text:
Do signal booster apps work? How?
I do not have the best signal on my Galaxy S4. I have had a recommendation on downloading a Signal Booster App.

How do they work (or do they work at all)?
Are there ways to boost my signal strength without an app?

Note: I am referring to 4G Signal Strength. My signal strength ranges from -107 dBm 33 asu to -113 dBm 27 asu.

To be honest - the part that got me sceptical - that it doesn't waste battery power as you improve signal! If it claims to improve signal, it surely must be sucking juice? all the telephony layer is proprietary and closed-source, cannot see how that would work...is it faking figures somewhere..? do not know, I cannot really vouch nor say either... it reminds me of an app in which by shaking it you gain more battery juice - just saying...

@t0mm13b - After browsing this site this answer indicates that it "improves" your signal by toggling airplane mode on and off. Thus reconnecting you to the network. But do all work this way?

Well, by toggling airplane mode on/off is counter-productive as the time to take to switch off the signal (Wifi has higher priority than telephony) and back on again disrupts the signal scanning, and not to mention say, downloading a short youtubey over 3G/4G for example, will require a restart...

@t0mm13b the idea behind it is to force the device to re-scan and connect to the "strongest available signal". If you e.g. have a moderate signal, but there would be a slightly better signal source in reach, the device usually doesn't always switch by itself. But when initializing (and thus not having any signal yet), it uses the strongest one. So to the user, it seems to be a "signal boost" – while in fact it was just a switch to a different tower.

@Izzy thanks for the insight... its more of taking a gamble really with which tower has the more stronger signal which may decrease after connecting?

@t0mm13b Exactly. And if there's no stronger source in reach, the "boost" does not even work. I never worried to use such an app, as it's rather "placebo" usually (oh, look! One bar more...). If the difference in signal quality would be huge enough, IMHO the device does switch (after all, it scans in the background). So it's rather evaluating the signalling overhead ("hey, I'm roaming over to the neighbor.* check..check..off here..on there) against the gain, energy-wise. If it's worth it: switch. If not: stay. // Hm, is that worth to be converted to an answer already?

There are so many apps available (which may be helpful in some situation) but how can you solve a hardware problem with software. you need to buy some signal booster or signal amplifier e.g http://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/ that will helpful

Summing up from my comments above:
How do signal boosters work?
They work by forcing the device to do a re-connect. Though the device is permanently watching its neighborhood (for the case the signal gets too weak), it does not switch for just a trifle. Instead, it tries to weight the benefits against the costs: switching to a different cell has some signalling overhead to be considered. So if it's just for a trifle, it wouldn't switch. But if the other signal source is twice as strong, for example, it would. And it certainly does switch once you lose signal, even if there's just a weak signal available to switch to.
If it switches, it always choses the best and strongest signal available. And as I said, when you lose your signal it does switch: that's exactly the concept of the booster. By going to airplane mode, it makes you lose the signal, so switching on the radios makes the device connecting to the strongest signal. If your lucky, you see one more bar. If there was just one cell available, you just wasted juice.
IMHO it's not really worth it, but everybody needs to decide that himself/herself. Improvements are rather marginal/cosmetical in most cases, if at all.
Ways to boost without a booster
Well, if you followed my above writing, you might already have guessed it: Long-press your power button, and select "airplane", then do it again. Or, open your notification bar and tap the plane icon, and repeat it. Done. The difference is you need to do it manually – while the app at least partially automates it (maximum one tap with the app, while 4 manually).
Further hints
There are apps available which track cell signals. Some do even track the neighboring cells (most of them only work with selected devices). If you find one that does work with neigboring cells and your device, you should be able to tell the real numbers – and see if it would be worth to "boost", or if it rather would be to "boast" :).

Also, switching to airplane mode and back again in the hope of latching on to a "stronger" signal could actually have adverse effect on battery juice as well due to "bringing up" the telephony layer...

@t0mm13b thanks for the detail: that's what I meant by "weighting the benefits against the costs". And Lynda: Glad I was able to help shedding some light :)


text:
If I put mkfs.ext3 file from another Linux system on my android ,will it work?
I want to know if I take the mkfs.ext3 file, or any other mkfs file, from another Linux system like Ubuntu, and put it with my mkfs.vfat and mkfs.ext2 located at /system/xbin, Would it work?
And how can I call them from terminal emulator?
If relevant, I have a Huawei u8160 running Cyanogenmod 7.2.

EDIT:
I realized that it cannot be taken from Ubuntu or any non-ARMv6 built system ,so my question now is: Where can I find binaries that are built for ARMv6 phone? (at least mkfs ones(except mkfs.vfat and mkfs.ext2,I already have them) ).

Native binaries (as the mkfs.* tools are) need to be compiled for the platform they should run on. So if you take the mkfs.ext3 from your Ubuntu workstation, which probably is either x86 or x86-64, it will not work on your Android device, which most likely uses ARM architecure.

is there is any other way to make it work ,take it from another android phone maybe?

and yes,it uses ARM v6.

if you take it from a compatible platform (i.e. also ARM v6), it could work. When compiled statically, it should work. Otherwise (compiled dynamically) it depends of the libraries used: if those are available on the target system, it should be no problem. (btw: this explanation was not specific to the binary in question, but rather generic to all native binaries).

could you find anywhere that I can find ARM v6 binaries (at least mkfs ones)?

In case you find a compatible one: You call it as usual by its name. When called without parameters, it should yield its syntax requirements (as it did last time for your mkfs.vfat). In case you get some "not found" instead, invoke it with the full path, e.g. /system/xbin/mkfs.ext3.

no I mean where can I find the file because I don't know anyone with ARM v6 phone

come meet me in chat http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/25/android

Since I think there aren't reliable sources for these binaries you could prefer to compile it (statically) using busybox with a cross compiler.
You are using cyanogenmod so should be also easy to compile it using the cyanogenmod source code (search on their site since I can't post more link :)), busybox is in the external/ directory.

For to compile, using CM, requires to download around 9GB of source code, it would be nightmare just to download one small tiny part of what makes up CM, or basically, use google-fu to navigate around the net as am sure others would have attempted it :)

I understand, but at first I talked about downloading directly busybox so downvoting seems a little bit excessive to me :). Also is not a good practice to install on your phone software found around the web

Hummm... I did not downvote you...

ok, sorry for the misunderstanding

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
My Huawei u8160(Vodafone 858) supports usb-host although not working?
I have a Huawei u8160 running Psyke83's Cyanogenmod 7.2 14/8/2012 which had a package with it to apply usb-host mode kernel called usbhost1-cm-7-20120814-MADTEAM-u8160.zip.
So I flashed the zip using clockwork mod recovery (from Rom Manager) and was successful although when I started my phone and connected an USB mouse it didn't light(the mouse) and it wasn't working.
I want to ask here,what's wrong?

EDIT #1:
I downloaded the app USB host controller and when I opened it it told me that "S3C USB Host driver NOT found!"

EDIT #2:
I've found this blog (it's in Hungarian so I translated it using Google) talking about exactly my state and it says that I need a Y-Cable to feed the usb peripheral with power, so I'm going to try that and then I'll report here.

USB Y-Cable :

The answers to this previous question sound relevant to what you're trying does Cyanogenmod 7.2 Madteam release 16/6 on Vodafone 858 support USB host?

@GAThrawn but that doesn't answer anything now

I've found it,
I needed a Y-Cable and I needed to activate the usb host mode by using this command in the terminal emulator :
su
insmod /system/lib/modules/ehci-hcd.ko

that activates the usb host mode.
and the phone doesn't mount the flash drives so I have to mount it manually :
cd /dev/block
ls

the terminal emulator should turn out something like uba,uba1 then create a folder in your sdcard called data (or whatever you like) and then type the one ending with 1 (i.e uba1) like this :
mount /dev/block/ub*1 /mnt/sdcard/data

(*) stands for the changed letter because it always starts with ub and ends in 1 but the third character changes between a,b,c,....
then open any file explorer and do whatever you want with data folder in your sdcard and then just unplug it, no need to unmount safely.

Thanks! I guess this could also work with the Huawei u8150.. so it means the Y-Cable was for extra power and why did you have to mess around with the terminal.. didn't the usb host controller app work?

only insmod command was needed (and that needs su command) and the other commands are for mounting the flash drives @Power-Inside

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


text:
NTFS file system supported although portable hard drive doesn't mount?
I have a Huawei u8160 running Cyanogenmod 7.2 .
I've recently been testing things on my recently activated OTG I've tried to connect a USB Portable HDD, However when I connect the HDD the LED flashes like it's reading/writing , dmesg notices it :
 <6>[12, khubd] [10776.834610] usb 1-1.4: new full speed USB device using msm_hsusb_host and address 40

 <6>[12, khubd] [10777.015514] usb 1-1.4: not running at top speed;
 connect to a high speed hub

 <7>[12, khubd] [10777.018517] usb 1-1.4: default language 0x0409

 <7>[12, khubd] [10777.021505] usb 1-1.4: udev 40, busnum 1, minor = 39

 <6>[12, khubd] [10777.021544] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found,
 idVendor=174c, idProduct=5106

 <6>[12, khubd] [10777.021567] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings:
 Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1

 <6>[12, khubd] [10777.021589] usb 1-1.4: Product: StoreJet Transcend

 <6>[12, khubd] [10777.021607] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: StoreJet
 Transcend

 <6>[12, khubd] [10777.021624] usb 1-1.4: SerialNumber:
 WD-WXF1E32VNMN1

 <7>[12, khubd] [10777.022149] usb 1-1.4: uevent

 done.

that is what dmesg says directly after connecting.
and when I write lsusb on terminal emulator it returns :
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002

 Bus 001 Device 041: ID 058f:9254

 Bus 001 Device 042: ID 174c:5106

one of them is always there,and another one is the USB Hub ,and another is the USB HDD
I already successfully mounted an NTFS Flash Drive (Fromatted using Minitool partition wizard,mounted using Paragon NTFS&HFS+) then the problem isn't the File System

EDIT :
Error when trying to mount USB flash drive that is NTFS formatted :
mount: mounting /dev/block/uba1 on /sdcard/data failed: Invalid argument

Error when trying to mount NTFS formatted portable HDD :
mount: mounting /dev/block/uba on /sdcard/data failed: No medium found

that means that the error in the HDD isn't with the NTFS file system.

EDIT #2:
I've tried this method but when I try to mount it it gives me this error :
Failed to mount '/dev/block/uba': No medium found

the kernel may not have the NTFS filesystem driver compiled in to the CM version.

@t0mm13b "I already successfully mounted an NTFS Flash Drive then the problem isn't the File System" and I already said that ,please read to the end

Have you actually confirmed there is a NTFS Driver in place in the kernel?

NTFS Flash Drive? How did you format a "thumb drive" as NTFS? windows will only flash those sort of drives as FAT32

@t0mm13b there is not but you could refer here : http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/29159/is-ntfs-file-system-supported-on-huawei-u8160/29162#29162

If you grep the kernel configuration, CONFIG_NTFS_FS, usually that is disabled so not to clutter up the kernel!

@RyanConrad using minitool partition wizard

@MohamedEssam that link is irrelevant - the relevant pertinent bit is is the NTFS driver compiled and built into the kernel?

@t0mm13b the problem here isn't NTFS I've successfully mounted NTFS that's not a problem

You have not answered the question, look in /proc/config.gz and unzip that to a text file to see the kernel configuration, and tell me if CONFIG_NTFS_FS is compiled or not, if it says # CONFIG_NTFS_FS is not set then that's your answer

let us continue this discussion in chat

CyanogenMod does not support NTFS. You would have to compile your own kernel module for the CM Kernel in order to mount NTFS.

Edit for you comment about the Paragon App:
using an app like that is different then actually mounting it in android. If it doesn't work with your drive, it is an issue with the application, not CM7.
The app is implementing the NTFS protocol within the application. If it fails to mount, then there is a problem with the application. There are lots of reviews for the app that say "did not work with X", so it seems you are not the only one that has issues.
Your only option is to contact the developer and send them the problem you have, so they can fix it.

In response for your Edit #1 and Edit #2
You will not be able to mount with mount android doesn't have a kernel module that supports NTFS. As I said above, the reason that you can mount it within the app is because the app developer implemented the NTFS protocol in their application. Invalid argument means that the filesystem type you are trying to mount is not supported by mount. No medium found means that it does not see that dev block or cannot access it.
It also sounds like the problem may be that the HDD you are trying to mount requires different drivers to communicate with the HDD controller. Sounds like you are able to get flash drives to work, and that is because they are probably using a "standard" communication, while the HDD could be using something non-standard, or has a different chipset and is not supported by default by the kernel.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paragon.mounter

it doesn't fail to mount it ,it doesn't see it at all

and people mention that too. it is still an issue with the application. Android does not have NTFS support.

it worked with the thumb drive ,why wouldn't it work with hdd?

the drive could require different drivers. could use a different protocol, might be larger then the app actually supports. There are many things that could answer this, but since the only one that would know this is the developer of the app you are using, any answer would basically be speculation.

Try to use ntfs-3g. Over it you add device, then you need mount you device to some mount point. This util simply compiled for arm.

but I can't find fuse.ko for my device

found out it was already compiled in cm 7.2 , my bad.


text:
samsung s4 has suddenly started calling through Skype instead of the local network
My samsung s4 has suddenly started calling through Skype instead of the local network. I have not set any defaults. I have also uninstalled skype, it still goes through skype, then stops then I have to call again then it goes thtough the network. How can resolve this? please help

When you say, "I have also uninstalled skype, it still goes through skype, then stops," could you explain precisely what you see happening?

it chooses skype to call. It shows the skype call view and then returns to keypad screen. when I call the second time it then goes through normal.

If a Skype window is coming up, Skype must still be installed.

Thats the thing..it is not! and thts wat is driving me mad! I have uninstalled skype

Looks like it just went in NSA mode. You can check in Settings->Apps, switch to the "All" tab, and slowly and carefully check the entire list whether Skype really has been removed (it should no longer be found here then).
If you find it there, make sure to really uninstall it. If it will not leave in peace, you can make it leave in pieces:
If you not already have one installed, get yourself a terminal emulator (e.g. Android Terminal Emulator). Open it, and enter:
pm uninstall com.skype.raider

This advices the "package manager" (pm) directly to remove this app.
If nothing of the above helps, please edit your question and add some details: Is your device rooted? Do you have an ADB setup available?

If your device is rooted, you can directly check for the app without the help of GUI elements. Via adb shell or above mentioned Terminal Emulator (lines starting with a # are comments and do not need to be typed):
# become root. This will popup a confirmation box, confirm:
su
# now we look for the data directory of the Skype app
ls /data/data | grep skype

If the prompt returns without any information, there is no Skype data directory. If it, however, returns something like com.skype.raider, the data directory is still there. Still being root, you can also check for Skype's .apk file:
ls /data/app | grep skype

If Skype is still there, this should yield something like com.skype.raider-1.apk. You can also list the packages known to the system, which does not even need root:
pm list packages | grep skype

And you could see if root powers help accomplishing what failed with the error message you described, and re-issue a
pm uninstall com.skype.raider

With ADB available, you could do all this in a much more convenient way from your computer:
adb shell
su

Then continue as described above. Note: If su was successfull, the command prompt should be prefixed by a #, otherwise it remains prefixed with a $.

Hi izzy
Checked all apps carefully. Skype not there.
Did the terminal emulator.  I get a message saying "failed to connect to dumpstate service. Killed"
Now wat?
I dnt know wat u mean by is ur device rooted? Do u have adb set up?

Please see the rooting tag-wiki for clarification on the root part, the adb tag-wiki for ADB, and Is there a minimal installation of ADB? for how to get it (if you mind). On a rooted device, and ADB available, you have many additional options to find out and solve. One more question: Have you already restarted your device after uninstalling Skype?

Ok.let me c wat I can do with rooting and adb. Thnkx

Yes I did restart after uninstalling

OK. I've updated my answer with additional hints on what can be done with root/ADB. If nothing else helps, you still have one last ressort: doing a factory-reset. But after that, you would have to install and configure all your apps again. Well, most of them at least.

Thnkx soo much izzy. I dnt knw wat had happened. After 2 days it automatically started working fine. I jus hope the problem doesn't return! Thankx for your effort!!

Glad the issue is gone! So though it did so automatically, you might consider "accepting" the answer (click the checkmark left to it) if it at least proved helpful. To upvote, you need some more rep first for yourself ;)

There is no need to uninstall Skype. Go to Setting/Application Manager. You will get Skype as one one of tha Apps. Click on Skype. Launch by default, clear default.


text:
Can the LG 768 be encypted?
I have an LG 768 device. It is running Android 4.04 with Kernel version 3.0.21 and build number IMM76L. I can find no way to encrypt the device. None of the menus lead to an option to encrypt.
Has anyone figured out a way to encrypt this device?

Out of the box, No.
LG 768 User Manual
LG devices don't have the Full Device Encryption capability with the stock ROM, but you can always install an app to deal with that:
SSE - Universal Encryption

Secret Space Encryptor (S.S.E.)

Password Manager, Message (Text) Encryption and File Encryption integrated in the all-in-one solution.
Store and manage all your passwords in one secure place protected with one Master Password.
Keep your messages, notes and other texts safe from unintended readers.
Securely encrypt your private and confidential files or whole folders.  Wiping (secure delete) feature is included.
Everything is encrypted using strong encryption algorithm: AES(Rijndael) 256bit, RC6 256bit, Serpent 256bit, Blowfish 256bit/448bit, Twofish 256bit and GOST 256bit ciphers are available.
Other Utils: Password Generator, Clipboard Cleaner, Algorithm Benchmark, ...
Minimal Permissions. No ads.
Cross-Platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, ...) GUI Version and Command Line Version of the File Encryptor is available on the application home page (download section).
This software is Open Source project – we have nothing to hide, so you can have securely hidden everything you need.
  (as Open Source, this software is published under TSU - §740.13(e) encryption export license exception)


text:
Navigation app lost after updating phone
I lost the Navagation app that came with my phone after updating the phone's system. None of the free apps on Google Play work well for me. Any clues on how to get it back? It is not on Google Play.

What phone are you using? What did you update your phone to? Is it using stock ROM, or custom ROM? Please edit these details into your question.

If you're talking about Google Navigation (the blue arrow), then it comes with Google Maps.

The latest Google Maps app has the navigation function in-built. The navigation "app" was always integrated into Maps. The blue icon was just a separate entry point into that maps.
If you select a destination, look at the bottom of the screen where it says navigate and you will recognize what comes up next.

What if I do not want to select a destination? What if I just want to see where I am as I drive? Older "Navigation" app simple had "Show map" option that did just that (and it was different from showing static location on the map - it did show dynamic location, similar to navigation, but without destination)

@YuriyGalanter it's there at your bottom right. :) See the target icon? touch it and it'll show your current location.

Update -- This morning I went to look for my familiar blue triangle and it was gone AGAIN!  I found out that you have to go into the Google Play app on your phone.  Tap on the top right icon for options.  Then click settings.  Then click on the Auto-update apps.  Then select Do not auto-update apps. Do this first, then the steps below...
Go to settings, apps, and google maps.
Click the uninstall updates.
It will give you a warning about all updates will be removed.
Click yes.
Open maps like normal.
Close maps and go back to your normal all applications, and navigation is back!

You want to roll back all app updates just because the icon is missing? Navigation is integrated tightly into the Maps app and it's easy to get to.

Stopping auto app updating is only bandaging the problem.


text:
How do I open a text notification from lock screen on S4?
I have given up on my iPhone 5 and now I have the Samsung Galaxy S 4. So far I love it with one exception:
I get the notifications in the lock screen and the preview in the lock screen, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to just open text message directly from lock screen in one action.
I have a couple friends with S3's and they can open text notifications with a swipe from their lock screen and they can't even figure out what I'm doing wrong. I know there must be a way to swipe the text notification on lock screen that will bring me straight to text message.

From XDA:

Just swipe the message box down to open the messaging app directly,
  same for missed calls.

I think the message box here refers to a transparent message box that appears when you click on the message in the lockscreen.


text:
4.3 issue on nexus 4 while taking screenshot
I've just upgraded my nexus 4 from 4.2.2 to 4.3 few days ago. And now i found that i can't take screenshots with volume down button + screen lock button anymore. It was working perfect on 4.2.2.
Anyone having same issue? Or it's just me? Any workout for this?
Thanks a lot!

I would recommend wipe Dalvik cache and cache and try again it will work. If not then try reflashing the stock rom.
And the only way to clear dalvik without root would be to factory reset your phone as cache and dalvik get cleared during this process.
For advanced help visit http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1907#root

I had the same problem and restarting my phone fixed it. Try rebooting your cell if you haven't done it yet.


text:
Accessing and transfer sim contacts to Droid 2 global phone
I have a Droid 2 Global and I can't seem to access the contacts on my sim card. How do I access them and transfer them to the phone?

You can use an app such as SIM contacts manager or SIM Contacts to manage your contact on your SIM card, including accessing and transferring them to the phone.
If you have Android 4.0+, you can do this straight from your contacts app.
Open Contacts > Menu > Import/export > Import from SIM card


text:
Google Play Store force closing
I have a Karbonn S5 Titanium. Whenever I try to open the Google Play Store, it gets closed within a second. A notification saying 'your google store has stopped unfortunately' keeps coming every 2 minutes. I can't download any apps or access a few of them. What can be done to set it right ?

Have you tried to clear cache (and, if that did not help, data) from the playstore app?

App X isn't working correctly. How can I fix it?

Try to uninstall any Play Store updates, and then rerun the app; if all goes well, it will re-update the app, and the force closing should stop. If it still force closes, and you don't have much data on your device, you can try to factory reset the phone. That usually makes my Play Store work fine (although I don't have S5).

If you are rooted and have ClockworkMod recovery, you can try these steps:

Uninstall Google play services.
Boot into recovery and select "wipe data".
Then select "clear cache".
Then select "advanced" and in the sub-menu select "wipe dalivk cache".
Then go back and select reboot.

Now the Play Store will start working.

And all your apps and data are gone. What you describe here is a manual factory reset.

You could try updating to the latest play store. See AndroidPolice. Doing this fixed the same issue for me when I updated my Nexus 7 to android 4.3. It was crashing like yours, I updated (and cleared the cache and data) and the Play Store started working again. You don't need to be rooted, you can simply install it. It's perfectly safe as it is signed by Google.

To fix this issue follow this solutions.
Solution 1. Clear Cache from Google Play Store
Solution 2. Uninstall Updates of Google Play store and then try restarting your android device
Solution 3. Install Latest Google Play Store.
Solution 4. Still if you are unable to solve try doing factory reset.
In my article, I have listed all these solutions in a step by step process with screenshots so if you are unable to understand check out my article on How to Solve Google Play Store Keeps Crashing Issue on Android
Disclosure: I'm the author of the linked article.

In Settings -> Apps -> All, Try clearing cache for Google Play Services, Google Play Store, and Google Services Framework, and restart.
If that doesn't do the trick, try clearing cache and data for all three services. Restart, and start google play. It should ask you to accept the terms and conditions and there you go.


text:
What are the android versions suitable for Samsung Galaxy Pocket?
Why can't samsung galaxy pocket GT-S5300 be upgraded to android version of jelly bean 4.1.2? It's just being upgraded to 4.1.1 why so?  I've rooted my mobile, but its getting upgraded to ICS 4.1.1 only. I want JB 4.1.2. How can I get it?

@AlEverett He says he has 4.1.1. That can't be possible, based on the latest firmwares on sammobile. The latest IS 2.3.6, which I mentioned in my answer. So, his question is pretty moot. 4.1.1 is definitely JellyBlast ROM.

Are you sure GT-S5300 supports Android 4.1.2? According to sammobile, the latest version for GT-S5300 is 2.3.6, and it was relased on August 2013.
Maybe you are talking about JellyBlast ROM, which is a custom ROM, and not a stock ROM. Coincidentally, JellyBlast ROM has version 4.1.1.

Well, SamMobile explicitly states: All our firmwares are official Samsung firmwares. So they do not include e.g. CyanogenMod. Seeing it that way, my good old HTC Wildfire would certainly not be running ICS (which it does), or even JB (which it could) :)

@Izzy What I'm implying is that he may be using JellyBlast ROM 4.1.1, but thinks it's ICS. Unless we see an About device screenshot, we won't know for sure.


text:
APK files won't install
I have a Samsung Note 3. For the last 2 months, I can download APK files - for example, just downloaded the new Google Play Store here: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/10/09/breaking-google-play-store-update-5-0-31-adds-even-more-material-design-highlights-and-moves-whats-new-to-the-top-apk-download/ and it's on the phone, but when I open it and go to install it, when I touch INSTALL - nothing happens. It's there, but it won't install. This happens with any APK. one caveat: in the past if I've rebooted into safe mode - which of course means with no downloaded apps running - then and only then can I install. Some 3rd party app might be blocking me from installing. That's all the info I got. Can you help?

Do you have a "screen dimmer" app running?

I read that when I Googled it but not too my knowledge. I actually went through all my settings to find something

Can you tap the 'cancel' button? If you can cancel but not install, then there is some app that is displaying a screen overlay (such as a screen dimmer, as mentioned by @DanHulme). Android does this so a screen overlay can't make it look like the buttons are swapped or changed.

Lol yes! The cancel button works just fine! So now what?

More details on "secured buttons" are in the developer documentation: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#Security

I had a blue light filter app running that dims the screen to prevent damage to your eyes, and it was apparently blocking the installation of APKs and the selection of certain menu options in other cases.


text:
Nexus 5 whole battery drained in a single night
I charged my phone to 100% before going to sleep. I used it for only few minutes and found out my phone was off in the morning because all the battery was drained. I charged it and saw battery stat and it showed as:

It shows that the screen was totally off the whole night. What caused the battery to drain so fast?
Another stat view:

It is the first time this has happened.

It seems like your exchange services drained all the battery.
That bug was partially corrected with the last update to 4.4.2. Which OS version are you using?

My device shipped with version 4.4.2. I was using that service since the start but I am facing this problem only today.

Try to stop the service. It should stop the battery drain. You should also try to set the email "Sync Frequency" to "Automatic (Push)"

We are using Exchange on serveral devices at the office (for testing) and what i noticed is that sometimes exchange services seem to drain alot of battery even when set to a low interval or push.
This typically happens when Exchange is trying to pull some data from the server but an error occurs. The end user (you) does not always see the error.
For me usually a reboot fixes the problem, worst case remove the Exchange profile and reinstall it afterwards.

This is exactly what happened with me. I also finally figured it out. Yesterday, I tried to sync my other account and there was an error which I ignored and carried on. That might have triggered the problem.

Open the email client, go to settings > The email ID you have configured > Inbox Check frequency
Change that setting to "Never" if you want to manually refresh emails or increase the duration for the refresh. That should fix the battery draining overnight.

The mail check frequency was Automatically (Push) from the beginning. I had no problem except yesterday, which drained the battery. Must be some bug in the Exchange service. I will update if the problem persist.

I have found that if you turn the display ON before unplugging the charging cord, the battery stays at 100% all night.  My guess is that it also helps if you charge during the day.


text:
What is the mysterious "CDC Serial" device and why do I needed it?
I've built my own PC computer from parts I purchased online, I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with SP1 (full version, no OEM bloatware), and I ran Windows Update several times to get the latest and greatest updates from Microsoft. I was pleased to see that everything worked as expected, no issues whatsoever, not in software nor in hardware. Next, I connected my brand new Samsung Galaxy S4 Plus (GT-I9506) phone to a free USB port on the computer. Windows detected following 3 different devices.

USB Composite Device
Galaxy S4 (sg)
CDC Serial

Windows automatically installed and configured the first two devices (see screenshot above). Except the "CDC Serial" device. It didn't install that one.

What is "CDC Serial" device?
Why do I need it?
How do I install it?

The very first thing I did was to check the user's manual (the complete manual, not the getting started guide). There is not a single reference to "CDC Serial". I'm not an expert, but I do understand some of this. The "USB Composite Device" is installed so that Windows can communicate with the phone over the USB cable. The "Galaxy S4 (sg)" is the name I gave to my phone during setup, and this is the device that presents itself to Windows as a media player, makes use of the MTP protocol, and this is what shows up in Windows Explorer.
How am I supposed to know what "CDC Serial" is if it's not described in the user's manual? I have never seen that before on any Android device when connected to a PC. I did a search for "cdc serial" on Google and all I could find was people doing some hacks to their phones, like rooting, changing ROM, and generally just hacking it.
So what if I don't want to do any of that? Is it still important to configure the "CDC Serial" device? How does it impact the functionality of the phone, e.g. when syncing data between the phone and the PC, if I decide I don't want to follow those hacking tips and tricks to try to install this device?
I contacted Samsung Technical Support about this and they had no clue what I was talking about. They said they would look into it, but that's it. No help at all.
The user's manual says I can change the USB connection type from MTP to PTP. It essentially makes the phone present itself to Windows as a still camera device. I tried that there were no issues with drivers not being installed. Windows detected only the "Galaxy S4 (sg)" device and it was automatically configured and installed.

In this mode, only picture files can be transferred between the phone and the PC. So this is very limiting, in my opinion. But the "CDC Serial" device was not detected. How so?..

I took the privilege in editing the question to make it less ranty and aggressive with usage of profanity words to make this cleaner for others. It still does sound aggressive as if "jumping up and down and demanding an answer straight-away". FWIW CDC-Serial, enables you to use and treat the device as a modem gateway to the internet via a terminal emulator such as minicom and other dialup programs.

try installing kies or maybe you can find the driver here

I've never found Windows to be very helpful in identifying drivers either. Here's some information for you on what USB CDC is. According to Wikipedia:

USB communications device class (or USB CDC) is a composite Universal
  Serial Bus device class. The class may include more than one
  interface, such as a custom control interface, data interface, audio,
  or mass storage related interfaces.

Additionally, a resource called the USB Software Resource Center has this overview of CDC:

There are three classes that make up the definition for communication
  devices: the Communication Device Class, Communication Interface Class
  and the Data Interface Class. The Communication Device Class is a
  device level definition and is used by the host to properly identify a
  communication device that may present several different types of
  interfaces.

All of that is developer-speak, but it really just means that a USB CDC driver helps your PC 1) understand what services your phone can provide it and 2) start talking to your phone to use those services. I don't know for sure what service the CDC Serial driver you see represents but I'm pretty confident that installing the official Samsung drivers for your phone would resolve the red X (the drivers that Windows installs automatically are sometimes generic and are often insufficient).
In its current state, with your phone connected as an MTP device, do you have any trouble transferring files or doing anything else you want to do with your phone from your PC? If you're not having trouble then it's possible the CDC Serial driver is only used for connecting your phone as a modem or serial device (as when communicating with your phone from the developer tool ADB). If you aren't planning to use your phone in this manner, you can safely ignore the failed installation of the CDC Serial driver.
I wouldn't stress too much over it and would install the Samsung drivers if you run into any trouble.

Thanks for demystifying "CDC" for me. They could have printed out "USB CDC" in the message, you know. So these are generic Microsoft drivers? I guess that's why it ain't working then. File copy to and from the phone in MTP mode is working at the moment. I will be using Android SDK later on, and hopefully ADB will work as well. If not, I will have to hunt for drivers.

I see that the provided link is for the Samsung US site, and the search/filter can only locate the product page for GT-I9505G (the Google Play edition). Wasn't the regular GT-I9505 sold in the US? Anyway, mine is GT-9506 with 4G+ and it's a European version. I can only find Kies 2 software for this phone on any given Samsung site. Isn't there a drivers only download? I don't like the Kies 2, it's pretty much useless bloatware. Lot of missing features, several options not working as expected and it bundles some shitty "no name" media plugin for video support. I don't want that on my system.

I was having trouble finding the correct drivers for your phone on their website too. Perhaps the drivers for the US version would work well enough for yours too? I don't like Kies either and avoid it whenever possible.


text:
Remount writable by all users?
I want to remount a read-only partition in read-write mode, but I want it to be writable for all users.
So far I've got this:
mount -o bind /someplace /someplace_else
mount -o remount rw /someplace_else

The first command creates a new mount point from a directory. The second one remounts the new mount point as rewritable. This all works.
Problem is, the new mount point has uid=1000,fmask=0222,dmask=0222, so the non-root user still can't write anything, and root can't give it permission.
How do I change the fmask and uid when remounting, or is there something else I can do to make the mount writable for the normal user?
Also, note that the command that worked for me is this:
mount -o remount rw /someplace_else

...with no comma between "remount" and "rw," as I've seen in almost everything my searches turned up. Does anyone know anything about this discrepancy in syntax?
Update
Ok, I guess had a strange version of mount. Now I'm using busybox mount, and I can do this:
busybox mount -o remount,rw /someplace_else

It accepts this version of the command, but the masks don't change:
busybox mount -o remount,rw,fmask=0000,dmask=0000 /someplace_else

Storage is vfat, maybe that has something to do with it?
suid and dev options also work, but the fmask and dmask won't change (I want them 000, that should leave files with 777).

I don't know whether this qualifies as a dev question or not, I guess it's a bit technical. Mods, if you think this is in the wrong place, feel free to migrate it elsewhere in SE.

fmask and dmask would be passed to the mount. it would look something like: mount -o fmask=0777,dmask=0777 remount rw /someplace_else

@RyanConrad, I know, but it's not working. I had some weird version of mount. Making an update.


text:
My Android phone (HTC M8 Eye) is not connecting to the PC, it's only charging
When connecting my phone to the computer via USB I get no indication of it being connected other than that it starts charging. Usually when I connect it shows the USB icon in the status bar and either goes into USB mass storage or debugging depending what I used when it was connected last and shows the status of the USB connection in the notification area.
I have read through multiple posts on multiple forums with problems like this and I have tried:

rebooting the phone
restarting my PC
unmounting SD card
unmounting SIM card
using a different cable and usb ports

But nothing works. I think this problem happened after clearing all cache using CleanMaster but I'm not sure. Also I tried connecting another phone with the same cable and the phone was able to transfer files, so I think the problem is in my phone only.

See if this helps - enable developer options (settings > about phone > tap build number 7 times ) . In developer options > select USB configuration > select MTP

Make sure that you have the HTC drivers installed https://m.mediafire.com/folder/jgt1b5bc2stwf/Drivers


text:
Gmail not showing notifications on Nexus 5x?
I have been using Xperia U on ICS and never faced this issue. With my 1 week old Nexus 5X I sporadically get notifications for my gmail app i.e. sometimes (10%) it shows notifications but most of the times it doesn't. This also happens even if I am using my phone. So definitely nothing to do with deep sleep. I manage my personal gmail account as well as university email. Please tell me some solution to this problem as I am missing important mails from my university and am considering returning this crappy phone.

Have you restricted background data? Or turned off auto-sync?
If you did either of these, they could be the problem.

Auto sync is on. What is restricted background data? Its on WiFi all the time, and never on Cellular data.


text:
Nougat upgrade damaged my notifications?
I updated my Nexus 5X to Nougat and ever since regret the decision.
Previously if I had a notification the illumination light would start working. If I just turned on the display, not unlock, the light would turn off. But now with the update the light just won't stop until I open the app! Overall the notifications interface is pretty bad but this problem is irking me.
How do I make the notification light stop if I press the power button without having to unlock and open the app?


text:
Reading .pdf/ebook
I have a couple of PDF files I want to read and probably more of those in the future on my computer.
What is the best (simplest) way of transferring them to my Android 2.3 phone (Motorola Motoluxe). And how can I read them?
I am thinking of Dropbox, perhaps, or are there any better ways of accomplishing this?

Related: Suggest an app for reading PDF and CHM

If you need an app to read ebooks, I would suggest Tap2Speak Reader. It doesn't have as many features as those popular ones, but is sufficient for your situation. In addition, it can use Google Translate to speak more than 50 languages. It saves you much time from finding a "usable" text-to-speech engine.

You can use an app like Adobe Reader or Office suite pro to view the .pdf files in your device. There is a free version as well for the office suite.
You can simply transfer the files to your device via usb.

I would recommend using Pushbullet for easy and convenient file sharing across devices (among many other interesting features) and then Google's own Quickoffice does the job for PDF files.
As for ebooks, I would recommend uploading your files straight into Google Play Books (easily accessible from the Google Play Store site) and using the official Android app to read them. It's not the most feature rich, but it does the job well and few others can beat the ease of use and ability to access your books across devices.

Yes. Dropbox (or Box or any other Cloud Storage service) would be one feasible solution.
Another way would be to use Airdroid.
It allows you to copy content to your phone via your laptop browser.
The added advantages are:

You can send messages from your laptop
In case your phone is lost, you can delete all data remotely.

Easiest way I use is installing a good eBook reader which simply accesses files you place in its directory (in my case, Moon+ Reader in its payed version, currently 50% off its price). Then I can easily transfer my reading material (Moon+ supports a bunch of formats, including PDF, ePub, Mobi, FB2 and many more) either...

via CardReader
via USB (when connected)
wirelessly (e.g. using a sync app like FolderSync, or a network file manager like ES File Explorer, or a remote management tool like Airdroid)
via Dropbox is also available according to the description (never tried, have no Dropbox account)

You even can highlight and annotate (with PDFs, this goes directly into the PDF file; for other formats it's stored separately), integrate dictionaries like ColorDict, and much more.

I use ES File Explorer to put my pdfs on my google drive (works well with SkyDrive and Dropbox and several other cloud platforms OR you can sync over a network) and just open them with Polaris Office or Kindle on my tablet.

I downloaded the ePub reader freebie from the Play Store.  I connected my phone to my computer via USB and then dragged my epub book to my Motoluxe.  Then I opened the ePub reader and clicked on the small green + sign on the top of the page.  That allowed me to add the book that I had stored in my ebooks folder (I think that particular folder "appeared" when I installed the ePub reader. Then I read it using that reader. I am just learning to use this phone so am not sure whether that folder (directory?) existed before I downloaded the freebie reader.
(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.graphilos.epub)

Use Google drive to share your files between devices

That's not very helpful. How does this solve the problem as described? How would one do this?

Use USB cable and set your Android Phone as USB mass storage device, also you can send PDF as e-mail attachment, or use Google Drive, DropBox, SkyDrive cloud services etc. Other detailed information I found at http://www.file-extensions.org/pdf-file-extension


text:
Wifi Problems for samsung GT-I860
Im having problem with connecting wifi with my phone which is Samsung Ace 2 GT-I860. It will connect but in very very low, even if im near the router it still very low connection and it goes and comes back on again. What should i do please? I updated my mobile through kies and still the problem is still there.
Please help.

You have given almost NO information other than you are having trouble with the connection.  To venture a guess, I would check the router since it is the device you are connecting to.


text:
Text disappears when attachments are downloaded
Using AG&G Yahoo Mail on HTC EVO. When I open mail there is message text which I can read.
When attachments finish downloading the message text disappears never to be seen again.
I can read attachments OK but message text has disappeared.

What email client are you using?


text:
"Play Music" app keeps changing the volume of the sound by itself
I bought a new Galaxy S4 a few days ago and since then I have been facing problems with the "Play Music" app. It keeps changing the sound volume while a song is playing. I tried applying different settings in the player but the problem still persists. Any Suggestions?

Do you mean the "Google Play Music" app?

Possible duplicate of Android automatically corrects my volume

Try to use the original earphone. The original earphone has volume control on it, if you use different earphone you can get this problem.

The OP doesn't mention this only happens when they're using headphones, or even that they are even using headphones at all. Also phones (should) work with any brand of headphone, not just manufacturer provided ones.


text:
New emails not showing up in Gmail app
I have 2 different Android devices: a Samsung Galaxy Reverb phone and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet.
On both devices, I have just recently noticed that the official Gmail app is no longer showing new email messages in the list.  When new emails come in, I get Android notifications. If I select the email in the notification bar, then it brings up the new email.
But if I just go to the Gmail app, then I don't see new emails in the list. I have to manually change from Priority Inbox to Normal Inbox (or vice versa) in order for the new emails to show up in my list.
Is this happening for anyone else? Is there a fix for it?

I'm having this issue as well. I have all my inboxes set to Default but I can't seem to get my new messages to show consistently. I end up having to go in and tell it to show Priority box and then they'll show up. So annoying.

Have you tried the steps listed in App X isn't working correctly. How can I fix it?

Try opening the Gmail app, go to settings (click the three vertical dots in the top right), click on your email account and select "Default Inbox" as your Inbox type.
I expect this is happening because you've got "Priority Inbox" set as your default and this doesn't show all your messages.

I have tried both Inbox types and the problem exists on both.

I had the same problem.
I needed to clear all the data from the app so it would need to re-sync everything again.
Seemed to fix the problem for me after that.


text:
App compatibility with a tablet
I might buy Nexus 7. But how are the apps configured with this larger screen? It's in between a regular tablet 10" and a phone 4" so how, for example, will apps like

notational acceleration
MyLifeOrganized

and others work with this enlarged screen?

See also: How do I know if an android apps for phone can be install on an android tablet? | How can I get a phone app on a tablet? | Do Android phone apps run on Android tablets?

Also: What do apps designed for small screens look like on tablets?

It's up to the app. Android provides mechanisms for app authors to specify different UI layouts for the different screen sizes (roughly speaking: phones, 7in tablets, 10in tablets). This means that the app might rearrange its buttons or use larger sizes to fill a 7in screen, or it might do something more radical like switch to a two-pane layout (such as Gmail). IIRC, most apps with a two-pane layout use it only in landscape mode on 7in screens, whereas they use it in either orientation on 10in screens and always use a one-pane layout on phones.
Unlike on PC, it's usual for Android apps to be laid out using a resolution-independent unit (which Android calls display-independent pixels, or dp) instead of specifying sizes in pixels, so that regardless of display resolution, buttons are always large enough to click on. There are a few exceptions (app authors can still choose to work in pixels) but those are in the minority: mostly games, since that's how PC game authors are used to working.
Even if the app isn't specially designed to work with tablets, it'll still work. It just might look silly, with lots of empty space or oversized buttons, if the author didn't consider or test that form factor. Google Play encourages developers to include screenshots on 7in and 10in tablets, so that's the first thing to look for. If you browse using the Google Play app on your device, it'll show you the screenshots for that device's size first (i.e. it'll show the 7in screenshots if you're using a 7in tablet). Many developers also explicitly mention tablet support in the app description, such as the first app you linked to (Notational Acceleration).


text:
Python with matplotlib
Is there a way to set up python 2.7.x + matplotlib on a tablet so that you can run simple standard python code? I would like to be able to run the same scripts I run on my Linux desktop,

You can run python with SL4A but matplotlib is a graphical package so you are going to run into trouble there.


text:
Samsung Apps for Galaxy S4 with CyanogenMod
I am going to change the official stock Android on my Samsung Galaxy S4 to the latest version of CyanogenMod. But after reading some forum threads about how beautiful and useful it is, I have a question regarding Samsung Apps:
Is there any Samsung Apps available or is it possible to install them somehow?
The problem is that I do not really want to lose my camera functionality (double camera photo and automatic color correction), hover function, S Memo, Samsung Apps, S Planner and so on.
What you may suggest me? I really liked that CM functionality, but I also need almost all of the Samsung default tools, like S Memo (the most useful for me).

No, you will not be able to use your Samsung application for camera. You will you the cyanogen mod one or any other variant that you can find on the market.
As a side note Cyanogen mod is working on their own camera that it suposed to be very good, but at this moment it is in very early beta stage, so who knows when will they actually realease that.


text:
Nexus 5 with an English interface and a Hebrew keyboard
I can't figure out how to set a Hebrew keyboard while using an English interface in my Nexus 5. The only way I have found to switch to a Hebrew keyboard was changing the language of the interface to Hebrew.
Is it possible to have them both without a third party app?

Is there a reason you don't want to use a 3rd-party keyboard app?

@Chahk it isn't necessary to use a 3rd party keyboard for this. Multiple language support is already built into the stock Google Keyboard.

@abqnm You are absolutely correct.  Somehow I missed Hebrew when scrolling through the Input languages list :)

Yes you can do this. For this, I am assuming you are using the stock Google keyboard.
Open Settings and tap on Language & Input. Tap on the settings icon next to Google Keyboard. Tap Input Languages at the top. Deselect "Use System Language" and then select any keyboard languages you wish to use.
Now in the keyboard, the space bar will display the current selected language. To change to one of the other active languages, press and hold the space bar and select the language you wish to use.


text:
Can't access Recovery Menu Milestone a853
I'm trying to flash a Cyanogenmod 7.1.5 on my Motorola Milstone A853. I can access the Bootloader (version 90.74) and started RSDLite 5.7 and used a base sbf file, which flashes normally.
When I reboot the device I can access recovery mode by pressing Camera, but when I access the recovery mode by pressing Volume UP and then press Camera the recovery menu does not open.
I see videos on YouTube, read a lot of tutotials, but I don't know what to do. Is there another way to do this?

I'm not entirely clear on what the issue is that you're seeing. Are you saying that you can't navigate the recovery menu? Typically the Power button selects things, not the camera one. These instructions also seem to indicate that you should use the keyboard's navigation pad. Or are you having trouble getting into recovery to begin with? You first seem to say that you can access it, but then you seem to say that you cannot.

Sorry I want write recovery mode, but write recovery menu.
I can´t navigate because I can´t see Recovery menu, it does not show, Volume up + Camera doees not do anything on my phone.

but you said that you can access it by holding camera. What is different about accessing recovery mode from VolUp+Camera and just Camera?

Pressing Camera button and then press power start recovery mode, with a /!\ on the screen, but there is a step to open the menu, this step is Volume up + Camera, but menu does not show on screen.

Power on the Milestone:
Press the power button and X button and when a triangle appears, press volume up key and camera buttion.


text:
Check if app uses in-app purchase
What is the easiest way to check whether an app uses in-app purchase? Is there a mark in the Play store or a permission to look for after I installed the app?

There is a special permission for Google Billing (technical name: com.android.vending.BILLING), which is required if the app wants to use Google's billing system. So if this permission is requested by an app, it most likely uses some in-app-payment (why else should it request this permission).
However: the absence of this permission does not necessarily mean there is no in-app-payment used with an app, as there are other means of accomplishing the like (e.g. premium SMS, or calls to some premium numbers). But if an app requests neither to send SMS, make calls, access the Internet, nor Google Billing, I know of no way it could accomplish in-app-billing without the user really actively doing something, like buying a gift-card and entering the code.

Thanks. Found it on the UI (In Play Store) as: App Permissions (See All) > Network communication > Google Play billing service

Just announced for Play Store version 4.5.10:

...the most noticeable, as well as awesome, feature that was added is the fact that there is an indicator to let you know there is in-app purchases. It’s always nice to know if an app is going to be bugging you to upgrade to the full version with a price tag.

(source)
Official "What's New" list:

Whats New

Activity Feed
Stars are green instead of blue
Avatars are circles not squares
typography change
New layout for reviews, including your own
Indicator for in-app purchases


text:
Configure Android for ONLY IPv6 on T-Mobile
I figured out how to configure a dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 "Access Point" for T-Mobile connectivity on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus, with stock Android 4.2.2. For some reason, when I visit http://myglobalip.com, I'm still getting an IPv4 address returned in addition to the IPv6 address.
Question: How do I configure the "Access Point" so that it only gets an IPv6 address, and not an IPv4 address?
My current IPv6 "Access Point" configuration looks like:
APN: epc.tmobile.com
Proxy: Not set
Port: Not set
Username: Not set
Password: Not set
Server: Not set
MMSC: Not set
MMS proxy: Not set
MMS port: Not set
MCC: 310
MNC: 260
Authentication type: Not set
APN type: Not set
APN protocol: IPv6
APN roaming protocol: IPv4
Bearer: Unspecified

I've also tried configuring the APN roaming protocol to IPv6 which hasn't helped at all. I'm still getting an IPv4 address as well.

Update [2013-04-30]: I believe the reason I am still able to access IPv4 websites, is because of DNS64+NAT64. The public IP address I'm getting from http://myglobalip.com is the public IPv4 interface of the NAT64 gateway.
I think the answer to this question is: T-Mobile uses some sort of transitional technology called 464XLAT to provide IPv4 connectivity over an IPv6-only GSM wireless network. There is more information about 464XLAT at this URL: https://sites.google.com/site/tmoipv6/464xlat.
Ultimately, it doesn't seem possible to disable IPv4 functionality altogether. Obviously, doing so would break a lot of applications from functioning properly, but I really wanted to do so entirely for testing purposes, to see what would and would not work.
The part that confuses me is that the 464XLAT RFC requires a "CLAT" daemon, which I don't believe exists on my stock Galaxy Nexus 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ROM. With this in mind, I'm not entirely sure what sort of configuration I'm running.
Here is the 464XLAT RFC.
If I use an app called Network Info II to view network interface information for rmnet0 on my Galaxy Nexus, I can see that I have ONLY an IPv6 address configured. In fact, the app even has an IPv6 "tab" specifically designed for viewing IPv6 information. I cannot see any IPv4 information when I have selected IPv6 as the APN.
More T-Mobile IPv6 information can be found:

T-Mobile IPv6 is Here and Now
Top Free Apps on T-Mobile IPv6-only Network


text:
Android L Preview upgrade
I was about to flash the phome with the command prompt, but an error came up saying that the device was locked. Does this mean is has to be rooted? If I root it and upgrade it will it be unrooted again because I don't want to loose my warranty.

What phone? And are you installing an official factory image or a custom ROM?

The nexus 5. I'm installing the android l developers preview

I'd expect that to work even with a locked bootloader, since it's an official image, but I haven't tried it so maybe I'm wrong.

unfortunately it does not

It sounds like your bootloader is locked, which is different from rooting.  With a locked bootloader, you can only flash official signed factory images; with it unlocked, you can flash anything to any partition.
If you're following Google's directions for installing factory images, you'll see that one of the steps is to run a fastboot oem unlock command.  This unlocks the phone's bootloader.  It also erases all your data.  (But installing the L Preview system image will do that anyway.)

so it does not root the phone. Thanks bud unfortunately I cannot vote you up because I'm still new and have no reputation points :(

It doesn't root the phone, but it does void your warranty — or at least, it displays a message saying that it voids your warranty.  (But again, installing the L Preview system image will do that anyway.)  And it's possible to re-lock and flash back to a supported factory image later, leaving no trace that it's ever been unlocked.


text:
Nexus S in reboot loop
My Nexus S (completely original) is stuck in a reboot loop. I don't know why. It just reboots, shuts down, and does the same again and again. I tried removing the battery, loading 100%, removing SIM etc.
I no longer care about the phone, but more about the pics of my two sons. The pics are on the iNAND flash memory (inside). I tried to connect to the PC, but its asking for Android 1.0 driver. Even with SDK 2.3 the Nexus isn't getting recognized.
Is there a way I can connect onto my Nexus and save my pics?
Thx for any help I can get.
A desperate dad.

Did you check our boot-loop tag-wiki, and follow the first-aid steps described there? Take a special look at the Safe-Mode part.

What version of android are you running? Do you have root? Are you running a custom ROM?

I'm running 4.2.2. No custom ROM. When I try power + volume- to get into Safe modus, I see Safe modus on the left corner but it restarts again after a few seconds. When I try power + volume+ I get into recovery mode. I only have a few options, reboot, recovery, shut down. When I use recovery I get a pic of an android robot lying down with a big red sign above it and nothing else happens. I'm afraid I will never see the photo's of my two little sons again :(


text:
Galaxy Note 8 unresponsive to touch input
I've been pulling my hair out over this one for a while now and have been unable to find anything on Google to help.
I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (wifi UK version) and found a very annoying issue with it.  I've found that whilst using touch input, the screen can become unresponsive to touch for a few seconds.  This seems to happen once every 5-10 minutes and lasts 3-5 seconds or so.  It's especially annoying when playing games that rely on touch input.  It's most noticeable with Plants Vs Zombies and Scribblenauts.
The tablet as a whole isn't hanging or crashing, because the game is still running, the music still playing and the screen still updating.  It just doesn't register any touch input.
The only thing I found that might have been remotely helpful to this issue was a forum post claiming that Dropbox could cause this.  I disabled Dropbox on the device and didn't notice any improvement.
I believe the firmware revision is 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.
Does anyone know what to do about this?
UPDATE: The 4.2.2 firmware became available for this device yesterday.  Installing it seems to have resolved the issue (so far).

Please do let us know if the 4.2.2 update fixes things.

I'll be keeping a close eye on it, but so far so good.  No input unresponsiveness incidents in the couple of hours I've had so far to play with it.

If you feel like it's all gone, I would suggest answering your own question as well. Make sure you put a little more than "Upgraded to 4.2 and it works now," of course. Specify whether it was an OTA update, etc.

It looks like the issue was in either Jellybean 4.1 or Samsung's supporting software.  I've upgraded the tablet to the official 4.2 firmware and have had no recurrences of the problem described above.

Alternatively, for anyone else potentially having similar problems, you can try using the stylus instead as it runs off a completely separate magnetic-induction-based digitizer.

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


text:
Galaxy S3 Bug: No text appears when typing SMS message
Summary: When starting to write an SMS text message using the stock Messaging app, no text appears.
Reproduction: It's intermittent. However IIRC it has only happened when replying.
Workarounds:

reboot phone (Always works)
press back repeatedly to exit message app. (Works half the time)
switch app and then back (works only sometimes)
keep typing rubbish until something appears (often works but typically only after a couple of hundred characters).

Are there any fixes for this?

Are you using the stock Messaging app, or a 3rd-party app?

The one that comes with it. (I don't know if Samsung butcher the Android one though)

What keyboard are you using? Does this happen in other apps like hangout etc?

I'm using the keyboard which came with the phone when new. (How would I find out which one that is?) I have not had the problem with any other apps except, coincidentally, just one other one recently: a text box within a 3rd party app I downloaded. But only the once.


text:
Huawei G700 keeps asking permission to use mobile data after WiFi disconnects
I recently bought a Huawei G700. It's a fairly new and uncommon device. It runs Android 4.2.1 in combination with Huawei's own Emotion UI
When I have WiFi enabled and for some reason my Wifi disconnects (for example I go out of reach), my phone keeps asking me, each and every time, if it's allowed to use Mobile Data. if I don't answer, my mobile data does not connect thus I can't recieve any mails etc which is highly annoying.
This is the exact error/popup message that I get:

Data connection change
  WLAN is unavailable, try to connect to mobile network?

I've googled this exact phrase, but I get 0 results. How can I prevent my phone from asking if it's allowed to use mobile data?

It seems that this behavior is present in all recent Chinese ROMs from Huawei and there is no way to disable it. However, I found a workaround for it; The message only popsup if you have WiFi and Data Enabled and you lose WiFi connectivity. Then your phone will ask if it's allowed to switch from WiFi to Data. So, if you make sure WiFi is disabled before switching to Data, it will not ask this question. To do so manually, takes a lot of time. Luckily there is an app that can automate this task for you. Here's how:
Install the app 'Llama' from the Market (Free) and create these two events:

The 1 second delay is necessary, else it does not work properly.
What it does: Switch off WiFi as soon WiFi disconnects from your WiFi network and then enables Data. This way, it does not show the popup and 'automatically' switch to Data. Don't forget to manually enable WiFi again if you are in reach again of your WiFi network.
If you want Llama to automatically turn back WiFi on as soon you get home/in reach of your WiFi, you have to let it learn your location. Read the help/documentention on how to do so. It's pretty easy to do :)
This 'fix' works for me 9 out 10 times. Give it a try, I hope it helps you.


text:
take Nexus 7 from android 4.3 to 4.2.2
I have just purchased a Nexus 7 (2013) and it auto updated to android to 4.3 as I was setting up.
Unfortunately USB OTG now does not run.  I purchased the Nexus 7 for it's OTG feature.
I've done a factory reset but it still loads 4.3
Is there any way I can go back to 4.2.2 - which does support OTG on the Nexus 7

A factory reset will only reset "to factory settings", not "to factory software". That is, basically it simply wipes your /data and /cache partitions, but it doesn't touch /system. See also the factory-settings tag-wiki.

Did you try with 4.4.2 (KitKat+). I have had no issues with my Nexus 7 (2013). Can you provide more details of what you are actually trying to achieve? (not just use USB-OTG)

I don't think the Nexus 7 (2013) ever had Android 4.2. I was going to suggest flashing a factory image but the only one available is Android 4.3 which suggests it's not possible.
As the other answers have suggested you will probably need to root to get the USB OTG functionality you are after.

The Nexus-7 (2013) 'razor' was released with 4.3 (JSS15Q). There is no official 4.2 or earlier versions.

Wow, that factory image list can be handy also if someone wants to downgrade from Lollipop to KitKat! Thanks!

If you are reverting to 4.2 only for USB OTG feature, then I would suggest you not.
I am using a rooted Nexus 7 (2012) from v4.1 - v4.3 and could say from that experience that it has to be rooted for the OTG features to run. Since that's missing from your question I assume that you are not rooted when you had 4.3.
The apps Stickmount and USB OTG Helper needs root privilege to run successfully.

My apologies. I had a myopic view that USB OTG is about storage devices only.


text:
How to prevent cell tower switching and data cut off
Samsung Galaxy S4 here. I found that my phone often switches cell towers through an app called GSM signal monitoring. I don't know if this is the phone's fault or not, but the most annoying thing about it is that when the switching happens any and all data transfer are completely interrupted and stopped, and are unable to resume even after the switching is done. This happens whether I'm mobile in a car or stationary sitting on my desk. I could be downloading 100 KBps and just completely stop and I have to restart the download all over again. Is there a way to stop this from happening? Maybe lower the tolerance on which the decision to switch is made?

What you're asking for is beyond the scope of this site? There could be masts nearby "competing" with each other, or the telephony layer determines that the signal is weak and switches to another to "strengthen" or even "roaming" around different areas and that causes the interrupted downloads. Really, downloading at 100KBps over 3G is not a good idea either for that especially if in a poor reception area.

Not really sure why it's beyond the scope of this site. Was wondering if there's an app or something to do that. Obviously I can't control how fast I'm downloading at any given point. I don't want the phone to switch towers while i'm stationary. It doesn't really make any sense to me. I'm sitting at the same place and having a good connection, why interrupt it? It makes an unreliable experience.

OP: this is network/carrier related and hence beyond scope of this site as there is no direct control over that nor preventing it from happening :)

I see. Well i guess my real question is IS there a way to programmatically control this behavior. I guess by your answer there is not. Is this a behavior that is encountered on all device and all carriers then?

No way to control that programmatically sorry! That is the telephony layer's function read - chipset and network/carrier related.


text:
Nexus 4 bricked by OTA upgrade
In early august, both my nexus 4 and my nexus 7 got the OTA upgrade. The nexus 7 one worked without any problems. The one for my phone actually bricked my phone.
First it was stuck on the X-logo screen. I reflashed 4.2.2 and suddenly the phone had problems it never had before: random shutdowns, sudden locking of the SIM card, not booting unless plugged in.
I also did all the wipes and factory resets Play support told me to do, and a factory reset and everything. I even replaced my SIM card and flashed 4.2.0 and it still has the same problems.
I found a way to get 4.3 to get beyond the X screen, by flashing the radio back to an older version, but the above problems persist.
Is there anything that isn't overwritten when you reflash an older version? (I'm thinking drivers or something like that) If so, what could it be? And how can I get them back to an older version?
Since I voided my warranty (screen was broken and repaired by third party), I'm wondering if I can hold Google (or at least Android) responsible for breaking my phone...
TIA

Apparently, I'm not alone either: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/mobile/gsBvuZzG_xc%5B1-25-false%5D

If you've wiped everything you have probably wiped the system partition meaning there is nothing to boot up to. Try following the steps here to install a factory image which will wipe your device and completely re-install everything.
If this doesn't work then it is likely that there is a hardware issue, which due to you having the screen replaced is unlikely to be covered under warranty (nor will Google/LG take responsibility for it)

I have installed so many factory images in the last week, that i can do it blindly :)
The problem is that even with older factory images flashed, my phone has problems that I didn't have before the 4.3 update.


text:
Transparent Call Proxy
I was wondering if it would be possible to transparently route some calls over VOIP as opposed to the cell radio. My wife has terrible signal issues with her Galaxy S3. Verizon is no help and before she'll let me load a custom ROM she wants me to exhaust all other options. The only other thing I could think of was some way to route some calls over Skype.
I see some other posts about having a home proxy server or a PBX. While that would work it's slightly more involved than I was looking for. I figure there must be some sort of proxy app that could run on the phone itself to watch for who you are calling and act accordingly. Perhaps with Tasker?

No, you can't do this transparently. The dialer app talks directly to the TelephonyManager in Android, which is integrated with the driver for the phone baseband. Even if you could do this, it would only work for outgoing calls anyway: incoming calls would arrive at your phone, and by that point it's too late for an app to do something else with them.
Your best bet is installing a VOIP app and using that. You also have to tell all your wife's contacts to use the VOIP number instead of her phone number (or set up call forwarding with the carrier). But if you're having signal problems, it seems likely you'll have just the same problem with VOIP, unless you're always on Wi-Fi.

The Android dialer has SIP capability, which should come pretty close to what you want.  Assuming you have a SIP provider  (e.g., Callcentric), you can both send and receive calls over Wifi/data using the native Android dialer.  You can configure the dialer to always make calls over SIP when connected to Wifi/data or to prompt you each time you make a call.  I don't know how to select automatically based on the number, but you may be able to use Tasker for that.
Instructions for configuring SIP in the dialer are available here.


text:
Disable WhatsApp notifications in status bar and notification menu
I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos. I want to stop displaying my WhatsApp message notifications in the status bar and the notification menu.
I found the answer for Galaxy S4 that suggests:

Go to Settings
Choose the More tab
Choose Application Manager
Choose WhatsApp
Turn off Show notifications

But in my device I am not able to find a More tab in the settings menu. Is there any other solution for this?

You can disable WhatsApp notifications in status bar and notification menu by doing the followings.

Open Whatsapp.
Goto Settings => Notifications
Under Notifications, choose

Notification Tone: Silent
Vibrate: Off
Popup Notification: No Popup
Light: None

Tried with this too.with all 4 options but not working. Even i didn't find any other option. Is it not possible to disable the notifications in status bar and also in the list of notification?

Same problem here, I keep getting notifications in the status bar!

pretty sure this doesn't work anymore... Probably needs updating.

You need to go into the actual Android settings, and then Application Manager:
Android Settings > Application Manager > WhatsApp
Then untick "Show Notifications".
You can then choose to enable pop-up alerts for messages or groups. (In my case I only wanted an alert if a single person sent something to me - not inane group chatter!)

I disabled the notifications for whatsapp by going to the application manager for the phone.

Welcome to the Android Enthusiasts! This is a question-and-answer site, not a forum. Please use the Post answer button only if you have a solution to the problem. If you have another question, please ask it by clicking the Ask Question button. Include a link to this question if it helps provide context.


text:
Why do we need Kies (ADB driver) in Windows but not in Linux?
Why do we need an ADB driver in Windows but not in Linux?
I have been working on Android for the past few months in Windows. To run my project on my Samsung device I had to install Kies first. Similarly for my LG device there is a LG ADB driver, and another for HTC.
But when I shifted to Ubuntu Linux recently, I didn't require any other drivers like Kies and ADB. I was able to debug directly without any third party driver. Why is that?
I know it is something very common, but I haven't found anything which explains why this is the case.

added update #2 to my answer

Chor WaiChun mentioned this on a locked question you posted on StackOverflow:

I've seen somewhere stated that this behaviour is because both android
  and linux run on same kernel, and same situation goes to developing
  android on mac. Both OS runs in very similar OS kernel with Android,
  that is why they don't need any drivers. These are just something I
  remembered seeing from other threads, can't give 100% sure

UPDATE #1: The Android site also mentions this:

If you are developing on Windows and would like to connect an
  Android-powered device to test your applications, then you need to
  install the appropriate USB driver. ...
If you're developing on Mac OS X or Linux, then you probably don't need to install a USB driver. To start developing with your device,
  read Using Hardware Devices.

UPDATE #2: There's a comment on StackOverflow regarding libusb. I think this may be the reason why Linux does not need additional drivers.

Actually adb under Linux accesses USB devices using libusb without any
  specific kernel driver. Also adb has a list of vendor IDs which it is
  allowed to use, but this does not explain the problem in question,
  because vendor IDs for both phones are the same. And in case of
  permission problems due to missing udev rules adb devices clearly
  shows “no permissions” in the list, so this is also not the cause of
  this problem.

my question is why? Do you have some links and all so that i can get total idea, +1 for the answer though!

I am unsure why Linux doesn't typically require a specific ADB driver.
However, there is a "universal" Windows USB ADB driver that works with most Android devices.  It was developed by Koushik Dutta (Koush), a famous Android developer who works on ClockworkMod.  It should work quite well for you.  Download here:  http://koush.com/post/universal-adb-driver

I think you misunderstood my question, My question is why is this behavior , And i know about universal ADB driver.

As others already responded, in linux there is common USB driver, which adb uses. It seems that in Windows there is no common USB driver, so adb uses the "provided" driver - different for every device/manufacturer.

In Windows there's no universal driver pre-installed. There's one available however, as Neil pointed out. On the other side: There's no Kies on Linux, so you need no Kies driver #D


text:
Hardware keyboard symbol [popup] problems
I am running CM10.1 (Andromadus flavor, based on Android 4.2) on a HTC Desire Z with built-in hardware keyboard. To input keys that are not present on the keyboard, there is a symbol key that pops up a dialog where the symbol can be selected. With CM10 this symbol set was somewhat complete, but with CM10.1 some of the essential symbols such as "<" and ">" are no longer available.
So my questions are these:

Is there any way to fix this behavior to give me the complete set of symbols even in CM10.1? (see answer below)
Where in the source tree is the code for this popup located? What component? I would be happy to hack it in order myself as long as I can find the relevant needles in the haystack.
Is there any app that can be used in place of the symbol popup? I am not talking about a complete soft keyboard, but rather a quick popup dialog where a symbol can be selected and inserted at the cursor position.
How would I go about modifying my keymap to for example add "<" to Fn+comma? Shifted it's a semicolon, but Fn+comma is still the regular comma.

Edit: Found the solution to the first question. The symbols aren't missing, the popup has just been split. If you have a Desire Z and are unable to find the "<" or ">" characters, hold the hardware key for "(" (press FN, then hold "G") and a popup will present "[", "{", "<". So, I have updated my question to if it's possible (and how) to modify the keymap to add characters to shifted keys on the hardware keyboard.


text:
Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100) stuck @boot & unable to flash
Nearly three years ago my Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100) system completely broke (after about 1 or 1.5 years of what I would call normal Samsung usage :D - a lot of errors and problems, but usually fixable) and wasn't bootable any more and I decided to install CyanogenMod. After some struggling I was able to flash it correctly via heimdall (on Linux) and used it for more than a year afterwards.
At some point it suddenly stuck at the Samsung boot logo (I can't tell any more if there was a specific reason) and I was really stressed by my job so I had little time to repair it. I bought an HTC and still am very happy with that. Sadly, my brother is in big need of a replacement for his damaged phone so I am trying to repair the Samsung.
I found out that it does not only hang on the boot logo, but also is not able to boot into Recovery Mode by pressing (in that and any other order) [Vol-Up]+[Home]+[Power]. I am able to boot it into Download Mode by pressing [Vol-Down]+[Home]+[Power] though, so I decided to simply try and flash a current CyanogenMod kernel following the CyanogenMod Guide for my device. Neither the latest of the Snapshot nor the latest of the Nightly releases and not even an allegedly official 4.0.3 ROM are working, though.
All kernel uploads hang at ~30MB (cm-12.1-20151114-NIGHTLY-i9100.zip with a size of 232252K @13%, cm-11-20141115-SNAPSHOT-M12-i9100.zip with a size of 210012K @14% and I9100XXLPQ_I9100OXALPQ_XEO.zip with a size of 391632K @7%) and the heimdall command respectively breaks after quite exactly 10 minutes of hanging at that percentage. The output is always something like this:
root@debian:/home/david/Desktop# heimdall flash --KERNEL cm-11-20141115-SNAPSHOT-M12-i9100.zip --no-reboot
Heimdall v1.4.0

Copyright (c) 2010-2013, Benjamin Dobell, Glass Echidna
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/

This software is provided free of charge. Copying and redistribution is
encouraged.

If you appreciate this software and you would like to support future
development please consider donating:
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/donate/

Initialising connection...
Detecting device...
Claiming interface...
Attempt failed. Detaching driver...
Claiming interface again...
Setting up interface...

Initialising protocol...
Protocol initialisation successful.

Beginning session...

Some devices may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!

Session begun.

Downloading device's PIT file...
PIT file download successful.

Uploading KERNEL
14%
ERROR: Failed to confirm end of file transfer sequence!
ERROR: KERNEL upload failed!

Ending session...
ERROR: Failed to send end session packet!
Releasing device interface...
Re-attaching kernel driver...

root@debian:/home/david/Desktop#

The phone does not show a blue transfer bar as indicated by the guide. lsusb recognizes the device as the following, which seems to be correct to me:
Bus 003 Device 013: ID 04e8:685d Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone [Galaxy S II] (Download mode)

I have no idea on what to do to fix this or continue debugging. Can anyone help?

[2015-11-19 20:45] Update I:
I downloaded the latest ClockWorkMod Recovery from here and tried to flash it, but the result did only slightly change from hanging at ~30MB to hangig at 100% (the clockworkmodrecovery.6050.i9100.touch.img I tried to flash having a size of 5024K). The process is pretty much the same by any other account:
root@debian:/home/david/Desktop# heimdall flash --RECOVERY clockworkmodrecovery.6050.i9100.touch.img
Heimdall v1.4.0

Copyright (c) 2010-2013, Benjamin Dobell, Glass Echidna
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/

This software is provided free of charge. Copying and redistribution is
encouraged.

If you appreciate this software and you would like to support future
development please consider donating:
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/donate/

Initialising connection...
Detecting device...
Claiming interface...
Attempt failed. Detaching driver...
Claiming interface again...
Setting up interface...

Initialising protocol...
Protocol initialisation successful.

Beginning session...

Some devices may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!

Session begun.

Downloading device's PIT file...
PIT file download successful.

Uploading RECOVERY
100%
ERROR: Failed to confirm end of file transfer sequence!
ERROR: RECOVERY upload failed!

Ending session...
ERROR: Failed to send end session packet!
Releasing device interface...
Re-attaching kernel driver...

root@debian:/home/david/Desktop#

Again, the command breaks after quite exactly 10 minutes of nothing and throws the Failed to confirm end of file transfer sequence! error.
Sadly there is no CM Recovery for my device on the CyanogenMod download site, so I can't try that out. Also the current latest of Snapshot and latest of Nightly releases are getting the same results as before: Both hang at ~30MB - cm-12.1-20151116-SNAPSHOT-YOG7DAO1JN-i9100.zip with a size of 231056K and cm-12.1-20151118-NIGHTLY-i9100.zip with a size of 232248K both @13%.

I would download a custom recovery for your device(TWRP or CWM) fist, flash that one with heimdall and then copy the cyanogenmod zip to your device. Then enter recovery mode and flash the CM rom

See my updated answer. Can't even flash a recovery image - but thanks for the hint, I didn't actually think of that myself.


text:
Jelly bean screws up Droid 4 keyboard layout
The Droid 4 physical keyboard has had driver/software issues forever, but this update takes the cake. Pressing shift-period and shift-comma no longer produce colon and semicolon as advertised, but instead greater-than and less-than. Is there any way to fix this? Also, in Dolphin browser the keyboard is even more broken—the symbol key acts as a second space bar and holding a key makes it repeat instead of offering alternatives. Help!
edit: following directions elsewhere I did a factory reset. The keyboard now seems to work okay everywhere except Dolphin, where the shift key doesn't latch, the capslock key doesn't work, and the symbol key is still a spacebar.
Edit 2: The latest Dolphin beta has the same problem.
Edit 3: Actually, Dolphin, Chrome, and the plain browser all have this problem. Firefox does not. DroidEdit does not, Gmail does not.

Some users have found doing a cache partition clearing has resolved the shift key issue. I have also read others that disabled the Google Chrome application, resolving the issue. I have done both but still get the shift key issues when using my browser. The cache partition clear resolved the shift key issues on the phone (ie texting or other apps). Below is a link to Motorola's step by step instructions for the partition clearing, you will not lose any data etc. Some users have gone so far as to do a factory reset with no resolution.
https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/93162

Yes, I tried the factory reset. It fixed a previous keyboard mapping issue, but not this one. I tried downgrading and disabling Chrome—no luck. The problem, oddly, seems, in my case, to affect only browsers, and not Firefox. I wonder if the rest have something in common.

I was able to correct the semicolon/colon problem by setting my keyboard to:

Input Method: English (US) Android Keyboard (AOSP)
Mapphone-switch: English (US)-Android Keyboard
Omap4-keypad: Default (changing to "default" and unchecking all items, including English (US), in "omap4-keypad" "keyboard layouts" seemed to fix the problem - before that change, typing ";" resulted in ">").

I also did a cache partition clear and turned off the phone, pulled the simcard, replaced the sim card and rebooted.  I am not sure if any of these actions did anything (after these actions and before switching "omap4-keypad" to "default," the semicolon problem continued, but I tried them based on suggestione from other sites).

That futzing around with keyboard layouts only helps with the ahift key, not the symbol key, and I hate that keyboard option (prefer Swype).

In my case, a factory reset fixed the colon/semicolon issue, but not the shift/capsock/symbol/hold-for-choices issues.


text:
Can an apk file be written to any type of NFC tag
Is it possible to write an apk file to a NFC tag for it to be downloaded when a user desires? bWe are trying to create a solution in which our reps in the field can simply turn on NFC in specific locations then download an apk file for our custom app. Normally simply providing a link to the file on our server would be ideal by using URI type of tag however these devices (Android phones) may not have WiFi nor Cellular data connection in order to install the app's apk file via a link embedded to the NFC tag.
The NFC tags would be "installed" by a separate team. While it makes perfect sense to have our reps preloaded with the application, the consideration is to also allow customers to download the apk file for installation on their device if they desire as well. The apk is a 6 - 7 MB file.

As far as I know this hasn't been done before although I imagine it would be theoretically possible. Quite a few questions about the usage scenario though: So the NFC tags would be taken out in the field with the reps? Or they would already be out there? How would the NFC tags be put there? Why not just install the application beforehand?

It's unlikely you could store the .apk on the tag itself, as it would not fit (see Matthew's answer below). The URL to download it could be stored to trigger the download, but then you still need a data connection (WiFi or mobile) for the download itself.

@Peanut I edited the original post to give clarification

The 'theoretical' bit of my answer was due to the fact that the size of NFC tags is quite limited currently, if you had a large enough tag then it would work. However it's unlikely that there will be large enough tags brought out because NFC's data transfer rate is so slow any large files would take an unacceptable amount of time to be transferred.

Some resources I've found regarding NFC tags seems to indicate this would not be possible:
NFC Chip Types
The highest memory available is only about 7600 bytes. Which is quite a bit more than most apks.
NFC Data Exchange Format
The standardized data format specification that is supported by NFC Devices.

At a basic level, an NDEF record contains two components: (1) the data and (2) a descriptor of that data which is used to contextualize the data. [ . . . ] NDEF supports a fairly limited set of actions. More complex actions can be implemented with customized software running on the touching device.

So the default actions that may be supported by NFC devices are:

Url
Text
Email
VCard
Phone
SMS
URI

In order to support a non-standard action, you would have to completely implement that in a separate app. Then to transport your apk, it would have to be within the data limitations of all modern NFC tags.

The actual important bit of this answer is the size limitation I think, the fact that NDEF doesn't support an app type isn't really an issue.


text:
SGS3 in app screen restarts
I am having a problem with my Samsung Galaxy S3. I bought this last year. No damage so far. I usually download apps/games in Play store when all of a sudden I noticed my screen blacks out for a millisecond then restarts.
This usually happens in app/games when I play Smurfs and Sims, and even when I am using my camera and when I view the gallery. Does anybody know how to fix this?
Your assistance will be very much appreciated.

What you're experiencing is probably the "sudden death" issue experienced by several users. You could try updating your firmware to the latest firmware released by Samsung or flash a custom rom to fix the issue.


text:
Android will not open PDF files from notification bar
I have Samsung galaxy s3 and i recently got system update to 4.1.2 Before update there was no problems with visiting a website, downloading a pdf file and opening it from notification bar. Now after update it says it cannot open this type of files but adobe reader or polaris office still works if i open file from file manager (downloads folder).
Is there any solution for this time consuming problem?
Or can i downgrade this part of android or maybe whole system? It worked like a charm before
EDIT
i have made some more testings and some pdf files are openingand some are not. The ones that im interested in are located on this website (its volleyball statistics)
link to pdf files
Is something wrong with these pdf files or is it a android or adobe reader related problem?
Has someone successfully downloaded one of these files and opened it from notification bar?
Also i have noticed that if i open downloads app (latest downloaded files) it shows as if he cannot determine which app should run the file. But then why it works from file manager or adobe reader itself?

This also occurs with the Samsung Galaxy S4.  I can confirm that the PDF fails to open from the notification area AND from the downloads app with the same error message of "Cannot open file".  It is a valid PDF file and can be opened independently via Adobe Reader and Polaris Office.


text:
Link2sd gives "Mount script error"
Im using a rooted Samsung Galaxy ACE with 2.3.4.
I installed link2sd and I have a 1Gb ext2 (I tried with fat32 also with the same result) partition. After starting the app and selecting the partition I get this error:
MOUNT SCRIPT ERROR
Mount Script cannot be created
Mount: Invalid argument

Any ideas?

Are you rooted?

I am. Editing question to clarify.

do you have busybox installed? Open up terminal emulator and type busybox if a load of stuff comes up on the screen, then you have busybox installed.
Next, type mount into terminal emulator, if a load of crap comes up then you do have mount installed.
Otherwise, download the BusyBox Installer app on market, and download an older version of busybox. The same if you already have it installed, as the newer versions have loads of errors.
If that doesn't work, then I suggest emaailing the developer with a bug report.

I don't think I have busybox. Do you suggest any version in particular?

Ok, so I fixed it, my issue, besides the missing BusyBox, was that I mistakenly created it as a logical, so it couldn't mount, I changed it to primary and it did the trick.

In my rooted LG P500, I was using Link2SD with ext4 partition quite well until I tried a custom ROM installation and reverted to backed up stock ROM. Now I am unable to mount the ext4 partition with an error "mount: No such device". Installing BusyBox 1.17.2 which didn't change this situation. :( Any further ideas?

You don't need busybox. Custom or stock rom has this issue.
Backup up memory card and repartition from CWM recovery mode.

I agree that busybox is not required for Link2SD to work (at least in my case: Lg P500, rooted with stock ROM) and repartitioning with CWM is helpful, especially after a nandroid restore (again in my case).

BusyBox was in fact not needed, my particular issue was caused by the type of partition I was trying to use, as stated above.


text:
Auto-Sync won't turn on
Yesterday I bought Videocon A27 with Android 4.2.2
I'm not able to turn the auto-sync feature on. It is located under Settings -> Data Usage -> Menu -> Auto-sync data. When I check the option and reopen the menu, the option is unchecked. I also tried turning it on using Power Control Widget, but that too does not work.
Google account is already set up and I am able to sync data manually. I believe some sync service application is missing.
Does anyone have faced such issue earlier? Which Application is responsible for syncing data? (Google Calendar Sync and Google Contacts Sync are pre-installed on the device.)

This seems very likely to be a problem with the system integration by the device's manufacturer. You should try their official support channel. If they can fix it for you, please post the answer here to benefit future visitors.

The manufactures do not have any online forum or tech support. So that is not an option for me. I like the device (everything about the device is good except this problem) so I don't want to return the device either. Therefore I'm left with only one choice that is to fix it myself.