text:
Line in the middle of screen
It showed a few months ago, before I upgraded to ICS. It changes its color depending on wallpaper.
Anyone know how to fix it or what caused it?

Does it appear during boot proccess or only after the Launcher is running?

what year is that model?

On my device, that line is smaller. Service said "return for replacement, it's a cold soldering" (i.e. hardware problem). Here it appears right away when the screen is switched on (even on boot) -- but goes away if I leave the device half an hour with screen turned on. Not sure if you's is the same issue, but thought I share it in a comment.

@Izzy, there's two model variants of mini, the 2010 model and 2011 model, am trying to ascertain which is it, if its 2010 model, ICS is incompatible with it.

@ruda.almeida It's there during boot process.

@t0mm13b I don't know. The model name is SK17i. But whatever it is, ICS is not causing the problem, I mentioned it started before the upgrade.

OP: you're implying it started before ICS right? So its being there since Gingerbread right? As for SK17i, that's defo 2011 model! Hummm... was your handset dropped at any stage? Was it exposed to water/moisture?

@t0mm13b Yes, it's been there since Gingerbread. It's really preserved, never fell down, without a single scratch. Also never been in water.

Right, think its hardware problem, a loose connection somewhere ... is it still under warranty?

That is a Hardware problem and can be solved only by taking your phone to a Service Center.


text:
how do you properly root galaxy s3 i9300 on mac?
I am trying to root my Galaxy S3 i9300 on a Apple Mac.
I followed the instructions here
But instead of my phone starting up ClockWorkMod recovery, my phone keeps booting up on android recovery.
Any tips on how to go from here?

Try flashing again, while you do tick off the auto reboot. Then take the battery out when it’s done flashing.  Then enter ClockworkMod Recovery right away.
PS: Just try if you are ready to experiment. I don't give any guarantee.

I would first of all recommend downloading the newest version of heimdall and using the terminal to do it because the app has problems in my personal experience.
First, boot your device into download mode (vol down, home, power on most devices), then vol up to confirm, then plug your device in. Now from the bin directory of heimdall, write:
sudo ./heimdall print-pit

To see your partition scheme. If you already know your partition scheme, and don't need to check for the name of your recovery partition, skip this.
sudo ./heimdall flash --PARTITION ~/Desktop/recovery.img --no-reboot

Replace the path on the end with the path to your recovery image, and the --PARTITION the name of your recovery partition. It should be --RECOVERY but it is still good to check.
NOTE:I always put --no-reboot on the end because when I don't, the recovery never seems to flash properly. You can then long press power to turn off, or take your battery out and back in. This could also be the reason that the flash fails for you.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Contact list crashing
Every other day, my Contacts List will crash, and the only way for me to access it is to power off the phone.
What is happening for this to happen, and what can I do to prevent it in future?

This is the People app, right? Have you tried the usual things to do with a truculent app?

You might have an app that's adding spurious records to your calling list. Do you have any "alternative phone" application (I had problems with an app called Amivox). I created a small app to fix the problem for me, the code is linked below.
EDIT:
The app source code: https://github.com/gardarh/android-callogfixer (removed link to binary)

Please note that the APK has no documentation or source code available, therefore the behaviour is unknown. One should always be careful when installing third-party APKs from untrusted or unknown sources.

There, added a link to the source code.

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


text:
Check the original carrier of Galaxy S3
How do I check the original carrier for Galaxy S3 (model no is i9300 in Australia)?
I bought it from one buyer. I can't use the network. So, please help me.

i9300 is international model of Samsung Galaxy S3. So it won't come up with any specific carrier. You can also use i9300 with any carrier as you like.
but there are some other models with specific carriers. If you want use them ,you need to unlock it.
Like:
1747- At&T US....
You can check carriers and S3 model names here

International just means that it supports most worldwide GSM frequencies. The phone could still have been originally bought from a carrier, and be SIM/network locked.

@GAThrawn: Correct.


text:
Fake/Dummy/mock internet for spam apps
There are a lot of apps which require internet to run whether be spam or good apps.
Is there any way to make them feel there is internet connection without actually running internet kind of fake/mock internet connection for such apps?
FYI, I am using ICS (Android 4.0.4)

The best way to prevent spammy apps from accessing the Internet is to uninstall them.

@Chahk: True but i also meant there are good apps and games too which require internet for marketing or ads and not their internal functionality to work with internet :)


text:
Device not booting after factory reset
My problems is my phone keep showing 'ANDROID' after I'm resetting it.
I tried to restart but it keep showing the same.
What can I do?

Have you tried taking out the battery, and keeping it out for about a minute before placing it back?

Depending on your phone there could an option for a "hard" factory reset. This is usually done through a combination of key press just after turning the device ON so it does not require the OS to start.
I would suggest you to google "hard factory reset" with the name of your device to find more information.


text:
Using Bluetooth headset for voice calling on Nexus 4 Stock
I know that people over the net have reported that they were able to place a voice call using one of their Bluetooth headsets.
I have a Sony Ericcsson HBH-DS970 headset which pairs with my Nexus nicely and I am able to use it for audio with no issues, but while placing a call I have no option to use the headset instead of the default mic and earpiece of the phone.
Am I missing some of the settings that make this option is available for me?
The Bluetooth setting says that the headset is connected as "phone audio" as well as for "media audio".
I guess "phone audio" means voice calling through this headset (which isn't working for me) and media audio is the music audio (mp3 players and normal android sounds) that's working fine for me.
Then why am I seeing no option for placing voice call through the headset?


text:
Is it possible to permanently disable CSS on Android browsers?
Is it possible to permanently disable CSS on Android browsers like Firefox, Dolphin, Chrome and Opera?
I want the browsers to completely ignore any stylesheet rule.
Can this be achieved with the help of AdBlock Plus?

Adblock Plus might indeed be the right thing for this. You could setup a rule to discard all URLs ending with .*\.css$ (for external style sheets) at least. Not sure however if you can block internal css. Maybe those declared via the <style> rule, but most likely not the direct ones (style="..."). Here you might check for GreaseMonkey or the like, if it's available for the browsers and JavaScript is not an issue.

Definitely possible to do this on my Desktop Chrome's ABP by adding a custom filter of *.css - However I was unable to find a place within the Android app to add a custom filter.

I sense that you're having an XY problem. May I ask Y? CSS poses little to no security risk, and most pages without CSS screams ugly.

No. I am not having an XY problem. I need to disable CSS in order to eliminate ad overlays on online sport streaming sites. They can look ugly, I don't care. However, embedded Flash player will still work with its "full screen" button.

You're pretty much asking the same thing as the ability to disable HTML. Not really possible. The most you may be able to do is disable Javscript. There must be a brighter solution to your problem.

I should've stated that I am looking to disable loading of external CSS files.

@Temuri: if you want to block ads, that's your Y, see the Adblock Plus solution suggested by Izzy and Dylan Yaga. Adblock Plus can disable just the anything ads while keeping the page layout intact.

I have to suggestions that are probably going to be about as close as you're going to get to removing the 'styles' from websites. They're there for a reason, like previously mentioned, and removing them is very close to disabling the HTML but not entirely the same as you're stil left with the paragraphs and links (the core content of the site, just without the look and formatting).
The first suggestion will replace (not remove) a lot of the CSS from the pages. The add-on is called Stylish, just do a search for it in Firefox Mobile, and then go to 'Menu' -> 'Tools' -> 'Add-Ons', tap the Stylish add-on, and then the 'manage styles' button. When the page opens there's a link that you can click on that will direct you to a page that has a ton of 'styles', which will let you change the whole look of either one, several, or all web pages.
The second suggestion is to use an app like Pocket (which is what I currently use and love) that will let you easily save a page from nearly any browser (using an add-on) into your 'Pocket' and then view it as an article (with the CSS/styles completely removed from the content). Another major benifit of Pocket is you can configure the settings in the app to store all of the pages offline so you can access them even without an internet connection (extremely useful for tablets that don't have mobile data).
I know these suggestions aren't exactly what you were looking for but I'm hoping that between the two you'll be able to accomplish what you are trying to. I did search the web for a few minutes and didn't find a way to completely disable the style sheets in any mobile browser or I would have posted my findings.
Note: You can completely disable the styles on a PC (and probably a Mac) by using the Web Developer plugin, there's a Chrome version as well but I can't provide the link because I don't have the 'reputation' on stackexchange yet. After you install the plugin, you can quickly disable them using the shortcut key combo Alt + Shft + A or by clicking the CSS menu button and navigating to CSS > Disable Styles > Disable All Styles. Hope this helps!


text:
can not change keyboard input language
I can not change language on my new android 4.1 tablet. On my phone I am able to change input language by long clicking on space bar button, however on tablet space bar does not have such functionality despite several languages are selected in android keyboard settings.
Tablet just picks first selected input language and thus if I want to change input language I need to uncheck all other languages that are before which I want to set. That seems to be some kind of a bug or I am missing something.

Oh, I found how languages may be switched :). There is a small keyboard icon in the notification area which allows to do that.

To change languages, layouts and keyboard apps you can always tap on a text field (the keyboard must be active), then drag down the notification bar and tap aon keyboard settings/input methods. Now you chose the keyboard application or configure it to change its language.


text:
HTC Desire Z key number two misbehave at times
HTC Desire Z touch key number 2 (ABC) occassionally presses itself repeatedly without any apparent trigger. In such cases, I press the power button on/off to quieten it down. Is it a software or hardware problem. This happens infrequently but when it starts it is quite annoying as you cannot do anything with the keyboard as other keys do not respond to touch.

This is very likely to be a problem with the touchscfeen hardware. To test this, try installing a drawing/painting app from Google Play. Open the app, get into painting mode, and leave it for a minute. If you start getting paint appearing at the same point (where the 2 ABC soft key shows up), you know that part of the touchscreen isn't working. In the same way, try painting in the app and check whether any parts of the screen can't be painted on.
If there are any stuck parts of the screen, you can try giving them a wipe with a slightly damp, soapy cloth. Turn the phone off to do that, and make sure you dry the screen before trying to use it again. If that doesn't solve the problem, you're left with sending the phone back to the shop, or making a warranty claim, depending on how long you've had the problem.


text:
Is there any way to password protect application folders?
I have a Galaxy S4 running Android 4.2.2. When I drag an application onto another one a folder is created. I was wondering if there's any way to password protect that folder? Most of the related apps I've found so far don't do that.


text:
Is it possible to have multiple instances of the same app (logged in to different accounts)?
Is it possible to have multiple instances of the same app (logged in to different accounts)?
Example: I want Instagram A logged in to Account A (personal), and Instagram B logged in to Account B (business). Both apps are on the same phone; I don't want to log-in and log-out just use use a different accounts.

When you mean 'Instagram A' and 'Instagram B' do you mean two instances? If that is the case, Android doesn't permit to have more than one instances of same application.  IMHO, unless the app itself has some workarounds (like how Chrome browser has tabs to compensate) this is not possible.

That's something that the individual app needs to implement. Apps like GMail do have this functionality, many other app authors don't put the extra work in for features like this that not many people will use.

Was wondering if there was a workaround to that, like: decompile and change its ID or something to make each app unique. [though I suppose that is not legal]

@geff_chang: changing an app's package name should be possible, though since the package name of an app is hard coded in many different places throughout an apk, and since it is used as part of the identifier for sending Intents, it would be really difficult, if not impossible, to do it correctly for arbitrary programs (because you need to solve the Halting Problem). I think that's how Brut's map (an unofficial modification of Google Map) can be installed side-by-side with normal Google Map.

What Android version are you referring to?

Yes, please clarify exactly what you mean by "different accounts". Do you mean different Facebook accounts but a single Android user account? In that case your question might be covered by a similar one: How to keep two versions of an app installed? Do you mean two Android user accounts on a 4.2 tablet?

TiBackup offers some limited support for app profiles: http://apcmag.com/android-how-to-store-multiple-profiles-for-any-app.htm

Looks like a classic XY Problem. I'm guessing you want to easily switch among multiple Facebook accounts and you've decided that the solution is to have multiple installs of the same application. 'Twould be better if you would ask about the actual problem you're trying to solve.

Related http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/119500

Titanium Backup PRO (and only the paid (Pro) version allows this) - FYI ROOT REQUIRED - does allow Profiles, but not the running of multiple insntances of the same app, with the exception of Winamp (but Winamp has Always been written to do that, no matter the platform)

There's an awkward  solution:
Renaming the package name inside an apk as proposed by Adobe to fix a nasty limitation of their AIR framework, XDA has proposed the same too.
All use apktool to reverse engineer an app (unpack apk, change package name in AndroidManifest.xml, repack, resign).
Note:
This won't change locations on the SD card though (if it's used, all 5 instances would use the very same folder on the card still, just FYI)

Just decompile the app, change package name, compile, push to phone. Done! Just dont distribute it, advertising it as yours, because that is illegal.

No, it's not possible to run multiple instances of the same app.

No, This is definitely impossible. Android OS never allows you to install multiple same apps.

What about JB 4.2 and multi-user accounts?

even with 4.2, technically, you don't ever install the app more than once. it uses the same app that had been installed previously, just creates a data folder for the user that "installed" the app.

You can't have two applications which has same identifier. The identifier is the string after this text in url of the app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=. So for a single app this would be same, even if you haven't downloaded it from playstore, the identifier would be unique for the app.
For facebook app, the identifier is com.facebook.katana.

PS: The identifier is also called Package name of the app.

Maybe we decompile app and changeing identidier to com.facebooka.katana and recompile then install. Mybe installed ?

Still won't work. The facebook app uses facebook graph API, where you need to put in the package name and main activity class name in dashboard, along with developer id. You've to change the facebook app ID and secret key too. The trick might work on other apps.

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


text:
HTC Desire: Recovery Mode just shows 'Broken Phone' symbol
I'm trying to install the CyanogenMod on my HTC desire. I've temporarily routed it an downloaded the ClockworkMod Recovery and the CyanogenMod with the RomManager app. Everything seems fine.
However when I reboot the phone and go into the Revovery-Mode it just shows me a 'Broken-Phone' icon instead of the recovery options. The symbol it shows is a Phone with a red triangle on top of it. Anyone an idea what could be wrong?
Edit: I used the Vision+ to root. But it was only a temporary rooting-tool. The permanent root didn't work. The Unrevoke-method doesn't seem to work. It never recognizes the phone. HBoot-driver are installed (on Windows). It tells that HTC Sync should be installed. It's not installed in the PC. Do I need it to remove it on the Phone? And how I do that?
Thanks for any leads / tips.

From what I know (and by no means am I an expert on rooting) the phone with the red triangle is the standard HTC recovery mode, not the Clockworkmod recovery. So my guess is that your rooting method is not working correctly.
So, what method are you using and is your desire branded / locked to a network?
When I rooted my desire a few weeks back, I struggled to get Clockworkmod installed - I was using the Unrevoked method. I ended up having to factory reset the device to be able to install it, which is always an option, but you will lose all your saved date (I'm having to replay all the Angry Birds levels).

I used the Vision+ thingy to root. But it was only a temporary rooting-tool. The permanet root didn't work. The Unrevoke-method didn't seem to work. (will retry it again) How do I do a factory reset? I don't care about the data.

Just found out about the S-ON / S-OFF stuff on HTC Desires. Probably need the S-OFF mode. Will try to get to that and then retry everything.

Found the reason why Unrevoked didn't work. The HBoot-driver didn't fully work on my Windows box. Ran the whole thing on Linux and everything worked. Thx for the tipp that the Symbol means that the default revovery mode was still installed.


text:
Access Windows admin share from Android?
I have tested several Android apps and none of them seem to be able to do what I want.
How do I access admin shares such as \\host\c$ from Android?
Note that admin share access is enabled on the host and I can in fact access it from another Windows machine. Last time I checked it even works from Debian Linux. Now, Android either has some deeply rooted issues with this or it lacks the proper tools/apps.

Try ES File Explorer. It can access user shared folders + administrative shares.

This app really worked! I tried many different cifs and smb "clients", and also the ASTRO file manager. But I couldn't do it with any of them. ASTRO has a separate CIFS/SMB component you download, but it's not been maintained for some time now and apparently ASTRO can now support CIFS/SMB shares directly within the main app. Unfortunately it only shows user shared folders. No administrative shares, and no way to add a custom network location like with ES File Explorer. ASTRO only allows you to browse user shared folders.

Worth noting is that it doesn't use UNC notation like \\host\something instead you have to type host\something like that. It has some problems with adding or connecting to admin shares, like for instance I added host\c$ and it was OK, and I could tap to open. But for host\l$ on the same machine it kept saying error, cannot find the server and it won't add it when I tap OK button. When I go back to "server" field and type it in again, and then tap OK, it works then. Looks like a bug.

False alarm! I have found the culprit. It's not a bug. Apparently when I type in the dollar character $ in any text input field, my Android introduces whitespace. So instead of host\c$ I will get host\c $ with an extra space between drive letter and dollar character. So I have to go back and remove that whitespace. Then it works. This is on a Galaxy S4 Plus. Other phones may not be affected.


text:
What is CP and AP and what are these options used for?
There is this service menu where I can select different USB modes for my phone. One option is called CP and the other is AP.

What do the acronyms CP and AP stand for? I recognize MTP, PTP and ADB. But what are the options CP and AP used for?

I should have mentioned that, yes. It's a Galaxy S4 Plus.

I now understand from the answer below what CP and AP is. What I don't understand is how the selection of either one of these options on the menu affects the operation of the phone. I know, "it enumerates a different driver". So what? To what end? So if someone knows the answer to that please fill it in below.

The code to get this screen is #*0808# for Android 4.2.2 and above (if I recall correctly). In case someone else wants to try it.

@sammyg *#0808#

TL;DR
Application processor (AP) =  CPU + GPU
Cellular processor (CP) = Cellular modem

The long version:
CP stands for Cellular Processor. It's also referred to as Baseband Modem. Another reference is Baseband Processor, or BP for short. AP stands for Application Processor. These are 2 of the 3 fundamental building blocks in mobile devices. The third being the Graphical Processor, or GP for short. The CP includes all the digital components required to communicate with a cellular network. The CP usually consists of an ARM-based processor and a DSP. It has its own operating system and communicates via a HS (High-Speed) serial connection with AP unit on which operating systems such as Android, iOS and Windows Phone are running.
Previously, CP, AP and (GP) were found in separate, dedicated chips. However, there is a trend to combine all three components on a single System on a Chip (SoC) to save cost, reduce power consumption, and shrink the overall size of the circuit board.
The table below is showing SoC chips with two AP — CPU & GPU and one CP — the cellular or baseband processor. The table is copied from 3G, 4G and Beyond by Martin Sauter.

Bonus:
The USB settings in the image above is used to determine what drivers are enumerated when connecting your phone to the PC via USB cable. It is a multiplexer switch which determines whether the USB port is directly connected to the CP or the AP.
There are also options to select device features that will be enabled once connected to the PC. These options include:

MTP (Media Transfer Protocol)
ADB (Android Debugging Bridge)
PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol)
RNDIS (Remote Network Driver Interface Specification) for USB Ethernet
DM (Diagnostic Mode)
MIDI (Used to connect MIDI device such as MIDI keyboard)
Modem

Click on image to enlarge
More info can be found on XDA forums and in 3G, 4G and Beyond by Martin Sauter.

Reality:
AP mode of UART serial connection is favored upon.
Many blogs seem to have found that AP mode saves battery capacity,
charges phone faster when connected via USB, increases battery life.

But what difference does it make if the CP mode or the AP mode is selected? How do these changes manifest? What's the difference? Or when is one preferred over the other?

Can you please tell me what these CP/AP options do? You have explained the abbreviations and that CP is one component inside the phone, and AP is another. I thank you for that! But what difference does it make which mode is selected? Surely, both CP and AP are enabled in hardware? I tried looking for this info on the XDA forums link but didn't find anything more than a reference to it, and I did a term search in the book mentioned above but got no hits.

I found one clue about CP/AP, and it's from a discussion at Android Central. One Galaxy S4 user with AT&T in the US had to use this service menu to switch from CP to AP, in order for Samsung Kies software on the PC to recognize his phone. It kept saying SGH-I337 does not support initialising. It seemed to have something to do with a custom bootloader by AT&T, and it was probably set to CP mode by default. That's a clue, but not a clear fact. Switching it to AP made it recognized in Kies.

It appears to me that this comes down to having the phone behave and operate more closely like a cellular network device (CP), closely tied to its network, or as a mobile computer (AP), with a more independent spirit. It's like comparing a dumb GSM phone of the 1990's on a cellular network with telephone function only, and smart-like PDA devices that resemble mobile devices of today.


text:
How do I disable Fast boot without the Power option in Settings?
I went over some of the old forum posts about this issue and there seems to be a lot of confusion about this. I am planning to root my HTC Desire (GSM) which at the moment is running original UI/ROM and everything on Android 2.2 FroYo.
One of the root guides said that I should disable Fastboot by going to Settings and then Power. But I don't have that option. And apparently I am not the only one.
So what's this all about? And how do you disable something like that when the option is not there? Can this be done from HBoot menu?...

Note to self: Fastboot and "Fast boot" ain't the same thing. Fastboot is a protocol used by Android to diagnose and flash new firmware images, while "fast boot" is just a term used to describe a new kind of power state that enables you to faster start up the phone.

I am on Android 2.3.3 with root, S-OFF and custom ROM (SuperNova) and I can confirm now that the option to toggle between Fast boot enabled and Fast boot disabled is available. Now, to properly answer my own original question, this is how you would disable it on HTC Desire.

Press Menu button.
Tap Settings.
Tap Applications.
Remove the checkmark from the option "Fast boot" to disable it.
Press Home button.

Screenshot:

I believe the they didn't make fastboot an option until Gingerbread. It should be off by default so I wouldn't worry about that step. You can check to see if it's on by turning your phone completely off and then turning it on to see how long it takes to boot up. If it only takes 10-15 second fastboot may be enabled.
Also, here is a painless way to root your HTC Desire that doesn't require changing fastboot: How to root HTC Desire (Froyo 2.2) without putting in a custom ROM (flashing)?

Thanks! I've been looking following this guide: http://wiki.rootzwiki.com/HTC_Desire and I am currently setting up the SDK, ADB, driver, etc. But the actual installation involves Revolutionary for S-OFF and ClockworkMod for recovery. This will give me the special options in HBoot that allow me to flash another ROM, right? But so... this doesn't allow me to get root access only, without changing the ROM?

I'm not sure I fully understand your question. I believe unrevoked gives you root and s-off but it's not clear on their site. You could follow that method and if it doesn't give you s-off you could use revolutionary to get it. Eitherway you choose if you don't have the option to turn fast boot off its probably not enabled.

Fastboot is more like a hibernation power state of Android devices, right? Well it takes me 45 seconds just to get past the HTC logo screen, and 90 seconds in total to load up the system and all the apps and widgets. So it's safe to conclude then that this device is not in fastboot mode, right? So I will not need to disable fastboot anyway.

Sounds like you are correct.

Fast boot in Android 2.3.5 on HTC desire is found under

Menu
Settings
Power

Fast boot option is found in Power

You're on 2.3.5? On what ROM?


text:
How can I install the UPS Mobile app in Sweden?
If I visit the American version of the Google Play Store while logged in I can search and find the app. But I am met with a message that says I can't install it.

This app is incompatible with your [device name].

There's also an additional line if I click the little plus button which gives some sort of explanation.

This item cannot be installed in your device's country.

I'm not really sure how to tell if I am on the American version of the Google Play Store. My Google interface language settings are set to English, and my Google searches usually return web pages in English. It seems as if you can't set the search result language to be anything else than English if you are using English as interface language with Google products. And besides, the "localized" Google Play Store for Sweden is in English too. So how do you tell them apart? It beats me!

I should mention that I was unable to find the app when I did a search for it on my Android device using the Play Store app. So does this mean it is restricted for users in Sweden? And if so, how can I trick it to install anyway? I tried finding the APK file for the app for manual installation but all the websites that host the file are bollocks! They require registration and some of them just point to the Play Store, and what not...
I use UPS on a daily basis. I am clueless as to why they would want to block their customers in Sweden from using their app. What do they have to gain with that?... this is no music or video service we're talking about, there should be no licensing bullshit involved here.
I did check the system requirements and my device should be supported. So I don't think that's it.
Is anyone else, outside the US, able to install this?...

Possibly relevant: How can I circumvent regional restrictions in the Android Market?

It's not giving me any problems installing it with a UK account, what display language is your phone set to?

Have they (Google) patched the VPN or MarketEnabler trick? I have stock ROM with root and s-off on a HTC Desire. I downloaded and manually installed the APK file of MarketEnabler from the pronject's Google Code page. Tried faking T-Mobile US and Verizon. It had no effect. So I registered with DroidVPN, installed the Tun.ko installer, which downloaded the proper Tun.ko module. I was then able to connect with DroidVPN to their US server FREE number 3. I then cleared data and cache for Play Store. I then tried faking it with MarketEnabler again. Didn't work!!

So any other bright ideas? Or an instruction on how to do this properly? Maybe I did something wrong?...

@GAThrawn Menu, Settings, Language & keyboard, Select language, is showing "English (Sweden)". So I guess it's set to Swedish locale but the display language is actually English. Maybe that's why the MarketEnabler trick didn't work? Now that I think of it I didn't actually reboot the phone. Do I need to do that? Here's another idea - could it be that I need a custom ROM installed on the phone, perhaps with some additional locale to choose from?...

I contacted UPS about this and they confirmed that the app is not available from Sweden yet. It is currently available in US, Canada, Germany, France, UK and Italy. They don't when it's coming to Sweden. It's stupid that they didn't make it available worldwide from the get go. I think I have done what I could to try to circumvent this restriction with no avail. I have given up. I won't waste any more time on this. Screw them! I'll just use Parcels. It's a great app, works every time and in any location!

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


text:
How do I get my HTC Desire out of the boot loop?
I just screwed up my HTC Desire. I had some low memory issues so I decided to power it off. I then went into 'recovery', and then 'mounts and storage', and then 'mount /sd-ext'. At this point it went all black, I guess in order to mount it, and showed me the menu again. I remember that an 'unmount' option appeared. I think I did 'mount /sdcard' then. I then chose reboot system now.
Since I did this, there is the HTC Quietly Brilliant white splash screen appearing and the phone is booting, I hear the HTC signature boot up melody, and then it starts to loop at this point. It doesn't stop until I pull out the battery.
The phone is rooted, s-offed, has stock ROM with Sense, and AlphaRev Recovery.
What should I do to make it boot again? I don't want to do any formatting or data wipes. I have unsaved personal data. I don't have a fresh backup.
Update:
I have managed to boot it now. I used both options in CWM recovery to wipe both regular "cache" and Dalvik cache. And then I chose to rebooted. It took very long time to boot.
I am presented with following problems now.

There is this message saying

Not enough storage space for SMS/MMS
Your phone's storage is almost full. You...

Crash

The application Google Services Framework has stopped working
  (process com.google.process.gapps) has stopped unexpectedly. Please
  try again.

Crash

The application Facebook (process com.facebook.katana) has stopped
  unexpectedly. Please try again.

Low on space

Phone storage space is getting low.

Missing apps! Google apps are apparently not available. I think this has to do with that Services Framework thing crashing. There were some other apps crashing as well, I think they were just some minor apps, I didn't catch on to note them down, apps were crashing like on a production line.

The reason why so many apps are missing I think is because I used an app called Link2SD which makes symbolic links for Dalvik cache, libraries and for the APK of apps. It moves these to the SD card, and tricks the system into thinking that they are present on the internal memory. I don't see the Link2SD app icon any more. Can I recover these somehow?...
Where do I go from here? Do I rescue what I can, or do I try to fix the problem? Essentially, do I save myself or do I extinguish the fire?
Update:
I had to manually install Play Store using ADB from the computer. I used it to download and install the missing apps I needed to backup the most important data. I then flashed a new custom ROM on the phone.

I've just added the boot-loop tag to your question (as you describe that as being your problem). You might want to check the boot-loop tag-wiki for some first-aid information, and also take a look at its most frequented questions.

I will do that, thanks. Is there a non-destructive way to recover from a boot loop? Most of the methods I have reviewed online involve either flashing or performing a factory restore, and clearing/wiping cache and user data.

Also, I'm not sure if this is a boot loop problem at all. Like I said, it started as a memory issue. Most HTC devices I have seen on YouTube that are stuck in boot loop start to loop as soon as the HTC logo appears. On my device I can see the "Quietly Brilliant" animation and hear the start up melody. So I'm thinking it maybe fails to mount /system or /data. Is there a way I can clear this out a little bit, manually, so it's not low on memory?

What is a "force-close-loop" as mentioned in the linked page?

non-destructive: wiping cache, wiping dalvik-cache. Dalvik-Cache will be rebuilt at the next startup (it's just optimized code of the apps installed), and cache either holds temporary files only. Boot-Loop: If it loops instead of simply getting stuck, i.e. the boot-process repeats. Force-Close-Loop: an app starts, crashes with a "unfortunately..has stopped", gets force-closed, and all that starts over in a loop.

How do I know when the phone is in safe mode? I assume this is not the same thing as the HBOOT menu? On HTC website they say that for my specific phone I should power it off, then "briefly press the Power button to turn on the phone" and "while the phone powers on, press and hold the Volume down button until the phone loads the OS". What happens is the white HTC screen stays for a little longer without starting to loop, then goes a little darker (reads my brightness settings), but then starts looping again.

I have the "Why so serious" with Joker logo when I enter recovery. It's custom recovery by AlphaRev, version 2.5.1.8 based on CWM (clockwork mod). Can I use this to make a backup of my contacts, messages, calendar, app data, etc? Maybe a full blown image backup?

There is an option called 'wipe cache partition' and also under 'advanced' there is 'wipe dalvik cache' option. Can I use either one to wipe cache data?

Sammy, a few things: this is not a discussion forum here, so we handle things a little different. For one: only one question per post. Number two: Answers are answers. So may I ask you to move your solution for the boot loop to an answer (which you then should "accept" after the 2-day forced delay), and open new questions for the other problems? Thank you! -- For safe-mode, see the safe-mode tag-wiki please. And the cache options are for app-cache resp. Dalvik-cache, both are safe to use without data loss.


text:
How do I enter the Safe Mode on a HTC Desire?
This is for those of you who need to enter what is known as "safe mode" on HTC Desire. There may be several reasons why one needs to enter this mode. It is usually because the phone is not working properly.
One such reason can be that you have flashed your phone with a custom ROM and you are stuck in what is known as a "boot loop". If you manage to boot into safe mode you may be able to backup your data to a safe place before you attempt to rescue the phone by data destructive methods such a re-flash.

For basic information what "safe-mode" is, plus links to useful ressources on the topic, you might also want to see our safe-mode tag-wiki (you'll find those tag-wikis by hovering your mouse over a tag and click the "info" link in the popup -- or by simply clicking the tag, and then select the "Learn more..." link). Quite a few of our major tags have such a wiki with first-aid :) I'll link your question there now, as it is one of those "ressources" :)

This applies to the original HTC Desire, codename Bravo. The instructions have been tested to work on the GSM version of the phone with Android 2.3.3.
How to enter Safe Mode

Power off the phone.
Press and hold down the menu button, and then press and let go of the power button, but continue holding the menu button. The phone will power on and start booting.
The phone will vibrate when it enters safe mode. Let go of the menu button when you get past the HTC logo with "quietly brilliant" animation, or when you feel the phone vibrate. You will see the text "Safe mode" in the lower left corner of the display if the phone has entered safe mode properly.

How to leave Safe Mode
To leave safe mode, follow these instructions.

While in safe mode, press and hold the power button until you see the power options menu.
Tap the option "Power off". The phone will now leave the safe mode and quickly reboot into normal mode. Note that it will not actually do a power off. If you want to power off repeat these steps once more (while in normal mode).

Important notes about Android 2.3 and Fast boot
If you have upgraded to Android 2.3.3 then you should have "Fast boot" disabled. If Fast boot is enabled the phone will not do a complete power off. This has the advantage that the phone boots more quickly. But to enter safe mode the phone needs to be completely off. You can achieve this by either disabling Fast boot first, and then powering off the phone. Or you can power off, with Fast boot enabled, and then take out the battery to disconnect the power source, and then put it back in. Then you can enter safe mode as described above.
You will find the Fast boot option by pressing menu button, then going to Settings, Applications, and then check or un-check the option "Fast boot".
If you have Android 2.2 or below, then you don't need to worry about Fast boot. You can check which version you have by pressing menu button, then going to Settings, About phone, and then Software information.

Nice answer, Sammy -- but what is "Android 2.29"? Never heard of such a version. Also: "Fast boot" is a misleading term; it does not really "boot", but rather kills the "System Server" (see Can somebody explain the boot process of an Android device?) -- which basically means: from the 6 levels of boot-up, it leaves the first 4 untouched (and running), and just re-enters at level 5. Which should explain why it's faster :) Btw: do not confuse this with the fastboot mode for flashing, which again is something very different...

Yes, that's actually Android 2.2. I confused it with the build number 2.29.405.5. Thanks! Yeah, that's why I tried putting quotation marks around "fast boot" to indicate that it is not THE "fastboot". It's difficult when they use same words to mean different things. They could have just called it "quick boot".

I was not blaming you for the "confusing terms" :) Don't know why HTC even decided for that ("quick restart" would be much better fitting -- and in fact it's called "quick boot" on some devices, to avoid the above confusion. However, the term "boot" does not fit here at all. Not your fault :)


text:
How do I root Android 2.3.3 on HTC Desire?
I just flashed my HTC Desire with the Android 2.3.3 upgrade from HTC developer website. But now when I try to root it using the Unrevoked (recovery reflash tool) version 3.32 which is what I used the last time, it fails to root it.
Does Unrevoked support rooting 2.3.3?
If not, what other tool or method can I use?
Like I said, I used Unrevoked last time to root 2.29.405.2 and I used AlphaRev to set S-OFF. Is there a way I can flash it with 2.29, root it, set S-OFF, and then only upgrade Android to 2.3.3 without affecting other parts of the system?
I have visited the wiki pages of the Unrevoked project, but there are no specifics about what Android versions are supported.
Screenshots
Here are some screenshots of Unrevoked.

Update2:
I used SuperOneClick version 2.3.3.0 and it seemed like it managed to root it. Here's a log.
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
export PS1=""

$ export PS1=""

getprop ro.build.version.release > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=32532

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

2.3.3

END:32532export PS1=""

getprop ro.product.manufacturer > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=28422

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

HTC

END:28422export PS1=""

getprop ro.product.model > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=96072

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

HTC Desire

END:96072export PS1=""

getprop ro.build.version.incremental > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=51591

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

96875.1

END:51591export PS1=""

ls -l /system/xbin/su > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=91434

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

/system/xbin/su: No such file or directory

END:91434export PS1=""

ls -l /system/bin/su > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=42250

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

/system/bin/su: No such file or directory

END:42250export PS1=""

chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/busybox > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=51294

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:51294export PS1=""

/data/local/tmp/busybox whoami > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=26328

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

whoami: unknown uid 2000

END:26328export PS1=""

rm /data/local/tmp/boomsh > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=60490

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

rm failed for /data/local/tmp/boomsh, No such file or directory

END:60490export PS1=""

rm /data/local/tmp/sh > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=51670

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

rm failed for /data/local/tmp/sh, No such file or directory

END:51670export PS1=""

chmod 700 /data/local/tmp/zergRush > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=73418

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:73418export PS1=""

cd /data/local/tmp/ > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=32307

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:32307export PS1=""

export TEMPRANDOM=46286;export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;./zergRush

[**] Zerg rush - Android 2.2/2.3 local root

[**] (C) 2011 Revolutionary. All rights reserved.

[**] Parts of code from Gingerbreak, (C) 2010-2011 The Android Exploid Crew.

[+] Found a GingerBread ! 0x00000118

[*] Scooting ...

[*] Sending 149 zerglings ...

[+] Zerglings found a way to enter ! 0x10

[+] Overseer found a path ! 0x000151e0

[*] Sending 149 zerglings ...

[+] Zerglings caused crash (good news): 0x401219c4 0x0054

[*] Researching Metabolic Boost ...

[+] Speedlings on the go ! 0xafd1950b 0xafd395f7

[*] Popping 24 more zerglings

[*] Sending 173 zerglings ...

[+] Rush did it ! It's a GG, man !

[+] Killing ADB and restarting as root... enjoy!

# export PS1=""

/data/local/tmp/busybox mount -o rw,remount /system > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=20944

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:20944export PS1=""

mkdir /system/xbin > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=80223

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

mkdir failed for /system/xbin, File exists

END:80223export PS1=""

export TEMPRANDOM=98688;export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;/data/local/tmp/busybox cat /data/local/tmp/1108121.tmp > /system/xbin/su

cannot create /system/xbin/su: not enough memory

END:98688export PS1=""

export PS1=""

/data/local/tmp/busybox rm /data/local/tmp/1108121.tmp > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=29466

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:29466export PS1=""

chown 0:0 /system/xbin/su > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=58396

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

Unable to chmod /system/xbin/su: No such file or directory

END:58396export PS1=""

chmod 6755 /system/xbin/su > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=42924

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

Unable to chmod /system/xbin/su: No such file or directory

END:42924export PS1=""

export TEMPRANDOM=42250;export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;/data/local/tmp/busybox cat /data/local/tmp/5025101.tmp > /system/app/Superuser.apk

cannot create /system/app/Superuser.apk: not enough memory

END:42250export PS1=""

export PS1=""

/data/local/tmp/busybox rm /data/local/tmp/5025101.tmp > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

export TEMPRANDOM=22516

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:22516export PS1=""

busybox true > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

busybox: not found

export TEMPRANDOM=19154

export PS1=END:$TEMPRANDOM;cat /data/local/tmp/output

END:19154export PS1=""

/data/local/tmp/busybox mount -o ro,remount /system > /data/local/tmp/output 2>&1

Note this part specifically:
[+] Found a GingerBread ! 0x00000118
[*] Scooting ...
[*] Sending 149 zerglings ...
[+] Zerglings found a way to enter ! 0x10
[+] Overseer found a path ! 0x000151e0
[*] Sending 149 zerglings ...
[+] Zerglings caused crash (good news): 0x401219c4 0x0054
[*] Researching Metabolic Boost ...
[+] Speedlings on the go ! 0xafd1950b 0xafd395f7
[*] Popping 24 more zerglings
[*] Sending 173 zerglings ...
[+] Rush did it ! It's a GG, man !
[+] Killing ADB and restarting as root... enjoy!

It says "restarting as root". But the thing is when I run the Root Checker Basic app it says "sorry! this device does not have proper root access." What gives?
So I'm back on square one again.
Update 3:
I tried the GingerBreak tool, as mentioned here. I installed the APK manually from my computer with ADB. I then launched the app and let it do its thing. After over 10 minutes without any results I aborted it. It doesn't say in the article if the phone needs to be connected to the computer when you do this. They mention that USB debugging needs to be enabled. I don't understand why if the phone doesn't need to be connected. But I tried both connected and disconnected, didn't work either way I tried.
Update 4:
Use the Revolutionary method!
I would have posted a step by step instruction with screenshots but as you can see the question has been marked as a duplicate and I can no longer post an answer to it. So I can just tell you to go to the "duplicate" question and look for instructions there (the link on top of this page).

Sammy, you might always want to take a look into our rooting index before asking "how to root..." (btw, our tag-wikis, here rooting, are pretty good resources to find such ;) -- How to root a HTC Desire running official Android 2.3? should answer your question and tell you the correct tool to use :)

So Revolutionary is the answer? Isn't that based on Unrevoked?... and it has been a developer preview for at least a year without any official release for the "mass destruction" of rooted devices. I'm desperate, so I'll give that a go anyway. Thanks!

You're welcome! I cannot give you more details on this -- I just picked the question for you, as it perfectly matched :)

I also have a blog post on how to root HTC Desire 2.3.3. http://techspalace.blogspot.com/2011/10/perm-root-htc-desire-gingerbread-233.html

Thanks guys, I got root and S-OFF now using Revolutionary. About that Beta key... do I need to safe keep it? Or will I be able to generate a new one next time? I'm not sure why that is needed. Just because the tool is in Beta development stage?...

Since HTC provides a tool to unlock the bootloader on there phones why not use the official tool... http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/

Yeah, I saw that last night. Though I'm not sure how this will help me. So what if I do unlock the bootloader? Does it give me root access?

If you unlock the bootloader you can easily root without any hacks, you can flash any mod without hacks.


text:
Why does text duplicate itself in Android Jelly Bean Mail?
OK, I have a new Samsung Galaxy S III, updated to Jelly Bean 4.1.1.
While Gmail works fine, when I send messages using one of my Web server's accounts, the message text duplicates itself in the body of the message. So:
. The accounts are set up as IMAP, with SSL on.
Any guidance to configuring the handset or my server to address this?
I do not have this problem using a desktop Mac or PC email client, or an iPhone.

Did you intend to include a screen shot? Your post seems to be missing some information.

No need for a screen shot. You check sent messages and the text inside is duplicated. Also when I hit return in this forum, it posts the message rather than move to the next paragraph.

Example as follows: Test
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™III  Test
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™III

Please edit your question to include this information. Comments are, by their nature, impermanent.


text:
HTC One S notification vibrate
I have a HTC One S and recently did a system update and am now running 4.1.1 (whatever that is called)
I have a few games that have push notifications e.g. bakery story, restaurant story. As soon as I updated these, the notifications play the sound I had set, but now annoyingly they also vibrate. I have been into the settings for each app and there is no option for vibrate.
I have searched through all the settings in my phone and can't find an option for notifications vibrating anywhere. I don't know how or why it turned on, but I want it off. The only option I have at the moment is to have my phone on silent all the time, or to turn the push notifications off.
Which means that I will lose out in the games. I know it's not very important but I have spent a lot of time on these games and it would be a shame to get rid of them.
Thank you. :-)

Go to your phone's settings. Go to Sound. Tick off the Vibrate (Vibration feedback for calls and notifications) option.

I only have an option for vibration feedback for calls, not notifications and yes it's off. But it's still vibrating with every push notification.

Now my phone has started to vibrate when certain contacts phone me. The vibration feedback for calls is definitely off.

Can you please attach a screenshot of your Sound Settings window

I have the same problem with my One X. Here's a screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9aqnv4uhfiy8zf4/2013-02-15_23-37-26.png

Did you check the Notification Sound settings. I would like to see a screen shot of it as well...

@Murshid: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eygd0r8yg948r1e/2013-02-16_11-21-35.png
If somebody could be so kind to convert this to a comment. [post from @MarkM]

My menu looks exactly like Mark M's. There is no option of vibrate for notifications. It's driving me mad.

Thanks, so far I have gone through a few forums and most of them are mentioning that vibration in HTC one S is controlled by per apps. Which means turning off a particular app's notification vibration lies within its settings. But since you couldn't find it I looked out for some other solution. Found this app, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cygnus.vibrationwidget&hl=en Try it and let me know whether worked or not. Cheers till that.

Also I would like to know if there is a setting called feedback in your sound settings. If there is please post a screenshot of it as well. I am sorry for asking you these things. Since I don't have an HTC with me I have to go through like this.

Hi. I tried that app and it still vibrated with the notification. There is not a feedback option in my sound settings unfortunately.


text:
Opera mini v12 automatic clear cache history & cookies
Is there a way to get rid of all cache, history and cookies automatically.
Preferably each time I shut down or start up the browser Opera mini.
If this one doesn't anyone know another browser that does?
Manually deleting each privacy setting all the time is a pain in the ass.
And if no mobile browser supports this is there another way to get rid of
all this data automatically?

Maybe you try two avenues:

Dolphin Browser (Which does prompt for to clear cache, etc on exit), there's the Mini version, this version as linked to the Play Store, and the HD version.
History Eraser - this clears all the history of SMS, Calls, Browser history etc in one swell foop.

about this History Eraser.... seriously... i wonder why ppl would install if you checkout what this "so-called-app" permissions wants to have: edit and read my SMS or MMS, My personal information ( read browser history and bookmarks ), Full internet access (why the hell for?)... seriously??

That's what it does, barring internet access (can block  it with firewall) it does wipe sms, mms, call logs etc..

The PC / desktop Opera version has that feature. Unfortunately, it's not available in mobile versions.
You can try the following browsers instead:
Dolphin

Settings > Exit Settings > Clear Cache When Exiting
Settings > Exit Settings > Clear History When Exiting
Settings > Exit Settings > Clear Cookies When Exiting

UC Browser

Settings > Clear Data > Clear data on exit
Settings > Clear Data > Cookies
Settings > Clear Data > Form
Settings > Clear Data > History
Settings > Clear Data > Cache

As of this time, I prefer to use UC Browser, because Dolphin is giving me a lot of issues on my Samsung Galaxy S2, running CM10.1.

Dolphin i tried and looks surprisingly nice if it has a no-script add-on or option that its better than chrome or firefox. No-script is a firefox addon that blocks all JavaScript except for the domain you manually allow.


text:
Add "scp" to "share via" or "send via" menu
In the photo gallery application a pop-up menu allows selecting various destinations for "share via".
Is it possible to add "scp" to this list? There seem to be a number of scp clients out there but I don't know if any one of them can add itself to the "share via" menu.

What are you really asking for? Is this geared towards development?

I'd like to be able to quickly scp photos to a remote host.

That is largely dependent on if the scp client apps have that feature to enable sharing as in share via! Why not use Google Drive or DropBox, or even Box.net?

The thing is I haven't even found an open source / free scp client yet, do you know any?

@t0mm13b privacy? There might be certain things the user doesn't want to be in the cloud. One of the reasons I don't use such things at all ;)

Did you find a scp solution? I am interested in an updated answer, if you found something.

Shareing is a feature the application needs to explicitly code for and then advertise to the system that it accepts share requests.  If you have an SCP app that you like but it is not offering the share feature try checking if the developer has a website with more information.  If you still have no luck try emailing the developer and asking for the feature.


text:
Clearing Notifications/Downloads
Recently bought the Samsung Galaxy Ace and I'm having issues removing the notifications of a download that claims it is still in process, and notifications about messages that are not sent...
Any idea  how to remove both these things?
Restarting phone hasn't help, nor has "force-Stop"-ing the downloads manager.

Did you try long-pressing the notification? How about clearing the data on the downloads manager? Are you downloading apps via Google Play? If so, have you tried clearing data/force stopping the Play app?

If the download is still in process, click the Notification, select the download and Select the 'Cancel' button.
If the download has finished, then reboot your device.
You can clear un-sent message notifications by clicking the notification.


text:
Can I restore Samsung Home
I have accidentally disabled Samsung Home (process.com.sec.android.app.twlauncher) from my Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830.
Now apps won't open so I can't access settings etc to try to rectify this.
How can I restore the aforementioned twlauncher?

What did you do to disable it? Do you have another launcher installed? Even non-samsung apps fail to open?

Did you try restart your phone and checked?

I wanted to install Whatsapp but received a warning that there was not enough memory and apps should be deleted. In my enthusiasm and ignorance I deleted twlauncher. This was not intentional and I was not installing another launcher; so, no launcher no apps, which also means I access nothing. I did try switching off and re-booting, but, as expected, nothing changed and my 'phone is useless.

Can you not extract twlauncher from another system ROM dump found elsewhere and push it across - oh wait, just realized, are you rooted?

I understand a bit what "rooting" means but I don't believe my phone is rooted. I relied on the operating system not allowing me to delete any installed app  essential to operating the phone. @RyanConrad In my last response I said I had tried switching off and re-booting. Re-booting may have been mis-leading, as I do not know how. I switched off & back on again, but when the phone is starting up, it immediately shows The app.Samsung Home.......has stopped unexpectedly. Force close is the only option but the message re-appears & no other functions are available.

If you deleted twlauncher, you are rooted. you need to sideload a launcher or put twlauncher back in /system/app

I'm having the exact same problem.... too bad there aren't answers


text:
some apps, no problem loading on 2 devices. Not this one - help
I have loaded a free app (imediashare) from Amazon store onto my Kindle Fire. I want to put the same app on my Samsung phone, but when I go to the app store from the phone and try to 'buy' it, I'm told I already own it.
I have had no trouble doing this same action with some other apps, nor with any books (putting them on both devices)
I think I may be able to reload it from my apps library, but I cannot find it, navigating from the Samsung.
Any help would be much appreciated.

This article should help:
How to install paid apps on multiple Android devices
Also you can try to install application using web version of Play Store (in the Send to list select needed device, for example, your phone).


text:
How to root Lenovo a660
I've tried rooting my phone by using SuperOneClick and RootWithRestore.
And did not have much success either. So my question is how to do this?
(I checked that in /system/bin that I do not have the su binary in place!)

Just for info: I placed your question on our central rooting index, as your device was not yet present there. You might check the methods mentioned there, maybe one of them is fitting for you.


text:
When I'm turning on my internet connection(3g) on galaxy S PLUS, it starts to screen shot itself
When I'm turning on my internet connection via 3G on Galaxy S+, it starts to screen shot itself - aproximately 8 times a minute. And this resulted in all my applications shutting down after 3 seconds. And all of this happens, only when I'm in my flat, only in my house, every day.

That's a hard one, needs more info. Can you send some  logs?

Hardware keys sticking? Something triggering it? As for screenshotting itself, is in Android 4 (ICS upwards) Power + Vol Down in combination...


text:
What difference does it make that I have two SD cards
I guess I don't really understand the Android storage structure; maybe someone can enlighten me or direct me to a place that does. I have a Galaxy S3, Android 4.0.5, with two 16GB SD cards. So:

Does the phone have internal storage other than the SD cards?
Under /mnt, I see both sdcard and extSdCard; there is also sdcard under /. I assume this is just a link. But this implies to me that the external sd card is somehow "less important" than the original SD card. Is that true?
I would like to use perhaps doubletwist, or some other application, to put my whole iTunes library, which is slightly larger than 16GB, on my phone. Will that application (or any application) insist on having 16gig on one card, or will it just figure it out and put the data wherever it needs to go?
The file structure on my sd cards seems pretty complicated, with lots of empty folders. What folders are really needed by the OS, and how can I figure out what is supposed to go in each?

I guess this comes down to two questions: 1) how can I figure out what the principles are behind the Android file system, and 2) do applications care that there are two cards, or do they/can they treat it as a single disk?
Thanks.

By the sound of it, its like as if the handset is in fact a 16GB model variant, if so, then the so-called sdcard is treated as internal storage i.e. sdcard, and the external SDCard is symbolically linked to extSdCard.
That is the way Google are doing it now, and doing away with having external SDCard's... :)
No its not true that one is "more" important than the other, its just a way of increasing internal storage capacity for apps and media etc, the external SDCard acts as a "overflow" bucket once the storage space on the internal sdcard gets maxed out.


text:
How to see which partitions are mounted?
I want to see if every partition is mounted correctly on my devices; in particular I want to see if the /proc gets auto-mounted. How can I see this?

In the Android Terminal, you can enter the command mount to view what has been mounted.For a graphical extended view and to view if it gets mounted at boot, you can install the shareware app EzyMount.


text:
How do I play videos in a loop in the Samsung stock player?
I want to play a video repeatedly in the Samsung stock video player.  Is there a way?
Samsung Galaxy S3
OS: 4.1.1

The stock video player on the S3 doesn't have this functionality. You can achieve it by installing another video app such as VLC for Android.

I guess VLC doesn't have the popup feature like the stock does it?  I want to play a video in the background on a loop while browsing. Will the audio keep playing on VLC in the background?

No, it doesn't, and no, it won't.

I downloaded VLC but I don't see the loop button!

You should be able to do this by going to Settings => Repeat while the video is playing and enable it. (source)

I only see the option of "auto play off" under Settings while a video is playing. Where is "repeat"?

I think the linked thread is about a different video player.

Try IVideo Player , compatible for Android 3.0+, looping, child lock, brightness control, plays mov, flv, rmvb, mpg, mpeg and etc.


text:
Where to get OpenSSL binary for Android?
I have a Nexus 10 (unlocked & rooted) and I wanted to get the openssl binary on there so I can verify HTTPS certificates:
$ openssl s_client -connect <IPADDRESS>

However, no matter what I do I can't find a simple way of getting OpenSSL on Android so I can run the command above. I found something about 'opkg' but I couldn't get this process working. It was also incredibly complex. There is also an app called "Botbrew", but this project seems dead and doesn't work.
Anyone know how to get OpenSSL binary on my Nexus 10? At the very least, how can I view the certificate chain that Google uses when negotiating SSL handshake for the Gmail app (this is ultimately my goal)?
Thanks.

Your best bet will be to build it from source.
There are a few StackOverflow questions that you might want to reference if you haven't already.
How to use openSSL Library in the ANDROID application
How to build OpenSSL on Android/Linux ?
Openssl Build Issue with Android NDK r8
The first SO has an answer linking to a GitHub project android-external-openssl.  I would suggest trying to work with this code as a starting point.

The link in other answer is expired.
Built my own, for various archs:

https://vi-server.org/pub/openssl_1.1.1_android_static_arm
https://vi-server.org/pub/openssl_1.1.1_android_static_aarch64
https://vi-server.org/pub/openssl_1.1.1_android_static_x86
https://vi-server.org/pub/openssl_1.1.1_android_static_x86_64

"static" here does not mean actually static, just that libssl and libcrypto are inside.
SHA256 (openssl_1.1.1_android_static_aarch64) = 1bf30e1a15d309e42240cce4902d7436005c2f79973bb2e0126d4c49aa2a05bf
SHA256 (openssl_1.1.1_android_static_arm) = 87fe53abbdd68378e1497848d27fc63384dfeeaa17e38874522d21f998731c34
SHA256 (openssl_1.1.1_android_static_x86) = aa70c8a82d3f0b198aae5f26f688d4137fc87bc3bf70aa01782399b5e3e9f7f6
SHA256 (openssl_1.1.1_android_static_x86_64) = 9c3717a51cfb133a33552985f84d2eccb7c125a217d3be4c1cde1696d4410605

Have a look at http://curl.haxx.se/download.html:
It seems that http://curl.haxx.se/gknw.net/7.31.0/dist-android/curl-7.31.0-rtmp-ssh2-ssl-zlib-static-bin-android.tar.gz contains an openssl binary.


text:
HTC One V really slow
I bought my HTC One V exactly one year ago, at first everything went really smoothly and it worked like a charm.
It didn't take long before the phone crashed from an unexpected error. The phone spent most of the time in my pocket then, I would notice it because it vibrates then or the next time there would be that error-sign in the upper left corner.
I started living with the fact it sometimes shut itself down, but now the messaging app is beginning to lag:
When I want to send a message (or make a call), it happens that I cannot see my contacts. (which are imported from Google) But it could also be that I have to wait a minute or more because the messages for that contact are loading.
How can I fix these problems with my phone?
My Android version is 4.0.3

May be too many messages or too many contacts?

last week i set it up to limit it to 50 messages/conversation and 196 contacts isn't that much, i guess

Ya. That definitely is not much. So that never is the problem then.

You might want to check My device is getting slow, apps start misbehaving/crashing. What can I do?. Please report back if that solves your issue, or otherwise what you've tried and were you're stuck.

I already cleared my applications cache two days ago, didn't solve much. If i remember well i did a factory reset 3 times too

Bad SD card can be the cause sometime.

Or bad (cache) files on the SD card that weren't removed by the factory reset.


text:
Why the battery drain while plugged in doing nothing? (omap2_mcspi)
I usually leave my phone plugged in to the wall charger at night.  This morning, to my surprise, the battery was not charged.  According to the System Panel app, System Processes were taking almost 10% of CPU during the entire night.  The biggest consumer was omap2_mcspi, taking nearly 15 minutes of CPU time, followed by khelper and cpcap_irq/0 both taking around 5 1/2 minutes, then ueventd and used at around 3 1/2 minutes, followed by battd at 3 minutes and vold at 2 1/2 minutes.
It seems pretty ridiculous to me that my battery would be running down while on the charger with the screen off and nothing (that should be) running.
Other than system processes, the only other thing taking any appreciable amount (around 1 minute) of CPU was "usb" which shows up outside of system processes.  My best guess is maybe the USB plug had some kind of issue, but I don't see any evidence of this (battery status updates don't show any apparent unplugging).

Could it be the plug was not connecting correctly? I have that quite often with my Optimus. After it happened for the first time (and I had to start the day with an almost empty battery), I always watch for the charging notification before turning the screen off; it that doesn't show, unplug and plug again. The usage values you report don't sound unreasonable, though I wonder a little about the OMAP SPI driver.

@Izzy that was my first thought, but I log battery readings and it shows charging status as expected.  I know what SPI is, but I don't know what peripherals it might be trying to talk to.

I thought you knew what OMAP and SPI are. But I also thought others might not (me included, concerning SPI), so the links wouldn't hurt :) As far as I understood, SPI could be used to access the SDCard, or other things via USB, so the latter might indicate some connection: could it have tried to "mount your charger" somehow -- due to some contact problem? Forgive me if that sounds stupid, but I'm not a dev and just rawly read the content behind above link ;)


text:
Control your smartphone using your laptop
I have a sony xperia z and the screen recently smashed.  Touch screen capability has also gone.  As such I can't even unlock the phone.  Does anyone know of an app or a method for connecting it to my laptop and gaining full control of the phone through the laptop?  I need to unlock it and access an app that's installed.  I've been through the folders on it using the laptop but need access to the app itself to get the data I need.

The Xperia Z supports USB OTG so you can use a computer mouse to access the screen by connecting it to the phone with a 'male micro USB to Female USB OTG' cable. No setup required just connect it up and use the mouse to enter your passcode and do anything else you need to.
Once unlocked you can connect it to your PC to copy everything across or use the mouse to access an app.

Since your screen is smashed and touch screen capability is gone, you may not be able to use apps like AirDroid, as VarnerBeast14 has suggested. Instead you can use a service like Droid@Screen. Follow the steps below to view your screen.

Install Java JRE (or JDK), version 6 or later
Install Android SDK
Run its SDK Manager and install the Platform Tools
Set the environment variable ANDROID_HOME to point to the
installation directory of the Android SDK
Install USB drivers for your own Android device, by getting it from
the vendor’s support web page
Download and install the latest version of Droid@Screen
Configure your device to allow USB Debugging (Settings-> Developer
options -> USB debugging)
Plug in the USB cable between your device and PC
Launch Droid@Screen

Configure your device to allow USB Debugging (Settings-> Developer options -> USB debugging) How to do that with a smashed screen he cannot even unlock? ;) Just a side-note. My answer also requires USB Debugging to be turned on -- but it looks like chances are good Oliver already has it on.

Alas, no.  I don't already have it on.  And my screen lock is a pin code.  I'd literally just got it so had yet to start delving into hacking it.  The worst part is (and it's also quite funny) there was an alarm set for 5.30am, so if I power it up to try anything it gets charge and the alarm goes off every 10 minutes.  I can't take the battery out, because it's a z, and it doesn't seem possible to do a factory reset.  So essentially I have an expensive lump of (broken) glass at the moment.

Looks like it's the sony shop for this then.  How very annoying

You can only see the display, you cannot use touch functionality using Droid@Screen :), wasted my time.

is there a way to really control my smartphone from laptop?

If you've got a separate device running the same (or higher) version of Android, there would be an option alongside Sid's answer. You wouldn't need the full SDK, just ADB itself (see: Is there a minimal installation of ADB?). Then you could use adb backup -f myname.ab -apk <com.app.name> to backup your app and its data (replace <com.app.name> by the app's package name, to be found e.g. in its URL on the Google Play page, following the id=), and adb restore myname.ab to install it on the other device.
However, some conditions must be met:

your Xperia Z must at least run Android 4.0
USB debugging must already be turned on on your Xperia Z (from your description, it sounds like that could be the case: been through the folders on it using the laptop)
the second device also must run Android 4.0+ -- best the same as or a higher version than the source device

That provided, and followed above steps, you then could start the app on the second device and access its data.
EDIT: From ott's comment below I just notice I've missed an important point: the entire procedure only works if you've used adb backup before, and set up a desktop password for it (e.g. Holo Backup works this way). So this will probably be no solution for you in your current situation -- but you might wish to be prepared this way for (hopefully never happening) future cases.

I'm faced with this problem today, too. The touchscreen isn't smashed, it just doesn't work. The screen is locked, and adb backup -all just tells me to unlock and allow. Very funny. I still can do adb logcat and even adb shell works.

Oh crap -- I forgot about the "authorization screen". So my answer is only valid if one used adb backup before, and set up a "desktop password"...

I use an app called AirDroid. You install it on your phone, and then also install a Chrome extension (there may be other versions for the computer, the Chrome extension is the most universal for me).
This app lets me see the screen of my phone, receive messages, and operate apps. I don't know the full reliability of it because I still use my phone by itself most of the time since I can, but you can look into it and see all that it really has to offer. I think it could really help you out.

This app, too, needs to be installed before the problem happens.

So? If you're phone is properly set up, you have a google account active on it. If so, you can push-install apps to your phone from the pc. Just did it with this app. This might not have been possible in the far past of 2013. However, these days, this answer is fully valid! The only question is, wether it can be used without any actions on the phone, with only the app installed. Seems unlikely...


text:
What are Cyanogenmod's profiles good for?
I just installed ICS CM9 on my Galaxy Note and I am puzzled by the "Profiles" setting. It seems to allow me to set-up different profiles (home, work, etc) and associate settings with them, eg enable Bluetooth and disable GPS at home.
But I didn't see any way to automatically change profiles according to, for example, presence of a given WIFI network. So, my question is: what are those profiles for? Should I manually switch profile from work to home when I come back home? This make no sense!
I searched but didn't find anything relevant, maybe because "profile" is a very generic noun.

Edited the OP to reflect that... Yes, they're CM7+ specific and rather useful (imho), have NFC-trigger-support, CM's forum has more info.

Yes, you'll have to manually switch to Home profile when you come back home. Its what you can find in classic mobile phones.
If you want to automate it, there're plenty of apps for that: Tasker+Profile4Tasker (paid), AutomateIt (free), Llama (free), Locale+Profile4Tasker (paid)

currently researching how to set them with intents not using Profile4tasker (seems with NFC there are random like identifiers involved as "salt" to prevent malicious switching)

Llama is great but it doesn't automate the types of profiles mentioned here. It has its own profiles.

As listed in http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/EndUser.Profiles (already mentioned), the only support for automatic switching provided out-of-the-box with CyanogenMod is via Clock (Alarms) application. Each alarm can also trigger a profile change.
For WiFi-, location-, etc- based changes you'd have to use other options. Some of them are also listed on the above wiki page.

When updating to 10.1.3, the Google Maps icon becomes visible at the bottom of the profile being edited. There, you can select triggers based on joining a certain Wi-Fi network, etc.

I was looking for the same answers on the same question.
This post from the CM team had all the answers I was looking for:
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/EndUser.Profiles

Broken link. Please update it.

Actually with no additional applications, they can switch automatically say on a particular WiFi connection/disconnection, but discovering that feature is hiding in a most non-intuitive location.
At the bottom of the profile edit page hiding near your home button you will see a "Google map" placemarker icon.
Click on it.  That takes you to the trigger page, where you can set the profile to automagically activate/deactivate on WiFi or Bluetooth and I think NFC though I've never used that particular tech "feature" looking for a useful purpose.

Are you sure you haven't added an application which can do that? I am running CM 10.1 and I do not have this option in the the Profile edit Setting page. (e.g. System Settings-->Profile-->Work)

the Google maps icon leading to a triggers page is definitely present in CM11 (KitKat).
This allows you to set certain features based on events such as WiFi networks / NFC tags, etc.
I can't recall having seen it before, but as stated - it isn' the most intuitive of locations, I only stumbled on it because I thought my phone was changing* profiles due to some sort of GeoTagging.
*the profile change was actually caused by the clock (alarm), which can be used as a timed profile change every morning (e.g. force your phone into default with your morning alarm clock).... bizarrely, these timed changes are NOT visible/accessible from the profiles config page.


text:
Unrevoked: Is my firmware too new?
I'm trying to root my phone with Unrevoked recovery reflash tool and it all goes well - it installed the needed service and the root tool - up until it's supposed to actually do the root process.
It reboots the phone and then says "waiting for system to settle" and then it says "running root". Then it gives me the message "error: failed to get root. Is your firmware too new?"

But how do I tell if my firmware is too new? Do they mean the Android build number? And where can I see what versions are supported? Or is it my HBOOT version that's causes the problem?
Some info about my device.
Android version
2.2

Baseband version
32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27

Kernel version
2.6.32.15-gf@5a401c
htc-kernel@and18-2#1

Build number
2.29.405.2 CL263770 release-keys

Software number
2.29.405.2

BRAVO PVT3 SHIP S-ON
HBOOT-0.93.0001
MICROP-051d
TOUCH PANEL-SYNT0101
RADIO-5.11.05.27
Aug 10 2010,17:52:18

Is this thing compatible with Unrevoked or not?
If not, will it help to downgrade to Android Eclair 2.1 RUU and then try to root?
Update: Downgrade attempt failed
I just tried downgrading from 2.29.405.2 to 2.10.405.2 using the RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.10.405.2_R_Radio_32.44.00.32U_5.09.05.30_2_release_142828_signed.exe file but the process failed. I get error code 140 - "bootloader version error".

So much for plan B...

I used the Revolutionary tool and it worked like a charm!

One click root methods use a simple rootkit exploit package to gain root permissions to the Android kernel. Once this is done, they modify file permissions to make the rooting permanent.
These exploits have been patched by Google and device manufacturers for a long time now, and the vast majority of one click rooting solutions are outdated and no longer work.
In other words - your firmware is too new. It has been patched against rootkit exploits.

And Unrevoked reflash tool is also one of these one click root methods? Will it help to downgrade to an older RUU? If not, what other options do I have?

It was not possible to flash an older RUU than the current one used. I'm not sure if this is a general rule or policy (like with iPhone) or just an anomaly. But I managed to flash with the same RUU version as the one that was currently on the phone. And after doing that I tried Unrevoked again and it worked. I'm not sure if the RUU (with the same version number) that I downloaded was modified in any way, or if it was just my current ROM (although same version) that was messy. I would say it was most likely patched up by updates and blocked Unrevoked.


text:
Why do I only have 304 MB of available storage space?
I have AlphaRev Oxygen R2, 4Ext Touch Recovery, AN-Droid 2.2.0 with Android 2.3.3 on my HTC Desire. But I have only 304 MB of available internal storage space after the first boot up. Now I installed Shazam and it shrank down to 296 MB.
Shouldn't this number stay the same when I install an app? I mean I have formatted my SD card in 4Ext and created a 2 GB Ext4 partition for apps. Are the apps being installed on internal memory anyway? How do I check that? And if so, how do I tell it to install to the SD-Ext partition instead?
This ROM is supposed to come with integrated App2SD+. Ain't that right? If not, can you suggest another ROM that has integrated App2SD+ or tell me how to set it up manually?

I want memory, man!! This stupid phone comes with only 147 MB of memory available for the user apps and data. I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they designed it.
In response to Izzy
This is the output of the mount command.
sh-3.2# mount
mount
rootfs / rootfs rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0
/sys/kernel/debug /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/asec tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/obb tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
tmpfs /app-cache tmpfs rw,relatime,size=8192k,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,relatime,cpu 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock3 /system yaffs2 rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock4 /cache yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock5 /system/data yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodiratime 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodiratime,commit=50,bar
rier=0,nobh,stripe=64,data=writeback,noauto_da_alloc 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:1 /mnt/sdcard vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,u
id=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset
=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:1 /mnt/secure/asec vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relat
ime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,ioch
arset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure tmpfs ro,relatime,size=0k,mode=000 0 0
/dev/block/dm-0 /mnt/asec/se.fmckl.regnr-1 vfat ro,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,relatime
,uid=1000,fmask=0222,dmask=0222,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mix
ed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
/dev/block/dm-1 /mnt/asec/com.fingersoft.benjibananas-2 vfat ro,dirsync,nosuid,n
odev,relatime,uid=1000,fmask=0222,dmask=0222,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,
shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
sh-3.2#

Output of the df command.
sh-3.2# df
df
/dev: 207168K total, 64K used, 207104K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/asec: 207168K total, 0K used, 207168K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/obb: 207168K total, 0K used, 207168K available (block size 4096)
/app-cache: 8192K total, 0K used, 8192K available (block size 4096)
/system: 256000K total, 213132K used, 42868K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 40960K total, 1388K used, 39572K available (block size 4096)
/system/data: 151168K total, 113812K used, 37356K available (block size 4096)
/data: 2064144K total, 444856K used, 1619288K available (block size 4096)
/mnt/sdcard: 28544368K total, 9550336K used, 18994032K available (block size 163
84)
/mnt/secure/asec: 28544368K total, 9550336K used, 18994032K available (block siz
e 16384)
/mnt/asec/se.fmckl.regnr-1: 3124K total, 1040K used, 2084K available (block size
 4096)
/mnt/asec/com.fingersoft.benjibananas-2: 33212K total, 30996K used, 2216K availa
ble (block size 4096)
sh-3.2#

Does this make any sense?

Looks like you've bought the wrong device then (and I don't know what you've thought when you bought it ;). Apps get installed into internal storage by default. Even with App2SD (as you've already applied that tag, follow it for closer information) you can only move apps supporting this to your card, which will move parts of them.

May thoughts exactly! Right after I posted that comment. The fact is I had already bought the Samsung Galaxy S. But my friends were all over me about their precious HTC Desire. So I gave in to the pressure and returned the Galaxy S in exchange for the HTC Desire. I don't think I even booted up the Galaxy S, not even once. But little did I know that it came with so little memory. It was not even 512 MB but only 147 MB available for user data. The Galaxy S came with 2048 MB I think. But it's easy to be wise afterwards, you know.

How did you resize the screenshot image? Is there an image resizer tool here at SU that I'm not aware of?... I thought about resizing it but didn't have time. Thanks!

I will try to answer my own question here. The short answer is: get a ROM that just works! (No, not a room, a ROM! Get a ROM!)
Here is the same screenshot image of the SD & phone storage menu, this time with a ROM called SuperNova. You can find an installation guide here.

As you can see from the image I now have 1.86 GB of internal storage space. No additional apps have been installed yet, except for some apps that came with the ROM, and the stock HTC apps that came with the phone.
How-to
You will need root and S-OFF before you continue. It's also possible to install this ROM with S-ON, but it will require some additional steps, for more details see the developers website. You will also need a custom recovery like Clock Work Mod (CWM) or 4Ext Recovery. The latter is recommended. You will also need to flash stock HBOOT, if you don't have that already. You will find the stock HBOOT on AlphaRev website.

Go to the download page of developers website.
Download "SuperNova 2.4.0.1 Extreme ROM". You will see at least three mirror download links. Here's one direct link to Dev-Host.
Power off the phone.
Enter HBOOT on the phone.
Enter recovery (I used 4Ext Touch Recovery).
Format and partition the SD card with one Ext4 partition and one FAT32.
Power off the phone and take out the SD card.
Mount your SD card to the computer.
Copy the Supernova_2.4.0.1_signed.zip file to the SD card.
Put the SD card in the phone.
Enter recovery and choose "update from zip".
Select the file above. This will now flash the new ROM.
Reboot the phone. First boot will take longer time than usual.
When you get to the setup wizard, skip setting up a Google account.
Reboot the phone. You will see a blue LED go and off. This means Data2SD is loaded and working.
Now you can setup your Google account and Wi-Fi, and what not.

Remember, complete installation instructions can be found here. That web page can be overwhelming, especially for newbies, which is why I tried to put it in a more condensed form here.
If you run into the "Download was unsuccessful please try again" message when downloading apps, this means that the app you're trying to download is too big and the Android Market cache is too small. This problem is covered in the FAQ at developers website, it's question 28.
The suggested workaround involves using Scriptmanager app and a script, and this must be done every time you reboot. But I have found that installing the latest version of Play Store (replacement for Android Market) manually solves the problem permanently.
Here's a short how-to on that too.

Download the APK file for Play Store.
Connect the phone to the computer. If prompted, choose to mount as
disk drive.
Copy the APK file to the SD card.
Disconnect the phone.
Go to menu, settings, applications, and enable unknown sources.
Start a file manager app (I used ES File Explorer, but ASTRO is good
too).
Browse to the file (/mnt/sdcard/) and tap it to open. You'll be
prompted if you want to replace a system app. Tap OK to continue.

I will try this out and see how well it works. If it's very good I might write a short step by step guide for future visitors.

That looks like a miracle -- where does the extra space come from? 304 MB and 1.86 GB looks a little different :) Is that total space, or remaining space (so with your first screenshot, you had just filled it up)?

The extra space comes from the SD card. That's remaining space... and total space... I mean that's what it said when I just booted up the first time, without any additional apps installed. I created a 2 GB Ext4 partition on the SD card. This is combined with the 147 MB free user space that's normally available on the phone when it's new (the stock HBOOT layout). You would maybe expect 2 GB + 0.147 GB to be 2.147 GB. It's less than that, probably because some of that memory is addressed to things like GPU, and of course some of the apps added by developer.

To me that rather looks like mount points being switched (i.e. /data now resides on your 2 GB SDCard partition). The fact that you have to create the partition before flashing the ROM seems to support that. You could verify it executing the mount and df commands from a terminal or via adb shell. Everything else (including Data2SD) would not explain why the device displays that amount for internal storage (which it assumes is mounted at /data).

When in adb shell, how do I use the mount and df commands? Do you want me to use them together somehow? Do I just type mount to view mounting points, and then df to view total and available space? Give me an example, I'm not very familiar with linux.

You can see the output of both commands above. It says that /system/data has 151168K total. That's 147 MB. And available is 37356K or 36 MB. This is the actual internal memory, right? For /data it says 2064144K or 2015 MB total and 1619288K or 1581 MB available. Does this make any sense?

When I mount the SD card to the computer Windows says that total space is 27.2 GB. It should say 29.8 GB since it is a 32 GB card. So that's 2.6 GB missing, probably residing on the Ext4 partition.

Yupp, as expected: 2 GB on /data, that's your new partition on the SDCard. Then it seems to have re-partitioned the internal NAND (/dev/block/mtdblock*) to make use of what previously was used for /data: /cache now has 40 MB available, /system 250 MB, /system/data 148 MB, summing up to 438 MB (which they definitly did not have before: 512 MB NAND - 438 MB just leaves 74 MB (which is used by partitions not mounted and thus not listed above, such as e.g. /recovery). Careful when switching to another ROM which might not expect this partitioning :)

32 GB is the brutto capacity of the card. Even with ony one partition on it, and a completely empty file system, you would not have 32 GB available. There's always a little "wasted space" ;) My single-partitioned 32 GB card shows up on my tablet as "29,27 GB total" -- so take away the 2 GB of your extra partition, and numbers match perfectly.

let us continue this discussion in chat


text:
Recover a deleted file from phone memory without USB Mass Storage class?
I just deleted a picture file from the internal phone memory. I actually deleted the entire Pictures folder. But the app said that 1 file was deleted. Not more than that? I take it this means that the phone camera is using the SD card to store pictures I take. It was stored in /storage/emulated/0 on Galaxy S4 plus.
I'm not sure what picture that was. Is there a way I can recover it? I noticed there's no USB Mass Storage option in Galaxy S4 Plus. Can I still use a recovery software such as PhotoRec or Recuva to restore it?
Update: I only have a long list of local disk volumes (partitions) when I start Recuva. There's no way to select my phone – which is connected as an MTP device (Microsoft protocol for media players) – or any of its partitiions. I have the same problem in PhotoRec. It is however detected by the computer and I can browse its contents in Windows Explorer.

I can see now that I'm not the only one (link 1 link 2) with this type of problem.

The instructions given by the articles I linked to above are really deep and invasive. Is there really no way to do data recovery directly on the internal memory of MTP (media player) or PTP (photo camera) devices (e.g. so called "smart" phones using MTP/PTP)? Can someone confirm this?

If this is true then it's really stupid to use these protocols on smartphones in first place. Mounting the smartphone as a USB mass storage device was so much faster, and I'm sure it could provide some level of data recovery. So now, if I want that on my brand new Galaxy S4 I have to root it??? Unbelievable!! Well, I'll just hope that the picture file I deleted was nothing of value to me. Thankfully only one file was deleted. I better get some backup solution, beyond the cloud backups I already have.

Stupid question, maybe – but have you checked the fine tag wiki of the data-recovery tag you used? Points you e.g. to Recover deleted content from userdata partition and How can I recover a deleted file on Android? :)

The general opinion seems to be that one should use an app called Undelete by Fahrbot from the Play store. However, this app has only limited use. It can only read FAT partitions, and it requires root permission to be of any use. I was looking for ways to recover files from the internal storage (presumably an Ext3 partition), either from within the phone with the help of an app (which usually requires root permission) or from a PC.

I have given up on this one. Hopefully there was nothing important in that folder, and if there was, I hope it was already backed up with Dropbox. (Now that I think of it, I think it said "1 folder" deleted. So there might have been more than 1 file in there.) But if you find a way to recover files from the internal phone memory, preferably with an app, please post a link. It might be helpful in the future.

same problem for me, and my Samsung Grand Neo does not have root permission so I can't find a way to recover my lost data. Hope someone will find a way.