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Edit host file - Nvidia shield pro
I am trying to edit my host file in nvidia shield pro device. Its not rooted and I get read only error when I try to update the host file using adb push. I am a newbie in this. I need to do some url redirecting.
I am not trying to block anything. I have a local Apache server set up and want to redirect the traffic from the shield to my local server for some custom urls.

No root no hosts file editing. Asking for app recommendations is off-topic here. Please reformulate your question and describe what you want to achieve, especially what type to servers you want to block.

As @Robert has said without root, you won't be able to edit it. Asking for app is against the rules, but you should re-phrase your questions to allow others to assist you.

@ReddyLutonadio - Thanks for the tip. I am new here, wasn't aware of the app issue. Updated my question. Please review.

Answers from these questions might help you: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/174515/how-to-edit-etc-hosts-file-in-non-rooted-phone/174520#174520 and https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/78320/how-to-set-up-a-host-to-ip-mapping-on-unrooted-android

In your case you only need to install a dns proxy on your server that also runs the Apache server. The DNS-proxy usually allows to specify additional entries or override existing entries so that you can map your server to a DNS name of your choice. On Android side you just need to configure the DNS server in your Wifi network to the IP of your server running the DNS-proxy (change the config to static IP address then you can set the DNS server).

@Robert -  Thank you so much for the response,  I am looking into that option as well, I don't feel comfortable messing around with the host files and especially rooting the device. I don't wana brick it.

@Robert - ok so I installed Acrylic DNS proxy on my server and added the server IP as DNS server on my laptop. But now I cant access internet on my laptop neither resolve the domain names. I have 127.0.0.1 set as localhost in my Acrylic host file, also my apache server up and running on the same port. I can resolve the names in my server and has internet connection though. What am I missing?

@yonikawa Looks like you are really an absolute beginner. Localhost aka 127.0.0.1 means "local to this host only". A service that runs on localhost is not accessible by any other host by definition! Hence run your web server on all interfaces and use the IP it gets assigned by your router to access it.

@Robert: yes this is  my first time working with DNS servers and the Acrylic proxy came with this settings and I didn't modify anything. My understanding was that you assign the server IP (that runs dns proxy) as DNS server on the client and then when the client makes the requests, it gets passed onto the dns proxy to resolve the address since the Server IP interface is configured to use 127.0.0.1 as its dns server. So the clients are not directly invoking the proxy but going through the server instead. Am I missing something?

I am sorry but we are more and more off-topic. Please post a new question on https://superuser.com for how to set-up a computer with web server and DNS proxy. Don't mention that you want to use it from Android because the people there just read "Android" and close the question without really reading it.

@Robert, it worked, I just had to configure the settings.


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Samsung Galaxy S6 not booting to TWRP
After flashing the 3.3.1 twrp image to my S6 (SM-G920F)
After TWRP is downloaded, I switch off with (vol down and power)
When the phone is off (holding vol up + home + power, releasing power after the logo is visible)
I can see the TWRP Logo for a second, but then phone restarts into stock OS.

I needed to upgrade the stock OS to the newest version. Even after that the installed Telekom AG branded OS did not receive the newest patches. Using an older TWRP (3.2.x instead of 3.3.x) version did the trick.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to export phone usage time data to json/csv/sql/txt raw form?
There are many apps like Google's Digital Wellbeing and another famous app called Action Dash.
These apps show your data about how many times the phone unlocked, per-app usage stats, no of times an app launched, no of notification etc.
How can I get all these data in raw format from my android phone?
I basically want to use python to perform some analysis on these data.

There are some apps in the play store that let you see more.

App Usage - Manage/Track Usage This app lets you export the data.
Action Dash This has a great amount of data that is being analyzed in the app. (This makes me think that the data is stored somewhere).

Take a look at the folders and files in "/data/data/com.google.android.apps.wellbeing" you may find something useful files there. There are some files there that look promising. You will need to be rooted to access this folder.

Action dash allows you to backup data, the files are sqlite database, but inside content is in binary form. Not readable . In the App Usage app the CSV data of every single day is not available. If I do export from time A to time B, it gives the total usage of apps during that time period, not every single day

What about the files data/data/com.google.android.apps.wellbeing ?

@aahnik how do you export data in ActionDash?

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


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Why do I have an alarm symbol on my notification bar when I don't have an alarm set
I recently started seeing the alarm icon on my notification bar even though I don't have an alarm set.
Why is this happening? What can I do to find what's making this show? I don't want to disable the icon since I want it show when I do have an alarm set.

Do you have Tasker installed?

Yes I have it installed.

When you enable Tasker it starts showing an alarm icon in the status bar. there is a setting in Tasker that is the culprit for this.
"Preferences -> Monitor -> Use Reliable Alarms" when set to always on it puts the icon there. Set it to When Off and the icon goes away.
See This post


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What storage data does keyboard apps on Android accumulate?
On my Android phone I have installed the Gboard keyboard. After some small use, I see that it has accumulated 20 MB of data!
Why can a keyboard app accumulate 20MB of data?

I have the same question, and I find the current answers to be lacking and inaccurate.  I tried Google's Gboard app with the app blocked from internet access via a firewall.  I also turned off all of its learning functionalities.  Even when doing all this, Google's Gboard keyboard accumulated megabytes of new data from my Android device.

Keep in mind that GBoard provides a lot of language specific functionalities like automatic word correction or offline speech recognition.
It seems like GBoard downloads these language specific data on first use. For example the directory com.google.android.inputmethod.latin/files/superpacks/delight seems to contain the offline language specific speech recognition data file(s).
Therefore a user data of 20MB seems to be reasonable even if GBoard has not been used for a long time. Most of this storage space seems to be occupied by language specific downloaded data.

+1 I guess in 10-20 years, maybe keyboard apps with more AI involded, live languages processing, plus images (gifs, emojis, stickers, and who knows videos from keyboards :) , that size wiill keep increasing.

@ReddyLutonadio: "Relax, its only using a couple Terabytes. Barely even noticeable."

@MooingDuck Until you ask yourself: "But where is all my memory gone?" :)

Remember that current keyboards are a bit different from keyboards from 10-15 years ago. Back then, their main purpose was just typing and writing. With time, emojis and gifs images became features also provided by keyboards, plus learning from your habits.
If you have a file explorer that is able to read/view /data/data/com.google.android.inputmethod.latin/cache, there is a folder named image_manager_disk_cache. It contains many files. You can copy some files found there to another folder. Then change their extension to jpg for example. You will notice they are images. That folder (at least in my case) is close to 30 MB. My example might not be conclusive as I have not given links to official Google or GBoard documentations or sources. However from my checking the folders, I think the images are the reason why GBoard is taking so much spaces.

Depending on its detailed content, a keyboard app could accumulate every stroke you make.

I don't doubt that a keyboard app can potentially accumulate every stroke/tap made by the user and therefore, act like a keylogger. But it would be nice if you could mention a keyboard app from the real world which does this as well as publicly accepts/features it too! :-)

@Firelord Are you asking Alex, me?

I am asking you.

Well why, for Goodness sake? it would be at least as "nice" if you yourself could mention a keyboard app from the real world which does this, whatever "publicly accepts/features it too" means. Could you re-read the Question?


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Update Sony Xperia C5303 ( with Android 4.3 ) to new version?
Is it possible upgrade or update Sony Xperia C5303 ( with Android 4.3 )  to Android 8.1 with Xperia Companion software ?
Or any description else ?

A simple and clear NO.
Using the Sony companion app you can only install official updates. Your device is so old that Sony stopped supporting this device long before Android 8 was released.
Keep in mind that Android is not like Windows, every update has to be adapted to your device. Therefore providing updates for a device costs a lot of money which is the reason most manufacturer drop device support very early. Some cheap devices never get a single update.
Therefore the only newer Android releases for your device are unofficial (aka customROM, community builds by skilled Android developers) if they exist. Check xda-developers forum for your device for newer firmware updates. But for installing them you need to root and unlock your device which can go wrong and brick your device.
If you are lucky you may find an Android firmware based on Android 5 or 6. I doubt that there are newer ROMs.


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how to add a location tracking script on android?
How can I add a custom script that retrieves the current location and also fetches current sim's cellphone number?
I want to root my phone and add a script that notifies me of its location and user every 10 minutes. So that even if the person resets my phone and manages to bypass frp I can still rely on the root script running in the backend.
I'm aware that they can just install a new rom though to get rid of the script

Before you reinvent the wheel: are you looking for something like Cerberus or Prey?

Apps can be uninstalled man, I want to create my own script that fetches my phone's location and gets the cllphone number of the sim card and ocassionally takes pictures when it gets unlocked. It will bundle all this data and email it to me. I don't believe this is primitive. It's like a backdoor to my own phone without the thief knowing.

You obviously didn't check. AFAIR both apps mentioned can be installed as hidden/camouflaged system apps if you have root access (at least they could when I last checked, which admittedly is a while ago), which is why I mentioned exactly these two (and no other). So removing these apps is not easier/harder than removing your script. But the apps already bring all the features you're after.

What you are looking for is definitely out of the scope of a shell script. At least you need to write a native service. But I don't think that location, phone number, camera and email features are available through native APIs (C++). Uaing Java APIs i.e. installing an app is the only option.

Thanks @IrfanLatif


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Samsung Galaxy Tab E SM-T560 bricked
Recently, I tried to root my Samsung Galaxy Tab E T-560 and I was unsuccessful. This is the first device I tried to root so I do not have much knowledge about this topic. I decided to root the tablet because the tablet stuck on Android 4.4 and I cannot launch many apps from the Play store.
I followed one tutorial which was specifically for this tablet. First I installed USB Drivers on my notebook, installed software Odin3 v3.14.4, and downloaded Samsung Auto-Root pack and unpacked files.
On the tablet, I opened Settings, enabled Developer settings, and turned on OEM LOCK. Then I opened the Odin software and with the AP button, I selected a file with .md5 extension (CF-Auto-Root-s5neolte-s5neoltex-smg903f.tar.md5). Next, I turned my tablet into download mode and connect it to my notebook with a USB cable. Last, I pressed the Start button, and after some time rooting failed.
Now my device is bricked and it stuck on the screen with the message:

"Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in
Kies & try again."

Can someone please tell me if I can unbrick my device and what I did wrong? I suppose that I chose the wrong .md5 file but unfortunately, I believed what the tutorial says.

Why have you installed a firmware for the smg903f (Galaxy S5) on a Tab E T-560? You need an exactly matching firmware for each device!

It is true, I made a mistake. Do you maybe know if there is some option to unbrick the tablet? @Robert

The chance I see is to get back into download mode and install a correct firmware.


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Suddenly getting "Gmail won't run without google play services, which are not supported by your device"
Samsung Galaxy J7 running Android 8.1.0. Totally vanilla, not rooted or anything like that.
A few days ago suddenly gmail and other google apps stopped working, showing messages like "Gmail won't run without google play services, which are not supported by your device". Have had the phone for years & been using all the usual google apps all the time and this has never happened before.
Looking in settings->apps, Google Play Services is in there, but the Google Play Store is not.
What I have tried:

Reset app preferences.
Went into google play services under settings->apps and tried to uninstall updates, but it said something like "failed to uninstall updates".
Attempted to remove my Google account from the device (thinking I'd add it again afterwards which might reset something) but it asks for my Google password and does not accept the password (which is definitely correct, I can see it and compare directly with the one that works on my computer).

I have not tried a factory reset because I am concerned that if google play services still don't work after the reset, I won't be able to install whatsapp and other apps that I rely on.
Any ideas?
thanks
EDIT: I followed advice in the comments and installed google play services from apkpure. Now, the phone doesn't work at all. I keep getting the message 'com.google.process.gapps keeps stopping' and it prevents me from doing anything at all on the phone.

Download this.. https://apkpure.com/apkpure/com.apkpure.aegon/download and try updating play services

@Aayush Sorry but if you post a link to an app please name the app and describe what it does. As anybody can post here links it could be just malware or something other unwanted.

It's ApkPure.. Sort of an app market.. trusted.. He thinks he won't be able to install apps after reset cause Play store won't work..........

@Aayush while version 3.17.19 of APKPure app is considered safe, the previous version has been infected by malware at least once.

@AndrewT. Ohh.. didn't know about that.. btw i currently use aurora store from fdroid.. open sourced.


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How to put restrictions on android?
Is it possible to install android on a tablet and then restrict its use case scenario? What i mean is can i make it so that no apps can be installed (Not even by using an external apk) except the one I pre-install on it?
Something like how normal users/ guest users can't install software on windows without admin password if they don't have the necessary permissions?

See: Deny the installation of apps or add new accounts (kiosk mode) There is also Enterprise Mobility Management

Enterprise mobility management is what i was looking for. Thanks

You can use Automate app.. It will automatically check if an app is installed and then perform relevant action. You can also set that if package manager is opened, force close it or press home key. You can choose to uninstall it as soon as it's installed if you have  root permissions OR you can delete its files from storage to render it useless OR you can set that the home button is pressed and not responding pop up is shown whenever the app is opened.. LOL
Further you can download AppLock to prevent uninstalling of Automate app or any other app too.
With Automate you can do many more further hacks.
Hope it helps...


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Open PDF files directly in Chrome for Android
I am writing from my Android. On my laptop, it's pretty simple to choose to open a PDF file directly in the browser rather than opening it in an external program.
The problem comes when I try to open it on Android. I am usually asked to download it and it will open with PDF Viewer. I would like it to open directly in Chrome because - moreover -- I'd like to get a link to the PDF file.
Usually, on Android, you can link the website and then the receiver will have to download the PDF so that he can view it. I would like to be readable directly in the browser.

As far s I know if a PDF file can be displayed directly in the web browser or not depends on certain HTTP response headers that the server sends (or not). This is the same for all web browsers, some PDF files are shown in the web browser, and others can only be downloaded and saved.

Related workarounds on Stack Overflow: How to display a PDF via Android web browser without “downloading” first. I think the main problem is that Chrome for Android (and iOS) still doesn't include a built-in PDF viewer, only on desktop.

You can use a Google Docs page to view PDF files in the browser. To do this, visit the page https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://yourfile.pdf, where http://yourfile.pdf is the path to the PDF file you want to view (credits to this answer).
Unfortunately, there is as far as I know no way to do this automatically in Chrome (you can always paste the URL manually every time you want to open a PDF file but that's not very practical). However, if you use a browser that supports extensions, it's possible to use an extension to automatically redirect PDF files to this URL. Unfortunately, you can't do this on any well-known browsers (Chrome and Edge for Android don't support extensions at all, and Firefox for Android only supports a very limited set of extensions), but there are less well-known browsers where you can do this. The one I use is Kiwi (I have no association with its author).
Once you've installed Kiwi (or another browser that supports Chrome extensions), install the Redirector extension (I have no association with its author). Next, click on the three dots on the top right, scroll down, click "Redirector", then click on the "Edit Redirects" button, and then click on "Create new redirect":

That will open a popup with five text boxes and two checkboxes. Enter the following information:

The first box is just a description, you can enter whatever you want, for example Open PDF in browser.
The second box is an example URL to a PDF file, you can enter the URL to whatever PDF file you want.
In the third box, enter (^https?://[^?]+\.pdf($|\?).*$). This is a regular expression that matches URLs of PDF files. If you know regular expressions, you may want to note that the parentheses that enclose the whole regular expression are necessary to capture the whole URL so that the $1 in the next box works as expected.
In the fourth box, enter https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=$1. This is the URL that PDF files will be redirected to, $1 represents the URL of the original PDF file.
Check the box labelled "Regular Expression".
The last box is just another description Again, enter whatever you want, for example, Redirects PDF files to a Google docs page that shows the PDF in the browser.

When you're done entering all that, it should look like this:

Now click Save and you're done. Now all PDF files will be opened in the browser like this:

To get a link to the original PDF file, copy the URL from the title bar and remove the https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url= part from the beginning.

Works perfectly, however, I'd suggest to keep Google as the default search engine, otherwise there might be some glitches.

Another implementation of this idea is to use a Tasker profile I created. Instructions and profile import are available here. The instructions are also copied below.
—
Google Drive Viewer allows files to be viewed (without downloading) in Google Chrome for Android.
Setup

The following apps are required: Tasker, AutoShare, and AutoTools
Set up the AutoShare command

Open AutoShare
Main Menu - Manage Commands - plus sign

New Command = View File
Browsing for files = Direct URL
URL = https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/Google_Drive_icon_%282020%29.svg/1280px-Google_Drive_icon_%282020%29.svg.png
Priority = 1

Main Menu - Share Targets - ensure “AutoShare Command” is checked

Import the project into Tasker using the button below (this page must be viewed on your Android device for the button to appear)

Usage

Long-tap a file link in Chrome
Tap “Share link” - “AutoShare Command” - “View File”
If a file can’t be natively previewed in Google Drive, you may be able to connect an app that can preview the file

Settings

By default, the file will open in a new tab. To adjust this setting, open the “Google Drive Viewer” task in Tasker and set %newtab (line 1) as follows:

true: file will open in a new tab
false: file will open in the same tab currently being used

I just installed opera on the phone, make it the default browsing app, now whenever i have a link with pdf it asks me gently whether to open it from within or download it.


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Generate a root debloat script from a package list after a successful non-root debloat
There are two ways to get rid of apps to debloat a ROM:

adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 <package-name> (run on PC)
rm -rf <package folder> (on device, in Terminal of TWRP)

The first method has one big advantage - deleted apps can be restored by

adb shell cmd package install-existing <package_name>
But the diasadvantage - it still consumes memory.

So best would be to do the first method until you see is is all fine - not debloated to much. To not manually do the "rm" and selection of packages - is there a good way to list the uninstalled packages and generate a list for the "rm" command?
Thanks for your attention.

I guess you mean only uninstalled system packages.
Here is a little bash script doing what you want:
#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euo pipefail

declare -a PACKAGES=()

readarray -t PACKAGES < <(comm -3 <(adb shell 'pm list packages -s -u -f' | sort -i) \
                                  <(adb shell 'pm list packages -s -f'    | sort -i))

for package in "${PACKAGES[@]}"; do
    echo "rm -rf $package" | sed -r 's/package://g' | sed -r 's/=.*//g' >> root_debloat.txt
done
echo "root_debloat.txt generated."

Then, you just need to run the commands through adb shell as root:
adb shell su < root_debloat.txt

What the script does :

Put the list of uninstalled system packages in the array PACKAGES.

Why this complicated command ? Because pm list packages -s -u returns installed and uninstalled system packages. So you need to take the difference of this list and the list of installed system packages.
Each element of the array will have this form (because of the use of the -f option) :
package:/path/to/apk=package.name

Generate the list of rm commands and write them one by one, for each package, in the root_debloat.txt file.

You only want the path. The sed commands are here to remove the rest.


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See what apps I have installed with the facebook SDK
Is there a way to check on my rooted phone what apps use the Facebook (or just any) SDK?

You can check your apps using https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/page/what/. They try to identify trackers based on the strings in the app. However if an app is heavily obfuscated this will fail.

There are several privacy checkers (link goes to my site) which can assist you here: Exodus Privacy (as mentioned by Robert) for non-paid apps available on Play, ClassyShark3xodus and TrackerControl for apps on-device are the ones I'd recommend as they come free of trackers themselves, Appbrain is quite good as well (comes with a single ad module by Appbrain itself).


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adb reboot vs adb shell reboot
I run the commands from my laptop. But, I can't understand what is the difference. It looks like both commands just restart the mobile device.
What is the difference between adb reboot and adb shell reboot?

No difference. Ultimately both set sys.powerctl property to reboot,<reason> (1, 2). init then handles the property to proceed a proper shutdown or reboot (3). reason string optionally describes why the device was rebooted (see persist.sys.boot.reason property after reboot).
When executing adb shell reboot you make adb run shell: /system/bin/sh which then executes /system/bin/reboot binary. You can also set the system property manually:
~$ adb shell setprop sys.powerctl reboot,just_testing


text:
Turn on display for new notifications?
Is there a way to turn on the display for new notifications arriving?
Use case: I enjoy having my display turned off but don't want to manually turn it on to check for new notifications on my lock screen.
Is there a native way to do that with Android 8?
I am using a Samsung Galaxy a3 (2017).

Some ROMs have a feature called "ambient display" that wakes the screen for a while when receiving notifications, not sure if it exists on this device though...

And some apps can do the trick if the ROM itself doesn't (note: link goes to my site), like "Wake Up Screen" or "Screen Notifications".


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Is it possible to virtualize Android on an X86 machine?
Following this question, I had a little bit of success installing an X86 port of Android (i.e., BlissOS) on macOS with QEMU. Now I am wondering if I can virtualize a "normal" Android (preferably LineageOS) on any of the conventional FLOSS hypervisors such as VirtualBox, QEMU... (preferably something portable on Windows).
There are qemu-system-arm and qemu-system-aarch64 versions of QEMU that I expect to do the job. Over here, Alex Bennée is doing some magic with the so-called "ranchu kernel" that I can't really understand and trust. Meanwhile, on this post it's being said that the upstream QEMU hasn't inherited the graphic acceleration back from Google's Android Studio Emulator.
Now my questions are:

what is that "ranchu kernel"? and how much it can be trusted?
Can I virtualize LineageOS or any other well-known FLOSS Android? How?

Could this answer on our sister site for Software Recommendations be what you are looking for? It's a bit "dusty", don't let the "Android 4.3" scare you away – 6 years later, there are newer versions available as well, of course. A longer list of candidates can be found at the end of this page (on my Android website).


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Why will my Pixel 3a XL no longer take screenshots?
I have a Pixel 3a XL phone running Android 11.
Until recently I was able to take screenshots by holding down the power button and then selecting screenshot from the menu.
However, over the past week or two, something -- I don't know what -- has changed and when I hold down the power button, I get a different menu as shown below.
I don't remember exactly when this started, nor do I know how to see a list of apps on my phone sorted in order of most recently installed.
So how can I get my screen-shot functionality back??

Basically, it's gone and you can't just "get it back"...
A quick Google search would have answered this from multiple sources including Google itself, but I will to answer it. They (Google) removed that screenshot method from Android 11 and replaced it with a screenshot tool in the task switching screen using "swipe up and hold" gesture. This does require you to use Gesture Navigation though. However the long time Android standard for screenshots of POWER+VOL DN still works and has since about Android 2.1.
Google asked about this: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/72969834?hl=en
How the new gesture system works: https://www.androidcentral.com/how-take-screenshots-and-select-text-multitasking-pane-android-11
Again, you must be using Gesture Navigation for the later method to work, otherwise you have to use the old POWER+VOL DN method. This may change in the future or not, it is a very polarizing subject among Android users, it's about a 50/50 split of people who want the old way and people who prefer the new way.

Thank u! Gesture Navigation doesn't bring up that option for me.
However the Power + Volume Down button did work and I like it a lot.


text:
No service on Blackview BV 5500 Pro with Lineage 17.1
The issue
I installed Lineage OS on my blackview BV 5500 Pro and am facing the "No Service" issue since. There does not seem to be any hardware issue and I've exhausted all the options I could think of.

Specifications

Image installed: lineage-17.1-20201012-UNOFFICIAL-treble_a64_bvS
Build number: treble_a64_bvS-userdebug 10 QQ3A.200805.001 eng.crossg.20201012.051017 test-keys
Carrier: Ultra mobile
Phone: Blackview BV 5500 Pro

What I've tried
Here's what I've tried:

Restarted the phone.
Activated the Airplane mode, waited, and de-activated it.
Set the values for data and MMS manually, using the carrier's recommendations.
Tried to select manually the carrier (more on that below).
Checked the sim card in a different phone -- it works.
Enabled the cellular data.
Allowed roaming.
Checked the phone with a different OS (it was working just fine before I flashed the OS).
Made sure my sim card was correctly inserted.
Called *#06# and checked that my sim had an IMEI / ESN (it does, I actually have two since this phone accepts two sims).
Tried the other sim slot.
Called *#*#4636#*#*  and checked the information about my phone:

It does have a IMEI and IMSI,
I can ran a ping test,
Radio band is set to automatic,
Selected GSM / WCDM, LTE only, and other various network types,

Re-installed Lineage.
Re-installed Lineage with GApps nano.

Possible issues?
Manually select the carrier
When I try to manually select a carrier, I'm faced with cryptic choices ("310830", "311490", "311480", …), and all of them returns an "impossible to connect to this network" error message.
Comparison
I have the same phone with the same carrier at home, but with the stock rom on it (Android 9, build BV5500Pro_E535_V1.0_20191105V6). If I check in *#*#4636#*#*, I can see that the Network Mode is set to LTE / UMTS auto (PRL). However, that choice is not available on my phone.
Baseband?
Between the stock rom  and Lineage OS, I've tried another rom (BV5500Pro_EEA_E535_V1.0_20190514V8) to test that I could flash my phone. Could that have messed with the baseband, or something else? My current baseband is E535_39_P0_LWTG_V0.1.4_S190402.

Well you are using a modified generic system image (GSI). When trying a GSI I would recommend to use the original one from Google which is AFAIK also used for device compliance tests. In any way if you are not a AOSP developer I would recommend to prefer a device model specific firmware, instead of a GSI.

@Robert The reason why I'm trying to get a modified GSI is to have more modularity,  because the constructor's rom is quite old (Android 9), and because I generally enjoy fully open-sources projects such as Lineage. Even though I'm not an AOSP developer indeed, I don't see why the GSI can not accommodate my sim card / hardware. I must be missing something.

(And, also, since I have access to the constructor's firmware, can't I, in the worst case, extract the pieces I'm interested in?) In any case, thanks for your comment @Robert

Based on How to Install Lineage OS 17.1 for Blackview BV5500 Pro | Android 10 GSI treble, there's a disclaimer: "LineageOS 17 GSI build is based on PHH’s AOSP Android 10 GSIs which is still marked as a pre-release. Even on a device that runs Pie GSIs nicely, it’s still possible to get broken media, camera, RIL or even flat-out no-boot. You are strongly advised to try PHH’s original and then identify/report issues there, before moving onto other GSIs that is based on his work. [...]"

@AndrewT. Thanks for your comment. I completely forgot about that disclaimer, much needed indeed.

Update
So, actually, I've tried to install magisk, which I believe is the culprit.
Following the documentation, since this model does not have Ramdisk memory, I've patched the recovery.img file using their Manager application, and then flashed my recovery partition, using
 fastboot flash recovery /path/to/magisk_patched.img

After rebooting, their application was still not detecting magisk's installation, and my OS could not detect my SIM card anymore.
After flashing back the stock recovery, the sim card was back.
This seems to be a fairly common issue, judging by

https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/issues/2201
https://forum.xda-developers.com/mate-9/help/sim-card-reading-failed-magisk-xposed-t3819966
https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/problem-sim-card-detected-constant-t3860135

Original Message
Ok, so I've done the following:

Installed the official rom, BV5500Pro_E535_V1.0_20191105V6, that blackview shared directly with me: the sim card was not even recognized!
Flashed everything, installed a previous version of lineage (lineage-16.0-20191017-UNOFFICIAL-treble_a64_bvN): sim card still not recognized.
Installed another official rom (that they share here, called BV5500Pro_EEA_E535_V1.0_20190514V8): the sim card is back, and I can connect to the network!
Re-installed lineage-17.1-20201012-UNOFFICIAL-treble_a64_bvS. The sim card is still detected, and I can now connect to the service!

Needless to say, I have no clue what actually solved my issue.
My network is set to GSM / WCLMA / LTE (PRL) and I have not noticed any value or configuration that would have changed…

I'm guessing that somehow this is connected to what's described at this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/9rolqn/is_it_possible_that_installing_los_the_imei_would/


text:
Can't make and receive calls with good signal
Sometimes my smartphone can't make or receive calls (haven't tried SMS) despite signal being good. I can connect to LTE internet though. Turning airplane mode on and off solves the problem however it's not a proper solution because that problem can happen again and I won't know it.
Anyone can advise?
Thanks.
Samsung Galaxy A71
Android 10, One UI 2.1

Does your carrier (and your device) support Voice over LTE (VoLTE). Without that for a voice call the device has to drop LTE connection and fall back to 3G or 2G depending what is available. Of course this means that the signal strength can change if the cell towers are different to the before used LTE tower.

My carrier supports VOLTE and I also see VOLTE symbol next to cellular signal strength bars.


text:
How to cast Youtube video, but keep sound in headset?
My Sony Bravia TV sound system is horrible, but my headset hyperX is sufficient.
I tried the apple LocalCast but it does not allow you to cast video at all from its browser.
Android: 10, latest.
Phone: OnePlus 6T.
Chromecast: 3 gen.
TV: some 10 year old Sony Bravia.

When casting an online video your smartphone simply tells your TV which web address to play. The audio is never processed by your smartphone. Therefore it can not be played by the smartphone. Better connect the headset to your TV.

Robert's answer in comment:

When casting an online video your smartphone simply tells your TV
which web address to play. The audio is never processed by your
smartphone. Therefore it can not be played by the smartphone. Better
connect the headset to your TV.

So not possible the asked feature, but you need to connect your headset to your TV.


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Unable to send a text containing ".xyz"
I discovered this while trying to send friends URLs ending in .xyz. The texts appeared to be sent, but no one was receiving them. At first I assumed it was because the link was blacklisted somewhere along the line, but further experimenting showed that I cannot send a text containing the string ".xyz" anywhere in the message.
I am able to receive such texts though.
The phone is a moto g(7) power running Android 10. A friend has a Samsung Galaxy S10E and also can't send .xyz.
Sending other tlds such as ".com" etc works fine. Any guesses about what's going on?

.xyz domains are often used for distributing malware. May be your mobile network provider therefore filters out such messages as a form of "anti-virus service"?

This depends of your phone carrier provider because actually I tested it with my orange carrier lines and sent an sms with url .xyz extension and received it. It could be also that your AV is restricting such extension. screenshot


text:
Google Nexus 7 2013 (6.0.1) no longer works with All 4 streaming (UK)
I have a venerable Google Nexus 7 2013 (OS 6.0.1) that I still use. It works well - or did, up until a few days ago.
One of the things I use it for is streaming - BBC iPlayer, ITV hub, All 4, youtube etc.
It has been fine up to now, when all of a sudden it will not stream All 4. It will stream everything else and all other internet connectivity is fine.
The local network is wifi (2.4/5GHz) connecting with a TP-Link ADSL router to Plusnet Fibre.
Initially I though it was a temporary All 4 problem. But other devices (Android and PC) on the same network stream fine.
First I restarted the app, then cleared the cache and data, then restarted the router, then I reinstalled the app, then finally I did a factory reset. None had any effect. The error is 'An error has occurred - Touch to retry'. Retry has no effect. Unfortunately I do not have access to another wifi network I can try.
I am completely out of ideas. It must be software, all hardware appears fine. The summary is:

Nexus 7 2013 running Android 6.0.1 (not rooted).
Will not stream All 4 (UK).
Will stream everything else.
All other internet connection is fine.
Other devices (PC, Android) on the same network will stream All 4.
Resetting everything had no effect.
Worked fine up to 7-10 days ago.

Any suggestion as to the cause of this would be welcome.

Could be an expired intermediate- or root-certificate which which has been updated but is not present on your device. Enable development option and Android debug bridge on your device and connect the devoce via USB to an PC with Android SDK installed.  Monitor errors that occur on the output of adb logcat that occur when you start the app and try to play a video.

Thanks for the suggestion. Did that, captured logcat output (via Android Studio)  from hitting 'retry'. There's an awful lot of it (2,200 lines) and not at all sure what I am looking for? The link to the captured file is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uh-roAJzfAunyFPr84_dD_EE1SPKrTqL/view?usp=sharing, or if you could suggest to me what to look for, I'd look.

I would assume that the DrmSessionException by ExoPlayer (a popular video viewing component) is causing your trouble. The actual reason why this error occurs is unknown. Therefore the only chance to get this fixed is contact the author(s) of the app which fails and provide the log you have created.

Thanks, I#ll look into that!

Reported this to All 4 support. No answer at all. Not unexpected, really.

i had the same problem with my nexus 7, worked faultlessly with streaming vids ...untill the 2nd week in Jan 2021 when overnight could no longer get the vids to work, just got a blank screen. I think the reason is that that was the exact time adobe started blocking all computers and devices with flash player. since then ive not had a decent downloadable live streaming vid or web cam - i pay for many of the sites i use.
even my new win10 pc has problems with streaming video whereas before jan 10th and the adobe flash blocking all worked fine !!

Interesting. Different problem though, I think. Mine stopped in 9/2020, Flash was still OK then. Never managed to fix it, never got a response from All4.


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Google maps bicycle navigation
A year back, when I opened "Directions" on my phone, below the start and end point, where 4 options:

Driving
Public transport
Walking
Cycling

Now cycling is replaced by "Ride Services" which I never use, and do not care about. How can I get "Cycling" back?

From Google maps support, Platinum product expert treebles says (2/5/20)

If your issue is that the bicycling mode of transportation is not available to you, it means that it is not available in your country. There are few countries where this mode of transporation is enabled.

In the same thread you find instances of it being available earlier but not anymore.

So, Google decides when and where to activate and they won't tell you list of countries in which it is available :(

Sadly there's no list of supported areas and Google never announces where it's rolling out beforehand.


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What does the music symbol notification mean
I'm using my son's hand-me-down Samsung S5.  It runs Android 6.0.1
A few days ago, a music symbol (quaver) appeared on the notification bar.  When I pulled it down, there was just the music symbol with no text next to it.  When I tapped on it, nothing happened and the symbol disappeared.  The next day it appeared again.  I did the same thing and it disappeared again.  This morning it appeared again.
I've done an internet search for notification symbols but I cannot find this music symbol or what it means.
What does this music symbol mean?
Edit
The symbol is in the top left corner.  It seems to be related to Android Auto.  It only appears after I've used Android Auto.  What I don't understand is I only ever use the maps application so why is the music symbol appearing?

Try long-pressing the notification, it might show the responsible app for the notification.

I tried taking a screenshot with the power and volume buttons but the phone reset itself and the icon disappeared.   I'll try it with a PC mirror when it next appears.

Looks like this is somehow related to Android Auto.  I haven't used the car since the phone was reset and the symbol hasn't appeared.

The music symbol is the Samsung Music App.  The reason why it disappeared when I pressed on it is because my data was switched off and there wasn't a wireless signal.
When I got a wireless signal and pressed on it, it initiated some installation.
As for why it suddenly activated itself, my passenger fiddled with the phone controls when I stopped by at a supermarket to get something.


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"Your Phone Companion" only works on unlocked phone
I do not know if this is a bug or a feature, but it does not make much sense.
I have a Samsung S9, and I managed to connect it to my Windows 10 laptop. I can only start apps when my phone is unlocked, and this is annoying:

If I need to pick up my phone anyway to unlock it, I might as well just use that, instead of my laptop
Why should I waste electricity on two screens?

Is there any solution?

the tag is likely wrong, but I have no better idea.

It's a security, issue and likely a feature and not a bug. You can try automation with MacroDroid and create a simple macro to reduce screen brightness and save current, like this //You can use any other [tag:automation] apps

Most devices have an option in the "Developer options" menu to keep screen on when connected to a PC. I assume this should also prevent auto-locking of the device.

@Robert yes, good one, forgot about that - OP can combine both our suggestions //Feel free to make an answer using my or any other suggestions to reduce screen brightness and save electricity

when laptop accessing some data from your Samsung galaxy mobile. Your mobile should be unlocked. Security features hinder access of phone. You can temporary disable screen lock.
And reduce brightness of the mobile so less battery will be used.

The brightness is important but not because of the power saving but to prevent/slow-down the OLED display from burn-in long shown images. In any way a typical smartphone display consumes less that 2 Watt, hence the amount of power that can be saved is very very low.

Read his question He do not want to waste electricity. Less brightness less power used. Any way thanks for reply.


text:
Suspected malware on stock apps in a Mediatek mtk65* based phone
I have an old(2016) Mediatek mtk6580 chipset phone(non rooted/stock). Couple days back, I downloaded an app called "Apk extractor" from play store, and extracted the system apps to the sdcard. Then from there I uploaded them to https://virustotal.com and found out that, Android system framework, com.mediatek, Android system webview, eSETterminal and Android browser provider had malwares in them. A couple days back, a serious vulnerability(mtk-su) for mediatek mt65** was found which gives a user temporary root privilege. I was able to obtain root permission and did mount -o rw,remount /system and went straight to /system/app/ and deleted Android system webview and Android browser provider. However, I wasn't able to find com.mediatek on /system/app and instead found it on /data/data. I deleted that from there. But then I did a system reset. com.mediatek was still there. Also, I couldn't delete Android service framework, because I tried doing adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 android and couldn't access anything from the notification menu. For now I disabled the apps with adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.app.name. Are there any ways to permanently delete com.mediatek.
If it would help ya'll in any way I could attach a adb dumpsys and adb logcat logs. I noticed a few suspicious behaviors like, when I exit an app, the data/wifi completely bolts down, and vpn logs says network change detected. None of the other phones has this issue. I think I might be dealing with something big here.
Edit:
Okay, I don't happen to have all the links, but two of those apps were with me, and am providing the scan links here for eSet terminal and webview.

Eset terminal https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/b319236ee02778c88198e1b88e730b871f2709705728d766825a479652a7cec9/detection
webview  https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/c1d4821e87519453ad5fc4e31fa4790cdc3a98dd45fd6015899a8f7093f6b784/detection

Gaining temporary root permissions and deleting system applications is the easiest way to brick your device. If a phone is infected by malware on system level you should re-install the whole firmware. BTW: I am not sure if yours really is, virustotal has various ways to misinterpret the result, you should post the virus total links to scan results.

what does root integrity check say?

~60 AVs are saying the file is safe, and 1 is saying it isn't. Why are you assuming that the 1 is correct? https://xkcd.com/882/

@alecxs Root integrity check says, a couple of apps were missing, that's all. Apps like webview and YouTube and Browser provider

But I still wonder why I can't delete com.mediatek. I tried deleting it from /data/data and /data/user/0 and also tried "pm uninstall --user 0"  and still was left with the app on every system reset.

that's core component you can find /system/vendor/framework/mediatek-res/mediatek-res.apk it runs with android.uid.system

it might be that every device of this model/ROM comes with data mining malware from stock, that's not unusual https://www.xda-developers.com/report-android-phones-transmit-data-to-adups-a-chinese-firm

@alecxs Yes!!! found the app in /system/framework/mediatek-res/mediatek-res.apk. Then I deleted it!!! was stuck in a bootloop. Good thing I copied the app to /sdcard before deleting it. Went to /data/local/tmp and went su, and then copied the file back to where it was. Apparently this app cant be deleted. Dang it.

Because it's not an app. It's a resource container that has strings, images, colors, styles, etc, that the system depends on.

Thank you @TheWanderer

I am sorry but you totally misinterpret the scanner results.
In both cases one of 61 scanners has detected something - that looks more like a false-positive. Additionally the scanners that detected something are uncommon. Not one of the major virus scanners detects anything on the samples. Rescan it some days later and if nothing has changed the chance is very very high that the result is not correct.
Additionally one item is detected as "PUA" - not as virus. PUA is the abbreviation for  - Potentially Unwanted Application - usually software like advertising trackers falls into this category.
The other is a PUP - hence a "Potentially Unwanted Program" which effectively means the same as PUA.
Conclusion: You totally panicked because you don't understand how to interpret the VirusTotal results.

Here's the scan link https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/4cbf6adb273a6afa01f7d5f4ea97ac22b5a97ce1a34c000f2ef308a6383e8821/detection

Again, as Robert correctly pointed out: If only 1 out of all the VT scanners reports something, and it's a completely uncommon engine (like in this last case "Antiy-AVL" which I've never heard from), the most likely answer is "false positive" (that's one of the reasons they have multiple engines). Give it a couple of days, then hit the "Rescan" (upper-right corner, the "circular arrow"). If it's still the only one, and none of the major engines kicks in, simply forget it.

@johndoe I checked the Jackpal's Android Terminal link you mentioned and it says "undetected". The app is also open-sourced, so anyone can check it directly, and there's no update since 2015.

Okay, the virus total scan now shows undetetcted on the jackpals android terminal. I swear, these scan results could potentially drive any noobs to go nuts. Really puts too much mental pressure on my head! A bit relieved from all of your replies. Thanks guys (: But still, if you have some time to spare, would you mind looking at the logs? I swear whenever I try going to a box that says user name and password, the wifi/data acts really weird.


text:
Change Device Name on Family Link Device
I'm wondering how to change a device name for a device/account supervised by Family Link.
I've changed the actual device name in the devices settings but the device name that shows up in Google / GooglePlay / FamilyLink is controlled by Google Play. To change THAT name you need to do it on the settings page of Google Play. This only works on the Google Play website. If I try to access the supervised account via a browser it says this account must access play through the app only. I assume this is because store restriction can really only be handled through the controlled app?. Either way the device list is not available in the play app and thus there is no where to rename the device.
Any advice? Is there anyway I could access the web version of the settings page through the play app?

It seems that you're able to rename the device from Find My Device page. Log in with your child's account on a web browser and then modify the device name.


text:
Is mtk-su safe? Is it actually temporary?
mtk-su which helps mediatek mtk-65** based phone owners to basically gain a "temporary" root. My question is, if it was actually temporary as it claims, and if it actually doesn't persist after each system reset or reboot. The other day I scanned the file on virustotal, and the engines detected it as a malware.
mtksu xda forum https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/amazing-temp-root-mediatek-armv8-t3922213/amp/

Such applications should always be detected by virus scanners because they use exploits to gain root access - hence they bypass existing security measures. That is by definition malicious - but in this case expected - behavior.

No, exploits aren't safe. Yes, exploits are temporary, to be fixed one day.

malware can use it, even if just temporary that is enough to replace system apps. you should flash stock ROM


text:
Is it possible to have a custom ROM with a locked bootloader?
I just mention in-advance to please correct me if I'm mistaken on anything, I've a limited tech proficiency.
I've a Samsung S9 (Android 10) and I wish to install an AOSP ROM (also on Android 10), but I researched and found my phone still uses "Full Disk Encryption" instead of "File Based Encryption" (which is a requirement by Google as of Android 10).
I think one must unlock the bootloader in order to install any custom ROM, right?
If yes, then I'm left with FDE encryption and unlocked bootloader.
FDE means if my phone is stolen (or taken by force) while turned ON (i.e., always in my case) my data is at risk, right?
Unlocked bootloader means someone tech savvy can have (some kind of a) backdoor access to my phone's data even if my phone is turned OFF, right?
So, logically, in order to be secure, one must either have a newer device that supports FBE, or an FDE one with locked bootloader (and also not have it taken while turned ON)
Thus, I thought maybe I can have a custom ROM installed but still have the bootloader locked after I install it?
Again, I apologize if I'm mistaken on anything, please do correct me. Thanks

https://www.samsungknox.com/en/secured-by-knox

https://copperhead.co/android/docs/devices

The requirements by Google only affect devices which are released new to the market. Devices that are upgraded aren't affected especially the FBE requirement because changing the encryption scheme without deleting all data is heavily complicated and I would assume was never implemented.

FDE mans your data is encrypted and an attacker still has to break your lock screen pattern/PIN/password. And if the encryption is hardware based (which should be true for the S9) the attack has to be performed on-device, not off-line on a high-end computer with GPU support and hundred-thousands of password tries per second.

@Robert Hi, thank you for your response. After reading this excellent article ( https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/11/24/android-n-encryption/ ), here's a few relevant takeaways that made me post this thread.
" [...] encryption is an all-or-nothing proposition. Your machine is either on or off; accessible or inaccessible. As long as you make sure to have your laptop stolen only when it’s off, disk encryption will keep you perfectly safe."

@Robert Also:
"[...] smartphone users are never encouraged to shut down their device. In practice this means that — after you enter a passcode once after boot — normal users spend their whole day walking around with all their cryptographic keys in RAM. Since phone batteries live for a day or more (a long time compared to laptops) encryption doesn’t really offer much to protect you against an attacker who gets their hands on your phone during this time."

@Robert And:
"users do lock their smartphones. In principle, a clever implementation could evict sensitive cryptographic keys from RAM when the device locks, then re-derive them the next time the user logs in. Unfortunately, Android doesn’t do this — for the very simple reason that Android users want their phones to actually work. Without cryptographic keys in RAM, an FDE system loses access to everything on the storage drive. In practice this turns it into a brick. For this reason, once you boot an Android FDE phone it will never evict its cryptographic keys from RAM. And this is not good."

The attack you describe is doable for PCs with removable RAM modules but on smartphones RAM is part of the central SoC where is also the CPU included. Accessing RAM inside an SoC while it is running is more a theoretical threat. I would assume that only a few intelligence agencies world wide may have the knowledge and the equipment to do so.

@Robert So from what I understand, you'd actually feel secure if your FDE encrypted Android phone was stolen, while turned ON yet locked, correct?


text:
Where are notification preferences stored? How can I save/restore them?
Where are per-app per-notification preferences (the kind, sound, vibration, etc. settings for each type of notification for each app) stored on Android?
I'd like to back them up to be able to restore them later. (I have root permissions.)
If there's already an app for doing this, I'd appreciate knowing about that as well.

/data/system/notification_policy.xml. But this cannot be backed up / restored by simply copying the file. Per app notification settings are set through channels which are generated on app installation (or on a notification of new category) with random IDs.

@IrfanLatif: Thank you! It seems like I should be able to just write a script (or even sed) to modify the bits I'm interested in regardless of the ID, right? Do you know if changes become visible immediately by just modifying the file, or if they require some kind of signaling to the system?

I didn't try but changing configuration files never immediately reflects in apps because system_server caches everything on boot and app launch. Killing the app immediately after modifying the file may work, or a reboot might be needed before the file is overwritten by OS. Also, modifying files directly (and not going through proper APIs) usually doesn't work (at least in first attempt). If some piece of configuration is saved somewhere else, you are highly likely to break some functionality or settings may reset back. You might need to go through hit and trial before success.

@IrfanLatif: Okay thank you!

Very interesting question, every time I reinstall the OS it takes a lot of time to remember and re-apply the notification settings (e.g. custom sounds for different callers). Why it's not possible to backup & restore them

Agreed, why is this not backed up as part of Android's Google Backup? Considering how complex and customisable notification settings have become recently (with per-app notification categories, which finally allow me to turn off focus-sucking promotional notifications from 100s of apps, and with Conversations), this range of customizations needs to be possible to backup and restore, otherwise all the user's hard work is wasted every time your device dies or is replaced.

Reading in a single place the whole application notification settings (without root) would also be great, as now you have to open each app to check which channels you've customized. A pain!


text:
Get into fastboot mode (AOC Q70S15 model)
Model: AOC Q70S15
Android version: 4.2.2
Tablet not rooted
Desktop OS: Arch Linux
Issuing the command adb reboot fastboot from my pc makes the tablet shut down but it doesn't reboot, the same happens with adb reboot, nothing change if I do it with sudo.
According to the manual: Press and hold the power button and volume button 3 seconds at the same time. Release the buttons and tablet will boot and an Android robot will be displayed. However 3 seconds doesn't do anything, two scenarios occur when I maintain pressed the buttons for longer time:

After some seconds (10-15) the tablet starts booting but not in fastboot but the normal way, however if I release the tablet buttons it goes off inmediatelly.

Sometimes nothing happens.

adb reboot bootloader or adb reboot-bootloader or Volume Down + Power

Keeping pressed Volume Down + Power for 6 secs did the trick, after that you need to wait like 5 secs and the android robot should appear, then you press the Power button and without releasing it press the Volume Up button one time, now you are the system recovery.

why is question about fastboot mode but answer for recovery mode?

Sorry got a little confuse, when I was searching about fastboot mode before post here, the results I found were about entering the recovery mode so I thought they were the same. If this is not correct what is exactly the fastboot mode, the screen with just the android robot?

that's a different mode for flashing

I see thank you for the clarification, now I think I'm going to delete this this question and maybe open a more specific one but before that, just to make sure, when I do de volumen down + power I end in this android robot screen, from there what I need to do to enter in fastboot mode?

do not delete that question. it seems that tablet don't have fastboot mode

It could be, but if this was the case are there ways to install a fastboot? or this is the end of the road? The reason I need to enter in fastboot is because I want to root this tablet so I can install linux on it.


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Speed from mobile hotspot is not consistence and poor speed
I am WFH and using Xiaomi note 8 pro for hotspot to my work computer and I have D-Link dongle which catch the hotspot signal. I am using Airtel sim card for that.
When I start working to my system at 10:30 IST in the morning, sometimes I do get speed about 15-20Mbps but while loading the page it doesn't seems to be that much speed. After 2-5 minutes of this "Rocking" speed, it came down to below 100Kbps and sometimes below 10Kbps as well.
If I am opening Youtube.com, I can watch the videos in full HD without buffer but at the same time i won't be able to remote connect to my PC.
Same when i open youtube, facebook, instagram like app on my mobile, it works good and speed is also good as i can see the speed at the top of my screen. Youtube is giving me speed like 600Kbps-1Mbps and other app too gave me speed of  upto 500Kbps. But as soon as i opened some other app, speed bites the dust.
Suppose I opened 2 apps in the background. One is Youtube and other one is cricbuzz. I maximize youtube and browse some videos and i can see speed upto 600-800 Kbps and suddenly i minimize the youtube and maximize cricbuzz. All of sudden the speed from 600Kbps goes down to 6Kbps.
I am unable to work properly and neither i am getting any support from Sim Company. I am asking this question over here so that if i could get some help in terms of if this is the issue of network company or mobile company or my device is not upto the capacity.
If there would be any work around or hacks. Any kind of solution would be a great help.

Are you sure that tethering your PC is allowed for your data plan? If it is not allowed yozr Mobile Network Operator may throttle connection speed of those connections that are identified to originate from a PC.

How do I check that?

Read the conditions of your data plan and/or ask you mobile network provider.

youtube is working super fine with the same data connection but breaking when multiple times. rest is also working with same breaking but the speed is not as much as youTube.


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How to know that a installed app is 32bit or 64bit?
How to know that a installed application on my android is 32bit or 64bit version.

First of all, originally Android apps were multi-platform, hence all libraries were included for all supported platforms. Nowadays if the developer publishes the app as app-bundle Google only sends those partial APK to your device that match your device platform. Hence if you see an APK file named "armv8" it is 64bit, in case of an armv7[e] it is 32bit.

Possible dupe of How to tell what architecture an APK is intended for?

A pure Java app is neither 32bit nor 64bit. If it includes some pre-built native libraries, those are certainly. Extract the libraries from lib directory inside APK and use file command to check if it's 32bit or 64bit.

Lets take an example of pubg if I install it from playstore on android 10+ then 64-bit version get installed but if I install it on android 9 then 32 bit get installed. Now if i download it from official site which provide only one apk then how to know which version get installed on my android 10 since both 32 and 64 bit can be installed on android 10.


text:
Get Notifications from Google chat web to android
I use a work account on google chat on web. But Google suite of that account dosnt have Google Chat/Hangout app for android. And as far as I know, Google chat only gives me push notification on web.
Is there any way I can directly recieive Gchat notifications from my work account to my android device Directly ?


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Is there a symbol to differentiate between dropped call and hanging up normally?
I have a galaxy s10, long story short I've been dealing with a department that messed up my billing and I'm contesting it, they hung up like 4/5 times and also sent me to voicemail a few times. They're claiming that their system is having issues and that it's dropping calls. I'm wondering if a dropped called has a symbol to identify it? For example this picture here has a bunch of orange arrow going out that says that I called this number, if it was rejected, it would be a blue circle crossed through, if they called me the arrow would be going inwards etc. Does a symbol exists for when a call was dropped on either end? I tried looking this up but I couldn't find an answer about whether this symbol existed or not, just a lot of articles about how to fix dropped calls which isn't an issue I'm having since I can call anybody else just fine

How should your phone detect if a computer-system or a human has ended the phone call? On technical level the disconnect command is identical.

I believe for TCP connections, it's possible to know whether it was a proper disconnection vs a timeout/improper disconnection. For UDP connection though servers can assume an improper disconnection after some specific timeout time has passed or hasn't received some specific data that it needs to receive every x interval. Regardless, it's possible but not too much of this applies to phone calls since they're not using the internet and won't use VoIP, I just wasn't sure if a dropped call and disconnect are marked as two different events or the same. Not familiar with their protocols

Even if your device makes a VoIP call via VoLTE this does not mean that this is also true for the call center you are calling and you don't have to have a direct VoIP connection. Calls are converted, transmitted and so on. Therefore the connections you see are just between your device and the VoIP server. Therefore even if the VoIP protocol would allow have different messages for signaling a call end those messages have to be implemented and the information on this would have to be sent through all layers and converters and so on.

Just want to point out that Android only has 7 standard call types, which don't include an indicator on how the outgoing calls are ended. The most important question though is whether the protocol supported it (as you mentioned), which isn't really an Android question but more to the general telephony service.

I see, thank you Robert for that explanation. If I understand it right, it means that if something like this were supported, it would still be an issue because both ends would have to support this type of data which is unlikely. And also thank you Andrew, I didn't mean for my question to go in depth but the root of the question ended up being the real question which, yes I agree, is not exactly Android related. Thank you both though


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How to remove phone numbers from a contact when they are not visible in edit mode?
I have a French contact (phone number +33 ...) who went to Japan and got a mobile number there (+81 ...). We discussed via Whats App and Signal and now he is back in France.
I would like to remove his Japanese phone numbers but I simply cannot.
This is how I see his contact before the edition:

As you can see there is one French and two Japanese numbers. I then click on the edit icon and I see:

The Japanese numbers are not present.
There are nowhere to be found, I clicked on "show more fields", but these are just empty extra fields.
I remove the conversations from Signal (it was registered with the Japanese number, this is visible in the screenshot) - nothing. Note that I cannot actually edit a contact in Signal, it just mentions that this (Signal) contact is in my contacts - with the possibility to open the contact and what I get is the first screenshot.
I tried to edit the contact on the phone to add something and somehow influence the Japanese numbers - nothing. I tried a similar edit the contact on a PC via contacts.google.com - nothing. I tried to use the Samsung contact app - same problem.
After using Android extensively for 10+ years, this is the first time I see that. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
OS is Android 10, phone is Samsung Galaxy 9+.

Have you checked the bottom of the screen? phone numbers and email entries are usually not ordered on data level. If that does not work try to use Google contacts web version in the browser (assuming that your contacts are synced to Google)

@Robert: yes, I looked everywhere. As I mentioned, on the bottom of the screen there is an entry "extra fields" (the French equivalent in my case), pressing this shows more fields (anniversary, spouse, ...) that are empty. As I also mentioned in the question, I tried with contacts.google.com (tried to remove them but they re not there at all, and then tried to modify the contact by adding a dummy entry to try to "reset" the entry - but no luck)

Is it possible that you have the contact multiple times and the non-edit view merges them, but when you edit it only one of the merged contacts is displayed? May be you have saved it on SIM card.

@Robert: no, this is the only entry I see for that user. I will probably just delete it and recreate and I will see how it goes.

Short on ideas I decided to delete this contact.
Right after it was deleted, ANOTHER contact with the same name appeared out of nowhere, holding the two Japanese numbers (and only this, plus the first name, plus the family name).
I then deleted that second (invisible so far) contact and recreated one for my friend (with only the French number).
It worked and I have one single contact.
This is really a mystery to me: I had one contact for that user previously, and the other one only appeared when I erased the first one.
I exclusively store contacts in google (not in the SIM or anywhere else) so this is not a traditional "merged contact" view. My wild guess is that Signal must have kept is somehow and presented it in a merged view. That said - it is not possible to edit anything contact-wise in Signal, it always drives you back to the main contact entry (the first screenshot in my question).
I will put it on the shelf with other unsolved mysteries in my 25 years career in IT.

Go to the contact with the bogus number.  Click the 3 dots in the upper right.  Select "add/remove linked contact".   Remove the contact with the bogus number.  Good luck.


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Install specific versions of AOSP Calendar
I would like to use an older version of AOSP Calendar. Namely a good version before the 2019 update that is described here as follows:

New events cannot be created and existing events cannot be edited or deleted.

There are many branches and tags here, but some of their titles are not clear, and I don't see APK files there. How exactly can I install specific versions?

Of course you don't see any APK files there, this is the AOSP source code repository. If you want an APK from it you have to compile it yourself. Unfortunately the app is not a standard Android Studio project but is designed to be compiled as part of AOSP. I am not sure if there is a way to manually start compiling via Android.mk. Most likely you have to download and build a complete AOSP image to build the AOSP calendar.

@Robert Where exactly could I ask for a built version for download? Otherwise the installation of this app is much more difficult than of apps that are in app stores.

You can try to download older LineageOS ROM images and try to extract the contained calendar APK file. For extracting the image you may use https://github.com/cyxx/extract_android_ota_payload (untested). But I am not sure if the AOSP calendar app works if installed as regular (non-system) app.

The AOSP Calendar is in a repository tool (Google Git) that use Google with a lot of project.
Compile it by yourself
You could download it:
git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Calendar

and you  could select the branch/tag that you want.
git fetch origin nameBranch/nameTag && git reset --hard FETCH_HEAD && git checkout nameBranch/nameTag

Of this way, you obtain the code of the Calendar AOSP but as you said, in this repository is not the package of the application, so, you should compile it. As it is part of the Android system is neccesary to compile it with the rest of AOSP, because, it has some dependences.
LOCAL_STATIC_JAVA_LIBRARIES := \
    android-common \
    libchips \
    colorpicker \
    android-opt-timezonepicker \
    androidx.legacy_legacy-support-v4 \
    calendar-common

Once you had it compiled, you don't have problems to install it, because althought it is a part of AOSP it is not a system application.
But, this is not a quickly way to obatin the APK file.
Obtain it of system.img
First, you need to obtain a AOSP or Lineage ROM system image before the 2019 (because, the commit that you don't want is in 2019). For this way, you need to use this tool. Once downloaded and installed:
mkdir system_lineage
simg2img system_lineage.img system_lineage.raw
sudo mount -t ext4 -o loop system_lineage.raw system_lineage
cd system_lineage

And you need to found it in this system directory (I think that it was in system/app/Calendar or something similar)
Try to obtain it in some mirror
It is possible that some mirror have this apk in the server. You could try to obtain it in apkmirror for example.

Thanks, I found a good version here as you suggested! For the other options: What is the command to compile it? I don't understand the names of branches/tags, are they explained somewhere, which ones would you recommend? Where do I get system_lineage.img? Maybe I can directly get system_lineage.raw somewhere?


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Realme 5 (android 10) trying to boot into fastboot mode
I can't boot into fastboot mode, no key combination works, I also tried with adb command 'adb reboot bootloader' then fastboot logo flashes for a second and it boots into system!
I contacted Realme customer executive and they said there is no fastboot on this device!!!
What does that mean?
Is there any work around?

Power off your phone first, then press volume up+ power or volume down +power and it'll boot into fast mode. If not, try vol up/down + home + power button. See if any of these works

"there is no fastboot mode on this device" means fastboot mode is disabled intentionally. nothing you can do

https://c.realme.com/in/post-details/1184729509568446464


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Kodak Android TV Not able to connect via ADB on WiFi
Am trying to change the Homescreen of Kodak Android TV by follow the steps Completely change home screen on Android TV
The TV and Laptop are connected on same WiFi. Able to ping the TV's IP.
But when am trying to connect the TV via ADB connect, it's showing below error.
C:\Intel\ADB>adb connect 192.168.1.105
cannot connect to 192.168.1.105:5555: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. (10061)
Kodak TV Android version 9, Kernel version 4.9.125, Build PTT1.181130001 release keys.
In TV, I've already enabled developer options, USB Debugging.
Am using platform tools adb version (Not Android studio). Is there anyway to connect to TV without using USB Cable?

adb connect can only be executed for an device that has adb over wifi activated (usually this is reset on every reboot). The common way is to connect the device via USB and execute adb tcpip 5555. I am not sure about Android TV devices, if they have adb over Wifi activated by default. You should use a port scanner and check if there is any TCP port open on your Android TV box. May be adb is not running on port 5555 on your device.
Without that command adb will work only via USB. Therefore the only chance I see would be an app that can enable adb wireless mode, however if I remember correctly this requires root permissions if executed from within an app.

So, I must connect the TV with my Laptop via USB A cable and enable TCP before connecting with WiFi. I'll try that.

I used USB Male to USB Male cable and it works fine. adb connect is a no go for my device.

This worked for me. Connected via USB, then prompted adb tcpip 5555 and then connected to the device via wifi: adb connect 192.168.1.155


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How to (re)mount an FUSE partition and set (or change) its options, especially permission-wise?
Note: If you don't mind reading all these, jump to "The Questions" section.
The Actual Problem
I have write permissions problems with both my external (i.e. external SD card) and internal storages on my rooted Android box (i.e. it's ViperOS ROM, if it helps) (mounted at /storage), especially the external one. The behavior on terminal and GUI is, strangely, different.
(External storage  problem only) Using either Termux or internal Terminal app, when I try to do any write operations from a non-root user (e.g. create a directory, remove a file), I get "Permission denied" error (From a non-root ADB user, however, I never get errors). Storage permission is not a problem here, as it's granted.
Using GUI, the only problematic operation is removing directories (whether empty or not), and as a result, moving directories also (i.e. actually, they get copied, but the source is not removed). Even renaming directories is possible. All file operations are possible, too.
However, there's a different between where the problematic operation is done: from the laptop with phone connected to it, the operation fails; but from an app (e.g. default Files app) inside the phone (without any root permissions), it gets done, but it shows it failed (!).
What I Tried
These are all permissions problems (oh, really?!). To make things easier, I'll focus on external storage (i.e. external SD card) only. It is located (i.e. mounted) on /storage/9B6C-CF9F/.
Note: Because the results of ADB and internal terminal are somehow different, and it seems the results of internals are more reliable, so I'll post them instead. Also, keep in mind, # means the command is being run as root. Unrelated stuff is replaced with ....
Initially, I ran stat:
# stat /storage/9B6C-CF9F/
  File: `/storage/9B6C-CF9F/'
  Size: 8192     Blocks: 16  IO Blocks: 512 directory
Device: 19h/25d  Inode: 0    Links: 4
Access: (755/drwxr-xr-x)    Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: ( 9997/everybody)
...

And immediately I realized that only root have write permissions on /storage/9B6C-CF9F/ (i.e. my external storage). Tried chmod. No errors. Worked? No. stat is the same as before, meaning no permissions was changed. Why?! I tried to figure it out:
# mount | grep /storage/9B6C-CF9F
/dev/fuse on /storage/9B6C-CF9F type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other)

The problem is here: The mount point is of FUSE type, and I know little about it. So:
The Questions

How to (mount or) remount an FUSE partition, possibly with one or more specified options, especially permission-wise options (like rootmode), using mount command (on Android)?

How to find the location of the actual device behind that FUSE filesystem, in /dev/ directory (Is there any underlying device at all)?

Other questions:

(If you've read the past two sections,) Is there an alternative way to fix the mentioned permissions problem?

If root has only write permissions to my external storage, then how applications write data to it?

Notes

While I was reading the man-page of fuse on Fedora, I found that there are some FUSE mount options regarding permissions, like rootmode and umask. However, the problem is, I don't know how to mount it with these options, and how /dev/fuse knows where to find my external storage (or even internal).

There is a discussion on where Android's fstab is located. I have found it on my device, however, there is no line pointing to fuse type. The only related lines I could find are:
# cat /fstab.sc8830
...
# VOLD : fstab_dt_otg.sc8830
/devices/sdio_sd/mmc_host/mmc1*           auto         auto defaults                            voldmanaged=sdcard1:auto,encryptable=userdata
/devices/20200000.usb/usb*            auto         auto defaults                            voldmanaged=usb:auto
...

What does these mean? Are they related or not? I don't really know. Also, no file named fstab_dt_otg.sc8830 exists there (i.e. on /).

The external sd-card can only be modified by using Android's Java API. On Linux file level the external sd-card is read-only without root permissions.

To understand the role and functioning of FUSE in Android, read my answer to What is /storage/emulated/0/?. For external SD card part see How to save files to external SD card on a non-rooted Android? and Android's Storage Journey.

how about trying to chang the mask setting?
mount -t vfat -o umask=0000 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /storage/9B6C-CF9F

remember to change device block reference to your external sdcard

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Presenting screen in Teams for Android: Screen goes blank when I move hand near camera
I have Microsoft Teams installed on my Samsung tablet. I often share my tablet screen in Teams meetings. When I move my hand near the tablet screen, the screen goes blank (temporarily).
Why does this happen? Is it some sort of functionality for quickly stopping presenting in an emergency?

The proximity sensor is usually a led + sensor that detects the reflected light of that led. On most devices you can see the led flashing while on a call and looking at the device through an camera of a second smartphone or digital camera. It is usually located right above the screen. May be you can "hack" the proximity sensor by sticking a small perfectly black patch on it so that it can't detect any reflections.

You're triggering the proximity sensor. Those are located somewhere above the screen or in the notch, depending on the design of your device.
The purpose of proximity sensor is to disable screen and touchscreen inputs when you're talking with your phone next to your head. It prevents accidentally interacting with the touchscreen with your ear.
It's mostly useful for regular phone calls, but internet calling software can also make use of it.
Your screen sharing is probably still in progress while you do that, it only blanks your display.

Thanks. Unfortunately, it blanks out the screen for the other attendees in the meeting too.