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Is there any way to Move applications in phone memory to SD Card?
I'm using Samsung Galaxy fit GTS5670 running on Android 2.3.6.
After installing Whatsapp Messenger of 13.36 MB, it was installed to phone memory. I got a total of 180 MB internal storage, and just 3.3 MB left.
Is there any way to move Whatsapp from phone memory to SDCard?

I've just added the app2sd tag to your question. For some first aid, I recommend to read its tag-wiki first. That should get you started. If you're still stuck, please [edit] your question and describe what you've tried and where you're stuck, so we will see if we can help. If you solved it, please answer your question and let us know what exactly you did. Thanks a lot!

If you have your phone rooted and secondary partition, you can use Link2SD.It's good alternative to use.

Okay go to your home screen click on menu then go to settings, scroll down to manage applications or manage apps... click on that then u will be able to see downloaded apps, then apps on your phone storage, and more to your right u will see apps on your sd card go on to phone storage u where u will see all apps that are stored to ur internal memory/phone storage.. and click on the apps u wish to move to ur sd card and it will have all options saying, force stop, uninstall, move to sdcard/phone storage and then clear data... what u want is move to sd card so click that then verify by pushing 'ok' and there u have it. Hope this helped. :)

Note that apps must actively support this – so not all apps can be moved this way. I don't know whether Whatsapp (the OP wants to move this) does support App2SD.

still cannot move whatsapp...

If you have rooted your phone use a root explorer to go to data > data> locate the whatsapp folder > files > logs > delete all the files there and you are good to go.


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ADB Push not keeping file permissions, specifically execute permission
I "inadvertently" wiped system on my tablet with adb. No critique needed. I've already called myself all the names. What I need now is a way to put at least the "sh" program back on using adb or other program with “x” permission so that I can adb shell once again. Currently, adb removes the “x” permission when using the push option. I examined the adb source code and found one line in the sync section that seems to change permissions to 644. This is a project/challenge to recover this brick. I already have a replacement. Any solutions are welcome. Motherhood comments are not necessary please. Thanks.
P.S. The recovery mode is not working on this tablet (i.e. pwr/vol+/vol-, fastboot, etc.).

Just wondering: How did you wipe /system without recovery? And how do you access the device now without a working recovery? As you wiped /system, the device wouldn't boot up into normal mode either.

Assuming you're on Android 4+, sh is symlinked to mksh. So why not just adb shell ln -s /system/bin/mksh /system/bin/sh?

You can try to install Busybox, SSHelper and Android Terminal Emulator (ATE). Then try to SSH into your device, if adb shell doesn't work. Google for SSH options how to specify the shell to run with remote SSH login. Probably something like ssh user@ip /system/bin/sh or try with ... /system/xbin/ash. Or in ATE you can specify under settings, the shell to use.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How can I tell if I have a stock recovery?
I need to get rid of the yellow triangle in download mode on a Samsung Galaxy S3 (Android 4.3), for this I tried to use Triangle Away. It failed to reset the counter.
The app mentions that on some devices, both the ROM and the recovery must be stock. The ROM is but I do not know about the recovery. How can I check if it is stock?
The one I have currently looks like this:

Click image for larger version

Based on the screenshot, you have the stock recovery.
The stock recovery normally shows "Android System Recovery <3e>" whereas custom recoveries tend to have their name instead. There are two popular custom recoveries both of which look quite different to the one in your screenshot
ClockworkMod:

TWRP:

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


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Where does "Save media" store pictures in Hangouts?
In Hangouts (in KitKat) if you long click a picture in an MMS you can "Save media". Where is the picture saved to?

They go to your Download folder by default, typically at /sdcard/Download. Note that this may not necessarily be a physical SD card (e.g. on devices that don't have an SD slot it's emulated).
From a practical standpoint, if you need to access them on your device, just open the Gallery or Photos app. The picture will appear in either of those as long as you haven't added a .nomedia file to the Download folder or something.
Also, opening the picture in either Photos or the AOSP Gallery app (possibly others as well) will allow you to discern its physical location by opening the menu and selecting "Details".

Nice, thanks, should have thought to check the Gallery.

Go to your photo's. Click on the three lines at the top left
and it will open your info. Click on 'Device Folder' Your pic should be there.


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bluetooth headphone can't pair
I have LG e975 , android 4.1.2 and a bluetooth stereo headphone Pyle PHBT5  which supports A2DP.
The problem is that bluetooth can't find the device.
Is there something I can try?

What have you tried so far? Toggling bluetooth? Turning the headphones on and off? Can any other devices pair with them?

@ZnewmaN:It's ok now , I had to insist on the 6 seconds I think.Thanks

You need to put the headset into a pairing mode. According to the manual, the procedure is as follows:

Turn the headset off
Press and hold the MFB (Multi-Function Button) for 6 seconds until the LED flashes red and blue alternatively and you hear a beep
Search for Bluetooth devices on your phone and select the PHBT5
Enter 0000 as the PIN if asked
When the pairing is successful and active the LED will flash only blue regularly

:But it can't find it . That's what I am telling :) .

Does the headset go into pairing mode correctly? Can you find other devices on your phone, or can you find the headset on another phone?

:No , it can't pair.Unfortunately I don't have other devices to test and I have  exactly the same LG phone.

:It works!I was holding the MFB button  but I released it before pairing.Now it's ok,thanks!


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Is it effectively possible to get rid of the yellow triangle in download mode on an S3 with 4.3?
I am trying to get rid of the yellow triangle visible just prior to download mode (Volume-Down + Home + Power). There is no shortage of tutorials about how do this, but after having tried all the solutions I could find I am wondering if it is at all possible in my case

This is a Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300)
I have the stock ROM (Android 4.3), it has never been flashed
I have stock recovery (thanks bmdixon) - which has also not been flashed
I tried to use Triangle Away (having rooted the phone before)

When going into download mode I have
CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD: No
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official

For some mysterious reason the phone thinks it has been flashed (it went once to an official Samsung repair so maybe it got the triangle there).
I read that the introduction of Knox in 4.3 makes resetting the counter impossible. However I do not have Knox (even though the phone was updated OTA to 4.3, maybe this is because I am in France).
Is there a solution worth trying to remove the yellow triangle?
(for the story: I went to an official Samsung repair shop and they discovered (together with me) that there is the infamous yellow triangle. While the issue I am having is probably mechanical and the warranty still applies according to European legislation, I do not want to get into lengthy discussions with Samsung. It does not help that I have only 3 days of warranty left...)

First of all, if you're not using KNOX you don't need to worry about the triangle status. Second, to use TriangleAway you have to be rooted, with SuperSU. If the Google Play version doesn't work, try the latest beta v1.99r3 which should fix many SEAndroid related issues. In fact it is highly recommended that you get rooted, so that you can remove both KNOX, OTA updates, and the triangle, before you will receive the next OTA update which may completely lock down your device. If you have never flashed your phone, and it is showing the triangle, you have either received a refurbished device or you have been cheated by the seller. The triangle is an indication that a OTP (one time programmable) fuse has been blown in the past, due to flashing.

I do not worry about the triangle status - this is more Samsung which will, and tell me that my warranty is void. I did root the phone before using Triangle Away (I will add that to the description). The problem is that Triangle Away did not manage to remove it, despite the prereqs (stock Android & recovery)


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Why does Galaxy Nexus i9250 official car charger have 700mA instead of 1000mA?
I discovered that the official Samsung car charger is rated for 700mA, but my stock wall charger has 1000mA. Is that normal? If I buy the 700mA charger, there's the risk that with the navigator on, the battery will not charge?
Instead if I buy this that has 1000mA, will work with my Nexus? Written on it is "for Galaxy Note", but seems OK. Or will I have problems?

It shouldn't matter which one you get, because the internal charging chip "should" control the maximum charging current. So unless you're planning to use your charger with another device that can charge at a higher current, you're wasting your money (unless they cost the same.) If for some reason, like custom ROM or poor firmware, the charging chip is not operating right, you risk burning the vias on the PCB.

Why should it not matter which one I get if my wall charger current has 1000mA? So its maximum charging current should be 1000mA, so why is the official CAR charger at 700mA? Should it be (at 1000mA) like wall charger or not?

That's the maximum current the charger can support. The current that is used by actually charging the phone is determined completely by firmware. The rest is marketing.

So a car charger of 1000mA, can be the same of one of 700mA and re-charge at the same speed. It something that I can't know without trying it, right?
But at least a car charger of 1000mA can't burn anything if I use the stock ROM and firmware, right?
However do you suggest to buy the cheapest between the two samsung charger that I linked?

The amperage marked on the charger is only the maximum capability of the charger, it supplies only as much amps as the phone asks for. I'd pay more attention to the quality of the charger, there's a review here.

So the question is another maybe, how much amperage does my mobile need? Maybe 1000mA because the wall charger have it?
I read the review, but there's no way buying a car-charger from ebay/amazon to understand if it's counterfeit or not. I suppose that the only thing that I can do is to buy a car-charger with wrote "samsung" on it and hope... :D


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How can I record the phone screen from the command prompt?
I have been trying to record my phone screen (Nexus 5) through command prompt.  I have also downloaded the SDK. For some unknown reason I am unable to open or play the file saved using this script:
$adb shell /sdcard/video.mp4

What you call a "script" here actually is an ADB command that cannot work: adb shell just invokes a shell, without further parameters an interactive one. All you pass to it should be run on the device. But you didn't pass a command, but just a file name. So what shall be achieved here? Copying the file to your computer to play it there, or have the video played on the device?

Thank you Izzy, I always thought that the screen was getting recorded. Is it possible that you give me more insight on how do I record a screen? i tried apps like src screen recorders, but they also gave me an .mp4 file that could not play anywhere.

Where (and how) did you try to play the resulting file? Maybe there's something wrong on that end. For the recording part, you might wish to check our other screencast questions ("screencast" is the keyword for this, as is "screenshot" for the "still picture"). I've just fixed the tags on your question this way, too.

Thank you for the corrections. I used another app called "screencast", gave me a file that ran all black. Thanks for the link let me see if I can work with this help.

You can exec this command from the pc
$ adb shell screenrecord /sdcard/video.mp4

Need Android 4.4 (which you should have).
DevBytes: Android 4.4 - Recording App Videos: http://youtu.be/ETzRxxOK_bs

Why does my recording never play?
I have used the same adb commands to get a screen video.
I get an mp4 file too. But it never plays in any player.

Are you sure you are using the correct command to record? In your original Q you said your using the command $adb shell /sdcard/video.mp4 but you need to add in the word 'screenrecord' after the word shell.

Yes I did, I did everything religiously!
Even when I try and play it on windows media player it gives me the following message, "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file."

Do I need SDK for all of this??

Possibly. Though if your using ABD haven't you already got it? I just tried it on my HTC One and Nexus 4 and both work fine.

I have the SDK too, ain't working yet!

What size is the file that it creates?

I made one for 2344 KB.

Have you tried playing it in another media player, such as VLC? I had some issues when trying to record directly from the device where it would create a 3.3kb file and not play, however running the command from Windows works fine for me.


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Delete a specific web page from history in Firefox Aurora for Android?
Is there a way to delete a specific site visited from the browsing history without needing to clear it completely?

Do you also use Firefox for PC?

Yes, I do. And I use Firefox Sync

You can only delete specific visited pages while going through the complete browser's history.
I asked because you can't actually delete any visit while they are filtered out by a search query. I think this should be allowed as a feature because if you had a big history you would need to spend an unimaginable amount of time to delete a very old entry while browsing it completely.

The file places.sqlite stores history information. I suppose that if you manage to delete the entries you want from there and then sync your changes then these entries won't show up in your history. Here is some info about editing this file

You can actually delete sites from the desktop without any hacks. But, I imagine that Android app will always have the visited site in its local database and re-sync it back to the desktop.


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16GB memory card, ive used 2GB and yet have 14GB of free space, how can i use that 14GB and why is it saying low of space on sd card???
im using my 16gb memory card as to store all my apps on etc.. as my internal memory is too full so i chamged my sd card to default storage, but now as i have been using it it says storage space is getting low... but when i check it i therefore have 14gb left in total space i can use but it wont let me ... that's heaps of space I can use, I've tried moving apparently from sd to phone but internal is too full so I can't... I don't see how I need to do that anyway as I've only used up 2gb on sd and yet have 14gb I can use but why is it saying low on storage space on my sd? And how can I go by using the other 14gb ?

I assume your device (name?) is rooted? How did you make your SDCard the "default storage"? I know it's possible on some devices to switch internal/external SDCard addressing, but I've never heard someone switching device-internal storage to SD.

This may be expected, depending on what phone you are using.  The original standard of SD card readers had a 2GB limit on them.  These readers could read cards that had more space, but only had enough memory registers to read the first 2GB of them.  Sometimes a firmware update can increase this from 2GB to 4GB, but it's extremely rare.
From the wikipedia article on the SD standard:

Capacity
SDSC (SD): 1 MB to 2 GB,
   some 4 GB available.
SDHC: >2 GBs to 32 GB
SDXC: >32 GB to 2 TB,
   some 32 GB available.

So there is no way I can change it?

You mean, there are really Android devices out there being bound to some standard that old? SDHC was released 2006, according to the linked Wikipedia page. The first Android devices came 2008. I doubt even the very first ones came without SDHC.

This is why I said "may be expected".  Depends on the device and whatever settings are anywhere else.  There isn't any information on what device is being used, but it's the only thing I can think of that would limit a card to 2GB.  It may even be a software issue that is locking the phone to the old SD standard instead of SDHC, which a firmware/software update can fix.


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Pending Notifications icons are black and white (no color)
I have a Nexus 5.
All of the sudden I've noticed that the pending notifications icons at the top left of the my phone are black and white instead of some of them being colored. I don't know what happened. I didn't change any settings in the past couple of days. The only thing I've done is installed Yahoo News digest App.
Is there a setting that I could double check or someplace on my phone that addresses this problem?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that supposed to be this way with Kitkat?

@Izzy I don't think all of the icons are supposed to be black and white. I'm not 100000% certain, but I think some of my pending notifications icons were colored before.

According to the official design guide, notification icons are supposed to be white only.
Some apps do break the rules, so perhaps it's just that you had an app that used to have colourful icons but was updated to bring it into line with the rules.


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Can I add my own themes to the new Theme section in the Personalize settings?
The latest update to KitKat 4.4.2 on my HTC ONE added a new Theme section to my Personalize settings. Right now, it just lists out four pre-defined themes, which appear to just be a wallpaper and a set of colors which control the global theme of the phone and apps.

Currently, the most bearable for me is the all black one, but the button colors with it are green which is kind of annoying me. I'd love to be able to modify them to be blue, but I don't see any way to modify the themes or even add my own. There's no additional menu when viewing that screen, no popup for long-pressing a theme, nothing. You can only select one and click Apply.
Is there a simple way to add my own themes to this list, or is there even a way to add themes to this list?

As far as I recall you have to install the themes as an .apk file, and you can't uninstall them afterwards. Head to XDA for your device model and into the 'themes and apps' section and see if anything is there. http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one/themes-apps


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SMS notification on Bluetooth
How can I get text notifications on my 390 Plantronics bluetooth device from my Galaxy Prevail 2 if it has that feature?
I have tried my settings in my phone but it only has the option for call audio.
What else can I do?

What kind of text notifications are you talking about? Message alert tone?

If you're talking about Audio here (e.g. having notifications, alarms, etc. sent to your (Bluetooth) headset), you might wish to take a look at SoundAbout:

SoundAbout settings screens (source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)
This app allows you to define which audio signal is routed where (even on certain conditions). I'm not sure how far the free version goes concerning Bluetooth, as the app description says Bluetooth behavior - (Pro version). To my understanding, those "behavior settings" only include specifics like "force to mono", but I don't use the app myself, and thus cannot tell for sure.

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


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Where should I put Music files?
I've used BitTorrent Sync to copy my music library to /storage/emulated/0/Music/ preserving the structure I use everywhere else, but no playback application seems to be finding the music.
Where should I be placing these files so that music playback can find it?
I've tried Shuttle & DoubleTwist, but neither finds my music. I did not try Google Play Music because I understand it's more focused on streaming.

Normally, the MediaScanner should pick them up from any place, add them to the library, and your player should find them. That works smoothly and immediately if you use the means the designers had in mind (connect your device via MTP, transfer the files, disconnect – the MediaScanner will start immediately).
But as you use a different way (we are bad doing so – I'm doing it as well ;), MediaScanner is not triggered immediately. So you either have to wait until it decides to run – or trigger it manually:

it runs on every device boot, so a reboot triggers it
it runs whenever the SDCard is mounted. So if your device has an external SDCard, going to Settings → Storage, and un-mounting plus re-mounting the card will trigger it
as both above solutions are not really satisfying: there are several apps on Play which let you trigger it manually, by just tapping their shortcut. One candidate still working with Kitkat is SD Scanner.

See also my answers here and here.
Alternatively, you could try a music player that doesn't rely on the MediaScanner. One example for those would be the GoneMad Music Player: Here you can define yourself which directories you want scanned, and can trigger a scan yourself from inside the app whenever needed. Those rescans are blazingly fast, as they only scan directories you've defined – instead of checking everywhere on the device.

Though really the app you're using to sync the files ought to trigger the media scanner yourself. Try a different one, or complain to the developers.


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Any New (not low end) phones using Froyo (or Froyo-style software system)?
Considering the bugs I've heard about the newer Androids (battery life, GPS and distance etc), and the fact that Froyo/gingerbread have better menu systems (larger, with text, not a toolbar), as well as more hardware buttons, 8 recent apps shown in the hold-home listing instead of 2 or 3... I was wondering if there are any modern phones with 2.2 or 2.3-based ROMs?
The problem is, with this old of a phone (or new one, they still sell 2.2/2.3 phones in stores) you shouldn't use the default browser, it has many known security vulnerabilities.
Considering the open source nature of it, I would be surprised to hear there is not a Froyo-skin or a version of Froyo with updated API.

Thing is, if a manufacturer would decide bringing a new phone on the market with such an old system, he'd get no license to pre-install any Google apps. Either your device runs an up-to-date Android version (I don't remember the details completely on what's counted here as "up-to-date", whether it were the latest two versions, or a version "not older than x months" – but Froyo is definitely out, as is Gingerbread, and IMHO even ICS) – or no Google Apps. As a device without Google Play pre-installed isn't that big selling hit for most people, manufacturers want the GApps shipping with their device. That doesn't leave much choice.
So it's pretty unlikely you will find a device with up-to-date hardware running Froyo or Gingerbread.
This doesn't keep modders from "skinning" the look-and-feel, sure. And many things can modified that way. Though I've never heard/read from any modification in this direction, you might find some "ROM kitchen" or the like offering it.


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Not receiving WhatsApp messages unless I open the app when on 3G (on WiFi there is no delay)
I have recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S4, Android version 4.4.2, and for some reason I only receive my WhatsApp messages when I open the app. This only happens when I am on 3G. When connected to a WiFi network, there is no delay at all.
I have uninstalled and re-installed, I have checked the restricted data setting (it is not ticked).
What did I miss?

By "restricted data setting" do you mean "Restrict background data"?

Also uncheck "Restrict background data" on Google Play services

Samsung phones have an option to sync data in the background, disabling it, saves data, as updates are only checked for when an app is open (email/im/whatsapp etc). You need to enable that (see green icon in image below) to let your apps periodically check for data.

Screenshot (click for larger variant)

That's not specific to Samsung devices (though maybe the way they're placing it in the quick access bar is). All Android devices have that. But you're 100% correct in identifying the most likely culprit :)

your right, of course, android has this built in since its early days, but its not so readily accessible on other manufacturers phones - and I've seen this culprit for this issue on a number of family/friends samsung phones. They do not understand it and turn it off, leading to issues.

Could this also be in your "Smart Manager". When you click on "Battery", it says "Optimising". When your apps are selected, it will only updates when you actually opens the app.
And it can also be your "power saving mode" problem in smart manager. Once you click on power saving it shows you restrict all background data, this should be disabled.

The problem and this solution are not restricted to Samsung. Asus has a power saver with 4 levels, two of which turn off networks when asleep.


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'Insufficient storage' when installing Google play services
Before you hit reply or scream duplicate - read through what I've done.
The phone is a rooted HTC One X running 4.2.2 and ViperX custom ROM with 836 MB free space on 'app' storage and 6.6 GB free space on phone storage (which has 32 GB total). If you didn't already know, the phone has no microSD slot.

Already seen this answer, and it does not apply. My /cache directory has 314M free space available.
Already deleted /data/app-lib/com.google.app.vending.
Went to app settings for Google Play Services, hit 'clear cache'.
Emptied app and Dalvik caches, rebooted.
Fixed the same problem for Titanium Backup by deleting the relevant directory under /data/app-lib/ and reinstalling.

Update:
Directory listing -
Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
/dev                   492M   128K   492M   4096
/mnt/secure            492M     0K   492M   4096
/mnt/asec              492M     0K   492M   4096
/mnt/obb               492M     0K   492M   4096
/system                  1G   915M   344M   4096
/data                    2G     1G   966M   4096
/cache                 314M     5M   309M   4096
/rca                     5M     4M     1M   4096
/rfs                     5M     4M     1M   4096
/devlog                 21M    16M     4M   4096
/data/DxDrm/fuse: Permission denied
/mnt/asec/com.keramidas.TitaniumBackupPro-1     2M   100K     1M   4096
/storage/sdcard0        25G    18G     6G   32768
/mnt/secure/asec        25G    18G     6G   32768
/mnt/asec/com.jarodyv.livewallpaper.matrixglpro-1     2M   604K     1M   4096

Just for clarification: What do you consider "app storage", and what "phone storage"? Both terms usually refer to the same place (/data). Could it be you mean this by "app storage", and want to refer to the internal SDCard with the other term? If not, could you point to the partition you're referring to? "Insufficient memory" refers to /data usually (for details, please see our insufficient-memory tag-wiki).

The terminology used by the phone..app storage is about 2 GB, and phone storage is what is advertised as '32 GB' - used for storing media as well as apps that can be moved to SD card. Pretty confusing the way different manufacturers refer to it, but I hope you get the picture.

Yuck, that's strange. Going by your mountpoint (not "directory") listing, there should be no "insufficient storage" reported, so that rather looks like a bug.


text:
how can I stop media scanning?
I have a LG L7 mobile. From 2 days ago I have a serious problem with scanning media files. I turn on my mobile and scanning media files started scanning. after that scanning media files completed it started again and again and until know it is scanning. I do not know is it a hardware or software problem? what I have to do? please help me.

This can often be caused by filesystem corruption on the SD card. The SD card might appear to work normally if you don't access the corrupted parts of the filesystem, but since the media scanner reads the whole filesystem, it's much more likely to get stuck on a corrupted file or directory.
Try removing the SD card and using a card reader on your PC to check the filesystem (e.g. with scandisk or fsck).


text:
What is the difference between CMDA, GSM, P1000L. and P1000N?
I'm looking to root (cyanogenmod) a Galaxy Tab I have lying around. Looking on the CMG site, I see that there are 4 different versions: GSM, CDMA, P1000L, and P1000N.
What are the differences between these? And how can I tell what version my tablet has?

The actual model number of your Galaxy Tab can be found in Settings -> About -> Model number.

GSM and CDMA refer to the 2G/3G cellular technologies used by phones and tablets.  In USA, AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, while Sprint and Verizon use CDMA.
GT-P1000L and GT-P1000N are variants of the international Galaxy Tab GT-P1000 version that were released by Samsung for Latin America markets.  Both P1000L and P1000N models have GSM connectivity.  You can find the exact version you have in Settings -> About under the Model number section.
In terms of rooting and installing CyanogenMod, you will need to refer to the CyanogenMod wiki for the respective model (P1000L or P1000N).


text:
How does my phone start installing apps so quickly when initiated from the play on-line store?
When I go to the Google Play on-line store and install an app, how does my phone know to install it? Is it using push notifications? Quite often it happens within a few seconds so presumably it can't be using polling.
I just don't understand the nature of the connection between my phone and Google's servers.

Yes, it's using a push notification via Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), the same as Google+ Hangouts, Google+, Gmail, and some third-party apps.

Google Play uses C2DM (Cloud to Device Messaging) to inform your device about the download. On your device, the Google Play Store app has registered a corresponding "receiver", so it knows this message was meant for it, and downloads the .apk – which then gets installed to your device.
And yes, your guess was right: C2DM is also often referred to with the term "push notification".

C2DM is deprecated, and replaced by Google Cloud Messaging, in the Google Play Services library.

@DanHulme Ah, didn't know that. As a non-dev, I always assumed the two being the same (even the corresponding app permissions are called c2dm.permission.SEND resp. c2dm.permission.RECEIVE). So thanks for the pointer!


text:
Samsung Galaxy Exhibit - Email Photo Problem
I have a Samsung Galaxy Exhibit. When my husband sends me photos in email I can see the small preview picture but when I click on it it reverts to an older picture that he sent me. I think I accidentally locked it to that older picture. How do I unlock it? I can see others pictures with no problem. Thank you!!

I think the original Samsung application is not good enough and has some bugs.
So you can use apps from your mail service like Gmail and Yahoo applications or use applications which support multiple email services like Aqua Mail.

You could provide links to the apps you mention to make your answer more useful.


text:
My wifi turns on randomly and automatically.
I never turn my WiFi on because I have an unlimited data plan. I recently noticed that it is autonomously enabled randomly.
How can I find the culprit that keeps turning my WiFi on?  Is there a way I can catch the application that launched the WiFi enable Intent?
I have been going on a blind search thus far and I still notice my WiFi turning on. Thanks in advance! I have a Nexus 4 running Android 4.4

In my case, it turned out to be the Anti-theft feature of Avast because I recently changed my sim card.  Hopefully this saves someone the pain I went through...

I had the same thing happening on my Huawei phone. Turns out it was the Wi-Fi+ feature. Settings -> Wi-Fi -> Wi-Fi+ -> Off.

KitKat has a feature where, when Wi-Fi is turned off, it periodically scans for networks to allow Wi-Fi-based location detection to work. To turn this off:-

Go to the Wi-Fi settings
On the overflow menu (the three dots) select Advanced
Uncheck Scanning always available

Even when an app turns on Wi-Fi fully, this isn't done with an intent; rather, it's done by calling the method WifiManager.setWifiEnabled. Only apps with the permission  "connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi" can do this.

Thanks for the response! I have previously unchecked this option, but the issue remains.

If it's not that KitKat feature Dan mentioned, and the intervals are reasonably short (so e.g. it happens at least once while you're sleeping at night):

enable USB debugging
connect your device to your PC via USB
on your PC, run adb logcat | tee wifi.log
go to bed
next morning, press Ctrl+C
check wifi.log to see when it was triggered (and hopefully, by whom)

This should at least help narrowing things down. Even if it doesn't explicitly state "App X triggering WiFi", you can check for patterns, like "evertime WiFi had been turned on, I find event Z of app X mentioned a few lines before". Good indicator it might have to do with X then. So check whether X has some network (or "coarse location") permissions requested (and granted), as if not, it's unlikely to be your candidate. Otherwise, try disabling/freezing/uninstalling it, and see if your issue is gone. If so, you found it – if not, repeat with the next.

@Izzy can I simply find the applications with the Wi-Fi change state permission and then simply un-install the app on Android 4.1.2.The same problem only occurs regular time intervals.

If you want to use that approach, see my answer here. Combining the two approaches might be a little safer, so you don't uninstall the wrong app ;)

I had the same issue with my device (Note 3). T-Mobile doesn't seem to have a "Connection Optimizer" feature in its line of phones. In T-mo's case the feature that needs to be disabled is the "Wi-Fi Manager".
To disable this feature you need to do the following:

Access your T-Mobile account (for me I just press on the "T-Mobile My Account" App).
Press the menu button on your device, then select "Options".
Under "Notifications" uncheck the box marked "Display Wi-Fi Manager notifications".
Under "Connection Assistant" select "Open Wi-Fi manager".
Uncheck the box for "Manage Wi-Fi Connections".

That's it...
I talked to T-mobile tech support about an unrelated issue and offhandedly mentioned this problem. The rep informed me that this was a known issue and stated that this issue was being addressed. In the mean time disabling the "Wi-Fi Manager" is a temporary fix to address this problem. Here is the shorthand way to disable the Wi-Fi manager:
T-Mobile My Account -> Menu -> Options -> "Display Wi-Fi Manager Notifications" (Uncheck) -> "Open Wi-Fi Manager" (under "Connection Assistant") -> (Uncheck) "Manage Wi-Fi Connections".


text:
Stuck into "Obtaining IP address" when connecting to WiFi
I have a Nexus 4 with Android 4.4.3 on it.
I can't connect anymore to my home WiFi. I've done no update, and I was actually able to connect several weeks ago. I've done anything special.
Today I've tried to change my WiFi access name, reboot many times, turn on and off the WiFi, change the name of my phone but nothing works. I'm stuck at "Authenticating..." or "Obtaining IP address" when connecting to the WiFi.
I saw I'm not alone to have this problem on the Internet but I can't find a solution to my problem, so if anyone knows !

Have you tried removing the WiFi APN and doing a fresh connect? Maybe something got messed up in its settings.

Had this problem on an Aztech router months ago, had to wait for the IP lease to expire so DHCP could work again. Maybe your router is having trouble giving out IP addresses?

After new problems on other devices, I decided to reset my Livebox. There is no problem anymore ! My phone can connect to the WiFi :)


text:
View "What's New" in landscape in the Play Store
When I'm on my Nexus 7 (2013) in landscape mode, the Play Store shows me the permissions list, but nothing about what's changed in the application being updated. In portrait mode I get the full details. Is there some way to quickly view application details in landscape mode?

Of course I would figure this out just after asking the question:
You can view the application details in landscape mode by first selecting the application in the left-side panel, then clicking the larger application icon or title in the right-side pane.


text:
Verizon Activation Setup Galaxy s3
I recently bought a new contract-free Verizon CDMA Samsung Galaxy S3 for testing purpose and I couldn't pass the activation setup wizard. When I reached the customer service they said I have to activate it to use it which is lame. I buy a 300$ phone and they force me to activate it with a plan to use it. How can I skip this?
I tried how-do-i-bypass-the-verizon-activation-on-a-samsung-fascinate but it didnt work.

Might not be the answer you were hoping for: But I'd return such a "brick" immediately and have my money back. Tampering with the device might just void that chance. If they didn't tell you about that restriction when you bought it, it's their fault: you can argue they knowingly sold you something you cannot use.

@Izzy Yup You are right!! Business tactics. It is my company mobile. Some how I activated that phone with with prepaid plan and didn't pay anything and successfully able to use it in wifi.

Looks like that's a solution: liberal pricing (get the cheapest prepaid, throw away when empty), liberal effort (instead of days for googling etc.). Do you count it such? Then make it an answer, and accept it (as soon as it's due for that: AFAIR you can accept your own answer after ~48h earliest).

I activated that phone with a prepaid plan and didn't pay anything and successfully able to use it in wifi.


text:
How can I reset WiFi without rebooting the phone?
Sometimes WiFi networks are not picked up on my Moto G. Switching WiFi or flight mode on and off does not solve the problem, however a phone reboot does.
Does anybody know of a way I can reset the WiFi completely without rebooting the phone?
For example, with 3G issues I would go to the testing menu (*#*#4636#*#*) and switch the radio on and off, or switch flight mode on and off, which would typically cure the problem. Anything similar for WiFi? Thank you.

Is it rooted? You could flash a newer / different radio. Have you tried any wifi fixer applications from the play store? Has this always happened or just started? Have you done anything with the device lately: updated firmware, rooted, flashed a rom or mod, dropped it?

This phone is not rooted and has the standard 4.4.2 software. This is an issue that has started with a particular network after working fine a few days. I have only updated things like Chrome, Chrome beta & the Google music player. I have not tried WiFi fixer apps, any recommendations?

I'm afraid I don't know which are good. I'd say try something highly rated in the store. It's worth a shot. Is it a specific network, or ALL WiFi? There could be a compatability issue with the router, or just a dodgy internet connection. It's hard to narrow down.

There's an option in WiFi settings that makes Android ignore networks with weak signal.  You may want yo confirm this option is off.

Go to Settings > Backup & reset > Network settings reset
It will reset the WiFi, but it will also delete your APNs and all your WiFi passwords. So, be careful.

This feature was not introduced until Android Lollipop (5.0), previous Android versions did not have a Network Settings Reset option, as the OP stated, this question is specific to Android KitKat, which does not have this option. (Just noticed this question was from 3 years ago... Will remove down vote but leave comment)

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


text:
Move /#/data/app to external SD
Folks I've rooted my device and installed Directory Bind. I'm not sure if I can move the /#/data/app folder to an external SD. There I have all my .apk files. But I seem unable to find this folder when I look for it in Directory Bind. I'm confused about it. I could sucessfully move the data files but not the .apks what am I missing?

try using a different file explorer other then the default one.

When you use directory bind does it ask for root?

It does ask for root. Hence it would not be able to access the sudo binary right?

What do you mean by the # in your path?
What you should do is this, Get Android SDK (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html) if you haven't got it already, then enable debugging mode on your phone and connect your phone to your pc with usb cable.
In the file explorer lookup the symlink to your external sdcard. its probably /extSdCard or /external_sd
Now open up an terminal window and enter:
adb root
adb remount
adb shell busybox mv -f /data/app /extSdCard/

it would move the app folder to your external sdcards root dir.
Or download terminal emulator app and enter:
su
busybox mv -f /data/app /extSdCard/

This should work, if not let me know

Hi, the # stands for the "/" folder. File system base.

so that's a useless addition, since / is already the root, no /#/ is needed. Anyways, try it pls

I also should add it that even if you move that folder, you can not use the apps within /data/app from external sdcard.


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Safe download URL for odin3?
There are so many odin3 download websites I am not sure what is a trusted url to download an odin tool suitable for flashing my International Note3 SMN9005.
Can someone provide a link and maybe some upvotes to confirm it's safe.  I'd hate to brick my $800 phone due to some messed up copy of odin.

More often than not, the download links on XDA are trustworthy.

It's always a good idea to take a look into the corresponding tag-wiki :)

I understand this is an old question, but FlashFire has emerged as the "spiritual successor" to Odin. It's developed by Chainfire, who's also responsible for other things like StickMount, SuperSU and LiveBoot and is a highly regarded name in the Android community.
FlashFire is currently in beta, so getting it is slightly more involved:

Join the FlashFire Google+ Community
Download the app from Google Play

If you still want Odin however, this XDA thread appears to offer a popular and trusted version.


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flashing jelly bean(4.2.2) on nexus 5(hammerhead)
I am trying to flash jelly bean on Nexus 5 but didn't find any factory images , is it possible to flash the jelly bean(4.2.2) image generated by downloading & compiling the 4.2.2 AOSP source code
i tried running lunch command but didn't found the "aosp_hammerhead_userdebug" is there any other way to flash 4.2.2 on nexus 5

Its because Nexus 5 not came with Jellybean. It was Kitkat. That is why you can't find Jellybean factory images for Nexus 5. You may try to flash custom Jellybean ROMs(4.2.2) for Nexus 5 if available.

I am afraid you cant because Nexus 5 shipped with kitkat and backward compatibility is not supported.


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Heartbleed check for Android App
How I can check whether a particular android app is vulnerable to heartbleed or not? I don't want to use any third party app.
I have seen https://github.com/musalbas/heartbleed-masstest/blob/master/ssltest.py but I want to do it with app. I don't know the domain name the app is communicating to. Are the app bundle the OpenSSL libraries with apk, If yes how to find the version of OpenSSL being used.
@Solution:
I have wriiten python module which takes an APK and it do the check for openSSL version and heartbeat extension.

import zipfile
import os
import re

def heart_bleed(tempdir, msl_outputfile):
    parrent_tempdir = tempdir.split('tmp')[0]
    sslpattern = re.compile("1.0.1[a-f]")
    flagssl = False
    flagheartbleed = False

    msllst_heartbleed = []
    msc_vulid = "heartbleed"
    msc_infoseverity = "Info"
    msc_medseverity = "Medium"
    apkpath = ''
    if (parrent_tempdir):
        for root, dummy_dirs, files in os.walk(parrent_tempdir):
            for allfile in files:
                if allfile.endswith(".apk"):

                    apkpath = os.path.join(root, allfile)

        #print(apkpath)
        with zipfile.ZipFile(apkpath, "r") as msl_apkread:
            for i in msl_apkread.namelist():
                if i.endswith(".so"):
                    data = msl_apkread.read(i)
                    if "part of OpenSSL" in data:
                        start = data.index("part of OpenSSL")
                        resultdata = str(data[start:start+40])
                        sslversion = re.findall(sslpattern, resultdata)
                        if sslversion:
                            flagssl = True

                            if "tls1_heartbeat" in data:
                                flagheartbleed = True

        if flagssl and flagheartbleed:
            print("The App is using OpenSSL version " + sslversion[0] + " which is vulnerable to Heartbleed and Heartbeat extension is enabled."))
        elif flagssl or flagheartbleed:
            print("The App is using OpenSSL version " + sslversion[0] + " which is vulnerable to Heartbleed but Heartbeat extension is disabled."))

Please comment is it right to do ?

It will be hard to test something without a tester. Android doesn't ship with a Test-App for Heartbleed (or any other security hole, such as the Master Key Exploit discovered about a year ago), as this would somehow defeat the purpose: Such a check-app must know about the security hole and how to check for it, and thus requires knowledge about that. If that knowledge is there, instead of writing an app to check for the hole, the devs rather should decide to fix it in the first place – which would make that app obsolete :)
So if a 3rd party app is not acceptable for you, you're most likely out of luck. But in case you change your mind, you can find several security-checkers in this list. There's e.g. Heartbleed Security Scanner, which is pretty well rated (as of now, 4.6 stars with over 5,000 votes), and you can find it introduced in this AndroidPIT blog post.
Linked list category also holds some security suites covering multiple exploits and security risks, which might be a good choice to check if you're interested how it stands about security with your device.

I'm wondering how the other apps(Heartbleed detector,TrendMicro heartbleed detector, etc ) are detecting the the other installed apps for heartbleed.
Please give me some insights.

AFAIK those apps are not OpenSource, so that question is hard to answer from the outside. You'll have to ask the corresponding developers for this.

Apps don't generally bundle OpenSSL themselves: rather, Android ships with OpenSSL included in the main framework, so in most cases it's the Android version that has or does not have the vulnerability, rather than the app itself. That said, it's certainly possible for an app to include its own OpenSSL, it's just unusual.
How does the Heartbleed security vulnerability affect my Android device? explains that only Android version 4.1.1 is vulnerable itself.
If the app contains a statically linked OpenSSL binary, and you don't want to use an app to check the behaviour, you have to unpackage the APK file to find the library.

I'm wondering how the other apps(Heartbleed detector,TrendMicro heartbleed detector, etc ) are detecting the the other installed apps for heartbleed. Please give me some insights

Please don't add further questions as comments. If you think your original question was unclear, you can edit it to say what you mean; otherwise, use the Ask question button to ask a new question.


text:
Nexus 7 is not being detected on Mac
Nexus 7 is only charging if it is connected to my mac. It is not being detected in Android Studio nor Android file transfer and there isn't anything popping up or showing a USB symbol on the Nexus. I enabled the "USB debugging" option in the Developer menu.
The connection mode was set by default to MTP.
Is there a problem with the cable, port or OS?

Can you see the device if you run system_profiler SPUSBDataType in Terminal.app?

Download the Android File System application.
Install the Android File System app by opening the DMG file, and then dragging the App into your Applications folder.

Once installed, connect your Nexus 7 to your Mac via the USB cable.  Open up the Android File System app.  It should recognize your tablet and then open up a Finder type window.

You can drag and drop files and media into the window. Additionally, you can create new folders and delete files. Be sure you know what files your deleting as you can break the OS by deleting or altering essential system files.

If you get a “No Device Found” message, be sure your Nexus 7 is in Media device (MTP) transfer mode. You can do this by swiping down to open the notification tray and then tapping on the Connected As… message.

Source

I don't understand why this was accepted since the question states the Nexus was not being detected in Android File Transfer.  Also, why do you say "Android File System" when all your screenshots show "Android File Transfer"?  I'm having the same trouble myself, but the "it should recognize your tablet" step of your instructions is what isn't working.

Connect your Nexus 7 to Mac via USB cable. Now go to Settings -> Developer options and turn On the USB debugging.
If you don't see Developer Options under Settings then, go to Settings -> About Tablet and tap on the Build Number multiple times (7 times) to enable the Developer Options.

"I enabled the "USB debugging" option in the Developer menu." -- did you not read the question?


text:
When I block somebody in Viber can he still see my online status?
When I block somebody in Viber can he still see my online status? Or will he still receive "delivered" icon?

He will receive the delivered icon and your status.

Yes, blocked contacts can still see your Online status.

How does that correspond with "Your online status will not be visible to a blocked contact" from FAQ (same in android specific version)?

From VIBER themselves:
What happens when I block a contact?
When you block a contact, you prevent them from contacting you via one-on-one messages or calls to your mobile device on Viber. You also prevent them from adding you to a group conversation.
A few notes about blocking contacts:

You will not be able to send messages or make phone calls to contacts you have blocked.
Your profile information will be visible to the blocked contact if you were saved in their contact list before the block, but they will not see any changes made to that information. If you were not saved in their contact list at the time of the block, no profile information will be visible.
Your online status will not be visible to a blocked contact
Unblocking a contact will not restore messages or calls they sent while they were blocked.
Calls and push notifications from blocked contacts may still be received on Viber for tablets, Viber for Desktop and Viber for Windows 8.
Blocking a contact will not delete previous message and call history.
Blocking a contact will not prevent you from seeing messages they send in a group you are both participating in.
Blocking a contact will prevent this contact from adding you to a group chat.
Blocked users will see a "Sent" message status for the messages they send you.
The message status will never say "Delivered" or "Seen"

No they can't see you online status. .. I sent an email to viber asking them this. They informed me that I will see theirs but they cant see mine.  Messages will sho to them as delivered but thats all.

Can you quote the email you received? I'm sure it wouldn't compromise your privacy, or you can remove that specific part at least.


text:
What are the advantages of Android apps being single threaded?
I read a statement on http://developer.android.com that said:

When an application is launched, the system creates a thread of execution for the application, called "main." This thread is very important because it is in charge of dispatching events to the appropriate user interface widgets, including drawing events. It is also the thread in which your application interacts with components from the Android UI toolkit. The system does not create a separate thread for each instance of a component. All components that run in the same process are instantiated in the UI thread, and system calls to each component are dispatched from that thread.

I just wanted to know why Android has opted for this single threaded model architecture and not gone for multi-threaded. What are the advantages that they are getting out of this?

As your question suggests a "more threads the better" philosophy: be aware that having more threads than cores carries an ever increasing performance penalty. So if you have a dual core phone/tablet(or PC) you only really want 2 threads that are actually doing significant work (and probably a third that is handling user interaction). Applications where everything has its own thread are generally painfully slow

Android apps aren't single-threaded. Although there's one main thread as described in the documentation you quoted, apps can start as many other threads as they need.
The advantage of all GUI interactions being on one thread is that the GUI code can be simpler, faster, and more predictable, because GUI state isn't being changed concurrently from different threads. It also makes thread-safety easier for app developers by providing a message queue, similar to those found in other OSes' GUI frameworks. The app author just needs to make sure all long operations are performed in background threads, sending messages back to the main thread to update the GUI, and that way the GUI remains responsive all the time.

My first "big app" when learning fell into this trap. A big database lookup on the same thread as the UI, so you can't interract at all or use a 'cancel' button as the GUI thread is tied up. It teaches you fast to use threads / asychronous tasks. "main" is usually the point of execution in programming and the initial or 'main' thread of an application like int main() in C or public static void main(String[] args) in Java and so on. It runs as the main bit of your appliction, as something has to be the starting point.

+1. NetworkOnMainThreadException just proves that an Android app supports (and sometime, needs) multiple threads to work functionally.

The Android docs are just saying the main thread should compute all UI related functions.  It's the job of the developer to create additional threads when getting data from local SQLite database or from the network, or even if you're creating a compute heavy custom View with alot of display logic.
For a really comprehensive look into Concurrency in Android and mutli-threading, check out
Asynchronous Android from Steve Liles
Awesome awesome book.


text:
Sudden surge in network usage by unknown processes
Phone Details:
Model: Nexus 4 (mako)
Current ROM: Paranoid Android 4.3-BETA2
Xposed Present? Yes

I flashed the new Paranoid Android 4.4- BETA1 today and noticed my phone downloading something. I had not initiated any downloads, so I assumed it was just some app syncing. After about 3 minutes, it had downloaded around 50MB which seemed fishy. So, I assumed that the Paranoid Android build was buggy and switched back to 4.3-BETA2. However, the problem seemed to be infectious.
On the 4.4-BETA1 build it was just one port which was used for downloading and it was the port for com.google.uid.shared:10050.
However, now there are several ports which are downloading. They're all apparently in the foreground. Any idea how I can find which app introduced them and remove them? As a temporary solution I'm using a firewall.
Screenshots

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

Did you do a clean flash of PA 4.4 B1 or did you install it over the top of your previous ROM?

To be more clear: Did your "new flash" include a wipe of Dalvik, Cache, and Data?

@1990clb - Since it was just an update, I flashed it over the previous ROM. The return to the 4.3-BETA2 was also by flashing. I didn't restore a backup.

@Izzy - Yes, it included a wipe of Dalvik and Cache for the switch from PA4.3-B2 to PA4.4-B1, up on return it included was a factory reset followed by flashing of PA4.3-B2 and Dalvik, Cache wipe.

Okay, first thing I would try is re-flash but with a factory reset. They did advise this on the Google+ page but it was hard to spot!
https://plus.google.com/107979589566958860409/posts/GqHdB661aEr

@1990clb - As you can see from my reply to izzy, I did do that while switching back to my original ROM.


text:
how to increase the vibration of pressing home button
I have a Nexus 5.
My phone vibrates when I press the home button. The problem is the vibration is a little weaker than I would like. Is there a way to increae the vibratoin intensity of that feature?
I've come across this app but it's doesn't work well on my phone.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dunnow.software.vibrationTuner
Is there a setting in Android like this?

Have you rooted your device? Would you be looking for a solution that is non-root? Are you still using the stock version of Android or have you installed any custom ROM?

No, i have not rooted my phone. I'd prefer to find a non-rooted if that is possible. I'm still using the stock version of Android. I have not installed any custom ROM.

I doubt you will ever find any program that doesn't require root access. However I am really curious about this.


text:
How to sync between PC and android by WiFi File Explorer PRO?
I bought the app because it says "In this PRO version, you can also upload, sync, delete, copy, and zip or unzip all the files on your Android phone and computer"
I can download, upload, but I don't know how to sync a folder.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OZOTSQ/ref=mas_ty

Alternatives Cheetah Sync
Wifi Syncr

Yeah, sure there are alternatives (my preference for sync still is FolderSync, I'm quite happy with it). But the question was specifically about a "promised feature" of the app in the question (sorry, I don't know it either, as I never used that app).


text:
Samsung Galaxy 3 is HOT
Sometimes after using my phone for a bit, it gets super hot where the battery is. When that happens, I close all programs and don't use it for awhile; it eventually cools down.
This also happens a lot when I use the phone in my car for GPS and have it charging.
Any idea why this happens and how to mitigate?

The transfer of energy in a lithium ion battery generates heat. The components in the phone generate heat.
Charging with GPS will generate the most heat as the GPS, cell radio and battery are all being used, while charging.  Anything you do while charging will cause the phone to get hotter than if it were running on battery alone.
Also, the heat while on battery will come from a few sources. First, the more power it is using (GPS, CPU intensive apps, large downloads, hotspot mode, high screen brightness, etc.), the more heat will be released from the battery. Also the components themselves, like the cell radio and the cpu/gpu will generate heat. Combine all these factors in different combinations, the device can heat up.
Also, there is a known radio bug that can cause it to heat up too. If the phone loses service, it goes to max power to reacquire signal. Sometimes the phone doesn't drop to normal power after the signal is restored, causing the radio to operate at max power, generating heat and placing a large draw on the battery, again resulting in more heat. This will be evidenced by a linear decline in your battery and high heat after a loss of service. A simple reboot will solve this, though it can still happen again.
And if you are concerned about the phone overheating, it won't. If the CPU gets too hot, it will just slow down the CPU until it cools down. If the battery gets too hot, it will shut off completely. You can turn it back on when it cools down. (If it gets too hot while charging, the first thing it will do is reduce the charging current or shut it off completely, before shutting off.)


text:
Android gallery, Connected devices list, How are they connected?
I have Android Jelly Bean 4.2,  When I open Gallery, Select the sort list (top left) it lists "connected devices", there are three devices connected currently,  I am using a company wireless network connection (cell is poor inside here). I have not enabled any devices to connect in my Settings, Connect and share, everything is disabled or prompt. I do not understand how any devices could be connected?
Thanks, wrmcnut

Stack Overflow is for programming questions. Are you the author of "Gallery"?

Perhaps those 'connected' devices are DLNA-enabled devices on the same network as yours?


text:
Enable rotation of stock home screen
How can I enable home screen rotation of Google Nexus 5(stock) with root enabled?
I've found launcher.force_enable_rotation=true, but it doesn't worked... Anything similar for Google Nexus 5?

Related: How can I enable auto-rotate for the home screen?

It doesn't support this out-of-the box, but you can swing it by using the Xposed Framework and the Xposed GEL Settings module:

Install the Xposed Framework installer
Open the XF installer and select "Framework" at the top of the menu, then press the "Install/Update" button on the next page
Reboot
Install Xposed GEL Settings, either from Google Play or via the XF installer's repo interface (the "Download" item on the main menu).
Launch XGELS and open the app drawer (tap the top left icon or swipe from the left edge). Select "General" from the drawer, then switch on "Rotation" on the list of settings.
Go into the XF installer and select "Modules" from the main menu. Check the box next to XGELS to enable the module.
Reboot again


text:
I can't find the boot/recovery partitions on my Android phone for backup - where are they?
I'm trying to back up boot.img, recovery.img, and system.img on my Android phone. I've found several mentions of running this command:
cat proc/mtd

and then just using dd to copy the listed mount points. Seems straightforward enough. Unfortunately, the output of that command is just this single line:
dev:    size   erasesize  name

df also doesn't list the usual "Mounted On" column, just the filesystem. This is the output of df:
Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
/dev                   234M    52K   234M   4096
/mnt/secure            234M     0K   234M   4096
/mnt/asec              234M     0K   234M   4096
/mnt/obb               234M     0K   234M   4096
/system                640M   459M   180M   4096
/data                    1G   406M   898M   4096
/cache                 369M     6M   363M   4096
/protect_f               8M     4M     4M   4096
/protect_s               8M     4M     4M   4096
/mnt/cd-rom              1M     1M     0K   2048
/storage/sdcard1         1G    24M     1G   16384
/storage/sdcard0         7G     2G     5G   32768
/mnt/secure/asec         7G     2G     5G   32768

Some details about my phone:

It's a BLU ADVANCE 4.0
Board is Mediatek MT6572
Android version is 4.2.2
Kernel version is 3.4.5
I do have root access

So, to reiterate my question - where are the partitions? How can I find them?
While I'm not necessarily averse to using programs other than the shell it seems like I really should be able to do this from there.

EDIT: I used dd on the various mmcblk files I found in /dev/block. Most of them I terminated prematurely as they were 100MiB+, but two (mmcblk0p2 and mmcblk0p3) came out to about 10MiB each which seems more probable for boot and recovery. The contents of these when mounted are:

a directory labelled lost+found (ext?)
a directory labelled md, the subcontents of which differ

In mmcblk0p2 the contents of md are:

Two files of unknown type, one 4B one 2.0KiB, labelled MPOD_000 and ST33A004 respectively

In mmcblk0p3 the contents of md are:

One file of unknown type, 2.0KiB, labelled ST33B004

Well, the boot and recovery partitions aren't mounted when Android is actually running. Do you have a /dev/block/platform directory? Usually you can get your mount points by looking in whatever subdirectory is in there (varies by chipset) and looking for the by-name directory within that. So, e.g. on my N5 it's /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name. If I run ls -al there it shows where all the partitions map to.

I had noticed that directory but unfortunately there's no by name option. There are a couple called mmcblk0boot0 and mmcblk0boot1 - one of them could be the boot one but it's tough to say which, if either. There is a /dev/BOOT and a /dev/recovery but BOOT gives an invalid argument error to dd and cat and /dev/recovery keeps going way longer than it should (I stopped it at 800MiB+, bigger than the system partition).

Dylan, one typo: leading slash missing for cat /proc/mtd. Could that be the cause of the empty output? Also, df only lists partitions currently mounted (/recovery is only mounted when booted into, AFAIK).

This was intentional, I did it from the root. Trying with / beforehand has no effect. I've updated the question with some more information, resorted to just randomly copying and mounting blocks and seeing what's inside.

MTK devices usually have an item named 'recovery' under /dev. Have you tried dd-ing that?

Yes. It keeps copying at 800MiB+, which I'm sure can't possibly be right. The system partition for example is only about 650MiB.

Have you tried using the bs flag? Try something like dd if=/dev/recovery of=/sdcard/recovery.img bs=6291456c count=1 (from XDA)

It produces an image identical to the one from MtkDroidTools and one I found online if I pass in the same size as those images. The only comment I saw on those was that they didn't work, but that may have been user error as they provided no clarification beyond that. Is there any way to confirm the size of the partition from the command line?

aureljared : I was able to extract a ramdisk from the image produced by that command, so presumably it's valid after all. If you want to post that as a full answer I'll mark it as correct.

Running mount with no arguments should list both the "filesystem" and "mounted on" values you're expecting from df.

Just do "fdisk -l /dev/block/mmcblk0" and it will show you all the partitions including their names, not only those that are mounted.

as aureljared already mentioned, proper configured MTK devices populate their recovery and boot partitions in /dev/recovery and /dev/bootimg. Just dd from there.


text:
Does Android 4.4.3 support Bluetooth Low Energy in peripheral mode
(Re-post from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24049823/does-android-4-4-3-support-bluetooth-low-energy-in-peripheral-mode):
We know that Android until 4.4.2 does not support Bluetooth Low Energy in peripheral mode (see here).
As the OP said, from those commits https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/ee0b3e9 looks like they added the feature.
Does anybody have any information on this?

That's not true check Android Developer. BLE support from 4.3 onward.

4.3 supports BLE in central mode. BLE peripheral mode is only supported in 5.0.

According to Google I/O, peripheral mode for BLE will only be supported with Android L. (Source: https://plus.google.com/117159045047546859181/posts/79nqfUwxeZK)
Another source says it clear:

BLE Peripheral Mode — Android devices can now function in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) peripheral mode. Apps can use this capability to broadcast their presence to nearby devices — for example, you can now build apps that let a device to function as a pedometer or health monitor and transmit data to another BLE device.

Looks like they have made a number of changes and fixes for Bluetooth and BLE. The changelog is here. You can just do a search for bluetooth in that document. This might interest you too. (I'm not sure what they mean by "do not merge")

AFAIK "do not merge" has no meaning here, thats just left over from previous in-house processes


text:
Galaxy 4 - Remove widget from homescreen
I have a picture from my gallery in front of my wallpaper on my homescreen, it  got there by accident while in my pocket.  how can I get rid of this pic so all I see is my wallpaper? I've tried changing the wallpaper but the picture is still in front with the wallpaper behind it.

It's hard to say without seeing it, but what you describe sounds like you've added a home screen widget (a.k.a. appwidget). Long-press the widget to pick it up, and a delete icon will appear (it looks like a bin or an X). Drag-and-drop the widget onto the delete icon.


text:
The "OK" button is deactivated in creating new AVD although I have provided all details. So what is the problem?
The "OK" button is deactivated in creating new AVD although I have provided all details as below:

I agree with user61926, you have the the CPU type for an Android Wearable but the display type is not set for an Android Wearbale.
Taken from developer.android.com

2. Set Up the Android Wear Emulator

Launch the Android Virtual Device Manager. 1a. From Eclipse, select Window > Android Virtual Device Manager.  1b. From Android
  Studio, select Tools > Android > AVD Manager.
Click New.
For the AVD Name, enter "AndroidWearSquare" or "AndroidWearRound", depending on whether you want to create an emulator with a square or
  round display.
For the Device, select Android Wear Square or Android Wear Round.
For the Target, select Android 4.4.2 - API Level 19 (or higher).
For the CPU/ABI, select **Android Wear ARM (armeabi-v7a). Note: Android Wear is designed to support multiple processor
  architectures.**
For the Skin, select AndroidWearSquare or AndroidWearRound.
Leave all other options set to their defaults and click OK. Although real Android wearables do not provide a keyboard as an
  input method, you should keep Hardware keyboard present selected so
  you can provide text input on screens where users will instead provide
  voice input.
In the list of AVDs, select the one you just created and click Start. In the following window, click Launch.

The Android Wear emulator now starts. To begin testing your app's
  notifications, you must now pair the emulator to your development
  device that has the Android Wear Preview app installed.
Tip: To improve the emulator startup time, edit your AVD and enable
  Snapshot under Emulator Options. When you start the emulator, select
  Save to snapshot then click Launch. Once the emulator is running,
  close it to save a snapshot of the system. Start the AVD again, but
  select Launch from snapshot and deselect Save to snapshot.
Caution: Do not install apps on the Android Wear emulator. The system
  does not support traditional Android apps and the result of running
  such apps is unpredictable.

It is something to do with the CPU type you have chosen (Android Wear) and the Skin? Do Android wearables really support up to HVGA screens?

The AVD Name cannot contain spaces. Heaven knows why the programmers didn't raise an error in this case (or simply highlight the field and provide an explanation).


text:
How to Change Os from Nokia Lumia 710 with WP 7.5 to Any Os Android
Need Help to Change My Os from Windows Phone in nokia 710 to Any Android Os

Whilst many phones such as the Nexus series work just like a PC and you can install multiple operating systems on them (Android / CyanogenMod / Ubuntu / Mer and so on), unfortunately the phone you have been sold is limited.
Microsoft deliberately blocks you from controlling the phone you paid for to make sure they can get even more money from you after you have already paid for the phone.  They use a special security techniques which stop other systems from running on their phones and ensure that you only get software via their market place even if you would like to do something different.  This basically means that you don't really own your phone, more sort of lease it from them.
Unfortunately they normally don't warn anyone about this when selling the phone.
Your best hope is to return your Windows phone to the shop and complain that you weren't warned Android wouldn't work on it at the time you bought it or that you didn't understand that that would block you from using Android applications.  Since may people have this problem any reputable shop will accept the return although if you have waited a long time this might be a problem.
Then use the money you get back to buy a phone which is more open.  A good place to start is the list of officially supported devices on the CyanogenMod page (http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Devices) or almost anything called "Nexus".


text:
How to connect to multiple hosts through SSH, with the "same ip", with "Better Terminal Emulator Pro"?
I'm trying to set up SSH connections to my home network. The application I'm using is Better Terminal Emulator Pro. But it only allows me to connect to one host with the same IP address(the external IP), it doesn't understand that it's a different port.
I created 3 shortcuts for the SHH sessions, but only one works.
The network is a LAN behind a router. I need to connect to multiple hosts on this network.
I can do this with another terminal, don't remember which one. But I like Better Terminal Emulator Pro so, any ideas?

I saw your flag requesting migration -- it seems to me that this site is the best place to ask, or at least it's certainly on-topic here, and shouldn't be closed.  However, if you feel it would be on-topic for SU as well then you can feel free to ask there as well.  Making a note of the reason for the cross-post should prevent any negative reception.

Well, generally most of the SSH clients I have used work fine (e.g. JuiceSSH / SSH droid) so I would really recommend changing.
If you are really determined to do this then you could use a separate ssh program in a terminal (not sure if this will work) or you could try setting up multiple IP addresses on the linux laptop.
Let's say you have an IP address like 192.168.0.7/24
Then (if you own the network or have permission to use the other addresses) you could login as root and do
ip address add 192.168.0.8/24 dev eth0

then you will be able to login to the same laptop on a different address.  You'll find plenty of tutorials on the web for setting up IP addresses on Linux so I won't go into the full details.
I should probably also mention solutions such as the linux programs screen and dtach which allow you to have multiple shell sessions on one terminal.  Those are probably in many ways better for you.


text:
Instead of tabs, is it possible to save links and read them one by one?
My reading style is as follows:

Open the main page of, say, a newspaper.
Review the entire main page and open the links I want to read in a new tab. This usually results in 30-40 tabs
Read and close tabs one by one.

Unfortunately, Chrome for Android crashes frequently if many tabs are open. So I'm looking for a way (addon, app) to a different workflow:

same
Review the entire main page and add the links I want to read to a reading list.
Walk through the reading list: read the first article, touch Next, etc.

What device and Android version are you using? I never have any problems with Chrome on SGNII 4.1.2 2GB RAM.

Galaxy Tab 2, Android 4.2.2. The crash would not be a serious problem if it could recover from it. But it forgets the tabs that were open last time.

Oh, so you have 1GB RAM I guess. It could be the culprit of your problems with Chrome on Touchwiz device.

Try Link Bubble: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.linkbubble.playstore
If I decide I'm done reading, I share the links I've opened to Pocket so I can read them later.
Pocket: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideashower.readitlater.pro

Thanks, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work well with Chrome. Links clicked in Chrome open in Chrome.

@Arthur I think you have to "share" the links to have Link Bubble listed.

If you already have a Google account I recommend you Google Keep (http://drive.google.com/keep). It's fast and does not require to download anything (just the app on mobile devices), it's all in the cloud.
You can save the links in a note and open them later. All your notes are synched across your devices. You can also share content to and from keep to store your links and stuff.

Thanks, but I don't really want to save the links, just open a lot of them as fast as possible and then quickly walk on the opened pages. Something like going through a folder of images in an image viewer.

Something like a web browser that doesn't load the url until you navigate to it, while saving a snapshot of the page so you can know the content of that url while sliding through them? I don't know anything similar but I think it has potential for a good project.

Maybe you don't need to get away from tabs, you just need your browser to not crash. I just did a quick stress test of Firefox for Android, and got to 72 tabs before encountering any issues on my Nexus 4. It might be that it can better handle your workflow than Chrome can.

Thanks, that could be an option if there was an addon that would make it easy to move to the next tab, for example with a  gesture. Switching tabs via the sidebar is a bit clumsy in Firefox.

FWIW I'm currently sitting on ~100 tabs in Chrome on Nexus 5. The tab count changes to an emoticon when you get above 99. No crashes.


text:
Samsung Galaxy Y GT-S5360 file transfer, USB not recognised. No USB options in Settings menu
I have a Samsung Galaxy Y GT-S5360 and I wish to transfer some audio files from it to my PC, running Windows 8.
When I connect the phone to the computer with the USB cable, the phone beeps and begins charging but displays no USB connection notification. Likewise, the computer doesn't register the connection at all. I have googled the problem but only seem to find partial solutions, which don't fit my situation.
I've tried updating PC drivers and phone software, turning off and on again, trying with and without Kies software and on several different machines.
The phone is running Android 2.3.6
Anyone got any ideas?

Some USB cables don't include the data wires as they are only meant for charging. Check if other devices work with this cable, and try another cable.
Also, if the cable is sure to work, take a look at My computer -> right click -> Manage -> Device manager and see if you can find your phone there and try upgrading the driver from there.

Just got to Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB debugging and confirm that usb debugging is disabled. That is it. Now your phone will connect to PC perfect.


text:
Can you use a boot disk with Anroid 4.1 Tablets
I was wondering if you could give me steps (if even possible) as to how you would boot (ubuntu linux since Android is linux based) a flash drive on my Android Tablet. I currently run on an OTG capable Kocaso M736 with Android 4.1.1 with a Rockchip processor.

You can't boot a boot disk for a PC on on Android device (which isn't a PC). If you want to install Ubuntu, Ubuntu needs to support your device, and if it does, you can find instructions and all the files you need to download on the Ubuntu website. Obviously as this is an Android site and not an Ubuntu site, we can't help you with Ubuntu installation, nor if your device isn't supported.
There's also an app "Ubuntu on Android" which gives you an Ubuntu userspace, but running as an app on top of Android. Again, we can't help you with that on this site.


text:
How to right-click in google chrome
I'm trying to get directions from two points on the map. I can't figure out how to do this in the mobile version of the site, so I switched to "classic" (desktop) mode. It says to right-click on the map to select a location. How do I right click? Long tap does not work. The stylus button does not work.

There are several gestures which aren't really supported on mobile devices including right clicking, hovering and most keyboard shortcuts. It is up to website developers to recognize this when designing their user interfaces and either build in alternative gestures or simply rely on universal input methods like clicking/tapping.
Your best bet would be to contact the owner of the website you're having trouble with.

I'm sure Google will get right on that ;)

If you think about it, they already did.  They provided a native Maps app for the more involved interactions.

yeah except that it is missing a lot of functionality compared to the web page, which is why i wasn't using it to try to find directions between two points on the map.

Although it's unfortunate, there is no way to send a right click to a web page in a mobile browser using only the touchscreen.  Sites (like Maps) could choose to respond to alternative gestures like a long-hold, but are not required to.  Google chose to go the native app route for complicated interactions on mobile.  If this answers your question, please mark it as such.  If not, please do edit your question to describe what ur really after.


text:
how could my viber messagelog dissapear?
i was chatting on viber and then left for a couple of hours and when i were going to write a message again i saw that all of my previous messages had been deleted except for two of the latest ones. I havent updated or anything, what happend? can it update by itself and deleting messages?

There is no situation in which Viber messages spontaneously delete themselves. Viber does not update without your permission - and updating does not delete messages.
If this occurred on Viber for Desktop, please ensure that the computer that you use is a private computer and no one but you can access it. Additionally, you might consider placing a screen lock on your phone so that your applications are better protected.

I think I just experienced such a situation. My mum got sick of her (Android) phone malfunctioning and bought a new one - it was then my job to resurrect as much data as I could from the old one. Would any of the following have caused Viber to delete its message history: 1. Mobile service (and number) being moved to a new phone with a new SIM, 2. Trying to run Viber with SIM removed, 3. Clearing phone's "Contacts Storage" data which was almost certainly corrupt (People (contacts app) and Viber wouldn't run until I did so), or 4. see next comment, the character limit's almost reached.

When I finally got Viber to run, it asked me what my number was. I picked our country from the list and entered my mum's number, which ended up in "international form" (+61 4xxx... instead of "local form" 04xxx...), and Viber sent an activation code to said number. Does this mean it considers it now has a new account on the phone that's different from the old one (I don't know whether the number was originally in local form) and therefore created a new message history and/or deleted the old one? Is there any way to retrieve the message history as it was before all this? Viber version: 2.3.5


text:
Can't boot, can't view recovery options, winok w77, no support from manufacturer
I have a friend staying over and he has an android tablet: winok model w77
The tablet is stuck on a boot loop and I am trying to get it working again however nothing I have done so far has been of any help.
If I turn the tablet on then it goes to the splash screen (of manufacturer) and it will stay there until I turn it of or the battery drains
Pressing volume down +  power has no effect
Pressing volume up + power button shows the splash screen, then the android image with a gear on it for a fraction of a second to then go to the android dead image, no options in between nor after, pressing on anything or combination of anything has any effect, tapping on any area of the screen has no effects
ADB
ADB works in both while normal boot (although in a loop) and in recovery
SHELL works only in normal boot
SHELL in recovery says:
- exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2) -
I am guessing previous is because partition is not mounted, adb remount says:
remount failed: Success

After reading a while I notice some people saying about the dalvik-cache causing problems, since I don't have any automated options like mentioned in many posts I tried by going into normal boot then

adb shell
rm -r /data/dalvik-cache
rm failed for /data/dalvik-cache, I/O error

I suppose is because it is in use? or maybe corrupted?
Also getting Segmentation fault on recovery:

adb shell
recovery
Segmentation fault

The device was not modified in any way from the manufacturer
There are only 3 buttons volume up and down and power
Battery is not removable
From here I really don't know what to do, is there no way to fix this thing?
The manufacturer does not answer emails, they don't have a phone and don't even have a support page on their website so I can't get any type of support from them, does anyone here has something I have not tried?

---EDIT---
@Izzy, following your message about formatting the data and cache partitions:
format and factory_reset commands were not available in my tablet, after searching around I found a way to format the partitions on my device link thanks also go to raskolnik from that link, I have also kept a copy of the sdparted zip so if the link on that page stops working send me a PM and I will send you a copy, that link describes the general usage but here is what I had to do:

127|root@android:/dev/block # mount
mount
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/asec tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/obb tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
/dev/block/nandd /system ext4 rw,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/block/nande /data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,journal_checksum,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc 0 0
/dev/block/nandh /cache ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,journal_checksum,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc 0 0

From the above I was able to recognize the data and cache partitions as nande and nandh respectively so I then ran

1|root@android:/dev/block # parted /dev/block/nandh mkfs ext2
parted /dev/block/nandh mkfs ext2
Warning: The existing file system will be destroyed and all data on the
partition will be lost. Do you want to continue?
parted: invalid token: ext2
Yes/No? yes
yes
yes
Partition number? 1
1
1
File system type?  ext2? ext2
ext2
ext2
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

root@android:/dev/block # parted /dev/block/nande mkfs ext2
parted /dev/block/nande mkfs ext2
Warning: The existing file system will be destroyed and all data on the
partition will be lost. Do you want to continue?
parted: invalid token: ext2
Yes/No? yes
yes
yes
Partition number? 1
1
1
File system type?  ext2? ext2
ext2
ext2
Warning: File system has errors!  You should run e2fsck.
Ignore/Cancel? Ignore
Ignore
Ignore
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.`

As recommended per the script above I then ran e2fsck

16|root@android:/dev/block # e2fsck nande
e2fsck nande
e2fsck 1.41.6 30-May-2009
nande is mounted.

WARNING!!!  Running e2fsck on a mounted filesystem may cause
SEVERE filesystem damage.

Do you really want to continue y/n? y

Hell yes, I now got nothing to loose so yes

yes
nande contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Inode 2131 is in extent format, but superblock is missing EXTENTS feature
Fix y? yes

Inode 2131, i_blocks is 584, should be 146.  Fix y? yes
yes

Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Unattached inode 2131
Connect to /lost+found y? yes

Inode 2131 ref count is 2, should be 1.  Fix y? Fix
yes

Pass 5: Checking group summary information
Block bitmap differences:  +4706--4726 +4928--4959 +5824--5832 +19478--19488
Fix y? y
yes

Free blocks count wrong for group #0 7660, counted=7598.
Fix y? yes

Free blocks count wrong for group #2 (7678, counted=7667).
Fix? y
yes

Free blocks count wrong (982715, counted=982642).
Fix? yes

Inode bitmap differences:  +2131
Fix? y
yes

Free inodes count wrong for group #0 (4085, counted=4084).
Fix? yes

Free inodes count wrong (524277, counted=524276).
Fix? y
yes

nande: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
nande: 12/524288 files (8.3% non-contiguous), 65934/1048576 blocks
1|root@android:/dev/block #
1|root@android:/dev/block # ^C
C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>adb reboot

So I was done at this point and rebooted the device hoping for the best and got the same splash screen so

C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>adb devices
List of devices attached
20080411413fc082        device

C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>adb shell
root@android:/ # cd data
cd data
root@android:/data # cd dalvik-cache
cd dalvik-cache
root@android:/data/dalvik-cache #

Bingo I now have access to the dalvik-cache folder and after a little wait ~5 min the device started, all data is lost but the device is functioning, thank you @Izzy again for going along on the troubleshooting with me!! :)

Our edits just crossed, sorry. Feel free to edit again, take a look at my formatting. Basically, it was enclosing code blocks by <pre>..</pre> or indenting code lines by 4+ spaces. // I'd say move the big "detailed process" to a pastebin for reference. It's too much to be included. Maybe I take the most relevant lines (e.g. from mount) into my answer, but we probably don't need the complete output inline :)

Summarizing the solution from the comments:
The cause of trouble was a corrupted file system: not being able to delete files from the dalvik cache turned out being caused by the system not being able to access them. From the comments:

ls /data/dalvik-cache gives me /data/dalvik-cache: I/O error

With the trace showing an error to even stat the directory, a wipe showed similar errors in many other places (as it tried to delete all files and directories recursively). So options were to re-format the file system of /data in the hope it was only the file system being corrupted (and not the block device itself). Different approaches here. Though most of them failed somehow, I'll list them all – as on a different device things might look different, and one of them might succeed though it did not here:

booting to recovery and issuing a factory-reset (or with a custom recovery, even directly formatting the affected partitions) was not a way to go, as it was impossible to even boot into recovery
fastboot -w, fastboot format userdata, fastboot format cache had to be sorted out as well, as the device didn't boot into fastboot mode
luckily, the device was able to be accessed via adb, so

adb shell wipe data; adb reboot; failed as described above (tried to "delete" instead of formatting)
some places mention format CACHE:, format DATADATA:, and format DATA: via adb shell, which initially failed here as format was not a recognized command
same for the factory_reset command available on some devices

hint: ls /system/bin and ls /system/xbin are pretty helpful to figure what commands are available on the device

last resort was to figure the file system parameters via mount (or checking /init.rc, or other means), and then using the corresponding mkfs command to manually re-format the partition.

root@android# mount
[…]
/dev/block/nande /data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,journal_checksum,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc 0 0
/dev/block/nandh /cache ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=0,journal_checksum,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc 0 0

root@android# parted /dev/block/nandh mkfs ext2
# bunch of warnings etc. here, all suggestions approved with "yes"

root@android# parted /dev/block/nande mkfs ext2
# same game as with nandh

root@android:# e2fsck nande
# again confirm to fix each inode

Returned to the command prompt on the PC:
adb reboot

And the device came to the splash, took a few minutes building up the Dalvik cache again, and then booted fine!

One thing you might have noticed is a minor difference: mount reported the partitions as ext4, while Tlacaelel then formatted them ext2. Both are variants of ExtFS, with ext4 definitely being the newer one, so this shouldn't be a real issue.

Further readings and references:

Clearing Dalvik Cache without root?
Wipe data/Factory reset through ADB
internal storage partitions screwed up (this gave the final clues to the OP)


text:
How do I use the Root External 2 Internal SD app on a Galaxy S4 device?
This app
I want to install Dragon Quest VIII, but Google Play automatically downloads straight to the internal storage.
I tried using /mnt/shell/emulated/0 for the internal mount path, and /mnt/extSdCard for the external, but no luck. I also tried this post, but there's no "download settings" option for me.
Did I pick the wrong folder paths? If so, how do I find them? The developer's instructions are pretty awful and don't explain half of the options in the app.
I'm on an S4 with Jellybean, rooted. Thanks a bunch!

How about exchanging ORIGINAL mnt/sdcard to mnt/extsdcard, then ORIGINAL mnt/extsdcard to mnt/sdcard. I am trying to say is swap these two.change their paths so that the phone will read the external as sd card main, and the changed path sd card will be the external memory. Sometime back from MSDOS, if you want to change paths, simply exchanging it's location to execute faster. Maybe my kind of idea will give you an extra help. i hope.

(Rooted Phones Only!) Your Samsung phone is rooted right? You can swap your external to internal just one click from your fingertips without having a sweat. Try to read this information from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.swapit.expander.de , i hope i answered correctly your question on this matter. Thank you.


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How to make a schedule voice recorder using Tasker + easy voice recorder?
I see that tasker has the "easy voice recorder" plugin. The problem is that I know how to start the record but I don't know how to end the record after 10 hours. Please help
I am a new tasker user and my phone has NOT rooted (and not plan to root)

After you start the recording which you've already figured out, but for others I'll list it below, you add a Wait action for the specified amount of time, then add an action to stop recording.
In your task, choose Plugin->Easy Voice Recorder and configure it to Record.  For the second action, choose Task->Wait and configure it for 10 hours.  For the final action, choose Plugin
->Easy Voice Recorder and configure it to Stop.
A1: Easy Voice Recorder Pro [ Configuration:Record Package:com.digipom.easyvoicerecorder.pro Name:Easy Voice Recorder Pro Timeout (Seconds):0 ]
A2: Wait [ MS:0 Seconds:0 Minutes:0 Hours:10 Days:0 ]
A3: Easy Voice Recorder Pro [ Configuration:Stop Package:com.digipom.easyvoicerecorder.pro Name:Easy Voice Recorder Pro Timeout (Seconds):0 ]


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GT-I9001 (galaxy S plus) not recognized in Windows 8.1
I installed the ClockworkMod Recovery v6.0.1.4 and tried to install a cyanogen mod on my Galaxy S plus (GT-I9001), but now my phone is stuck in a reboot-loop where the OS doesn't start and I just come back to the ClockworkMod screen.
I tried putting it into "download mode" and linking it via usb to my Win8.1 laptop (I was going to use Odin to install a new bootloader) but Windows says "USB Samsung Composite device - failed to load" and won't show in Odin. One weird things is that if I use another version of Odin (Odin3 v3.09) and I leave the phone usb connected in the CWM screen, Odin3 detects it, although afterwards is uncapable of carrying out the re-flash.
I'm a newbie with phone rooting and mod installing and I wanted some help on how to get my phone out of the reboot-lock into CWM

Make sure you're using the latest Samsung drivers. Uninstall all previous Samsung drivers, and try to use a lower windows version like W7. W8.1 is still full of weirdness, especially when mixing 32bit and 64bit software.