text:
Uninstall system app failed using 'adb shell pm uninstall'
I attempted to force uninstall in ADB, but failed:
$ adb shell pm uninstall -k org.openintents.filemanager
$ adb shell pm list packages -f | grep -i manager
package:/system/app/FileManager.apk=org.openintents.filemanager

What went wrong here? What can I do?
I used the internal application manager and there isn't an option to delete it.

When manually deleting application from /system remember to delete their corresponding data folder in /data/data/«identifier» There is also a track of the previous apk signature in /data/system/packages.xml that can prevent a reinstall of a rebuilt package with a different key.

Well, since the FileManager.apk package resides in a /system/app/ directory it is a system app. So the general way to remove it is:
adb shell
su
mount -o rw,remount /system
rm -rf /system/app/FileManager.apk
rm -rf /data/data/org.openintents.filemanager
mount -o ro,remount /system
exit
exit

When I run mount -o ro,remount /system, I get an error: Device or resource busy

@IgorG. I was able to resolve that by answering a prompt on the actual device.

@AlexB Actually, no prompt occurs.  This is a custom bootlegged phone, I guess.

Worked for me, Make sure the device has root access.

Edit: when I saw the comment to CommonsWare answer I did not realize it was the same as the asker... anyways, a little explanation may be useful for somebody.
As yourself commented, the easiest way to uninstall a system app is plainly to delete the .apk file. The adb install / adb uninstall commands are useful for regular apps, not system apps. Since this apk is located in /system/app, adb uninstall will not remove it.
You can use the command suggested (rm /system/app/YourApp.apk), but before the /system folder need to have write access. You will need to see how to remount /system in your specific device, try searchig for "android remount +rw /system" and your device).
Alternatively, you may use any app that can do both deletion and remounting and has root access, such as Root Explorer and Astro

thanks aleadam... plot thickens because the rm that i did removed the apk but, maybe, not the cache.. Im unable to install from the market .. that fails .. looks like i either have to clear the dalvik cache or just revert the entire ROM to a backup image... install at cmd line with adb ==> [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE] ... unable to use market to download install ... get "installation error incompatible update" ... im on a custom rom and have a backup thats 2 weeks old and i may just revert to that.

link  what i should have done is in the 2nd post on this thread

The 'Failure' problem has more to do with the adb shell appending a DOS line ending ^M (on CentOS Linux anyway).  Put the list of applications to uninstall in a file and copy to the android device directly.
root@android:/root # dos2unix list-of-apps-to-uninstall.txt
root@android:/root # for f in `cat list-of-apps-to-uninstall.txt` ; do echo $f; pm uninstall $f; done;

Tapemaster has made a Stack Overflow post which demonstrates the necessary trick.
Do this:
1.  Install adb on your computer.
2.  Root your phone.
3.  Enter these commands into your computer:
adb shell
su
mount -o remount,rw /system
rm /system/app/UnwantedApp*
pm uninstall org.unwantedapp
exit
exit

The third command remounts /system read-write.  The fourth command deletes the app's .apk and/or .odex files.  The fifth command finishes the uninstallation.
In my experience:  If you have already entered the the fourth command, then the fifth command will return Success.  Otherwise, the fifth command will return Failure.
When entering the above commands, you must replace UnwantedApp with the app's real filename (without the extension), and org.unwantedapp with the app's real Java package name.

Can you justify the existence of your answer, when the majority of the content as well as the essence is already covered in an existing answer?

@Firelord: 1. When "pm uninstall" reports "Success", it gives users confirmation which reassures them that they've done everything right. Sadly, rm -rf /data/data/org.openintents.filemanager doesn't provide such confirmation. 2. I speculate that pm uninstall might do more than just removing the app's data directory even in current Android versions.  And definitely it might do more in Android versions which will be released a decade from now. Really, pm uninstall is the Right Way to uninstall packages.  I urge you to choose the Right Way instead of trying to kludge things yourself.


text:
Android - Change Google account on Nexus S

Possible Duplicate:
How can I remove the default Google Account on my phone?

I tried different methods of changing the Google account on my Nexus S, all failed. Did someone manage to do this, without a factory reset?

As noted in the dupe (and Ryan's answer below), you normally have to do a factory reset.  EricShaefer's clever answer to the dupe looks like it might work, though, worth a try.

AFAIK, you cannot change the "default" user account. This is the account tied to the market and other things by default. The only way to change it, is doing a factory reset.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to visit the /data folder on my Android on my PC?
For example

/data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db

I cannot see it both in Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04.

You can't directly mount the internal storage.  You need to be rooted to view it on your phone, or you can use adb pull from the Android SDK Tools to copy it off the device.

What if the phone is encrypted?

@Dante No idea. I would expect adb to be intelligent enough to ask for a password or something. I've never heard anything about encryption in Gingerbread beyond the fact that it exists.

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


text:
How do I export & import files between Android devices and Windows OS?
How do I export and import binary files between Android devices and Windows OS as well as syncing the files between the two?

You can connect the device to the PC with a USB cable and access it via Explorer in the same way that you would a thumb drive.  In addition, I like using Dropbox to sync files in a wireless fashion.  I find this to be much easier and does not restrict movement of handset.

You mean Desktop Windows, right? If you are using Eclipse, you can pull/push files using the DDMS perspective.
You can also use the command-line tools to accomplish the same. Have a look at Stack Overflow - Moving files to SDcard on Android.

Installing new apps can be done using adb tool from the Android SDK:
platform-tools\adb.exe install abc.apk

Same for downloading files:
platform-tools\adb.exe pull /sdcard/filexyz

Or you use a GUI for ADB like DroidExplorer.
Via WLAN you can use software that shares the Android file system via HTTP or FTP. For example, if you use SwiFTP and change the shared folder from /sdcard to / you can access every file on the phone.
A connection via ADB is also possible in case you have a rooted phone - eg. via ADB wireless.

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


text:
How can I hang up on only one party when using call waiting?
I have an HTC Thunderbolt. When I use call waiting, I can't hang up on one line without the phone hanging up both calls. How can I hang up on just one party?

Switch to the call you want to end, hit end. A few seconds later the other caller will "call you back", which is actually just the other call resuming. It's weird, but that's how cdma signaling works. "it's not a bug, it's a feature"


text:
Remove thousands separator in Calculator app of Samsung Galaxy S2
Is there any way to tweak a standard Calculator application in Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phone not to display the thousands separator?
I mean to display 1000 instead of 1,000. Is somehow related to locale?

It must be unique to the phone. My DROID doesn't use a thousands separator.

It doesn't appear to be a regional setting, I just changed the Locale on my original SGS from UK English to French and then German (picked as both of them format their thousands and decimals differently, and I can read them both) and it's stayed in 10,000.00 format each time, even after a reboot.

No, there doesn't seem to be any configuration to remove the digit grouping on the stock calculator app.
If you are not particular about using that very app, you can try out some free calculator apps from the market. I tried RealCalc Scientific Calculator, and it's got an option in its Settings to remove digit grouping.


text:
How to install and uninstall apk application from MAC to my mobile android?

Possible Duplicate:
How can I install an app given only its APK file?

I need to install a apk application into connected android mobile in my mac.Is there any way to install it?

From the command line you can run adb install app.apk (requires Android Studio).
Or, put the *.apk on a website and then go to the URL on your Android device and you will be prompted to install the APK.

Just to clearify this: adb install app.apk requires that you have the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) installed on your mac

I get -bash: adb: command not found

@EliaWeiss You need to add the path to where adb is located to your PATH environment variable, or run it using the full path. I did this: ~/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb install path/to/my.apk.

Put the file into Dropbox, and use the Dropbox app on the device. It's very easy, and works a treat.

Should be the answer :)


text:
Switching from active call to a waiting call?
I'd like to ask you if you know how can I change the line of calling. For example, a friend of mine is calling me and we have a talk. Meanwhile, another one is calling me and at this moment I'd like to start conversation with the second one and to put on hold the first one.
I guess there should be an app for this?
Thank you in advance.

Unless you are looking to do this programatically this is probably a question for Android-Stack Exchange

What phone? What version of Android?  Hmm... your question doesn't even mention Android, and you didn't ask this here originally...  Does this even belong here?

You don't need an app for that. If your network supports it, your phone will just ask you. And you will be able to switch between the two calls.

You don't need and App to do this. This is the basic "Call Waiting" feature.
Go to:
Settings -> Call Settings -> Additional settings -> Enable Call Waiting


text:
Samsung Galaxy S - Problem obtaining IP address. "NAK in request"
I can't obtain an ip address to my Android smartphone from my wifi router.
Observations:

The smartphone connection to other routers or thru cellular data is ok.

My router's wifi connection to my PC is ok.

Wifi link to the smartphone was ok till recently.

Security on or off doesn't make a change.

Router is TPink WR541 v7. Firmware upgrade did't help.

Problem persists with 802.11g or b.

Message on the Smartphone:
"Obtaining IP address from [My Router'a Name]". Then "Disconnected"

Message on the router's syslog: "0334:DHCPS: 1:[PHONE's MAC ADDRESS], NAK in request."
Would be grateful to receive your help.
Best Regards,
Joseph.

Any chance you have MAC filtering on?  Have you tried changing the channel?

MAC filtering is disabled. Tried to change the channel. Signal is very strong anyway.

DHCPNAK is a server message, it's invalid for clients to send it. Sorry I can't be more helpful, not familiar with that particular router. I would recommend turning off encryption (briefly!) and sniffing the dhcp handshake with e.g. Wireshark and look at what's really going on.
As an aside, DHCPNAK generally gets sent (by the server) when the client requests renewal of an invalid ip, to trigger the client requesting a new address. Check that you have a dhcp pool configured and that it has not been exceeded. Still shouldn't kick out that error, but something to check none the less.

+1 for the wireshark idea. This will show what's really going on.


text:
Removing non-Google contacts from Messaging
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 (running Gingerbread 2.3.3) and enabled syncing of contacts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google. I've been finding it really annoying that when I go to write a message I start typing in a name and I get a bunch of e-mail addresses from Facebook, etc - people who are not in my main contact book and that I do not want to contact from 'Messaging' on my phone.
I have tried setting the option where only contacts with phone numbers are displayed but I think this only applies to the 'Contacts' application and not messaging. Any ideas?

If you're using the in-built (stock) messaging app, see if there's an option in the settings similar to what you've described. By default, only contacts with mobile numbers should be shown.
Alternative messaging apps like GoSMS and Handcent also have an option to restrict contacts with mobile numbers. In GoSMS, it's in the SENDING section of the settings.

I've had a look at the Settings for the 'Messaging' app (yes, I'm using the in-built standard app) and there doesn't appear to be a similar setting.

It's there in Android Eclair. Perhaps it was removed in Gingerbread. Like I mentioned earlier, I strongly recommend switching to an alternative SMS app for the sheer range of configurable options available.

Do you have any recommendations for SMS app? I don't know if the fact that I'm in the UK matters at all.

GoSMS and Handcent SMS are both free and have loads of features. Both are regularly updated. Do remember to disable notifications in the stock Messaging app if you use an alternative app- this will avoid duplicate notifications.

I had similar problems. Finally I just decided to unlink all my contacts from both Gmail and Facebook and whatever else, Android want's to sync contacts with. Basically turn off any contact sync you may find on the phone. Then backup and clean out or delete the entire Address book. (Do the same with "new" phone contacts in Gmail, which usually gets doubled.)
Here is a long guide how to manually backing up all your contacts and emails to a CSV file, and how to import them again. You can then use the same CSV file to import your contacts into Gmail afterwards.
"About Contacts Import/Export, Backup/Restore and Data/Sync"
Hope this helps.


text:
User can't download my app after Google Market Update
I have a user that is trying to download my app from a Samsung Vibrant running 2.2. But when she gets to the app page in the android market, there is no download button there for her to download! What's weird is once she resets her phone back to factory setting, she was able to download the app, but once the phone is automatically upgraded by Android, my app no longer is available for download again!
Have others encountered similar problem? I have been searching the web for similar issues, but am surprised to not be able to find it. Seems like a pretty major problem!
Some more background - my app does require 2.2 (which she has), permission wise, my app only require the following:
NETWORK COMMUNICATION - FULL INTERNET ACCESS
PHONE CALLS - READ PHONE STATE AND IDENTITY
Hardware controls - control vibrator
Network communication - view network state
Any help is appreciated!

Make sure that your application manifest isn't making any requirements for hardware capabilities that the device doesn't actually have. It's possible that some capability that you were requesting was taken away in the device's firmware update; if you are requesting any capabilities in AndroidManifest.xml via uses-feature, make sure that you set required="false" for anything that you can use but don't actually require for operation. Common culprits are trackball and certain classes of multitouch support.

Have the user check their Content Rating filtering options. In the Market app they should tap the Menu button, then go to Settings -> Set Level, check the "Show all apps" option and tap OK.


text:
How can I root my Pandigital Novel 7" Tablet?
I have a Pandigital 7" that is updated as far as the firmware updates go. However, I do not have access the Android Market and I do not have root access.
I am trying to install a SQL reader that I found on SlideMe.org and it says to update my ROM, but I have the most up-to-date firmware from the Pandigital Website.
I also found a link for a firmware update Android Open Source Kit here: http://www.pandigital.net/?PageID=335
Does anybody know if this open source kit will give me root access?

From what I understand there hasn't been a way found to root the Novel, but you can install apps over USB via adb if you do some other hacks.  I doubt the update you link to will give you root, but a newer version of Android is probably better than nothing.  Related: Market on Novel

Slatedroid and its Wiki is IMO the best resource for the Pandigital Novel. The Novel does not do any signing checks of its firmware and it's running Android 2.0 so it's rather easy to root.
EDIT: I have learned that the bootloader is encrypted; my previous sentence about "not checking signatures" may be incorrect. (It may only be that the bootloader cannot be replaced.)
Latest community-modified firmware as of this writing
Flashable a-la-carte enhancements (including root)
I notice you posted over there too, so this is really for anyone else that has a PDN 7" and wants this information.
As of note, the White and Black versions are different; the White is regarded as better.


text:
How do I upgrade my Android OS from 2.2 to 2.3 on an HTC Desire?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I update the OS in my device?

I am carrying a HTC Desire. I want to upgrade the OS from Android 2.2 to Android 2.3. How do I upgrade the OS?

Check out on this following forums

modaco
Cyanogen
XDA Developers

Note:  Please ready instructions carefully before performing anything. You can break your phone. You have to do everything on your own risk


text:
My HTC Android Touch is creating problems some times
All of a sudden with out touching the screen my phone works on its own like moving between screens.  If I touch on one option it may navigate to some other. It happens very rarely, but it's impacting my ability to use the phone. Can any one suggest a solution?

Do you have an HTC Desire or HTC MyTouch? The tags say one thing but your title (seems) to say something else.

It might be a digitizer problem, you should take it to a warranty. Usually problems like that can be cause of a digitizer issue.

this started to happen after i downloaded an app from the market. prior to that it was great. but after downloading that app all the heck started. anyways I have uninstalled that app but i did not get rid of the problem completely as it was peeping in sometime or the other.. but rare..

@yrksundeep: Have you done the usual quick steps? Cleared the data of the app, restarted the phone, etc.? Have you considered a factory reset? That said, I think Reigo is probably right that it's a hardware problem. That it happened right after you installed an app is probably coincidental.

@Al Everett: If you say that it is a hardware problem... I am confused whether it would get set or not... Can some one plz elaborate the problem at which part it is ocured.

I don't know what the heck you're trying to say. If it's a hardware problem, you need to get the store you bought it from to replace it; we're not going to be able to help you.


text:
Android Language Change
I have a LG Android.  How do I change language settings on the phone itself?  Sometime today, the language on the phone displays changed from English.  I'd like to return to English.  I suspect it'd be in settings, but where?
Thank you.

You can change it in Settings/Language & keyboard.
To do this, hold down the menu button, and choose Settings.  In your Settings list, you will see Language & keyboard.  The first option in the Language & keyboard section is Language.


text:
Deleting Google Image Search History
On my Android device, the Samsung Galaxy S, I frequently use Google and its search functions. Now have I noticed that I cannot seem to delete the Image Search history. When I search something using the regular search I can easily delete that search afterwards. But an earlier search in the Google Image Search does not seem to be possible..
Am I wrong? I have already tried things like deleting the search history through Google, which did not help, and deleting the history on my browser app, which also did not help.
If anyone has some helpful information it will be appreciated!
Kind Regards, Floris
EDIT: This has not been solved yet. The issue still remains. I can delete the history of the regular Google website, the Browser on my Phone and the history of the Google Widget. Yet after doing a search through the Google Widget you come to a Google page with the results, if you search again on that page then the autocomplete comes on with all my old history. Still searching a solution.
EDIT 2: This question is not relevant to me anymore. Due to some other issues I had to go back to factory settings which deleted most of my data. I cannot accept any answer as I am not able to check whether that answers works..

There are two cases:

You are logged in your google account on your device browser
You are not logged in

In case 1, go to www.google.com, scroll down and click on "settings" at the bottom. You'll get to a page which gives you the option of wiping your search history
In case 2, go to www.google.com, start typing something in the search box, you'll see in the autocomplete the option to wipe your search results.
What Matthew suggested wipes the search history of your device not on google's servers.
You have to do both if you wanna clear everything.

I've tried it and the history on the Google website was gone, which is good. But, when using the search on my Google Widget on my phone I can still see my history. I do not mean the history of the widget, but the history you see after you have searched something and then move on to search a new thing. It seems likes eventhough it is Google, it is not the actual Google website.

Have you tried to delete the cache of the Google Search app (setup -> apps -> manage apps -> Google Search)?

Go To Settings, More at the top right of the screen, then click on storage, then click applications, find the Google Maps application in the list and click it.  Once inside click Clear data and Clear cache.  This should fix the problem

History in the browser is your history of visited sites.  Saved form information (your searches) is different and separate.  Hit the Clear form data option in the browser settings.

This did not work, I cleared everything I could in my browser settings, yet the Google Images Search history still remained.

That's bizarre.


text:
How can I delete my /sdcard/.xiaoniubook/ directory?
I downloaded a free book app from the Android Market and it installed just fine, but when I went to open it it told me I needed to try to delete the /sdcard/.xiaoniubook/ directory and restart my phone. Where (or what) is that and how can I delete it?

Have got a android sdk. If you have got it, then go to tools directory, and type:
adb shell
rm /sdcard/.xiaoniubook

First install this awesome file manager program called ES File Explorer. link
In there browse to /sdcard.
Now press Menu and Select Settings. Go to File Settings and check Show Hidden Files
Now you should see the folder hidden folder .xiaoniubook. Long press it and choose Delete from the menu.
And just for your information, in Linux any file/folder starting with . are considered as hidden file/folder.


text:
Can't enter < (less than) or > (greater than) in terminal
When I try to type "<" or ">", I get semicolons ";" and colons ":"  any idea?

Note sure if this question should really been have migrated here. But this is a typical case of a vacuum that we have here. It's not really an android end-user question and on the other hand not a android programming question.
Anyway it looks like a typical codepage/localisation problem:

"<" on an US layout is ";" on an German (and maybe others) keyboard layout
">" on an US layout is ":" on an German (and maybe others) keyboard layout

I take a wild guess and say that you develop under Microsoft Windows, where each windows can have a different keyboard layout. You should see a symbol with the current layout right to the clock in the taskbar, where you can change this.
I hope I was able to point you into the right direction.


text:
Get profile photo to Android contact manager for non-friend contact from Facebook
I would like to know if is possible import a Facebook profile photo to contact manager for contacts which I don't have in my friend list on Facebook.
For example:

In Android, I have this contact: "John Smith".
On Facebook, there also exists some John Smith, but I don't have a John Smith in my friends list on Facebook.
I would like add his photo from Facebook to the contact manager in Android.

You can manually download the photo and  in your contact manager click the placeholder for photo and chose that File.
As far as automatically importing, your phone can't figure out which "John Smith" is the "John Smith" you want from the list of "John Smiths". The default contact manager can't do this.


text:
Rsync does not preserve permissions while rsyncing from Android to Laptop
I am trying to do rsync from my android phone to my laptop.  The problem that I am facing is that the permissions are not getting preserved even when the -p flag  is used. I have also used the other flags such as -o, -g.
What may be the reason and a fix for this?

Is your SD card formatted as FAT32? If so, that's why - it's a FAT32 limitation.

You might try this rsync -rltDv --chmod=u=rwX,g=rX,o=rX


text:
launch application by name in android phone
How can I launch some android application by name on android device? Like in Linux, I pressed alt+f2 and typed name of application. May be it is some alternate launcher.

you can press the search, and type the name of the application there.

Yes, but it's dirty search for running only applications.

I found the filters in search widget. It works. Thank you, everybody.

Gesture Search will do something similar. It finds apps, contacts, bookmarks and music tracks.

+1 this is nice, I wish there would be a app indexing all these items, but let you search via keyboard instead of gestures?

The home launcher Go Launcher Ex gives you a search field for this, type in first letters and it will show matching apps. But it only lists apps, no music tracks or bookmarks.

It really depends what you mean applications in android are usually run using something similar to com.company.theirapp so you would need a "hashmap" for example which relates the application name to the actual apk name.


text:
USB drivers for using ADB with Samsung Galaxy S on CyanogenMod 7.1?
I recently installed CyanogenMod 7.1 on my Samsung Galaxy S i9000 and I have some problems now to get ADB on my Windows 7 64-bit computer to recognize the device.
Currently, adb devices returns no entry for my phone and the Device Manager shows a device called "Galaxy S" but with a yellow exclamation mark because a driver is missing.
I've tried to install Samsung Kies as well as the Google USB driver for Windows Revision 4 and point the device manager at the directories with those drivers. It doesn't find anything it can use there.
Which drivers do I actually need for the phone now that it is running CyanogenMod 7.1? And where do I get those and how can I install them?

Use the drivers that come with the android SDK. The samsung drivers do not work once CyanogenMod is installed.

That's one of the drivers I tried, if I point the driver installation dialog to the folder with the Google driver it just says that it didn't find any driver for the device.

make sure you have android_winusb.inf in the folder, there should also be androidwinusb64.cat and an amd64 folder. If you have those, it should find the driver. That is the driver I use for my Galaxy S w/ CM7 on both my work and home PCs both run Win7 64bit

Thanks, the Google driver is the correct one, I just pointed Windows to the wrong folder, the driver installation fails when I choose the amd64 or i386 subfolders, it has to be the parent folder.

You can also just right-click on android_winusb.inf and/or oem6.inf and choose Install rather than going through the messy detecting/browsing for files/etc process.

i always got an error when I tried to "install" the android usb driver inf file.

For anyone else who struggled with not detecting their phone. Here's what happend to me: First I was trying to uninstall the automatic portable device that windows adds when I plug in my galaxy s3. That was silly seems if you manually install the driver it will pick up. I had to go to right click my computer -> Manage ->  Device Manager - > Action -> Add Legacy Hardware -> Choose Android Phone -> Browse to ..\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver and select android_winusb.inf -> Then I selected the "Android Composite ADB Interface" option
UPDATE
Ok, the above solution wasn't working any more after a reboot of my pc. So this time I saw my phone was  under "Other Devices" in Device Manager. Clicked Update driver, choose from my pc, "Have disk..." and forced it to use the above mentioned composite driver despite the warning and then it worked again.

If you found your device on devices->other devices as android then what you need to do is install the driver for your device. Even if it is cyanogen moded samsung phone, in most cases installing samsung driver will fix the issue.. You can get samsung drivers on the following link:
Android USB Driver for Windows | SAMSUNG Developers
I'm using samsung galaxy s duos with cyanogen moded cosmic ROM. It worked fine for me.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime DUOS G531H/DS and those drivers worked for me. I can now see the device using adb devices. Thanks!


text:
apps missing from My Apps part of Market
I have a HTC Desire, with the official Android 2.3.3.   My problem is that not all the apps I have installed are showing on the Market, which means that I can't check for updates to them.  To pick one example, Dolphin HD.  It's missing regardless of whether I move it to SD or phone memory.  I can't detect any pattern to explain which ones show and which ones don't.
I've googled a fair bit and most solutions posted involve uninstalling the updates to the market (no longer possible on this version of Android), clearing the cache of the Market app, or clearing the cache of Google Services Framework, but this doesn't fix anything. I've turned the phone off/on, removed the SD card, dismounted/remounted the SD card etc, plus several combinations of the above.  I had the problem before applied the 2.3.3 upgrade.   On earlier versions, uninstalling updates to the Market seemed to usually do the trick.
Any more suggestions for things to try?

Is your phone rooted?

No.  I uninstalled one of the missing apps - Dolphin HD - and then installed it again.  Clearly I've missed an update (at least one!) as it's quite different.  During playing around trying to fix this I ended up with no apps in My Apps at all!  Uninstalling and reinstalling one made them come back.  I'll have to check later whether all the apps in My Apps matches all the apps on my phone.

Do you have multiple Gmail or Google apps on your domain logins? I found it confusing, because whatever email account I happened to be reading became the current account in the Market.
So some of my apps ended up being assigned to these other accounts until I figured out that I wasn't logged in as expected. I didn't realize it because they were free apps so there wasn't the issue of requiring a registered credit card for these other logins.

I have a few accounts.  Now that Google+ allows Google Apps accounts I'm going to remove my other accounts and see if that helps.

Try this:

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All
Scroll down to Market, tap on it, and then tap on Clear cache button.
Go back to the listing of apps, scroll up to find the "Google Services Framework" app, tap on it and tap on the Clear data button.
Reboot your phone.
Launch the Market app, and accept the license.

Your installed apps should now be properly linked to your account in the Market.  If not, simply download or update any app, and everything should be back to normal.

Restart of power off then turn on? I followed your suggestion to the letter (and did a restart) but I didn't get prompted to accept the license and now I have even fewer of my installed apps showing in the Market.  I've not been prompted to accept a license for a few months now, so I guess a newer version of the Market app has been rolled out.


text:
Is Android based upon Linux?
Is Android based upon Linux?

Yes, here is the source code download and what you need to use it.
http://source.android.com/download

And the license agreement: http://source.android.com/license
Home Page: http://www.android.com/
The wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android%5F%28operating%5Fsystem%29

From the wiki:

At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel which they marketed to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system.

The short answer is Yes.
The longer answer is... Android uses a modified Linux kernel to run the basic operating system functions.  However, Android does not use the same libraries that you would see in a typical desktop Linux system (basic libraries such as glibc), so you can't just run any program on Android that you can on other Linux systems.  Besides the fact that some of the libraries are different, Android does not provide a very easy way of running applications that are not build on their Java-like API they call the "Andoird Platform"

Sorry, this might be nitpicking.  That "Java-like API" is called Dalvik.

Actually Dalvik is the runtime that executes the Java-like code, similar to the Sun JRE.  The API is the set of libraries that allow you to interact with the Andorid system.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_virtual_machine)

Whats the Andoird Platform? xD

Android was developed on the Embedded Linux Kernel 2.6. "Embedded" is the keyword here. It's the exact same kernel that OpenMoko used, WebOS used, Meego used, and thousands of other embedded linux based projects also used. And as HeavyD already said, do not expect to find the same software stack on an Embedded Linux system that you'd normally expect to find on what you'd consider a normal PC (or even a server rack).

Yes!
It helps to talk about "Android the platform" and "Android the OS"

Android the Operating system: This is Linux. It runs the Linux kernel so it very much is Linux. The standard libraries are a little different and you as a user or developer of an Android app won't have anything to do with this "linuxey" side of things*.
Android the Platform: This is a Java-based-desktop platform that you can write applications for. It uses the Dalvik** VM to run specially packaged Java jar files containing your code. This is the part of the Android phone you see and interact with every day*

*Unless you root your device, then you have access to everything.
**Dalvik is also a cute little 'town' in Iceland with some great glaciers, two ferries to wonderful islands and no good coffee bar.

Yes Android made the choice to use Linux primarily for the security features...
This is the bright feature of Linux and one of the major reason for android to chose Linux . Linux has a great part in scientific research,high performance system like mainframe computers and super computers system to perform the critical task efficiently.

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


text:
How to plug in an  Android Tablet and show it's screen on PC or Laptop for training session?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I project the screen of my android phone for a presentation?

I just bought an Android Tablet, Toshiba Thrive AT100, its HDMI port make me able to plugged it directly to HDMI-support projector in my training session.
But I wonder if there is any application which allow me to do this kind of activity...

Plugged Android Tablet to my laptop via HDMI (or any port), then show real-time tablet display on my laptop (or PC). This could be show via the application's area itself.

With this function, I can just switch from my presentation to show real using on tablet without to switch the cord between my laptop and my tablet.
Do you know this kind of application or any technique to do this?

You want a VNC server for Android. They are available, but this is off-topic on superuser.com. This question should be migrated to android stack exchange site.

Try a vnc server for your tablet, if you have rooted it. Thats the free option.

Most projectors have more than one input port; perhaps one HDMI and one VGA is a common arrangement, and there is usually a functionality to switch between HDMI and VGA on the projector. If you can arrange such that your laptop uses the VGA port and the Android uses the HDMI port (or vice versa) then you can use the projector's switching functionality.
It is also possible to use an HDMI switcher, such as this one http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-High-Performance-Switcher-Switch/dp/B0015YWKYY
For a software-only solution, you can use VNC; although you'll need a rooted device. With VNC, you can display the Android's screen in a window on your laptop, and you won't need to use HDMI cable.


text:
Facebook mobile for Droid unable to delete friends
How does one go about deleting friends via the Droid's Facebook application? I am running the latest build of Facebook.

You mean Android, don't you? As far as I know there isn't a Droid-specific Facebook app.

@AlEverett The device was the Droid, as the apps function differently on different devices.

@Woot4Moo: I don't know that this is still the case. I've updated the Facebook app from the Market a couple of times now and I don't see a Droid-specific version.

It doesn't appear that you can, at least at this time.
Not particularly surprising. Their app just sends you to m.facebook.com for anything more than basic functionality.

I will leave this open until end of day and mark this as the answer if this remains the case.  Thanks

Viewing their profile touch the friends tab, a menu should pop up and at the bottom should be the option to "unfriend".  Hope this helps.

You can't do it using the Droid app. The only way is to use Facebook's mobile webapp. Find the friend you want to delete, then scroll down and find the remove friend option.

Sometimes if you are viewing your news feed, you are seeing posts from a profile you are not necessarily friends with, you just "liked" something of theirs which will then add to your news feed. In THAT case you go to their profile and "unlike" them. That should stop them from posting to your wall.

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


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What does "discover known accounts" permission mean?
I am not sure what an app can do to me if it is able to discover my account, to what extent?
Thank you very much.

This permission is of moderate-high importance. This allows the
  application to read what accounts you have and the usernames
  associated with them. It allows the app to interact with permission
  related to that account. An example would be an app that was restoring
  your contact, would discover your Google account then send you to
  Google's login screen. It doesn't actually get to see your password,
  but it gets to work with the account. This is also legitimately used
  by applications to add contacts to your accounts, such as dialer
  replacements and contact managers/backup/sync/etc.

Source

Thanks, but still a little confused. Am I right that: even if the application discovers my account (and thus knows my email address), it still needs to get my additional explicit permission to interact with my Google account (e.g. Google Reader asks for my permission on first run)?

@danteisnotaGeek It would need the "Use Credentials" permissions to actually use that account (it doesn't share your password, but an authentication token, sort of like how OAuth works on Twitter and Facebook).

Its a huge security hole because it allows an application to add your facebook and google and other account names to your online profile without you realizing it. If the site is hacked the hackers could follow through to other know accounts if you were stupid enough to use the same password. Lots of people are that stupid so it will happen.
An online dating site or porn site might leak your real facebook and google account names to the people you are chatting with even though you never gave that information to the site itself.
Anonymous online? Not any more.


text:
Problems searching and joining network with Nexus One
I have a Nexus One, unlocked from Google. It is not rooted nor running custom firmware. I am trying to use it with 2 different international sim cards, which have worked in other peoples phones. I have tried in four different countries, in all cases I get an error unable to search for networks.
Android version is 2.3.6
How can I troubleshoot and hopefully fix this?

"unable to search for networks" is not an error I'm familiar with. Can you provide the exact error text and more info about when you see it?


text:
Where did the wifi sleep policy go in ICS?
With the update to Android 4.0.3, I noticed that the wifi is always on.
I used to have the sleep policy where is turns itself of when ilse for some time.
Where did this feature go with ICS?

On a pretty much vanilla build on my EVO, I can get to it by going into
Settings->Wifi->(Menu Button)->Advanced. It's listed as "Keep WiFi on during sleep". Just be sure to tap on the left half of the "Wifi" menu item, since the right half is simply the toggle.

Indeed! Thank you! The button on the right was quite confusing. Also, I have a big thumb and whenever I touched the bar, I would simply toggle the wifi on/off.

As it turns out, the wifi is still on all the time! No matter which option I choose... Reset did not help.

@Matt: Hm, well that certainly sounds like a bug!

Holy cow, how long had I been looking for that option!  Many thanks @eldarerathis for the directions, I've now found it and set it.  Nice.


text:
No face unlock for the Nexus S?
I seems to me, that the Nexus S did not get the face unlock feature with ICS?
Why would this not be supported for the Nexus S? Is it the hardware?
I wonder because the code is open source and I assume any other competitor would not restrict this feature just because it's not perfect yet. I mean: There are still quite a few other things that also do not work perfectly.

That's correct: starting Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0.1 and until the curent (at the time of writing) 4.0.3 the Face Unlock feature is not available to any version of Nexus S (NS).
This thread on xda-dev provides various speculations as to why Face Unlock is not available on NS:

lower quality front camera hardware on the NS
the vulnerabilities of this feature
(check out the note on the setting that says that Face Unlock is low-security and experimental)
having this feature exclusively available for Galaxy Nexus

Bottom line: Face Unlock is present in various ported ICS ROMs, but it's reported to be pretty flimsy at the moment.


text:
Adding an extra mailaccount in Android (manual setup disabled)
I'm trying to add another mailaccount (IMAP / SMTP).
However I cannot set it up.

Applications
Email
Add account
Fill in emailaddress and password
I should be able to click on Manual setup now but it is grayed out (disabled).

I've also tried it without filling the emailaddress and password, but also without luck.
Android version 2.3.3
Any idea how to setup an extra mail account on my phone.

If it's a gmail account (eg, myemail@gmail.com) or you haven't added the domain to the email address (eg,moo@cow.com), you cannot use manual setup.
Personally I would recommend ditching the native mail app and going with K9 - it's a far superior email client.


text:
Having trouble with voice command to navigate to contact address
When I select a contact, then select its address, Maps opens. Then I can navigate to it with the Google navigation app.
However, if I try doing this directly with the system-wide speech input, this is not working. The input is interpreted correctly (correct contact and Google navigation opens), but then the address of the contact is not found.

What command are you giving? I use "navigate to john doe home" and haven't noticed a problem. We probably need to know the version of Android and the device.

The command I use should be correct (it's German though). The contact is understood right and the navigation app opens as intended. I'm using 4.0.3 on a Nexus S.

The German command is "Ilse Müller ansteuern". Because of different grammar, the syntax is different in comparison to English.


text:
Android Deep Sleep
I am confused about the utility of deep sleep over complete shut down. When I am putting my phone to deep sleep, I am no longer getting SMSes nor can people call me. I receive the backlog SMSes after power on. Why should I use it instead of complete shut down?
What keeps running during deep sleep? What's the point?

I would assume "deep sleep" is akin to Windows' "Hibernate".  That is, the state of everything is preserved as is, so whatever was running before is still running when you wake up.

Faster startup would be the biggest reason to deep sleep as opposed to completely shutting down.

I've never heard of "deep sleep" when working with Android. Where are you seeing this option?

What Al Everett said.

Unlike many phones, no Android phone I know of has a deep sleep state where (usually) nothing but the alarm works.  It's either off or on.  Unless you can provide more info this question can't be answered.

Perhaps you're talking about airplane mode?  If so, it saves on battery without having to actually turn off your phone by shutting down all the radios.  It's also useful for places that don't allow cell phones (hospitals, airplanes during take off/landing, etc) in that it won't ring, etc.


text:
Android 2.3.3 on Kindle Fire - lost internet conectivity after modifing /etc/permisions/platform.xml - FIX?
I tried to install an app that requested com.google.android.maps.jar.
It gave me INSTALL_FAILED_MISSING_SHARED_LIBRARY and after i runned adb install, logcat showed:
Package se.norstedts.svenskastora requires unavailable shared library com.google.android.maps; failing!.

So I copied com.google.android.maps.jar to system/framework.
Installed Google maps v5.12.0.apk from the device.
I tried to install the app again. Got the same error INSTALL_FAILED_MISSING_SHARED_LIBRARY because of the missing com.google.android.maps
Modified /etc/permisions/platform.xml. I appended at the end of the xml file in the "list of all the libraries available for application code to link against." :
<library name="com.google.android.maps"
        file="/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar" />
restarted device and discovered that i lost internet conectivity!!

I am still not able to install the first app, and didn't regain internet conectivity after i restored platform.xml to it's original form.
What should I do now? It seems to be a permision problem. Wifi connects with no problems. The apps cannot acces internet.

Judging from your actions, I am guessing you have root access and possibly a custom recovery.
First, a word of advice:
DO NOT modify the system framework directly especially permissions/platform.xml. This along with a few other files is responsible for defining what android permissions are, giving the permissions for the core part of the system and the mappings involved with it and the SDK. If you somehow mess up the files, then you could seriously lose functionality and as you noticed, permissions. If you modify other parts of the framework, you could cause system instability, boot loops or it just might fail to boot Android altogether.
Additionally, dropping the jar file into the framework directory doesn't work. This is because its actually installed in system/lib or system/bin (have to check android source. Might have this confused). Next, this jar file is usually installed with Google Apps package (or gapps for short) and the updater-script takes care of all that so if you still want to manually install the jar file, I suggest you look at the updater-script for the location of install.
Now, what is the quickest way to fix this and install the jar file?

reinstall whatever ROM you have - you dont have to wipe the data as only the system was modified. If you have a stock ROM, factory reset wont help. This is because a factory reset wipes the data and cache. It doesn't wipe the system partition that you changed and so the problem will still remain when you reboot.
Flash the latest version of gapps to your phone using recovery. This will reinstall all the Google Apps as well as the corresponding libraries needed to extend their functionality. It will also help your other app work.


text:
Force GPU rendering in ICS. How does this affect system performance?
I thankfully discovered the option to force GPU rendering of apps in the system settings of ICS.
So far, I did only notice a difference with one app: Twitter for Android was very annoying to use before, since the fps were very low. Now it's almost perfectly smooth.
I've heard that the RAM usage is higher with GPU rendering activated.

How much is the difference?
What other effects does GPU rendering have on the performance of ICS?

The builtin News & Weather app will crash when you tap the forecast in order to see the graph.

Yeah, I know. But I need to activate this option because Twitter for Android is really horrible without forced GPU rendering.

This post will explain everything. It details how GPU rendering works in ICS.
https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/2FXDCz8x93s
Though, if you want a short answer:
GPU rendering essentially forces the drawing of windows and UI elements in apps to be calculated and done using the GPU of your phone instead of the CPU. This frees up clock cycles for the CPU to do other tasks enabling your phone to be generally smoother and faster. However, this means that everything being done by the GPU eats more RAM (as its using OpenGL to do it which requires more overhead). Android has always done some aspects with the GPU using hardware acceleration. What I have described is a MAJOR OVERSIMPLIFICATION. Its not so cut and dry. Please read the link above in its entirety for a full understanding of the concept.


text:
Nexus S 'flashes' screen when locking
When I lock my Nexus S, the screen flashes once:
It turns black, then the home screen appears again very shortly, then it's black again.
Do you have this aswell with a Nexus S on ICS 4.0.3? Is there a fix?

I haven't seen this with CyanogenMod 7. It may be a software / your-specific-phone hardware issue.

I haven't seen this on my Nexus S, neither with Gingerbread nor Ice Cream Sandwich.

Do you use Voodoo Sound / Color? Any custom Kernel? Stock ROM or custom ROM?

@Leandros None of the above. I did not 'manipulate' the Nexus S in any way. No rooting, no change of hardware or software. I've only installed apps via Marketplace.

IMM76D also has this problem, in spite of reflash (stock rom)

It's a software issue with Ice Cream Sandwich as far as I know, so no fix. It may only be present on certain models however, I only have anecdotal evidence for this but I have the issue on my Nexus S model IML74K but know someone with a different model of Nexus S and they don't seem to have the issue...

Ok, well I have the model number GT-I9023.

I'll try and find out what my friends is and post back when I know.


text:
Is there a task widget that only shows todays tasks?
Is there a task widget that only shows todays tasks?  I have a had  a few that I have downloaded, synced with my google account, and all was fine. I then added that task app as a widget and started completing tasks, and future tasks appear. For example, I have make;
Make coffee (due 1-11-12)
Make lunch (due 1-11-12)
Do laundry (due 1-11-12)
Make coffee (due 1-12-12)
Make lunch (due 1-12-12)
Now say I only see 3 tasks on the widget, so they all have a due date of 1-11-12. Great, all todays thing that need to be done, but as soon as I mark off make coffee, (due 1-11-12), it brings up make coffee (due 1-12-12), which I don't want. I only want to see todays tasks. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!
If possible, I'd like the widget to be about the size of the calendar so it doesn't take up the entire screen. I'd like to keep the task and calendar on the same screen.

Try Any.Do.
It's an normal task app with nice style, and the widget is only showing tasks for today, also several sizes are available.

ColorNote's "Today 2x2" widget will do this, but it unfortunately doesn't sync with Google tasks.
You can also do this using a combination of the Pure Calendar Widget (well worth the $1.99 for all the display options it gives you) and one of the many task applications it works with (I use Dato GTasks, which syncs with Google Tasks). Just make sure to set the search period to 1 day in the calendar tab (you don't have to select a calendar, it works just fine with only a task service enabled).

I use Astrid for all my task/todo management.  It has a widget which is the exact same size as the calendar widget (2x2), and when you create it, you can choose to only include certain tasks using a variety of criteria, among which is tasks due today.
It's also open source, ad-free, and syncs with Google Tasks, as well as a couple others.

If you are interested in today's Calendar events I have had good results with Smooth Calendar. You can configure it to show only events in the next 24 hours.
If you are looking for an easy to use to do list application with widgets that show only Today's tasks, I recommend my app Maniana To List.
Both are free and ad free.


text:
Multiple gmails in Android phone?
Is it possible have many gmail -accounts in Android phone? I want to have 2nd verification gmail and some non-2nd-verification gmails in the same phone with different security settings -- like "onion-model" in networking.

Did you make an app-specific password within your 2 verification system for gmail, and use that as a password? That is how I have mine setup. Look here: http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=1056283&answer=185833&rd=3

The two-step auth does work, and with multiple accounts, I've got to Google Accounts on my phone both with 2 step auth. Have you seen this previous question: How can I get Google's two-step verification to work?

@DylanYaga: thank you, Dylan. I got the puzzle cracked, now the question in the title and clarified the question.

Yes, you can use multiple accounts -- did you try it?  I use 3.  Add them like any other account through Settings -> Accounts and sync -> Add account.

Please note that this feature is only available in Android 2.0 and forward.


text:
How can I read large QRs in Android?
I have used the Zxing app here but I cannot read large QRs with it, how can I do that? By Large, I mean that I want read a content with a lot of text (I am able to make them as large as possible by dimension but not in content).
Now I am not meaning the technical specs as given by one answer (certainly they reveal somethnig), I am looking for ways to read large-amount of content in QRs without too much lag. Is this a pipe dream, just better device or better software?

It might be worth trying "Google Goggles" (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.unveil); it reads QR codes too.

There are a number of QR readers in Android Market, if none of them fit your needs, you will need to have a developer write one for you which will.

QR codes have limitations on the amount of data that can be stored within them. If you are hitting these limitations then you may need to find workarounds such as making the QR code text a hyperlink to the long text you wish to display.
For more information on the limitations of QR codes, see the "Storage" section of the Wikipedia article and its citations.
This citation in particular will be very useful to you. Look at version 40 of the standard in that table, as it has the highest capacity and will give you the absolute length limits.

...sorry you are not understanding my question fully, I read those wikipedias but I meant that it does not take many minutes for your camera to get the nice shot, ie lag. How can I read large QRs and minimize lag? Possible?


text:
Change own phone number in ICS
I've change the SIM in my Galaxy-Nexus-S. Under Settings -> About phone -> Status there still is the old phone number and I cannot manage to change it.
I've seen this answer which is outdated. The menu option Own numbers discribed in the answer is not there in ICS.
The navigation terms might be called differently, as I manually translated the names from German.

The way I had to do it in Gingerbread was to put the SIM into a Blackberry, change the number there, and then it updated when I put the SIM back into my Nexus S. (The number isn't always stored on the SIM, so if it isn't then Android won't update - you need to manually story it, which AFAIK you can't do on ICS/Gingerbread, hence the Blackberry method)

In previous versions of Android (mine is 2.3.7) you can set this setting in the Additional call settings. In Android 4.0 the Additional call settings screen is located here:
Open the Phone app -> [Menu] -> Settings -> Additional settings.
I have not verified this on a physical device yet.

Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately there is no option to change the phone number here.

@gentmatt It's there for me.

You need to reprogram the phone.  Dial ##786# on the dial pad and then hit view.  You may need your MSL to be able to change the phone number.

"Connection problem or invalid MMI code."

@Mr. Monkey "UNKNOWN APPLICATION" is what i get. Are you sure there is not supposed to be additiona # at the end?

Have you tried just a factory reset?  Sounds like you got a new phone, right?  Any opposition to just wiping and starting fresh?  I would think that would do it.

Ever since I got ICS 4.0.3 on my Nexus S, I had to wipe it twice already :)


text:
I accidently deleted LG home on my LG p500 phone
I did a system reset after having deleted LG home on my LG android phone p500. I thought the system app would be restored, but the fact is now. I don't have a "desktop". I cant get to anywhere now on my phone, it is just one big black screen. Anyway that I could fix it? Thanks a million.

Your best bet would be to reflash the ROM, since system reset only clears the user data, it won't restore system apps. A quick google search revealed this tutorial on how to reflash stock ROM: How to flash Original Firmware on the LG Optimus One P500

As long as your Google account still is configured on the device (and the latter is connected to either WiFi or the mobile network), the simplest solution would be to visit the Google Playstore, log in with the same account you're using on your Android device, chose an alternative launcher app (e.g. Holo Launcher), hit the "Install" button, and approve its permissions. A few minutes later, the app should be installed on your device -- and you again have a working home-screen.
There's a big mis-conception about factory-reset, as the name is misleading: It won't reset to "as shipped from the factory", but simply remove all settings and user-installed apps -- so it looks like "fresh from a factory". For details, see the factory-reset tag wiki.


text:
Phone stops using 3G when Wifi hotspot nearby
I have a HTC Desire with the latest legit firmware.  I have Wifi and 3G enabled, and it's usually fine; at home it connects to my (WPA2 protected) router, and when I go outside it switches to 3G.  But sometimes, as I pass other Wifi hotspots it stops using 3G so I lose data.  I've disabled the 'tell me about open wifi' option. I'm not sure if these Wifi hotspots are open or encrypted but really I'd like to only use Wifi routers I've entered the details of (such as my own).  Is this possible?

If you didn't explicitly configure your device to automatically use "open" and unprotected networks, it will only connect to those you explicitly tell it to -- so you needn't worry about this.
As for your "3g turning off" issue: That's very strange. Something in your device still seems to think that, as soon as some Wifi is near, you're going to use that. Probably you can avoid this by turning Wifi off. You needn't do that manually everytime (you might forget, and you might be annoyed when it's not on when you need it) -- but rather let Smart WiFi manage this for you. This app remembers Wifi networks you connected to. When you get disconnected, it will switch Wifi off. As soon as it detects you get close to it (it remembered the cell towers near, so this is it detects the area where you've been connected to some Wifi), it switches Wifi back on.
It just could get weird with "mobile Hotspots", if you connect to another Android device's Hotspot functionality in the middle of a desert, it would always turn Wifi on at that place, even if nothing's around. Oh, well: No cell towers close? So this won't happen :)


text:
Is my battery faulty
I've had my HTC Desire (latest legit firmware) for 18 months or so, and I believe this problem has existed for a while but it getting worse.  It might just be time for a new battery but in case there's something I can do to fix it I'll explain.
I charge the phone overnight, everynight.  If I use it for surfing/texting on the way to work (25-50 mins) plus leave it checking for emails every 15 mins or so, plus with data enabled, then there's a good chance it'll have less than half the charge left by lunchtime.  If I don't charge it in the afternoon then there's a good chance the commute home will make the phone power down due to lack of power.
Looking at the battery graph it seems that the phone gets to about 15% power then runs out, often without warning or just the one warning.  And when I charge it, the charge on the graph climbs from zero up to about 85% then jumps to 100%.  It's as if there's 10/15% which isn't available for me to use or charge any more.
I've read - and tried, unsuccessfully - some "trick" when you charge the phone, turn it off and charge it, then turn it on and charge it. It made no difference at all.
My phone's not rooted and I'm not desperate to do so.

Do you have any reason to believe it's not the battery?

I've had similar trouble with batteries.  Someone once told me that if you don't fully charge the phone before first using it, you'll hose the battery and it cannot be recovered.  I don't know if this is true, but this person is to this day happily using an old G1 -- which model I owned in 2007 and got rid of because the battery life was so bad.  He fully charged before first use; I didn't.

I think you should get a new battery.

It could be that the battery is not calibrated correctly. This can cause the phone to think that the battery level is much lower than it actually is, as well as the "jump" when you disconnect from the charger. I'm not sure how to fix this without rooting, but if you do decide to root, the Battery Calibration app in the market can reset the calibration, then guide you through recalibration.


text:
Android restore bootstrap nandroid backup after a failed rom flash
I was trying to flash my Droid X2 to CM7, but it failed. Before I attempted the flash, I did a nandroid backup using an app called "system recovery" (MOTODX2_Bootstrap_signed.apk).
I want to restore to that backup, but I cannot seem to boot into the same recovery menu.
Someone please help me. My phone gets to the boot animation and keeps resetting.

Sigh. You are bricked. Not an easy fix. You have options, though.:

Flash the stock ROM via PC, and see if it is a soft brick. If that works, you'll be at step 1 again, but that's better than a unusable phone. This is assuming you can aaccess a mode to flash ROMS via PC.
1.5. Make a USB jig (look up one, it varies on device). Use it, and it will make option 1 easier.

1.7. Take apart your phone, grab the hard drive, load it into anything that will take it(again, look it up, I know someone asked about it here a while back) and grab the backup, then do option 1.

Keep trying to get it to boot up, and keep it charged. You may just get lucky.
Take it to the manufacturer, and say it just stopped working. Provided they don't work out what you did, it''ll be at stock again.
Throw it in a bin :(

Some of those may be crazy, but there is often little available for bricked devices. I have lost two devices like this.


text:
How do I clear out some information recorded in Google accounts?
I have a phone that is running Android. I have several Gmail accounts setup on the phone, many of which belong to my family members who are computer illiterate while a couple of the accounts are my own.
The only reason I have those accounts on my phone is to teach my family how to use email on their phones, which I am going to get them shortly.
Today I noticed for the first time that every one of those Gmail accounts record my mobile device under the "Android device" section of the dashboard. Every Gmail account has the rest of the accounts recorded. The market info too is common to all. Furthermore, they all show the same IMEI. That is plain wrong.
I tried removing all the accounts except my own from my phone but the information recorded still persists. Is it going to be updated after some time when the server cache is cleared? If not, how can I correct this?

Just to verify you have removed the accounts from your phone right?  The only way I know to get rid of persona information collected by Google is to delete the account.  This would be true for Apple's iCloud service and Microsoft's Hotmail service.

Yes, I have removed all the accounts from my phone. What you say is extreme and not acceptable at all. Why do these companies make it so hard. Bollocks.

Unfortunately there's no way to delete this info. I have accounts that were added and deleted from my device more than 2 years ago but the controll panel still lists my device.


text:
How can I update my Galaxy Tab to 2.3?
I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab which has Android 2.2. I want to upgrade it to 2.3 but I don’t know how. I searched to find out a way to do so, but I couldn't find anything.

Which exact Galaxy Tab model do you have?  Samsung released 13 different models: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/galaxy-tab/all-products  The official 2.3 upgrade may or may not be available for your specific model.

You connect device to computer running samsung kies and do the damage with official gingerbread
All settings and databases will be lost or erased, so take care to make backup (if you know how to root then with titanium is best)
There is aftermarket Ice Cream Sandwich in development http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=807

if u have the samsung galaxy tab p1010 (wifi only)
i found a firmware update to gingerbread 2.3.6 released in uk.
im in south africa i installed in on my tab it worked perfect problems.
but one thing if u do this u will lose ur warrenty well atleast i was told i would but hey it worked perfect...and till now there hasnt been a update in south africa so i did it.
http://www.sammobile.com/
register and login
click firmware
type-tablet
os-android
model-pick ur model if listed
as i said i picked a uk release


text:
Where is the Android log file to see if app installed correctly?

Possible Duplicate:
How can I view and examine the Android log?

Where is the log file. Why not logs/system.log? I see a log using app but nothing about install information.  Like failures to install because of xyz.

The only log I remember, that contains installation success/failure info is the one that can be accessed via ADB (android debug bridge). The command is:
adb logcat

But you might not have the Android debugging tools installed, so an easy way of looking at the logcat is to install aLogcat from market. Because that log is a memory buffer (I learned it form stackverflow).
Man, I sure want an easier way to get that info, but this is the only method I can remember.


text:
Can I locate my android phone?
I brought a new Samsung Galaxy Y inbuilt with Android 2.3.5 some month ago and sold it recently. But after selling I noticed that in that Android I left my email ID (email ID that is used to log in to android for the first time).
I don't worry about the my email ID as I have changed its password but Can I locate my android device with that email? or by any other way? on any Google Maps like service?

No, you would need an application like "Where's My Droid" installed on the device and know the phone number for the device.
If you sold the device, the new owner probably did a factory reset on the device so your information is no longer associated to the device.
In the future, before you sell your device, you should go in and do a factory reset so you are not giving the device away with any of your information.
I want to add my opinion on these apps that claim to help you find your device (including "Where's My Droid") if it is lost or stolen. They are great if you lost your phone in your house (or somewhere "safe") but if you lost it at like a bar or if someone actually stole it, chances are you will not even be able to use this software. A factory reset can be done on any device rather quickly, which would remove your "locating software" and remove any "tie" that your accounts may have to the device. Also, they require the device be ON, so if someone does steal your phone, all they have to do is turn it off, and when they have a chance, do a factory reset. My best advice I can give you is to remember that these are ~$600 devices (what you will pay off contract, or for a replacement) so treat it like it is a ~$600 device and don't leave it laying around. I am not saying that I would ever take someones phone or anything, but I could have the device factory reset by the time I got to the door to leave. It is as easy as Menu -> Settings -> Privacy -> Factory Data Reset.

I have changed the password of my account, what would be effect on that mobile? Would that phone still working? or the user would have prompt to enter another (his) email id?

How can he reset to factory setting? I think he need the password of my account to do a reset.

The password change you did will cause the device to no longer have access to the account. He can do a factory reset a couple ways, the easiest is in the settings menu like I mention at the end of my answer. It does not require your password or your account.

As Ryan Conrad already pointed out, the new owner probably did a factory reset when they bought the device. However, it is indeed possible to locate it if it is still connected to the account, with an application such as Lookout's Plan B. According to its description, it can be downloaded from the Android Market online directly to the device (if still connected to your Google account) and would upon installation send an email to your email address.
DISCLAIMER: I do not in any way, shape or form actually encourage you to do something like this, and though I assuming you asked this as a hypothetical question, I can't understate that this is ethically wrong to do, and possibly also illegal in some areas without the owner's consent.

the problem with any of these (wheres my droid, plan b, etc) they have to be installed on the device prior. And the email password has already been changed, which means its no longer connected to the device as the authentication token is no longer valid, even if the password is changed back, it will not automatically connect back to the account.

You are probably right in your second point, but the fact of the matter is that Plan B does not have to be installed prior, and, as far as I know, it is the only app of its kind that can do this.

according to this you still have to install plan b, it is just doing it via the web interface. and if the account is not tied to the device any more, it wont work. plus, you need to text the word 'locate' to the number, if they change the SIM, you wont know the number.

You install the app from Android Market on a computer (no need for access to the phone), and it autoconfigures and starts itself upon installation on the device. You only need to send a text if you already have it installed (because installing it twice won't work).

right, but seeing as the device was sold to someone else, there is a new SIM in the device so being able to send the text is not really possible, unless the new number is known. Also the password has been changed for the account so it is no longer even tied to the device, and probably has been factory reset. Which would make plan B useless if you ask me, even if your phone was lost/stolen. A factory reset could be done as you are walking away with the device.

I know that Plan B is useless under those circumstances (I never said otherwise), however, the OP asked if there is any way to locate a device with the connected email, and that is what I answered.

there is also the utrack feature by Samsung for those purposes on S G Y. but it needs to be prepared, which seems to be not the case here.


text:
Retrieve deleted file Android droid 2

Possible Duplicate:
How can I recover a deleted file on Android?

I deleted a file from my droid 2 -Android 2.2. I am not trying to retrieve the file(jpg). I have used Astro to look at the file system and dumped all the camera pictures(as this picture was taken with the Motorola droid 2) but have not been able to retrieve the image.
Is there any way I can retrieve the image from the droid 2 that I have deleted ? This picture was taken on July 15th, 2011 before Google+ days.
I have Windows desktops at my disposal.
TIA,
Vijay

Vijay, is there any programming efforts involve in this..?

This is probably an off-topic question


text:
Where did the galaxy live wallpaper go in ICS?
Since I've upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich on my Nexus S, the galaxy live wallpaper -  which was part of Android - is gone.
Can I get the exact same live wallpaper for ice cream sandwich? It looks something like this:

Why the downvote? Is the question not clear?

Pure speculation (that's why this is a comment rather than an answer): perhaps that wallpaper was found to use up too much CPU or something, so they yanked it.

You can try to switch your current live wallpapers with the Gingerbread pack the Nexus S came with. This will need your device to be rooted though.
As seen on this topic on xda-developers, you can use Root Explorer (or any other application that can get into the android filesystem, like Root Browser Lite) to switch your with livewallpaper.apk file located on system/app with this one, which contains the stock Gingerbread live wallpapers from the Nexus S, and possibly the one you're looking for.
--
Also, there's some really similar live wallpapers available on the Market, including one called Galaxy Core 3D LiveWallpaper, which looks almost like the one you're looking for.


text:
Can I use the default music app in ICS without linking it to my google account?
I somehow cannot use the music app in android without linking it to my google account first.
So - against my will - I linked it to my google account. I did this because I was hoping to remove that link later from within the app. As it turns out, this is not possible.
I do not use google music and want to avoid granting access to private data when it's not necessary.
Question

Can I use the default music app in ICS without linking it to my google account?

I'd guess this isn't CM9 specific, but based on a quick test on my Kindle Fire you can just hit the Back button on the account select screen the first time you launch Music and it will simply skip it. Also, you can unlink your account by clearing the Music app's data in your settings (Settings->Applications->Music->Clear Data).


text:
Is there a way to record internal audio?
I have Amazon Kindle (I don't have a USB cable, so I can't root the Kindle). I also have online lectures. For some reasons, my Kindle can stream faster than on my PC.
Now, I want to record the audio from online lectures directly from my Kindle so that I can listen to it while offline.
Most of the Android applications I've found record phone calls, which is not what I want to do.

If you have a Samsung or LG phone, Mobizen Screen Recorder can capture internal audio.  I've tested on a Samsung but not LG.

Install Tape-a-Talk Voice Recorder. It can record even if you push it to background. If your Kindle doesn't have Android Market installed, try this link.

There is no support in Android for doing what you want. You would need kernel or OS patching of some kind.

If I understand you correctly, you want to record your android's internal audio without so much loss in quality right.
You can use a 3.5mm male to male cable and connect the other side of the cable in the Line in port (which is often marked as the blue 3.5mm port).
This way you can stream the audio/video on your phone and record it with a recording software like audacity on your PC.
This is not the original audio. This involves converting the digital to analog and back to digital again.
If you can't, for some reason stream near your PC you can make a custom TRRS jack which will feed the audio output back to your mic pin and record it with your phone. I'm not entirely confident this will work. I've tested it and it worked.

OP: "... directly from my Kindle "

Then the custom cable idea is worth giving a shot.
in this article, they are talking about a TRRS to RCA cable and using it to record external audio.
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/add-an-audio-input-to-android-1189160
So theoretically, you can use the cable to feed your phone audio back to itself and record it.
Challenges:

It may not work due to impedance. Although they've managed it.
You have to find an audio recorder which doesn't stop lecture streaming during recording.


text:
How do I root my Samsung Galaxy S?
How do I root my Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000?

Enable USB debugging from settings -> Applications -> Development then connect your phone to a machine that has SuperOneClick installed. Open SuperOneClick, click the root button and...viola :)


text:
Is it possible to open a locally saved Flash file on the Ideapad A1?
Is it possible to open a Flash file (.swf) locally on Lenovo A1 tablet? (Something like open it through the Android browser?)
Thanks!

Try the Smart SWF Player app.

Your browser should be able to open a swf directly if you have flash installed.
If clicking on the file doesn't do it, then your file extensions for swf need to be set up, to associate swf with your preferred browser.

The tablet is using Android.


text:
Is there a real "Gmail Tap" app?
Gmail Tap, one of Google's April fools, would give the phone a three-keys Morse keyboard. Is there a way to get this functionality for real, preferably for input to any fields?

Yes, there is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rgam.morsekeyboard

There is another one: Morse Code Keyboard

I couldn't get it to work: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/88828/how-to-enable-morse-input


text:
How to reinstall corrupted Android applications with ease?
The other day I woke up, my Android phone was frozen and only removing the battery helped to reset it. It looks like overnight something terribly went wrong as the memory card was not readable anymore and even after formatting it, it got a few bad sectors in the report.
I have about 150 applications installed and some of them which were moved to the memory card obviously do not work anymore. I had backup of my data but not the apps, as I thought I could always download them again. However, I can not find an easy way to do it. First of all, the corrupt applications still show up under settings/applications/manage applications, but the only way I can tell if they are missing or not is that their icon is some default Android robot with an SD card next to it and the names are not human friendly but more like com.biggu.shopsavvy.
I tried different apps to solve the problem, but I could not find any which would be better than doing it manually. What I need is to either reinstall all apps with a tap of a one button or install a list of apps in batch from the market.

with 150 apps you just needed 1 more .  They have apps for android that do "application backup and restore" https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.infolife.appbackup&hl=en  Although it is probably to late to apply such things, I thought it was very usefull for me to control what is on at the time, and backup.

The easiest way to install the missing apps would probably to go to the Play Store on a PC and queue them up for install on the device.
You will still have to look on the device and see which ones you need to reinstall; there isn't a way to simplify that process. Looking at them the way you are, for the ones that have the "default icon" and the SD card is probably the easiest way to identify them. The "non-friendly" name that you see can be used to search in the Google Play Store and you will be able to find the app from that.
Or you can append it to the end of the "details" URL like this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.biggu.shopsavvy

That will take you directly to the shop savvy app, then you can install it to the device.

"there isn't a way to simplify that process": Meanwhile there is: My tool Adebar a.o. creates such a list, and even links the apps to their resp. store (i.e. Google Play, F-Droid, etc.). Requires only Bash and ADB. Confirmed to run on Linux, Mac and Windows (via Cygwin).

Download the apk files and re-install them. I recommend this website: www.apkpure.com

What makes that a better choice than simply pushing them from the Play Store's web UI, as Ryan recommended? Installing from "unknown sources" should only be done if you can be sure to trust those sources. You write nothing about how trustable your source is. Could you please [edit] your post an elaborate a little on that? There are far too many "bad sites" out there, where you get "modified APKs" you'd better kept your fingers off.

While I do trust APKPure, I agree on @Izzy 's part that it doesn't solve the problem. It's only a way to get apps when they're not available on Play, not a full-fledged Play alternative.


text:
How can I wipe data with no display ( e.g. magnet )?
I dropped my phone and broke the LCD. Now I can turn the phone on ( I feel the little quick vibrate that happens when you power the phone on ) but I have no display at all.
I got a replacement with the insurance plan, but I need to send the broken phone back. How can I wipe my data? Can I just rub a magnet all over it? How big a magnet?
Any other options? I thought about trying to navigate to the bootloader's reset function without being able to actually see what I'm doing, but I won't know if I succeed or not, and there are a few menus to navigate.
I also was going to ssh to the phone, but apparently I never made it so sshd starts automatically ( doh! ).
Any ideas?

can you boot it in fastboot mode?

You can't use ssh but is USB debugging enabled so that you can use adb? Do you have a custom recovery installed? Is the phone rooted?

Flash storage is not affected in any way by magnet. I guess you'd better liaise with the insurance provider how best to deal with the situation, they probably may arrange a licensed technician to physically disconnect the flash storage in front of you (probably at a price).

A less invasive method if your device supports video out, try connecting the video out cable.

Assuming USB Debugging is on connect it to the computer via USB and wipe it with ADB.  If that doesn't work you could throw it in the microwave.

But, its not reliable as you can see in accepted answer. Plus, it has side-effects too..

Yikes... is it safe to microwave a device like that? Seems like a bad idea... even just for the microwave.

Dunno, never done it and I'm going to try to keep it that way, but if I were in the OP's position I probably would risk the microwave.

Go to recovery mode of device and wipe data from there. In recovery mode, you need to work with physical keys (touchscreen doesn't work in this mode even in normal situation). Generally, volume keys are used for navigation and home key for Enter/OK.
How to click wipe data option when I can't see it.
See YouTube video of your recovery mode or check it in your friends' device. You can really do it after learning series of keys which needs to be pressed. E.g. down key 5 times, then home key, then down key 3 times and again home key.
How to ensure I am in Recovery Mode when I miss it many times even after proper key combination?
After you think you should be in recovery, leave device idle. If you hear boot music, remove battery, re-insert it and try again.
How about SSH/FTP?
Its very difficult without working touchscreen because it needs particular app/service running on device.
What about other physics based methods like magnetic wiping?
What you see in hacking movies can't be applied in real world. Particularly, powerful magnets can affect data on hard disks. Device storage doesn't store data using magnetic attributes.
Even if you find something which could wipe data such way, I'd strongly not recommend it because there's no reason why it can't damage hardware capabilities if it can wipe data from flash storage. In the last, this part is off-topic on this site.


text:
Can I install additional languages on Android?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I add a new language?

I bought my HTC Sensation abroad, and I can only choose system languages from the Asian region (English for different regions, as well as Chinese and Thai). I'd like to set the system language to Spanish, but it's not on the list.
Is there a way I can install additional languages to the system?
My phone is an HTC Sensation, recently upgraded to Android 4.0.5.

Just search on the Google Play store for "custom locale",
there are a couple of apps that will allow you to install a LOT of languages.
I tried many times on different devices and Android versions, sometimes some menus or apps do not change the language, but on average it's OK.
Example applications in Play store:

MoreLocale 2
Set Locale and Language

But there are many more...

Can you provide a working Play store link with an app you found to be working?

The second link is not valid.

A quick google search revealed what I was expecting. It seems it's not that easy to add a new language to the OS if it's not done by the manufacturer.
So best thing you could hope for is an update by HTC. Manufacturers often install software kids on top of the android shipped out by Google.
If this is not an option installing different keyboard applications and Region Setter might help you for specific application but nevertheless the system screens remain untouched.
For a fully changed system without manufacturers support I think you're not getting around rooting the droid and manually update the system. Sine I've never did it (our boss would freak out xD ) can't assist you here. You could look up if it's easier to apply a might existing language patch or go straight with installing a custom mod.


text:
Why does my Iconia A500 occasionally stop responding?
I have an stock-standard Acer Iconia A500 32G WiFi-only tablet.  The screen usually turns on immediately when I press the power button.
However, it sometimes refuses to respond and I have to hold done the power button for a few seconds, then release it and hold it down for a few seconds again.
At that point, there'll be a vibration and the tablet will boot through the Acer and android screens.
My thoughts are that the first sustained button actually powers it down forcefully and the second brings it back up (but I can't be certain of this).
Does anyone know why this would happen? Are there any things I can look at on the file system to see what's going wrong.

To elaborate on the non-responsiveness issue, while in most circumstances a quick push of the power button will bring up the PIN entry screen, it doesn't do so in the problematic cases.
In those cases, the screen just remains black no matter how many times I push the power button. That's why I then have to do the long-press twice to (presumably) force shutdown and restart.

What I understand from your post is that you are referring to a 'Immediate boot' is actually your device is in stand-by/sleep mode and pressing the power button once just wakes it up.
Pressing the power button for a long time is indeed the way to force shut down the device and is present in all major smartphone. Since it restarts from beginning after that, it takes longer to come up to your home screen/lock screen.
The real issue could be the unresponsiveness of your device when it is in sleep mode. Could you please elaborate more on that?

@Sameer, I've added the detail, hopefully that's enough but, if not, I'm happy to provide any other sort of detail. That's why I was hoping there may be a log file somewhere :-)

Do you have ADB on your PC/System? You could follow this guide and install it if you don't have it. ADB Installation.
Also you would need to have USB Debugging enabled on your device, which may be a issue for you if it's not already enabled. If it is, Go to Android SDK Directory > platform-tools > ddms.bat (for windows). It should launch a Debugging monitor and you should get a log there. Check the log for any errors/warnings when you try to unlock the device.

Ahh, soft keys.
When the power button is pressed, the hardware raises an interrupt which is handled by an OS-provided interrupt handler.  Part of the interrupt handling process included waking the processor from sleep.  The software will then turn on the screen (if it was asleep), display a shutdown menu, or some other function depending on the OS version and any customizations added by the device manufacturer or third-party software installed by the user.
The power button also starts a counter in hardware.  If the counter reaches a threshold without the power button being released, then the power circuit is invoked to turn off the device.  This is done purely in hardware circuitry, independent of the OS or even firmware executed by the main processor.  That's why it still works when the system is locked up (or perhaps overclocked and so unstable that the processor can't execute ANY code at all).


text:
Android NIC MAC address changed automatically
This is very puzzling but my android phone's NIC's MAC address seems to have changed on its own (or at least this is what it's showing).
I have a MAC filter in my LinkSys router and I have given access to only my computer and android phone. I had connected my phone to the access point just a few hours ago. When I tried to connect it now, I couldn't. So I rechecked the MAC filter list (FC:A1:3E:77:57:76) , and I surprisingly found it to be different from what my phone (FC:A1:3E:77:57:F7) was showing. Is this some bug in android? Does this happen? Or maybe the address in my router got changed (which isn't plausible).
PS: Please don't say that somebody must have broken into my router and changed it there, because that's not possible. I use WPA2, and anyways the signal cannot reach outside since outside is very far.
Edit: I guess it's a fault with my LinkSys router, since more weird things are happening. The router is assigning the same IP address to my computer and android phone. Can someone please migrate this question to Server Fault?

Did you install a custom ROM on your phone or anything of that nature? What kind of phone is it, and what version of Android is it running?

Version is 2.1 Samsung Galaxy GT-15503. And no, I haven't installed anything of the sort.

Changing MACs and multiple assignment of the same IP don't seem particularly related.  Is your firmware up to date?

My android 11 moto g used to randomize my phones mac every time I forgot the network and reconnected which I need to continuously reconnect to the coxwifi hotspot for the 30 min trail.  That’s how they track it. One trail a month. But I had bypassed that and could do it for ever.  Until a year or two later and android stopped doing it.   The settings haven’t changed just the max is

Android introduced MAC randomization in Android 8.0, years after this question has been posted (Android 2.x).

Problem is with your phone and not router. Your phones software keeps assigning new MAC addresses every time you turn your wifi on. If you are using MAC address filtering then it will need a static address.

Phones don't assign new MAC addresses every time wifi is turned on.


text:
Why does my phone keep asking me to select an input method?
I bought a Samsung Galaxy Nexus a couple of days ago, and set it up so I can use both an English keyboard and a Russian one.
Since I did that, though, my phone asks me over and over to select an input method. There is usually a notification in the bar at the top of the screen, and if I set an input method, it will go away for an hour, but then it will be back.
How can I get it to stop asking?

The icon in the notification bar will always be there if you are using (possibly even just have installed) any alternate input method.  It's just the new way that ICS offers quick switching between different methods, and cannot be disabled (at least not on "stock" ICS, custom roms may offer this).
The notification icon should only be there while you are actively entering something, i.e. have a keyboard open.  If it showing all the time (even when you are just on the homescreen, for example) it may indicate a possible bug or configuration issue with the alternate keyboard/input method you are using.


text:
Got weird fullscreen ad when visiting website
When I vistit on my nexus one the website alternativeto.net and open a subpage then suddenly I see a fullscreen ad with the title "liferay.com" and the address cat.m.ifortune.mobivillage.de
I see the desktop version of alternativeto.net when I visit them
Is it a problem of alternativeto.net or is there some virus on my smartphone?
It doesnt happen on other websites while surfing with my smartphone
if it is not android related, please move it to the right board (didnt know if i should post it in superusers?)

some sites do that, ads are revenue, if it's really annoying you then root your device and install an adblock app

It has to be related to the website. It's possibly just a pop-up ad.
Currently there's no known virus for the Android platform. There're other forms of malware but no viruses. Nevertheless you should always make sure to only install applications from trusted sources.


text:
Problem installing ubuntu on Galaxy S2 ICS
The Error:
when running the ubuntu install script (ubuntu.sh) I get:
ubuntu.sh[11]:cut not found
This script requires root! Type:su

what I have done so far:
Installed a custom kernel that roots the phone:
[KERNEL] SpeedMod SGS2 ICS [K3-16 CIFS ROOT / NO-ROOT CWM5]
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1574218
I installed it using Odin using the following instructions:
http://touristinparadise.blogspot.com/2010/11/samsung-galaxy-s-how-to-install.html
that all seemed to go fine.
Installed "Ubuntu Installer Free" from market place.
I then installed busybox:
tried Stephen (Stericson) and JRummy16 apps from market place.
I installed the VNC viewer as recommended by Ubuntu installer app.
I also installed Android Terminal Emulator (Jack Palevich)  as recomended by Ubuntu installer app.
Downloaded and de-compressed the image and script as per links from Ubuntu installer app.
I decompressed them to my external card initially but then moved them to the "internal" sdcard folder.
I also tried to establish that I had loopback device capability.. I found this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1425888
And the folders mentioned are present.
I think that is all i have done so far ;-)..
I had a look at the script and the failing line and it seems to me if the "cut" command was not found then it would report that i didnt have su privelages even if i did.
I have many times ofer forgotten and approved su access for terminal emulator and busybox..
When I type su in the terminal emulator the symbol for text entry changes from $ to# ..
Anyone got any ideas?

Try running su from the terminal first, then run ubuntu.sh again.

I am running su (I think)  how can I test that it is working?

http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/13335/how-can-i-tell-if-i-have-root/13349#13349

Open the script up using an app, such as root explorer, and add the line su to the beginning, and try again.


text:
How to disable mobile data on DROID Bionic?
I tried this, but there's no such option. I suspect that it might be because of Motorola's customizations.
The device is a DROID Bionic.
System version: 5.9.902.XT875.Verizon.en.US
Android version: 2.3.4.

From Verizon:

Open settings.
Select Battery & data manager.
Select Data delivery.
Select Data enabled to enable / disable.

What were they thinking?  I can't imagine why this wouldn't be under Wireless & Networks.

@TomG I can :) We're used to Android but this is the droid! It should be more droid-y! I mean how else would they keep their customers? They have to make other phones look too different to learn so once you droid you never go back :) Honestly I have no idea who in their mind does some of the modifications. They must be rerarted or something.


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How To Install Froyo on HTC Bravo
I have an HTC Bravo. Some time ago I installed Gingerbread on it and started to have trouble. If I connect to the Internet or do some memory intensive work it resets itself. Now I want to install Froyo again on my Bravo.
Can somebody guide me in the right direction, or did I burn too many bridges to go back?

Perhaps you can install Revolutionary, and choose the option to install the Clockwork Recovery Mod, look for a copy of the original Froyo rom from somewhere and then use Recovery to put it back on your phone?
Of course, while you're doing that you could check out CyanogenMod v7.1 and see if that gives you what you need.

I'll second trying CM-7.1 for bravo (HTC Desire). It has >100k CM  users and is probably still the most stable device for CM7.