps on device, it can do more harm than good.
Mount the filesystem (if required) in recovery mode (or on PC) only with ro,nodiscard options.

FINDING BLOCK DEVICE:
In order to access the userdata partition, you need to find its block device. If you have root access, you can do so from mounted partitions:
~# mount | grep 'on /data'
/dev/block/mmcblk0p... on /data type f2fs (rw,nosuid,nodev,...)

On Qualcomm devices, it's located at /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata (symlink). For MediaTek (MTK) and other SoCs, the path is slightly different. You can find all block devices or by-name directory using find command:
~# find /dev -type b
~# find /dev -type d -name 'by-name'

Or by hit and trial:
~# ls -d /dev/*/by-name
~# ls -d /dev/*/*/by-name
~# ls -d /dev/*/*/*/by-name

Note:

If your /data partition has Full Disk Encryption (FDE) you need to decrypt it before exposing to UMS because decrypting Android's FDE on PC is near to impossible in most cases due to hardware-backed encryption. See some relevant explanation in my answer to Cross-platform compatible encryption of SD-card for Android. dm-crypt decrypts the block device to /dev/block/dm-[N]. Use this instead of userdata.
To prevent any data loss, it's recommended to create a dump when the partition is not mounted i.e. in recovery mode.

CREATING PARTITION DUMP:
DISK DUMP (dd)
Once the block device is known, you can use the dd command from:

ADB shell (OS or custom recovery)
A terminal emulator app like Termux

Since the userdata partition is the largest partition (all other partitions are hardly using 5GB out of total storage), you can't dump it to your internal memory. An external SD card with larger capacity is needed.
To create the dump:
~# dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata of=/path/to/ext_sdcard/data.img

ADB
If you don't want to use an external SD card, you can also dump the partition directly to PC. First you need a working adb setup, running as root. Then it can be used in multiple ways:
~$ adb exec-out dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata > data.img

* Make sure your adb binary (on Windows or Linux) supports exec-out.
But you may end up with corrupted data when writing a whole large-sized partition to STDOUT of terminal because there are issues with line break types (CR and LF). Also STDOUT or STDERR from the programs involved could possibly be added to the file if not directed to /dev/null. Even a single wrong byte may render filesystems un-mountable. See this question for reference.
To avoid unwanted characters, use stty raw and/or dos2unix:
~$ adb shell 'stty raw && dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata' > data.img

But the most straightforward way is:
~$ adb pull /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata data.img

See this answer for more details.
STREAM OVER TCP
To avoid the terminal-related complications described above or if for some reason adbd cannot be run as root, it's also possible to create a minimal TCP server for data transfer. Forward the port from phone to PC and run a netcat TCP server in listening mode:
~$ adb reverse tcp:1024 tcp:1024
~$ nc -v -l -p 1024 </dev/null | pv -ab >data.img

On phone:
~# cat /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata | busybox nc 127.0.0.1 1024

USB TETHERING (RNDIS)
To avoid using ADB at all, USB tethering can be used to provide network connectivity:
~# cd /sys/class/android_usb/android0
~# echo -n 0 >enable
~# echo -n rndis,adb >functions
~# echo -n 1 >enable

* You may also change other files like {iSerial,iProduct,iManufacturer} and f_rndis/{ethaddr,manufacturer,wceis,rndis_transports,max_pkt_per_xfer} in the above directory if required.
* On new devices you might need to use /config interfaces instead of /sys. Some relevant hints here.
Add IP address:
~# busybox ip rule add lookup main
~# busybox ip address add 192.168.1.1/30 dev rndis0
~# busybox ip link set rndis0 up

On PC add IP manually (there's no DHCP server):
~$ sudo ip address add 192.168.1.2/30 dev usb0
~$ nc -v -l -p 1024 </dev/null | pv -ab >data.img

On phone:
~# busybox nc 192.168.1.2 1024 </dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata

In the same way it's also possible to use rclone rcat to transfer the dump over WebDAV or FTP or SFTP. See How to stream an encrypted backup of the entire device to remote host?
USB MASS STORAGE (UMS)
This method is useful if you don't want to create a dump of the partition, but instead access partition directly on PC. See my answer to Why can't I see Android storage as a partition on PC? for methods on how to enable UMS thorough /sys or /config interfaces.
Once done, userdata will appear as a partition on Linux PC just as we connect a USB drive. If /dev/sda is the hard disk drive, usually /dev/sdb will be the userdata partition. You can find that by using blkid command:
~# blkid | grep userdata
/dev/sdb: PARTLABEL="userdata" PARTUUID="..."

You can run recovery programs directly on the block device or mount the filesystem (if needed) or may also create a dump.
HOW TO RECOVER DATA?
There are basically two ways to recover deleted data as mentioned in this answer: carving method and through the filesystem.
Recovery tools mostly don't need mounting filesystems but if it's required, it needs to be done on Linux PC because Windows doesn't support ext4 or f2fs natively, hence the tools aren't easily available AFAIK.
If anyone has been able to successfully make block/journal level access to Linux/Android filesystem for data recovery on Windows through Ext3Fsd or any other driver, let me know so that I can update the answer.
On Linux you can use tools like extundelete to recover data using filesystem journal:
~# extundelete --restore-all data.img

Or to recover data directly with UMS:
~# extundelete --restore-all /dev/sdb

Since you have done a factory reset which erases the filesystem, consider carving method using tools like TestDisk or scalpel:
~# testdisk data.img

In the same way you can use any other data recovery tools. See the ArchWiki on File Recovery for more details.

RELATED:

How to get data off a completely dead Android phone?
How to take full image backup of eMMC?
Why can't I see Android storage as a partition on PC?
Is there any way to recover data from 2nd SD partition?
How disk space is used on Android device?

you just forgot to tell mount the fstype. use mount with -t ext4 -o loop,ro,noexec,noload and instead of adb exec-out you could just use adb pull /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata or adb pull /dev/block/dm-0 https://digital-forensics.sans.org/blog/2011/06/14/digital-forensics-mounting-dirty-ext4-filesystems

@alecxs mentioning fstype isn't necessary; mount binary can guess a number of commonly used filesystems. No -t is actually -t auto. adb pull is worth-mentioning. Thanks for pointing out.

mount can not detect fstype for loop mounts, especially for dirty mounts (see link)

@alecxs you must be right, though the link you mentioned is a bit outdated. But I never came across such situation that mount couldn't guess filesystem type including ext4, f2fs, ntfs and exfat, either from loop file or block device. busybox mount as well as toybox mount can detect filesystem type.

Both also should handle losetup of loopback files automatically (see this and this). Same is true for full mount binary from util-linux. So if filesystem isn't corrupted and mount binary isn't buggy, I don't think -t is necessary.

tested without -t and works! However, in my forensic scripts i often got "invalid argument" when just -t was missing, and i made some tests and figured out this happens for loop mounts. on the other hand i did know loop is not necessary for busybox, but necessary for mount binary. Things may have changed meanwhile, or it's a special thing of my old debian

@alecxs you are right. Linux mount binary has issues mounting loop file b/c of difference in /dev/loop* and /dev/block/loop*. busybox mount does mknod before LOOP_SET_STATUS if loop device doesn't exist. Linux mount always expects (64) loop devices to exist.

is extundelete compatible with f2fs?

@alecxs no. EXT-undelete reads deleted or corrupted data information from the journal of Linux's EXT[N] filesystems. F2FS is not a journaling but log-structured filesystem i.e. roughly saying the whole filesystem is a journal. So the tools developed for one filesystem won't recognize the other at all except the common ioctl's etc.

jumping in the party. So to recover data from /data - dd backup to img file. Mount img fle and use ext4magic or testdisk or similar . Chances of recovery I'd say are scant from microsd card even though that was ext4 similar system like f2fs . Another Q ..if there is a process on Android 12.3x that's deleting /data/sdext2/app/a1  in /data/app/a1 --> /data/sdext2/app/a1 even though chowns are perfect. What is the cause. Why that happens in 12.3x

Based on this question I did use the method described above:
~$ adb exec-out dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata > data.img

But there is an issue, the image will be encrypted if the data is not decrypted first. File and folder names will be gibberish.
The only way I got decrypted data was via TWRP, because it asks for decryption password on start.
And then I was able to copy the data via mtp.
I know this may not seem on topic on how to recover files, but this question is getting a lot of traffic and the proposed solution has a drawback and I'm not allowed to comment right now.
Edit: The original answer does how a way to access the decrypted information that I had not seen.

From my answer: “If your /data partition has Full Disk Encryption (FDE) you need to decrypt it...”. The same is applicable to File Based Encryption (FBE). // Also MTP is of no use when it comes to data recovery. Raw access is required to the filesystem or the underlying media.

You're right, I've updated my answer to reflect that part of your answer.

copying files in TWRP is unrelated to data recovery - "dm-crypt decrypts the block device to /dev/block/dm-0. Use this instead of userdata" ... for recovery attempts with extundelete (from @IrfanLatif answer)

Actually data recovery with FBE is far more complex than with FDE. With FDE, after decryption, you've the whole filesystem structure intact until it's not TRIMed or BLKDISCARDed. But with FBE the encryption key is also deleted with the deleted file. So along with the actual data, you also have to recover the key or recalculate it, which may or may not work. But to make it work, you surely need a dump of the whole userdata partition. After decrypting FBE in TWRP, you have access to only the intact files, not the deleted files and their deleted keys. So I'd say this answer is invalid.

Where exactly in DATA ?
Is it in the emulated SD Card ?
If it's in the emulated SD Card, you could remove your external SD Card and mount the device under USB Mass Storage mode... You can the use free recovery software like Recuva ccleaner.com/recuva
However if your file is not in the emulated SD Card, you'd need to backup the Data partition as you mentioned.
To do that, you can either use the device itself to run a DD or CAT command to write the data to a .img file on your SD Card..
On Device
Using Terminal Emulator

locate your -by-name partition directory
getprop ro.frp.pst

( This will get the /dev/block/platform/DEVICE/by-name directory for frp - change the name to data )
You can just use /data otherwise.
dd if=/data of=/sdcard/data.img

If = Input file  - Of = Output file
You could also use ADB
Via Computer

Install ADB ( not the entire SDK but just ADB )

Using command prompts or power shell
adb shell dd if=/data of=/sdcard/data.img

You may need to locate your correct directory.
Then you can Mount the .img on a PC and do the recovery.. I'm not sure how to mount the .img file if the partition is ext4 so that's as far as this answer goes.
You can alternatively use an App called Disk Digger ..
It has the capability to scan the data partition live, ..
Root Access is needed

if=/data won't work, it's just a mountpoint, not the block device. dd dumps files, not directories. Secondly, USB Mass Storage can also be used to mount or dump complete data partition from custom recovery directly to PC.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you are using a Custom Recovery... That's extremely simple, just back it up ! .... I know if=/data won't work, that's why I said find the by-name directory.

I have a perception that nandroid backups (usually created by tarring) contain only files/directories, not the inode level details of block devices that's required to undelete something.

No don't use TAR, use DD or Cat to create the image.

you misunderstand the naming, dd does not work on directories only on files, by-name is a symlink to a file not a directory. on linux everything is a file. if= stands for input file

Ah yes... 'cat' is correct and ( by-name ) gives you a file representation of the .img ... A file.

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


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HDR option grayed out on Samsung A50 camera

I can not turn on HDR. It is grayed out. I tried all modes front and rear camera and it is always Grayed out and I cant turn It on. I am using a Samsung Galaxy A50 that I recently bought and Samsung live chat support was not helpful. I am on the latest software.

According to a forum entry HDR only works with an aspect ratio other than 3:4 and a resolution below 25MP.

As @Robert said in the above comment, I have switched from 3:4H (25 megapixels) to 3:4. And HDR now works.

I had the same problem when I was in the photo mode of the camera. After I switched to video mode and then went to the setting, then I could toggle the auto HDR.


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How can I improve the noise cancellation on my Nexus One?
Despite the highly praised Nexus One built-in noise cancellation, I need to use speech recognition in an extremely noisy environment with better noise isolation/cancellation.  Is there a so called "speech recognition microphone" that would help?  I'm not aware of the complexity or performance of the noise isolation algorithm used by the N1, is it as good as I'm going to get?

Questions asking for opinions are generally not a good fit for this site. You've already chosen a solution to your problem; you're just asking for validation. Please read the [FAQ].

I've rewritten to be more of a "How can I solve this problem?"

If you are working in a high noise environment, a traditional mic isn't going to help you.  Even with a noise cancelling secondary mic it will be very difficult for the equipment to pick your voice out of the noise and isolate it.  You might look into a throat mic instead, which grabs your voice by direct contact with you rather than conduction through the air.  These are especially suited for noisy environments.

Throat mic is probably the best bet, I'd agree. The N1's noise cancellation doesn't work well in environment with particularly high wind noise or droning machinery, I've found.

@JadeMason +1 already for introducing the existence of a "throat mic" to me. I will definitely check that out but the fundamental question remains: Will it work in tandem with Nexus One's built-in noise cancellation existing hardware+software implementation? have you tried it? Does it work? Does it work better? Thanks.

The way noise cancellation works is that one mic is picking up the ambient noise while the other mic picks up identical ambient noise as well as your voice.  The processor then inverts the phase of the ambient only feed and combines that with the ambient + voice feed to cancel out the ambient noise.  This process relies on two very similar microphones picking up sound in a very similar way.  The throat mic will be picking up sound in a very different way from the ambient mic on your Nexus One, so the phone's feature is likely unnecessary and  useless with a throat mic.


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How to set MP3 ringtone in Android (Nexus S)
I am using Music (latest up to today) and TTPOD as my MP3 players.
After Googling, I suppose I can set my MP3 ring tone, by long press on the song through Music application. However, once I long press, there are only the following selections

Play
Add to playlist
Delete
Shop for artist
More by artist
Search

I was expecting I am able to get a selection choice Set as ringtone, but I didn't find one.
May I know what is the "correct" way to set MP3 as ringtone in Android?

possible duplicate of How do I set a custom MP3 as a ringtone for other notifications?

Are you doing the long press on the music in the built-in Music app, or in your 3rd party Music app? In the built-in one you should definitely get a "Set As" option when you long-press on an individual tune.

I am using built-in Music app. They have a new version right now. I get the above options, but not "Set As".

v3+ of the Music app just doesn't have a Set As menu option. You could try uninstalling the updates and using an older version if you want.

This isn't the "correct" way, but IMO it's a good way: use Ringdroid. With it, you can cut a suitable part of the MP3 to be used as a ringtone. This way you can get rid of those pesky intros on songs that have a slow start and save space by not having the entire MP3 duplicate in your ringtones folder.

It wants to read my contacts. That's too much for only  setting a MP3 from Google Music as ringtone. Is there a better solution after more than 1 year?

There's another similar app called Ringtone Maker, but it also requires read/write permissions to contacts because it allows you to set contact-specific ringtones.

In last versions of Android (at least in Nexus S) it's kinda hard to set MP3 as a ringtone. There was an option before in the menus called "Set As" but in the new Music app it disappeared.
What you can do is copy your mp3 to /sdcard/media/audio/ringtones,
that ringtones folder might be empty or even not exist, in this case just create it.
Then you go to Settings -> Sound -> Phone ringtone and select your mp3 from the list.
Good Luck!

I use Ringtone Maker, which is a free app.  This app allows you to select a part of your song as the ringtone.  It has some preselected portions (based on popular edits included in the database), or you can select your own portion of the song to set as the ringtone.
If you simply want the beginning of the song as your ringtone, @bakytn's answer is the way to go.
Some other music apps will give you the option to choose a song as a ringtone, such as the $5 PowerAmp, but I'm not sure what they offer in terms of choosing a portion of the song.

Download MP3 music download app. Select song tab, and press the selected song. You will get option set as ....

Can you provide a link?


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Google Talk on Samsung Galaxy S II
I bought a Samsung Galaxy S II, and it comes with the IM application for instant messaging, but the only messengers available are Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, and I couldn't find any Google Talk application on the market.
How can use Google Talk?

The US-carriers versions of the GS2 come with Google Talk, it is named "Talk". I am not sure about the European version.

I've got the brazilian version. After a few months, the IM app got an update that allowed it to communicate with GTalk users.

Flow's absolutely right, but if you want to try another messenger that supports GTalk you could try Meebo, eBuddy, or Trillian.  There are others, of course, but those are the ones I've tried that work well.

There is no Google Talk app within the Market. Google Talk is more or less wired to the Android release. It's usually an icon in the app drawer simply named "Talk".
Your phone seems pretty locked down by the carrier (or somebody else). If it really came without Google Talk, which would be pretty uncommon, your only chance is to install the Google Talk apk manually.


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Android phone not recognized when connected to Ubuntu, by 'adb devices'
Upgraded my HTC Slide to Froyo. Connecting Ubuntu 10.10 via USB.
As per instructions here, http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html
    $ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
    SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0BB4", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
    $ ls -l /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 72 2011-10-23 20:57 /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
    $ adb devices
    List of devices attached
    ????????????    no permissions

Check you have usb debugging enabled and plug out and in again

Had this very issue earlier tonight myself.
The 51-android.rules needs to be world read-execute, and it's probably best to run service udev restart (or reboot) after changing this, then re-plug your device.
If it still doesn't work, double-check the vendor ID you've supplied; with your Android device connected, run lsusb. HTC also use the vendor ID 18d1 on newer devices.

Or /etc/init.d/udev restart

My HTC device is at least an year old. Yet, I had to use 18d1. The android website says 0bb4. Dont know why 0bb4 doesnt work any more. http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html Thanks for the answer.

I had this issue myself when rooting my kindle fire and I did:
$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1949", MODE="0666"

Then in my ~/.android/adb_usb.ini file I added
0x1949

Where 1949 is the vendor id for the kindle I believe.
And after restarting the box, adb devices shows my kindle.
Or instead of restarting udevadm control --reload-rules and adb kill-server && adb start-server should be sufficient.

If you only need to work with devices on a very infrequent basis, you can restart the adb server daemon as root.
./adb kill-server
sudo ./adb devices
Please note that it's not a good idea to make the daemon run as root - any security issues in the daemon will now have root access and ANY user on your system who can run adb (not just your user account) can access the devices - as you're basically ignoring all permission settings in 51-android.rules.
As of note, you do not need to be root to shut down the server - just use ./adb kill-server again.


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Alarm/Cal Event repeating every alternate day and that which does not sync with google
I need to create an alarm or calender event that repeats every alternate day at same time. I can not associate it with day of week, or date. I am using HTC Desire S.
I also need create entries in HTC Desire S calendar that which does not sync with Google calendars.

I am able to add such an event to Google Calendar and sync. But I don't want to have this on Google Calendar as it syncs with my Outlook.

Are you able to create a second calendar in your Google Calendar that doesn't sync to Outlook and adding it to that?

@GAThrawn, The Google Calendar Sync, syncs all the calendars to Outlook. I don't have an option to choose specific calendar.

When you say "alternate days of the week" is it always Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or is it literally alternate days and could be Mon, Weds, Fri, Sun one week, and then Tues, Thurs, Sat the next week?

@GAThrawn, I was saying literal alternate days (not alternate week days).

The application Touch Calendar Free  create entries in phone-only calendar called 'PC Sync'. It also has repeat option as 'repeat every x day' where I have set as x=2. These entries are visible in HTC Calendar too.

Create an event in Google Calendar with the repeat/reminder frequency that you want.
To avoid synchronizing the event with external calendars, put the event on a phone-private calendar: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=168512&topic=21414#1077952

Somehow I don't have 'eye' icon on my mobile.

Can you create a separate calendar and just not sync that to Outlook?  See http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=7c043560b80212cc&hl=en.  Can you edit your question to include the not-sync'ing in the title and body, too?

I created an entry in HTC Calendar app with PC Sync as the selected Calendar. It doesn't sync with Google, which solves one of my need. But, as already said, HTC Calendar can not create entries repeating alternate days. Here is where I miss Nokia Symbian. Any idea if new versions of Android (2.3.5) or HTC Sense 3.0 have it?

@TheMaskOfZero I don't know if new versions are better.  You might look at alternative Calendar apps in the market?  I believe the limitations you're hitting are in the app, and not platform limitations.

Finally I got the solution. The app in the market called 'Touch Calendar Free' was able to create entries in phone-only calendar called 'PC Sync'. It also has repeat option as 'repeat every x day' where I have set as x=2. These entries are visible in HTC Calendar too.

In the Clock app, you could create two alarms. One that's set to go off on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday; and the other to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Then you just need to alternate which one is off and which is on each week.
Not a perfect solution, but it will work with the built-in tools. (Otherwise you're going to need to get someone to write you a custom solution.)


text:
How can I copy pictures to the Gallery?
I have some pictures in a directory on my phone. How can I make them appear inside the picture Gallery?

It should automatically pick them up. Is it not?

@Al: no it isn't. should I expect it to happen immediately?

@Nathan Have you rebooted? Android normally scans for new media on startup.

Indeed it should be automatic. Which phone do you have?

@Dr: Samsung Galaxy S

You can also 'encourage' the phone to rescan the SD card by unmounting and remounting it, or using a little app from the Market called 'SDRescan' (which essentially does the same thing).

@Matt: why don't you put that as an answer to the question then? :-)

@Nathan: Your wish, my command, etc etc :-)

You can 'encourage' the phone to rescan the SD card by unmounting and remounting it (Settings > SD & Phone Storage), or by using a little app from the Market called 'SDrescan' (which essentially does the same thing).

Did you put these files in the directory, or did one of your apps?
If an app did it, it might have dropped a ".nomedia" file in there too. The presence of this file keeps android from adding the pictures  the gallery.
Use a file explorer like Astro to double check for the .nomedia file. You can safely manually delete it.

Dropbox put them in. I changed the settings of the file explorer to show me hidden files, and there was no .nomedia file there.

Today I had the same question. I copied a directory full of pictures from an SD card to the Android's phone internal storage, using a downloaded File Manager app, then removed the SD card. In the gallery, the pictures were not found, even after reboot. But after a minute or five, the pictures started to appear in the Gallery.
My conclusion is that Gallery will scan most if not all directories that are likely to hold pictures, but that it may take a while.


text:
App <X> isn't working correctly. How can I fix it?
I have an application that isn't working correctly. Either it's not launching, or not responding to commands, or some of the functionality isn't doing what I expect.
What are some simple steps I can do to try to fix the issue on my own?
(This question and answer are intended to be a canonical and generic source for dealing with apps that aren't working quite right.)

The steps to take with an app that just isn't working properly are:

Rotate the device

if that doesn't help
From Settings | Applications | Manage applications | <application> or Settings | Apps | <application> (depends on your version of Android)

Force stop

if that doesn't help

Clear cache

if that doesn't help

Restart the device (turn off/turn on the device, or use the "restart" option if you have it)

if that doesn't help

Clear data

and if that still doesn't help, try the nuclear option:

uninstall and re-install

Final step: Report a bug and wait for the next version.

If you have multiple devices, install the application on other device and verify if same issue exist. Contact the developer instead if the problem persists.

I would highly recommend switching "Clear data" with "Restart the device"! Restarting device helps in many situation and issues an isn't an intrusive way of resolving problems. Clearing app's data certainly is an intrusive way, because many applications may not work correctly after that or you may loose a a lot of settings, data etc. (i.e. entire achievements and the whole gameplay usually goes hell, if you try "Clear data" on any kind of game).

@trejder: That seems reasonable. A restart is certainly not destructive, just time consuming.


text:
Showing deciseconds in the homescreen
I am interested in a clock app that in addition to seconds also shows deciseconds.
I searched and could not find one yet. Is there any widget for Android that shows deciseconds (like this: 11:51:32.1)?

I'm unsure if that level of accuracy is even available in Android.

A timer or stopwatch type of apps may provide this feature, but I doubt any "regular" clock apps would.  Why do you need such level of clock accuracy?  Is there a problem you are trying to solve?

I'm not sure why there are votes to close here. This is a valid question for this site.

Agreed with @AlEverett.  I thought that maybe close votes were for "app shopping" reason, but they are all for "too localized".

Is there a specific reason why you reverted the previous edits to your question? You have re-introduced several grammar and spelling errors for no immediately obvious reason.

@Chahk Viewing deciseconds beside seconds shows how fast time is passing and may motivate me to wordk faster!!!

Well, now you've made the question about finding an app again, rather than about a problem to be solved. "I need an app that does X" questions don't do well here. Please read our [FAQ].

It's not possible to create a widget that updates that often, because it will suck your battery really quickly. There are many stopwatch apps available in the Play Store. Many of them have millisecond or decisecond accuracy, but I'm not aware of any that have an associated widget.
These kind of high precision timers should only be needed on a case-to-case basis, so it's not worth it for them to be on the homescreen.


text:
Samsung Galaxy Ace locks automatically when clock application is selected
Got my Samsung Galaxy Ace a few days ago. Been working properly till yesterday when something strange started happening. Whenever I select the Clock application, the application starts, I see my clock for a brief moment (like a second) and then the phone locks. When I unlock it, it returns to Clock app and then immediately locks again! This keeps happening, not even giving me time to return to the home screen.
If I reboot the phone then it returns to the home screen and it works properly till I select the Clock application again. Then the same story happens and repeats.
So basically once I select the Clock application, the phone will lock. My phone OS is Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Can't figure why this happens. Any help would be appreciated.

Have you installed an app recently? The general consensus in troubleshooting is to check if you installed an app/widget from google play first, if not,   then the second question is, did you play with something that caused it without knowing/understanding about it?

sounds like it's crashing on start, does it go black screen and shows you an error dialog ?

Have you tried deleting data of the clock app? Enter settings then go to Applications then Manage Applications. From there you have to select the All tab and then find the clock app. There should be a Clear Data button. Just bear in mind that all your data and possibly alarms will be included.

I had the same problem, and solved it by simply re-setting the "Screen timeout" option in display settings. It seems some app messed it up.


text:
Cannot connect HTC One X to PC
I'm having trouble connecting my HTC One X to my PC. Every time I plug it into a USB port it starts charging and my PC shows "Could not recognize USB device". I'm running Win7 x64. I installed HTC Sync manager and switched the connection option to 'HTC Sync' (also tried 'Drive Storage') and tried enabling USB debugging in developer options as well.
I also tried to connect to my notebook (also Win7 x64) and I got same error.

The issue was evidently resolved by using a different USB cord.


text:
Sony Ericsson WT19i doesn't detect my wifi network
When I bought the phone and tried to connect to my wifi network it worked fine, but after 2 days, I don't know why, it just doesn't detect my wifi network.
When I go into Settings->Wireless & network Settings-> Wi-fi settings my network doesn't show up there. Lots of other networks appear there but not mine.
I tried configuring manually with SSID WPA/WPA2 PSK and it says not in range. After this I tried rooting phone but still no luck.
I have a Galaxy SII and 2 other computers working correctly with my network. What's causing the WT19i to be unable to find it?

Check this forum out, since you're rooted now:
SGS2 I9100G keeps disconnecting from WIFI after installing firmware XXLPQ
Try installing a new kernel (usually found on XDA).


text:
Is there a way to index and search all data on my phone?
After taking a look at my options, I settled for Android-Sync to sync the Nexus with Outlook.
One of the issues I have, though, is that Android-Sync in its Notes and Tasks applications doesn't support...

autocompletion
last modified date

...which means it's a pain to locate items and it forces users to scroll down the whole list and try to find the item they're looking for.
Is there a way to index and search any data on the phone, even apps that don't ship with the Nexus by default?

App recommendations are off-topic per FAQ.

@Flow: Looks like the question has been edited to ask for a solution rather than an app.

Is there a missing link between the introduction and the actual question?

@Flow - I am interested in the reasoning behind no app recommendations, if you can elaborate? Isn't this just asking for a solution, where - like most other questions - there could be more than one?

The close reason is "too localized" not because it's a off-topic app recommendation (which it is not as it stands now after the question got edited).


text:
Why won't my SGS2 allow me to perform device encryption?
I upgraded my Samsung Galaxy SII with the new 4.0 OS. The option to encrypt my device is enabled, but whenever I try to encrypt it asks me to plug the device in to have at 80% battery charge. I tried that, and waited until it was 100% charged, but it still didn't allow me to encrypt it. I changed the password to a stronger one, restarted the device, and tried again but that didn't seem to help. I was thinking of performing a factory reset, but I'd like to avoid doing that if possible. Does anyone know how I can get the encryption to work?

This is all I can find on it... if it's charged it shouldn't be dim http://support.google.com/ics/nexus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663755

When it got to 100% charge did you take it out then try to encrypt it or leave it charging? If you took it out then might be worth trying it plugged in.

Hi it worked using the plugg on it, I´ve tried with usb plug didnpt work, then I swap to the other phone charger and it did work... The only bad thing I see is that once it is encrypted I lost the option of face lock and or other lock options.... but I ll work out. Thanks a lot


text:
How do I send SMS from PC through Android Phone or to Android Phone?
I'm looking for an app that will let me type text messages on my PC and send the SMSs directly from the PC through my phone, or save the messages to the phone for later use.
I'm basically looking at something like Nokia PC Suite's equivalent.
EDIT:
Google Voice is only for US, doesn't work in India at least, and also defeats the purpose (it will go through the internet, why, when it's possible through the usb cable/modem/wifi).
DesktopSMS is a good program, but kept crashing, for some reason.
PDANet worked for me.
But I liked the tiny EasySMS. It's weird, and I had to change the bluecove library jar file for Windows 7 x64, but it's compact (a concern for me).

Yes, I also tooked EasySMS, since it does not require a client to be installed and hence also works under Linux.. But for long sms you also have to buy the full version..

I too finally settled on EasySMS.

If you have Google Voice, you could send SMS that way. If not, you could try out DesktopSMS, an app that runs on the phone and a client app on your computer. That app is available on the Market, and then you can download the PC client from that site.

Thanks for your reply, I've updated the question with the programs I tried out.

DesktopSMS can only send sms in free version, for receiving you have to pay.

PDANet (a tethering program) will let you send and receive SMS via a little desktop client when you are connected to your phone via USB or bluetooth
Update as of May 2015: PDAnet apparently no longer offers its sms agent in its latest version.

Thanks for your reply, I've updated the question with the programs I tried out.

Only for MAC and Windows :(

Can anyone confirm that it still work as in 2014 and on KitKat/Lollipop?

MAXS (Modular Android XMPP Suite) allows you to send SMS messages over XMPP. It also allows you to control various aspects of Android, includes a SMS/Call/Battery notification and reply system. Additionaly it is able to send and receive files to and from your Android device. There are many other features too.
Using XMPP as transport, the "desktop app" can be every XMPP Client. Which is one of the big advantages of MAXS, as it does not need a dedicated desktop app. Although there may be one in the future.
Note: According to the FAQ I have to disclose that I am involved into MAXS. MAXS is an open source GPLv3 licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.

MAXS is, to the extent of my knowledge, the only Android app to provide a fully decentralized SMS & contacts gateway. It is also open-source and very lightweight. It might be a bit rough to set up initially as the UI is quite bare, but otherwise an excellent (and maintained!) piece of software.

I'm looking for open-source solutions, so this is a good option (+1). However, there is no end-to-end encryption, so security is only as good as the XMPP server you select. In fact, the developers recommend using your own XMPP server, which would further increase setup time.

has there been updated this year? F-droid shows updates but links from the site are mostly showing 404 for me.

MightyText is a Google Chrome extension/Android app that will let you compose, send, and receive text messages in Google Chrome by connecting to your phone.  So it just forwards received messages from your phone to Chrome, and sent messages from Chrome to your phone.

Re-posting from: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1784/send-sms-from-pc-through-android-phone-or-to-android-phone

It looks like this has been renamed to MightyText.

MyphoneExplorer is a desktop application which will help you send sms right from your desktop [requires phone to be connected either by usb wire/Bluetooth/wifi]. It is very easy to use and also numerous other features [for other features check website]. To get started you will need to download the desktop app from the website and also the android app which is available in the market for free.

Great app - also allows you to archive your text messages on your PC so you don't have to scroll through 500 messages on your phone if you're someone who doesn't like to delete stuff :)

Yes the features it offers is pretty good.

If you're looking for a solution that uses your normal SMS plan and not your data plan, then try MightyText.
They have a webapp where you can type and manage your messages, but the messages are sent actually from your phone.

It will also use the data plan, because it uses the internet to talk with the central server. (Just a few kb, though)

Edit 2014/07: I've switched to MAXS. See the answer here
Original Answer
GTalkSMS is a alternative for android-notifier which works over XMPP (gtalk). It allows you to control various aspects of Android, includes a SMS/Call/Battery notification system and is able to send and receive SMS from your Android phone.
By using XMPP as transport, the "Desktop App" can be every XMPP Client. Which is one of GTalkSMS big advantages, as it does not need an dedicated desktop App.
Note: According to the FAQ I have to disclose that I am involved into GtalkSMS. GTalkSMS is an open source GPL licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.

Go SMS Pro now offers that as a feature. When you go into the app, you can make an account on goChat and enable Web Go SMS in the apps tab. Once you have done that, you can log into your gochat account on http://webchat.goforandroid.com, and txt from there. It will send the message through your phone to the person whom you are trying to send the message to. This way, there will still be a record of the conversation on your phone, so you don't look back one day and wonder "what in the world was I talking about?... And why was this person txting me so much if I wasn't txting back?..."
The two things I like about this are that it doesn't require me to plug my phone into my computer, it does it wireless through the internet, and, Since you send the txt messages through a website instead of a program, there is nothing you have to install on your computer, and it makes no difference what operating system you use. In addition, this allows you to txt from any computer, not just the ones you install any given software on.

If you want to do something REAL easy WITHOUT any applications, use the Email-To-SMS Gateway. Service providers basically set up special gateways where if you send an email to them, it forwards the message in the form of an SMS to the user's phone.
Here is the format:
To: [10 digit phone number]@[gateway email]
From: example@example.com
Body: Blah.
The "Blah" will be sent as an SMS to the 10 digit number.
Each Service provider has a different gateway. Here is the link that has a pretty comprehensive list:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130225084136/http://www.mutube.com:80/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list

Interesting alternative, but it requires that you know what carrier your recipient is using.

I use Mobile Cloud to send sms. cl4.mobi It's very easy to use and phonebook must be added soon. Developers promised to allow users to see contacts from your phone on their site and use them. so you won't have to enter phone numbers to send sms.

How about a link? And what do you mean by "phonebook must be added soon"?

cl4.mobi Developers promised to allow users to see contacts from your phone on their site and use them. so you won't have to enter phone numbers to send sms.

Please update your answer with this information.


text:
How do I restart the 2.2 update for HTC Desire?
I just got the notification for the 2.2 update for my HTC Desire (on O2 in the UK).  I downloaded and let the update install.  After a couple of reboots it told me it couldn't install as I needed to clean up some memory, which I've now done.
How do I restart the update install?  I've tried restarting the phone and going to the phone settings and checking for updates, but it doesn't find any updates and it's still reporting 2.1 installed.

Update:
Turns out the update file was on my SD card, but renaming it to update.zip and following Al. E's steps didn't work - I get a file not signed errors ("failed to verify whole-file signature" and "signature verification failed".
I've also since done a hard reset too, and now have open call with HTC second line support. Will update you when they get back to me.
Apparently setting the date to the future would cause the OTA to be detected again, but my date won't stay set to the future (yes, I have turned off network date updates!). I'm now researching how to use a file manager to update from the 2.2 zip file.
Watch this space...

Update 2: Okay, I finally cracked it!  First, I downloaded the UK O2 update from HTC's site, then followed Al E's method below to install the update.  Job done!!
The URL for the download was http://liveimage.htc.com/.  I knew the name of the update file as it was in my sd\download folder.

Thanks for the update. I'm interested in the ultimate solution.

No worries :) - I'll get back when I know more...

Settings | About phone | System updates
It should let you know that there's an update available.
If you still have the update.zip file on your SD card, these instructions should do it: http://geekword.net/manually-install-froyo-htc-desire

Step 1: Download the Android 2.2
  firmware for the Desire from here.
Step 2: Rename the file update.zip and
  copy it to your microSD card via USB.
  [Note: make sure the file is named
  update.zip and not update.zip.zip.]
Step 3: Power down your Desire.
Step 4: Hold down the “Volume Down” button
  as you power the phone back on.
Step 5: A screen should appear showing your
  phone’s system searching for various
  files. Scroll down to “recovery” and
  press the “Power” button.
Step 6: When you see the triangle with an
  exclamation point symbol, press the
  “Power” and “Volume Up” buttons at the
  same time.
Step 7: From the menu that appears, select “Apply
  sdcard:update.zip.”
Step 8: When the screen displays “Install from sdcard
  complete” select “reboot system now”
  and wait for the phone to power back
  up.

@Al E - nope, tried that and it says I'm up to date!

Pop the battery out?

Nope - still won't find the update online. As I downloaded it before, can run it from the phone somehow?

Perhaps. If you still have the update.zip file on your SD card, these instructions should do it: http://www.geekword.net/manually-install-froyo-htc-desire/

Al, that's a great help as I now know the name of the update file. However, unfortunately there's no update* file on my phone :(  Guess I'll have to wait until the update gets picked up again then?!?!

I edited my answer with the full instructions. You can get the update.zip file by following Step 1. (FWIW, I manually updated my Motorola Droid to the initial Froyo release using similar instructions, and it worked fine.)

As a last resort, you could always do a factory reset.

Did it work? Don't leave us hanging...

Hi Al, no file at the link you posted, just: "This file is either removed due to copyright claim or is deleted by the uploader".

Since the OTA update is available there's probably less of a drive to have the manual update file available, but it's probably still out there somewhere. I think you should consider a factory reset.


text:
Can I get Skype on my HTC Wildfire in 3?
I recently got HTC Wildfire from 3. On the webpage & in shop they told me that I will be able to do Skype talks. After doing some research I found out that:

HTC Wildfire is not officilly supported
Some claims that installing the Skype from apk just works

Hence I have following questions:

Is it legal to install Skype in such way (according to UK or English law)? On one hand it is advertised feature of phone (or at least it looks like it is) on the other hand Skype is propertary.
Which apk files I need?

Could someone create & add htc-wildfire tag?

What do you mean by "3"?

@EricSchaefer: http://www.three.co.uk/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_3G

HTC wildfire is supported by 3.  You need to go to favoured on 3 website and choose Skype. Then it begins to download.

Where's the site link ?

Don't install any random Skype APK that you find on the web as it will charge for calls.  You MUST install the APK from the Three website to not be charged.
AS an aside, who told you that Three do not support the Wildfire?  They have massive sales of Wildfires on Three and they ARE officially supported by the network.
It is completely legal to install an APK of Skpye from Skpye's website but why would you when the APK that Three provide ensures that your Skype calls on Three are not charged?
Try this link - !!!WARNING, this will only work on UK Three Android handsets!!!

Thanks. Sorry I'm asking but "Skype calls on Three are not charged" - do you mean that Skype calls does not count into my data limit (I assumed free Skype-to-Skype as marketspeak - i.e. stating that calls from Skype to Skype are free)?

@Maciej: Skype calls to Skype or any other destination (land-line, mobile) are charged by Skype except on Three Skype-to-Skype calls are free but ONLY with the Three provided Skype client.  They do not count towards your data limit (except in-app presence queries) as the calls themselves are routed through a special number to avoid clogging the 3G network.  This is why you need that particular client and NOT the generic Skype one.

@Toad: Ok. Sorry for the last clarification - does calls to land-line or mobile from Skype client count towards data limit?

No calls over Skype cut into your data limit if you have the correct client, whether Skype-to-Skype or Skype-to-landline/mobile.  However, Skype WILL charge you for calls that are Skype-to-landline/mobile (which is charged directly by Skype, not Three)

You need the 3 version of Skype, which surely is supported on the Wildfire version of Android supplied by 3. If you don't use 3's version of Skype you won't get free Skype calls via the 3 mobile network - your calls will subtract from your monthly data allowance.


text:
How to use Google Talk voice and video calling on an Android?
How do you do Google talk voice and video calling from android.
The google talk application only appears to allow text based chatting. But Google talk on the desktop supports both voice calling and video chat.

There is no official Google talk voice/video chat for Android phones. You can use Google Talk in Android 2.3.4+ to make video chats now. Additionally, any calls made via Google Voice are done via cell tower (using your minutes), not data.

That last part is not necessarily true. There is a workaround to make VOIP calls over Cell or WiFi. http://lifehacker.com/5354607/make-and-receive-free-phone-calls-with-google-voice-and-android

@Webs I meant natively with the official app.  There are always workarounds :)

No worries Bryan, I figured as much.

Google voice is not available in my country New Zealand or in most other parts of the world.

this is not what the OP asked though, he's asking about Google Talk, not Google Voice.

@BryanDenny The Answer to this question is not up to date. Please update your answer.

@flow Fixed post

Sorry to bump an old question, but you can now make both audio and video calls from android with google talk if you have 2.3.4 (gingerbread) or higher.
1


text:
Is there a DLNA enabled media player for Android?
Is there a DLNA compatible media player app available for Android?

Not quite a duplicate but see also http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1660/can-i-get-dlna-on-my-droid

UPnPlay is an Alpha release and apparently still a bit glitchy, but still some positive reviews.

try twonky https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pv.twonkyremote

Does it also work as a client?
I am interested in watching movies stored on my pc on my android device...

yes but your server needs to transcode certain files such as .mkv

This software is LOVELY!
I just need to find a good server on the pc side...
I saw that Windows Media Player works fine on Windows 7 side... I'd like to use Xbmc but I had no luck: Can't see the library of it from phone.

A similar question exists on stackoverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3682430/android-developing-plugins-for-media-sharing (For which I gave the info I was aware of)

I've looked into 2player and it seems to work well (not great thou).

You can use Skifta. It will play files from DLNA server in any player installed on your device. Also it can be a media server and controller. The description says the app is DLNA Certified.

I have been using MediaHouse, UPnP/ DLNA Browser with Plex Media Server (get the beta with DLNA) on my home computer and it works great!

Sure, you need an UPnP controller, like BubbleUPnP and an player (e.g. MX Player). That's all what's need to stream via UPnP. At least it works well for me with MediaTomb.

uPNP works perfectly for me for streaming. I use the stock video / Mobo video alongside that and have been able to stream anything I've put on my server.

For this purpose I've used Sklift and some other DLNA apps.But Now I'm using ArkMC because it let me to stream photos and 1080p videos Flawlessly.


text:
ADB using USB-C to USB 2.0 cable
Can I use ADB (USB Debugging) with cable that has USB-C connector on phone side and USB 2.0 Type A plug on the computer side? It should be able to transfer data.

There is nu such thing like a "USB 2.0 connector" - I assume you are talking about an USB Type A plug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#/media/File:Usb_head_Cable.jpg

@Robert Yes. I've thought it is called Type A.

Correct type A, that was a typo on my side.

The cable you describe is a standard USB converter cable (USB-A to C).
A lot of manufacturer ship such a cable together with a new phone.
You can use it to establish a USB 2.0 (and may be 3.0 if the device supports this) connection between your computer and your phone.
Like any USB cable it is agnostic to the data it transmits, therefore ADB and MTP (file access) will work as expected as long as the used computer is correctly configured.

I am going to accept when I try it. Wait 1–2 days, please.


text:
Sniffing SSL/TLS connections with BURP
I want to sniff SSL/TLS encrypted traffic of my installed apps using BURP.
After installing the burp certificate on my One Plus 5T and moving certificates through the Magisk tweak "Move Certificates" there are still applications like mcdonalds that I can't sniff because tell me there isn't Internet connections. I'm sure that Internet connections there is because another app like deliveroo work perfectly with burp.
I was wondering if there was a solution to this problem.

If you have a rooted device with Magisk it is IMHO much simpler to just disable SSL/TLS certificate checking and pinning for traffic sniffing:

Enable Zygisk mode in Magisk
Install LSPosed for Magisk (Zygisk)
Install the Xposed module Trust me already
Open LSPosed app and configure Trust me already module: enable it for all apps you want to intercept traffic (system apps are hidden by default in LSPosed, you have to make them visible using the tree dots menu)


text:
Does Unlocking bootloader affect network lock?
Will the bootloader unlock procedure as shown on the HTC Dev website affect my network lock?
I have an HTC Aria, which was originally SIM locked, but I got unlocked from a shop. Now, since I'm working on Android apps and HTC devices, I want to unlock my bootloader, but I'm worried that it will re-lock my device to the original carrier.

No, the bootloader has no bearing on a SIM/network lock. The HTCdev site explicitly states this on the bootloader unlock page, in fact:

Please note that unlocking your bootloader does not mean that you will
  be able to unlock the SIM lock. Unlocking your SIM lock is at the
  discretion of your operator/carrier and is not part of the bootloader
  unlocking scope.

The reverse is also true, but the main point is that the two concepts are unrelated.

Yea, I wanted to confirm for the reverse process.Thanks alot "eldarerathis"

@user981 I disagree (partly) with the reverse bit. If the SIM is locked, you cannot unlock the bootloader.

@DanB I've not seen a situation where that was the case. Have any sources that support your statement?


text:
How can I tell if I have ClockworkMod recovery installed?
How can I know if my Galaxy S2 has ClockworkMod recovery installed? I want to install CyangenMod and installing ClockworkMod is the first step. I'm running Android 2.3.3 and I use a Mac laptop, if that's relevant.

chances are if you don't know, you don't have it. are you running a custom rom now?

ok thanks, just from the comments in cyangenmod, it seemed like it's there by default.

The easiest way would be to install Rom Manager. The first item in this app says "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery" and under that it will say something like "Current Recovery: ClockworkMod 5.0.2.2" (see below). If it does not say this, or has nothing here, chances are you don't have it. If you don't have it and would like it (and are already rooted, of course) you can directly install it from this app.

Rom Manager Screenshot (click image for larger variant)

The easiest way to find out if your Galaxy S2 already has ClockworkMod Recovery installed is to try and boot into it.  Turn off the phone, then hold the Volume Up, Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time.  (For international version of the GS2 you need to press and hold Vol Up + Home + Power combination.)  If it boots into ClockworkMod - you have it installed :)

it actually did boot into ...something.. But i sure didn't install it. does it come by defaut?

There is a stock recovery installed on every Android phone. However with the default one you cannot flash custom ROMs, only updates that are signed by the manufacturer/carrier.  ClockworkMod allows flashing unsigned ROMs, and has many more low-level utilities and tools.


text:
How can I replace the apps in the SGSII's stock launcher dock?
When I turn on my Galaxy S2, on the very bottom, there are the default icons for "phone", "email", "web", and "applications". On the Galaxy Tab (running Android 3.2), if I want to free up any of those apps and replace them with my own, I simply press and hold like any other app and just delete and replace with my own.
On the Galaxy SII Skyrocket (running 2.3 Gingerbread), I press and hold and nothing happens. Is there a way for me to change the shortcuts in the dock on the SGSII, similar to the way I can on the Galaxy Tab?

Try to keep your questions to one question a piece, or at least several extremely related question. I will say, though, that Honeycomb was only released for tablets. There are no phones that have or will receive an update to Honeycomb.

If you have the Ice Cream Sandwich update, pretty much all you have to do is hit the Menu button from the home screen, select Edit, and then long press the application you want to change.
For Gingerbread, click the Applications icon, then follow the same procedure (Menu button, edit, etc.)

You can click on the Applications icon, then bring up the menu and there should be edit in there. You will now be able to drag icons back and forth, remember to press the menu button again to save it.

Use an alternative launcher like Launcher Pro / ADW / Zeam / Go Launcher etc.
They allow you to customize the icons that you want at the bottom of the screen in addition to many, many more useful features.


text:
Is there a way to use an Android tablet as a wifi handsfree device?
My situation:

Android (4.0.3) tab hooked up to my car stereo using the headphones connector.
Android (2.3.5) phone (HTC Desire HD), which I use to call, text, browse, etc.

Since my car stereo's Bluetooth device died I thought I could use the Android tab as a audio relay device. Problem is: the tab has no Bluetooth. It has wifi though.
Is there any way to use an Android device as a handsfree adapter over wifi? Some kind of wifi relay between the phone and the tablet, perhaps?

Am I right that you basically want to make phone calls from you tablet that are relayed to you smartphone?

I think he wants to connect to the tablet using Wi-Fi, and control the tablet (music choice, volume, etc) as if it were the bluetooth head-end of a stereo. So the tablet plays the music, but the phone controls the tablet's audio.

no. both wrong. I want to make a phone call with my phone, but in my country it is illegal to hold your phone at ear height. That is why I had a car stereo with bluetooth, so I can hear the person I am talking to over my car speakers.

EDIT: I need to replace that function and I already have a tab in my car directly connected to my stereo. I want my outgoing audio from my phone over wifi to my tab. phone-> wifi -> tab -> cable -> car stereo. If I can dial from my tab that would be an extra.

Does the tab has USB port. How about adding an external custom BT device. BT device talks to android app on tab via any serial library for example scm (http://www.embeddedunveiled.com/scm-wiki).


text:
Cannot connect to Facebook, hosts file seemingly ignored
I have a Motorola Atrix.
My country used to block Facebook, so I decided to add its ip to the /etc/hosts file about 3 months ago and it worked in the browser, but the Facebook app did not.
Now my country has unblocked Facebook so I would like to clear my hosts file and use Facebook as normal. However, my phone cannot connect to Facebook normally even after I performed a factory reset. Other devices still work without the modified hosts file.
Also, if I add some test lines to the hosts file such as:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 test

then try to ping test in a terminal emulator it returns unknown host.
Is my hosts file being ignored? Did I miss something? I have OTA Root Keeper and it seemed to keep root after I did a factory reset. Did it keep something related to networks, too?

Could you include exactly what you enter to perform your ping test and into which program?  If the host file looks like what you provided and a ping of, say facebook.com results in unknown host that would imply that your DNS server is still trying to hide Facebook and that the host file is indeed being observed.  If your ping test was of test keep in mind that (at least what I've read is that) you may need to restart your phone after modifying the hosts file.  I must admit I haven't actually done this but I have read other reports where some programs actually cache DNS results.

I use Terminal emulator to do that (with root permission)

I already restart it

Before that I copy it to another folder, modify it then copy it back. When I remove host data, I delete it then create a new blank one :D

I have OTA Root Keeper and it seemed to keep root after I did a factory reset - Performing a factory reset will not unroot you because it will not touch the /system partition. I don't think it will modify /etc either, which could be why it did not reset your hosts file.

@RichardBorcsik I type the following command on Terminal Emulator: echo "127.0.0.1 localhost" >> /etc/hosts

Do you know if your friends can use the facebook app on their devices in your country? There's a small chance that the country unblocked the main facebook domain, for example, but forgot to unblock other domains used by the facebook app. Just throwing out ideas.

Yes, my friend can use FB for now. no bloking anymore. It's just my phone did not forget the host setting. I just want to clear it .....

It's just like the host file my phone used is not the host file it see in /etc/hosts anymore.

Go to the Applications menu in settings -- at least that what I think it's called on Gingerbread, on on ICS it's just Apps -- select the Facebook app and clear the cache as well as the data. Then go to the /Android folder on your SD card and delete anything starting with com.facebook.
Finally, reboot your phone. If your problem was related to the Facebook app it should now be fixed.

I've already do a factory reset. Did not work at all :(

I didn't even mention a factory reset. In particular, a factory reset doesn't affect the SD card.

Already try, caan not connect to fb services :(

The point is not only facebook app, but I've try fb in browser... Cannot connect either.
I just wanto get rid of the host file...

Using a root explorer application, navigate to /system/etc and delete anything that is named hosts including any backups, then restart the device.
You may also need to clear the facebook app data as well.

Tried, not work. I have to unlock bootloader then reinstall OS :(


text:
How do I access .img files with yaffs2?
I've tried mounting them in Ubuntu, no luck, mount does not recognize the yaffs2 file system. I've tried yaffs2utils and ./unyaffs2 but it doesn't actually unpack the img files, I've posted an issue about this on the Google Code page here.
The img files were created by CWM Recovery as a backup, and I'm trying to dig into the file system to find old contacts, and if I could just get the .db files I think I got it from there (I'll just run sqlite3 and peek into the db and print the contacts on paper or something).
Any help appreciated!

I'm not sure if this will let you retrieve contacts but it's worth a shot: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handyandy.appextractor

Titanium Backup v5+ has the capability to extract from CWM backups as well :)

I remember trying AppExtractor on the phone in question, it was unable to find any contacts so nothing was imported. If this was awfully important I'd try paying for TB but for now I'm just curious how to access the img files.

Here's a very similar question which I've tried to answer: http://android.stackexchange.com/a/111010/109855

To unpack a YAFFS2 image, you can use the free unyaffs tool, which is available as pre-build ELF-binary (for Linux) from this page at code.google.com. This page also contains hints on how to obtain the source code, so you could build the binary yourself e.g. with gcc (gcc -o unyaffs unyaffs.c).
I use this tool myself, it works fine on Ubuntu 8.04 32bit as well as Ubuntu 12.04 64bit (with the ia32-libs package installed).
Place the binary e.g. in /usr/local/bin (which is in your $PATH), so you can access it from everywhere. Put the image file you want to extract in an empty directory (unyaffs always seems to extract files directly into the folder the image file is in), and then call unyaffs with the image file name as only parameter, e.g. unyaffs data.img. After that, you will find the contents of that file system/image unpacked, and can investigate them -- e.g.

SMS/MMS in data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db
Multimedia Metadata in data/com.android.providers.media/databases/*.db
Calendar data in data/com.android.providers.calendar/databases/calendar.db

As I just investigated a MotoBlur image, contacts in my case have been stored to data/com.motorola.blur.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db -- they are probably in a different location in your case (a guess: data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/*.db).
The sqlite3 command works on them, naturally. If you prefer a graphical frontend, I can recommend you the sqliteman package (comes with a binary of the same name, which accepts the database file as parameter).

You can install Titanium Backup and buy the Pro key.
It allows to extract app backups from saved CWM nandroid backups.
Usage: Launch Titanium Backup, Menu > More > "Extract from nandroid backup"

How old does the CWM nandroid backup have to be to be considered old? I'm pretty sure it was a fairly recent version of CWM that made this backup.

sorry, bad wording. fixed.

Ok, I'll inform my friend that this is an option if he keeps nagging me about the lost contacts ;)

What ROM was it in the backup?
If the filesystem was ext4 you could mount the img to loopback like this:
This is on Linux btw,
sudo mount -o loop,ro,noexec,noload system.img ~/mountedImageDir

Then go into that directory ~/mountedImageDir and you should be able to see the directory structure in there :)

He said it was yaffs2...

What version of CWM is the key question.

The filesystem is not ext4 but yaffs2, and I already tried a "clean" mount with just -o loop, no luck.
(I'm pretty sure it was the newest version of CWM, as it was only a week or so ago the backup was made)
The ROM in the backup was some kind of stock Xperia Arc variant, before we installed CyanogenMod.

you can also do this: http://tjworld.net/wiki/Linux/Kernel/SimulateNandMtdDevice

Even easier &free: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.wdscript.yaffsexplorer


text:
How to erase all contacts from an Android phone?
How to erase all contacts from an Android phone?
There are about 3200 contacts.
The full story
I don't manage my contacts with Google Contacts, but with another tool that can export to the VCF format.
The first time I imported my VCF file into Google Contacts, my Android phone synced and got all contacts, perfect.
After a while, having new contacts, I exported to VCF again, and imported again to Google Calendar. All contacts got duplicated on the phone.
I removed all contacts using Google Contacts web interface in Gmail, and re-imported, but contacts get duplicated every time.
I just want to start from scratch, remove all contacts, and import from my new VCF file.

I cant find that option in my Nexus 7. It seems they have removed this in Jellybean or Kitkat. This is what i do.

Settings>Apps>All> Contacts> Clear data, clear cache
Settings>Apps>All> Contacts Storage > Clear data, clear cache

This will clear all the database of the People app.

Beware that clearing the DATA of "Contacts Storage" will reset the CALL LOG!!! Make a backup (i recommend this great app! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore)

that is very easy. you should go setting>app>all>contact and remove data

This answer already says so: How to erase all contacts from an Android phone? Is there a reason you posted a duplicate?

@Firelord: It is nice to have a screenshot, I would say.

@NicolasRaoul I'd say there is no point in adding redundancy unless you  add something more useful. How is that screenshot (without any editing (the clues, hints)) anymore useful then the one line steps in the other answer, I fail to see here.  That screenshot fits as a comment to an existing answer.

By image ppls have to understand more clearly. That gives more accuracy

@ShashankPriyadarshi It depends upon for what category of users you're posting your answer. You can argue that a screenshot provides familiarity in the answer, but there would also be users who would still  find it hard to follow the answer unless specific hints/marks in the screenshot(s) is/are provided. Anyway, I'll leave this answer for the rest of the users to decide. Please keep up the good work of answering though.

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


text:
How can I get the Windows 7 USB driver working for my Android Tablet?
I have a Tech_7 from Chinavasion, S3C6410 Android 1.6;
When I plug it into the usb port, it shows up in the Device manager as HiDROID, but the driver is not installed.
How can I get the USB driver working?

Install the avd & sdk manager - I'm assuming you use c:\Android_SDK
Edit c:\Android_SDK\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf
Find the section [Google.NTx86] and add the following:

;Techpad
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_0002
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_0002&MI_01

Find the section [Google.NTamd64] and add the following:
;Techpad
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_0002
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_0002&MI_01

Edit .android\adb_usb.ini and add the following:

0x18D1

Note:  This corresponds to the device id up top

Plug device in - you should have an unknown device in the device manager.
Update the driver on it and manual select the location of c:\Android_SDK\usb_driver.
It should install the driver and show up as an ADB Device.
Run adb kill-server then adb devices

Remember to turn on USB debugging from the application settings as well


text:
Is there a 'User manual' for Android 2.1?
The user guides that came with my Android 2.1 phone are pretty basic and mostly geared to the mobile company's interface and apps. I've come across this PDF guide to Android 2.2. Is there something similar for 2.1?
Update:
Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) user manual now available here (PDF).

This Nexus One user manual seems to be basically the same document as you linked, but specific to that phone and Android 2.1. Since the Nexus One was a "pure" Android experience, the vast majority of the document should cover what you're looking for.
(That link seems dead, but this link from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine seems to be working. There's also this link from T-Mobile.)

Yep, seems to be the same Google produced document with added Nexus One specifics. I wonder if Google post these anywhere public as they're updated for new Android versions.

became 404 in 2012

@naxa: I added a link to the Wayback machine.


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How do I upload multiple pictures at once to Facebook?
Gallery seems to lack the ability to upload to Facebook when multiple pictures are selected.
Is there easy way to upload a bunch of photos at once to Facebook or is it something that you have to do one at a time?

Try this FriendCaster for Facebook app. This has a feature to upload multiple pictures from Gallery.

That works, I dislike allowing third party apps control of my accounts, but it can't be helped in this case.


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How to unlock a "network sim" in order to use a Android phone?
I got an old Android phone (HTC MyTouch) from someone in the States. The phone says "T-Mobile" on the top.
I put in my O2 SIM chip (Germany), turned it on, typed in the SIM, but then it asks me to type in a "SIM network unlock pin".
I went to T-Mobile here in Germany and they said to "contact T-Mobile in America" who may be able to unlock it for me.
I went to the O2 shop in Germany and they said it would definitely not be possible to use this Android phone with my O2 SIM chip.
Before I sink hours into contacting T-Mobile in the States, can someone tell me from experience if it is (technically and legally) possible to use this Android phone in Germany?

Related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/7027/i-just-bought-an-lg-optimus-t-in-the-us-how-do-i-unlock-it-for-my-country http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4558/unlock-code-for-motorola-droid-pro

You'll need to purchase an unlock code.
You will probably find a number of companies via google a I have used a couple, which I'm not sure I'm allowed to post here so I recommend you visit Modaco, the site run by Paul O'Brien of custom rom and rooting fame.
Click the Android part of the site and at the bottom of the site or via a web banner to the right, you'll see one of their official sponsors that does HTC codes for $20.

the ad seems to be gone / personalized. is there an updated way to find a trusted (?) unlocker?

Actually, if you have been on T-Mobile for some time, you could just contact them (online chat works too) and they will give the unlock code to you. Their online chat system works pretty well.
And it is definitely legal to use the phone in another country. It's yours.
As for technical issues, I have not heard of SIM card compatibility issues before (except for size issues between micro SIM and normal SIM). My hunch is that the O2 guy meant something concerning differences between GSM and CDMA. I know that T-Mobile uses a GSM network, but I am not too sure about Vodafone.

Is your phone CDMA or GSM. If its CDMA no one can help you. You need to continuce with T-Mobile. If it's GSM read on.
As your phone is under contract you need to use T-Mobile with your phone. Once the contract terms is over you can get it unlocked by contacting T-Mobile support.
If you want to get it unlocked before the contract ends you can do it by purchasing SIM unlock codes. I found these people on facebook https://www.facebook.com/SamsungSimUnlock and got my wife's HTC phone unlocked.
PS: In some countries it is illegal to unlock phone before the contract terms ends. Please check you local laws before doing so.

T-Mobile will always be GSM.

Sorry. I am not from US so I dont know about the packages and the carriers there. Anyhow thank you for the reply.

I'm pretty sure it's law now that if you want an unlock code from a mobile network carrier they are required to give it to you. But it definitely is not illegal. However, it may be even easier to just root the phone instead. This should (depending on how you root it) unlock your phone in the process.
As for your O2 SIM chip, I'm not sure how foreign SIM cards work in American phones, but it's definitely worth a shot.