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Root Samsung Galaxy XCover 3
how to root Samsung Galaxy XCover 3?
I tried one-click-root-apps as KingoRoot and OneClickRoot but it does not work for me.
I have Android 5.1.1 installed and I can connect to phone from Windows 7 or Ubuntu 14.04.
Is somewhere a guide to do it (I don't want to destroy my phone) or could you tell me how?
Thank you

I have answered your question, if you still feel like you will be unable to do it please feel free to contact me :)

ATTENTION: For Lollipop root, please vist this thread its still EXPERIMENTAL root applied by me, and as such not gonna include here untill its been verified by users

I currently have the same phone on the same version as you, lollipop 5.1.1, and since it is not a well known phone, their isn't a one click install method. The only methods that I found, keep in mind I have not tried them and as such NOT held responsible for damages to your phone or Mentality
The only root method I have found would require you installing a custom recovery, in this case TWRP, and flashing the SU Binary (This enables us to have root) and then downloading SuperSU for the ability to grant root permissions to apps.
This following method will trip knox and thus making your warranty voided, and here are some facts about the problems with tripping knox

Rooting the Smasung xCover 3 (SM-G388f) KitKat
I haven't used this tutorial as I don't want to trip knox and as such cannot verify the integrity of this method.
Now to the good part!
Preperations

Download the newest Version of TWRP for this phone, Sansung xCover3, making sure to download the version with the .tar extension
Download the newest ODIN version and install in onto your computer
Download and the Phone USB drivers for the phone either, Via Samung Kies3 or from the ODIN webpage
Download the newest SuperSU Binary and put it into the root directory of your device (Internal SD Card Memory)
Install adb and read up on fastboot
Make sure Phone is at least 80% charged and has USB Debugging turned on

TWRP Installation

Turn off the smartphone
Boot your device into Download Mode, to boot into Download Mode press and hold the "Volume Down + Home + Power" together till Download Mode is active. Once entered you will be seeing a warning sign asking if you want to continue, hit the "Volume Up"
Open ODIN and then Connect your phone to your computer via USB Cable
After connecting your phone to the computer, ODIN should say "Added"
Once the device is detected by Odin, click on the button "AP" and select the .tar TWRP file you had download earlier, at the time of writing the current version would be twrp-3.0.0-0-xcover3ltexx.img.tar (9.1 Mb)
Now, click on the "Start" button in Odin to start Flahing, Flashing usually takes 30-50 seconds to complete for the process of flashing the Samsung Galaxy Xcover 3. Once the flashing process in completed you will be able to see a green box with the words "Pass" in Odin. During this process the Smartphone will automatically re-boot

Rooting

Once TWRP is installed, move the SuperSU.zip file to your internal SD Card if not already
Turn phone off
Boot into Recovery Mode by pressing and holding down the "Volume Up + Home + Power" simultaneously until the TWRP Recovery mode shows
Once booted into TWRP, Click "Install" and select the "SuperSu.zip", then Swipe to confirm the flash
Reboot phone, if it was successful you should see the SuperSU app installed, if not install the app
Verify root with the use of Root Checker, if it says root status verified then you have successfully rooted your phone, congratulations!

Hope I Helped, if you require any assistance you can contact me


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Increasing memory of Samsung Galaxy XCover 3
Having Samsung Galaxy XCover 3 (8GB internal memory) and 64GB SD card, what is the best way to use the card?
Apparently you can not save apps to SD card, just a part of it, and it has to be visible, because some apps are not visible. For example app "Znakujte s námi" shows to take only 14 MB but it takes 700 MB, so if you are able to root phone (How to root Samsung Galaxy XCover 3 is question too.), Link2SD will not see it as 700 MB app.
Is it even possible to use effectively card for this type of phone?
Fot me it seems unrootable now - How to root it?
If it is possible to root it, how to move apps to SD if they look like that they are taking less space than they really does?

If anyone would like to turn on the Xcover 3 VE Adoptable Storage without root - here are the tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDLOAzWwd-M

Not all apps can be moved to SD card. Those that can be moved, you can do so from the Settings -> Apps listing for your device. Alternatively there are several apps that help you move several apps in one go. The best way to use your SD card is to use it for all media. Move all your media files from the Internal Memory to SD Card. Also change your camera apps settings to use the SD card for storage as the default would be to store it in the internal memory. Hope this helps.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How do in-app purchases work?
I'm trying the free version of an app, and I'm considering to upgrade to the Premium version. The said app is Rewire.
From what I see, the Premium version in not directly available on Play Store, and it can be purchased only in-app.
How do these purchases work? If I  uninstall the app then reinstall it later, or if in the future I change my phone, this purchase will still be recognised?
Will I be able to use the full version again without having to pay once more for it?
It appears that the purchase is managed by Google Play:

Depends on the capability and desires of the developer of the app. Contacting him is the best choice.

There are two kinds of in-app purchases — managed, and unmanaged.  The former have more direct involvement from Google and are transferrable between installs.
Managed purchases are generally for things like premium/pro versions and subscriptions, whereas the latter are for one-off purchases.  Unmanaged ones might cover extra donations or things like virtual currency.
So as long as the developer has implemented the right kind of purchase, you should be fine.  If not, and the transfer doesn't work, I would expect that an appeal to Google would result in a prompt refund.
See http://www.androidauthority.com/android-inapp-purchases-need-know-92432/

Thank you. Please have a look at my edited question: will that mean that the purchase is Managed?

@Sekhemty Both managed & unmanaged purchases use the standard Google payment mechanisms, so you'll see that window in both cases.  I'm not sure if there is an difference in the UI between them.

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


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My S5 stock email flag due date
My S5 stock email app flags emails for 'next week' when should be 'no date'. how to fix this?
Other email apps flag ok.
I can see this in my s5 tasks and notes and in my outlook to do.
I tried samsung support and they had no solution.
I have seen other S5 users with same issue...and have seen others without but have a slightly different 'look' to their stock email despite same software version.
Flag on the go is important for those messages you do not want to miss but no time to read on the go.. and to view using your 'to do' on desktop or mobile task manager later


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How do I get rid of "System Data" that takes up half my hard drive?
So since I updated my phone, there seems to be a mysterious 3-4GB of "System Data" on my phone's hard drive that I can't get rid of.
Here are some screenshots of this:

I have an LG Leon running Android version 5.1.1
Is this a known issue with updating Android or is this a new thing?

How disk space is used on Android device?

After reading the question again and looking at screenshot this may be reffering to the System data stored on your /data partition.  If you can tap that entry and see if it gives you any more details as to what it is reffering to.  This probably contains the OTA update in full (along with other settings as well).  So you could possibly drill down inside of the system data option to see what is all there.  an Update Zip is going to be rather large (for android and mobile device files anyways) on the order of 300-400 MB + (depending what is all in it).  You would be safe to delete the OTA files since they are no longer used after the update is installed, BUT AGAIN A WARNING...  This System Data Items Entry is probably reffering to a lot more than just the OTA download itself I would not just delete that entry I would instead go in to it for detail, and if none is given there then use something like ES File Explorer (once open in app settings>view check the box for showing hidden files) and go looking in /sdcard/ for a directory containing most likely a zip or a couple zips (may be separate zips for the ROM, Recovery, Fastboot, Radio, etc. depending on your device and manufacturer and how they handle things).
Reminder: as long as your google account is syncing correctly all your app data (not all apps but the majority have this enabled) along with your contacts (and even pictures if you set that up) are all sync'd back to Google so even if you delete this whole directory and have issues and have to do a factory restore and wipe all data when the phone starts up and you login again it will re-download all that data for you.  Just be sure to go in to system settings>Accounts and tap google and tap the entry for your account and make sure every box is checked (is OK if browser data has ! and you see a chrome entry there your OEM browser is failing to sync but Chrome is not and has everything)  Also can uncheck items if you don't care whether the data is backed up or not (like Google Fit LoL).  I will still leave the original answer below as others may find the info useful.
The system partition by default is not accessible to the user.  NOW that is not to say it forgot to clean up behind itself if you did an OTA update.  Without rooting your phone the only way to probably adjust this is to grab a factory zip from LG for your device and flash it using their instructions.  This will remove everything in system and do a fresh install.  You are right though it should not be anywhere near that size.
BUT BUT BUT
If you are not using a rooted device you will never be able to write anything to that /System mount point so as long as the phone works it really does not matter if that partition is maxed out it will never be written to anyway.  If you don't notice other little issues, and are happy with the phone I would just use it as is.  Even if you have root again you will not be placing anything in /system (if you do it will be one or 2 tiny things mostly).
/system does NOT affect /Data so no matter how much storage your /system uses it will never take away from nor add to the storage space in /data.
For instance even if you update a google app that is installed in /System Android actually installs the update to /Data and stops using the version in /System (while still leaving it there untouched in case you go to Settings>Apps> and tap Uninstall updates.  If you do this it removes everything for the app in /data and begins to use the copy in /system until the next update).
Basically, Android writes things to System during SYSTEM install (and that only really happens through the recovery menu not the actual Android OS itself (the recovery menu can actually be thought of as a second tiny OS that lives inside your device alongside the full larger Android OS kinda) and after that everything gets stored on /data and nothing gets written to /System only read from (it's a security thing if the system can write to /system so could say a virus which would be a bad thing).

That is probably a bunch of stuff you should not remove. For example it could contain the Android OS file images that are mounted during start up for your different directories: /system, /data , /sys, etc. These are things that are vital to your phone running, and thus removing them is a bad idea.


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Rooting Sony M4: fastboot flash recovery fails
I used flashtools to unlock my bootloader and all seemed to go well. However when I try and do fastboot flash recovery recovery.img (from the dir that contains "recovery.img" on my laptop) I get
writing recovery
FAILED <remote: Command not allowed>

I've tried relocking and unlocking the bootloader with flashtools to no avail.
Any ideas?

That makes it sound like the bootloader is still locked.  What do fastboot oem device-info and fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability say?

The first gives the same failed messaged as in my OP, and the second gives a "usage" dialog suggesting an invalid command. hm.

Few devices support the second command yet, but the rest is quite odd.

I did notice in many of the tutorials they say check "Enable OEM unlock" in Developer settings, but my device's settings does not have this option. Not sure if that's relevant or not. I did enable USB debugging there however.

It could be.  What version of Android do you have?

Android version 5.0. Build number (this is firmware version I assume?): 26.1.A.2.167. Model number E2303. I followed this tutorial for unlocking the boot loader :http://freeandroidroot.com/how-to-unlock-bootloader-in-sony-xperia-m4-aqua/  and used Flashtool v0.9.19.8 along with the minimal adb fastboot install. Flashtool reported success regards to unlocking, and allows me relock and lock again etc.

Maybe I need to downgrade the firmware to 26.1.A.1.128 before I can root? (see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=64308234&postcount=6)


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Android Tablet Refuse to Enter Recovery Mode
One of my Tablet(ET-86V2G-A23) refuse to enter recovery mode. I did long press volume up and power switch together and nothing happens and I also tried holding down volume up, plugging in USB cable to PC, tap power switch up to 10 times and then release volume up. That didn't work too. I want to flash the Tablet because it stops at boot flash screen. Are there any other method to force it to boot mode?
I also figure out that kernel version in system/bin/sh keeps failing.
Is it possible to rewrite files in system/bin via adb using command. I think it may also solve the start up problem. I can remember the problem started after installing busybox. Seems something went wrong after installation.

Are you rooted?  Have you tried adb reboot recovery?

The Tablet is rooted.  adb reboot recovery just did a restart and came back to the flash screen. I tried tools like GpGtool and it did the same thing.

I solved it by doing a firmware upgrade with phoenix flash tool. I also figured out that there is a lot of fake firmware that do not work. they are just empty .img files.


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Can i use the download mode in lg g3 without turning on usb debugging
I recently bricked my lg g3 d855 european. But still i can get it into download mode. When i connect it to a pc, it does not get recognized. I tried the kdz method to unbrick it but it gets stuck at 60% in lg flash tool. Any help would be appreciated.

Yes; Download Mode has nothing at all to do with USB Debugging (which is for ADB).
You should ensure you have the correct drivers installed and may want to try a different USB port and/or cable.


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Samsung S4 Mini (GT-I9195) TWRP recovery fails
I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (GT-I9195) and successfully installed CyanogenMod 13 with the CM 13 Recovery on it. Now I am stuck with the installation of GApps by means of TWRP.
I have tried to follow this tutorial to install TWRP (3.0.1 or 2.8.7):

App Install Method: it tells me that something went wrong and it does not boot the recovery, indeed. What seems wired to me is that when I have to choose an image it shows me the device code serranolteusc and serranoveltexx for my S4 Mini rather than serranoltexx, like on the website of CM 13. Is this normal?
(I even tried Flashify instead of the TWRP manager, but it did not function!)

Since I am on Linux and have no Windows, I cannot use the Odin method. But I tried Heimdall via heimdall flash --RECOVERY twrp.img --no-reboot to no avail.

I tried the dd Install Method via dd if=/sdcard/twrp.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/recovery, but it still does not boot into recovery mode. Is it possible that there is an issue with the path in of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/recovery?

Is it possible that there is no TWRP for serranoltexx available?

I'm far from being familiar with Samsung devices, but speaking about Odin and Linux: Have you tried JOdin3? That's a web-based Odin variant and should work on non-Windows systems. Could be helpful in your case – and finally answer my curiosity on whether it works on Linux (I can't test that without a Samsung device ;)

After flashing the recovery using dd, what did you immediately do? How did you reboot into recovery mode later?

@ Firelord, I pressed Vol Up, Power, and Home, only to find out that the CM 13 recovery was still installed.

If you are ever in doubt about partition paths (and said device is supported by CyanogenMod or Lineage OS), you can check this from their sources. But to your question at hand, looking at TWRP device trees, you need to use "serranolteusc" as "serranoveltexx" is meant for the newer 64-bit variant (why name them the same is beyond me). Using the image for "serranolteusc" with the Heimdall or terminal and dd command should be enough to get TWRP installed.
If that doesn't work, maybe provide a logcat of when you try to dd and see if it complains about anything specific.

I rooted my serranoltexx (s4 Mini with LTE) using Kingroot and flashed TWRP using TWRP-App.

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


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Removing extra screen on TouchWiz launcher
I have a Samsung Galaxy Core Prime (SM-S820L) on Android 4.4.4, and I'm using TouchWiz launcher.
How do I remove the extra home screens?

Which launcher are you using? Have you tried anything so far to remove those home screens? List them, so that we avoid suggesting same solutions.

I am not sure what a launcher is, but I have a Android based phone. I have tried removing the widgets and keeping fingers on screen to bring up trashcan.  The page won't go in the can

Touchwiz..I goggled launcher after sending above info.

Follow these instructions:

Tap the home button to make sure you're on the home screen
Use the pinch gesture (as if zooming out - fingers move toward one another)
Tap and hold the page to be removed
Drag the page to the X at the top of the screen (see image)
(Click image to enlarge)

Source: Pro tip: Remove unnecessary pages on your Android home screen


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Flashing Zenfone 6 (A6001g): stuck at E: unknown volume "/spare"
I need help with my zenfone 6 (a6001g).
Issue Origin:
I was trying to flash my zf6 (trying to downgrade from to ww-2.22.44 so I could upgrade to 3.23 (lollipop). I used Asus Flash tool latest version and .raw file for zf6.
Problem:
I mistakenly selected "Wipe Data", but then when I tried to flash, im stuck at
ERASE spare...
E:unknown volume "/spare"
I was trying to use adb directly but then it cant detect my phone.
"List of devices attached" is showing blank.
Need your help please...


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How can I extract NON-HLOS.bin from my Motorola Moto G xt1032?
I want to extract that file in order to restore my wi-fi on another Motorola Moto G
How can I do that ?

This appears to be an XY problem. Explain to us your original problem.

I'm sure that it is the missing file.

From a root shell/terminal:
dd if=/dev/block/platform/*/by-name/modem of=/sdcard/NON-HLOS.bin

On some devices it might be radio instead of modem and you can, of course, place it somewhere other than /sdcard.
Note also that it will typically be padded with zeroes on the end — for example, the NON-HLOS.bin I flashed was 57.1 MB but when I retrieve it with the above method the resulting file is 64 MB (with it being identical apart from the padding).

Thanks, is it normal that from a file explorer like solid explorer, the file size is 0b ?

@Clippy No, I wouldn't think so, but I haven't used that app.


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decrypt data-partition in twrp
I messed up my phone trying to get open-gapps working on CM 13.
I can't even get into my OS only into recovery mode. I tried flashing several CM-Versions, but that doesn't change much.
I think the problem is, that my dalvik is corrupted. My data-partition is encrypted with a 3x3 pattern and TWRP can't decrypt it, so I can't wipe dalvik. I tried several variations of twrp decrypt, but they don't work. Now I am trying to flash cryptfs since I found a HowTo, which told me to use this commands:
setprop ro.crypto.state encrypted
vdc cryptfs checkpw 'pattern'
mount /dev/block/dm-0 /data

The problem is, that cryptfs is not installed. I tried to flash cryptfs, with a custom made zip-file, but it seems, the cryptfs-installation is also trying to write into /data and just aborts, since it can't mount it.
I really like to avoid making a factory-reset before getting my data out.
Any suggestions?
(I have a Sony Xperia M using nicky-cm)

What ROM with Android version did you use to encrypt data partition? Can you not just flash that ROM?

The problem is not decrypting, when I start Android. I can decrypt, but after that, the loading screen gets stucked. Same with a CM 12-Rom. After the decryption, it seems to get in a loop(getting pretty hot over time, and using a lot of energy)

"My data-partition is encrypted with a 3x3 pattern and TWRP can't decrypt it" -- can you shed some light on this? Which TWRP version are you using? Does it not provide a grid to provide pattern for decryption or is TWRP unable to process your pattern successfully?  Have you tried this technique for decryption? Please list whatsoever variation of twrp decrypt you've tried because we can't know about things which you've not mentioned.

I tried twrp-2.8.7.0-nicki and twrp-3.0.0-0-nicki. They don't provide a grid. I tried the technique you linked. It gives me 01040708. I tried that, I tried 1478, 02050809, 2589, 8523.

First thing you should do is update to the latest [ 3.0.2-0-nicki ] TWRP
https://twrp.me/devices/sonyxperiam.html
This was what did the trick for me on my nexus

@AlbinKC I am using the latest version of TWRP.  It doesn't offer me the opportunity to enter a password.  I'm also trying to salvage my encrypted data not the device.  (galaxy s4)  I used a password not a grid to encrypt my data.  Do you have any more suggestions?

My data-partition is encrypted with a 3x3 pattern and TWRP can't
  decrypt it

This can be solved by considering the 3x3 grid as the numbers on the keypad. For Example, consider a pattern that looks like the uppercase L character.
↓ o o  |  1 2 3
↓ o o  |  4 5 6
↓ → →  |  7 8 9

here, your password would be 14789

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


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My microSD card doesn't work
My microSD card doesn't work on my android, Alcatel One touch Pixi 3 4.5. It first came up with the error message "Damaged SD card". I have searched online and discovered the way of plugging it into your computer, opening command prompt and typing in "chkdsk f: /f". It "resolved" the problem, but then when I put it in my phone, it said "SD card safe to remove"?????
It did not work as I could not access any photos in the memory card and soon after trying to find out what is going on, the "Damaged SD card" notification popped up again!!!
How can I resolve this problem?

Have you tried to reformat the card as FAT32 in a PC, then read and write data to it? Was this card working in your phone previously, or is this a new card?

It is a new card

@acejavelin I reformatted the card as FAT32 as you said, but when I put it back in my phone, it said"SD card safe to remove".

Has this card worked properly before in this phone, or is it "new"? Have you checked it with SD Insight from Play Store to be sure it isn't counterfeit?

@acejavelin It is brand new. I have checked it with other android phones and it does read the SD so I doubt it can be counterfeit...

Well, then if you absolutely sure the SD card is good and not counterfeit without verifying it, and another SD card exhibits the same behavior, your device is the problem. Factory default and retest. If it still fails, the device is defective.

The thing is, I had an old SD card in this phone before I lost it and it worked perfectly fine.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I recommend you to copy your photos and other data from your SD card to your PC(when the problem gets resolved by the chkdsk utility). Then format your SD card and copy the data back to it. Then try putting the car in you mobile phone. I think it would work for you. If not, then your SD card(according to my experience) is severely damaged and it is almost impossible to repair it.


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Can't mount /data, /cache, and /sdcard
I have a Xiaomi Redmi 2, (device ID is 2014813) and there is a serious problem going on with it.
This morning I saw a message from the phone, saying that the full encryption was unsuccessful, and all my data is inaccessible now, so I have to do a factory reset. I booted up into recovery, tried to do a factory reset, but it said that it couldn't mount /data, /cache, and even /sdcard.
I tried flashing in fastboot with MiFlash, without any luck, it fails at setting up the partition table. ADB sideload works, but I can't do much with it, because even if I install a ROM with it, I can't boot that ROM up.
I NEVER wanted to do an encryption on this device, I don't know why did it do that.

That seems strange. Why would a device begin full disk encryption if a user didn't initiate it? Anyhow, when the device tells you that encryption is unsuccessful, does it provide an option to erase/reset the device? If yes, then did you try it? For example, in my Nexus 6, when I choose that option it boots into a certain screen where it shows "Erasing Data". It is different from stock recovery. May be your device also has such provision.

Yes, there was a button, and that "sent" me to the recovery, but it didn't begin erasing by itself. Neither the recovery, nor the ROM was stock; I've used a CM12.1, with TWRP recovery. I know it's strange, I've never seen anything like that before.

At first, I thought it's a bug, and I rebooted the phone. Then this "message" showed up again, and then I pressed that button, and I did a factory reset in the recovery.

Try flashing a stock ROM that will have the partition info.

I'm trying that since yesterday morning. I just type in: fastboot flash partition partition table file, and it always says: "FAILED (remote: failed to write partition)". I don't wanna give up on this device, I really liked it.

It's not like the samsung's ODIN files. It would be the best for me to have one big file, what I can just flash, and it would set up everything by itself. But there are separate files, and one that sets up the partition table. And I just can't flash that file

@Gabe Did you try installing New MIUI ROM from the miui forum.? Download ROM here

If official firmware flasher doesn't work, possibility is that your eMMC is corrupted / dead.

Exactly. That was the case, hardware fault. Phone got sent back to reseller, and they replaced the entire device. Apparently it wasn't an uncommon issue, a few other people had similar experience, and all they could do is getting a use out of their warranty.

There are a couple ways to do this:

Using adb
create a folder named external_sd in /sdcard/  with your file manager
Use  this code in commamd prompt (adb) (to make this folder to mount sd card in /sdcard/):

su
    mount -o bind /mnt/emmc /sdcard/external_sd

Alternatively via terminal (need busybox installed and root):
busybox mount --bind /mnt/emmc /mnt/sdcard/external_sd (as su)

Credits
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1724278


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Outlook Calendar on Samsung Galaxy S7 will not sync
I have just bought a Samsung Galaxy S7 (running Android 6.0.1) and installed the Outlook app. Email syncs fine but I see nothing on my calendar. When I tap the top left burger (?) menu "Kevin's calendar" is almost always unchecked. I check it but still nothing shows.
I have also tried resetting my account by going to the calendar settings (cog in the top right, opening my @hotmail.co.uk account and pressing RESET ACCOUNT).
I've also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app.
It worked fine on my Android S4.

In the hope that this will help someone else.

Uninstall the Outlook app
Go to "Settings" > "Accounts" and remove all accounts relating to hotmail.co.uk
Add a new "Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync" account and enter your details.

Once successful you can view your email by using the pre-installed "Mail" app and you can view your calendar entries by using the pre-installed "S-Planner" app.
If you want to use the Outlook app then follow these further steps

Reinstall the Outlook app
Open the Outlook app and follow the instructions in the setup wizard. Choose "Exchange" account when given a choice between "Office 365", "Outlook.com" and "Exchange".
You'll have to enter your username and password several times and accept all permission prompts.

You should now be able to see your calendar entries in the Outlook app.
(strictly speaking I don't think you need to do step 3 if you carry on doing steps 4 - 6, but I'm not prepared to go through all that again to prove it)

Under accounts, do you have both a Outlook account and a Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync account? I have both which seems redundant.  I want to use the ActiveSync account with the Outlook app instead of the default app.

I've tried the method described above. it doesn't work on the S7 to view an Outlook calendar as the default calendar. According to Samsung there is no way to use Outlook calendar as the default calendar. If anyone has a work around I'd like to here it, as I am returning my S7 since using Office365 is one of the most important features I want in my phone.  I hear the HTC 10 is being released April 15 my HTC One (M8) worked with office 365 just fine. I'd like to be able to use the Google Voice app to input appointments while I'm driving to my outlook calendar.

I'm not sure what the difference is between "Office 365", "Outlook.com" and "Exchange". I don't use Office 365 (or not that I'm aware ... I've never paid for it) but have an outlook calendar.

I have the same issue and have found a workaround.
I am able to post meetings in my s7 which then show up on my ipad and my windows pc but not my s7. If I then de-select and re-select my default calendar my postings display correctly (I assume it does this by either querying the server again or simply displays hidden content from a previous query). After de-select and re-selection of the default calendar in s7 all postings appear almost instantly when done from either iPad, pc or s7 as long as I keep the app open .
I find that simply de-select and re-select whenever I start the app solves the issue as long as I keep the app open.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge and have the new Outlook client installed on both. When I have just my work email added (which is a O365 account) - I am able to see the calendar and agenda view just fine. Strangely the contacts are setup as disabled to sync by default - but easily slide the switch and you are good to go. The problem I am having is that when I add any other email account (in my case they are Outlook and MSN based addresses) - the calendar does not display my appointments anymore - either in the agenda or day view. Gone. Poof. I have reproduced this addition and deletion of the MSN and Outlook accounts 7+ times and same behavior each time.
So in reality the Outlook Client does work properly with a O365 address and Calendar is viewable but don't try adding additional accounts which in my case screwed up my calendar views


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Black background on Trebuchet
On my current phone (HTC Wildfire S), with a AOSPA (Paranoid Android) 4.45 ROM, I installed Trebuchet, because Launcher3 lacks features, and other customs lauchers takes a lot of battery, while my current battery is already going down fast.
Here you can see a screenshot of what it looks like:

The background is black.
But it isn't supposed to be black:

How can I show correctly my background?
Edit: Sometimes it show correctly on the bottom:

...
The APK I used was for the OnePlus One and had a MD5 of 2fd1a3e8f5a6ef44d1f14752b4caa5c9.
I installed another APK, coming from this ROM, and everything fixed itself (the MD5 was different: 3f465ccbfe8566479f863582671575c2)

The two APK had the same version number (1.0) and OnePlus One's was 1.97 MB while the working one was 1.9 MB o_0
Akward


text:
shell command segmentation fault (ICS)
On Cyanogenmod 11 (Kit Kat) I was running this ffmpeg binary from the command line and it worked great.
I needed to downgrade to Cyanogenmod 9 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and now I get a segmentation fault when running the same ffmpeg binary. Is there something obvious that I should check out?

Not quite. A segmentation fault occurs, in short, when a software goes writing to a reserved portion of memory. In your case, I can guess that the binary was specifically designed for targets within certain Android versions, and 4.4 is comprised in that range, while ICS is not.

Yep, that was the problem.

Glad to hear that you found my guess useful.

Okay, I got hold of the developer and learned that the binary isn't compatible with Android ICS or earlier. Simple as that.


text:
Internal Memory does not show up in the Computer(file Explorer)
I have Samsung GT-I19082 Galaxy Grand duos. When I connect it to my computer, it does not show the internal memory nor sdcard memory. When I switch to Camera memory option in the Phone, internal memory shows up in the PC, but it does not let me transfer data.
What can I do?

I have tried installing Samsung Kies to the computer, but no luck.

I have installed custom ROM on the device, its CM 12.1 which is based on Android 5.0.1. I see options like Media, Camera, Charge Only and SD Card. I have tried all of them. Only Camera is able to show the Internal memory into  the computer that too without an effective data transfers possible.

Which particular build of CyanogenMod are you using? Is it nightly or a stable one?

Exactly this one. http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-grand-duos/development/rom-glade-rom-t3057502

First ensure you have a good connection between phone and PC.  After you have connected,  unlock your phone and open the status bar.  There you should have a notification that reads "USB for charging" select it.  A dialog will pop up giving you a list of options.  Select the option "File transfers"  With this option selected you should be able to see "Internal storage" on your PC.

In the Dialog Box, I see options like Media Transfer, Camera, Charge Only and SD Card. I have tried all of them. :-(

Thanks. It worked for me. I chose MTP option to view Internal Storage.


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Clean update/install of new Android version (non-nexus)

I don't have a Nexus device (I have a Moto G2 2013).
Today I received the OTA update from my manufacturer (6.0 Marshmallow).

I want to do a clean install/update on my device. For example, when upgrading Windows it asks me if I want a clean install. I found out Android doesn't give me the option.
What is the cleanest way to upgrade my device?

Factory reset my device (going back to 4.4) and then hop versions (OTA to 5.0 and then 6.0)?
Look for an ISO from my manufacturer and flash it?

I don't think a factory reset would revert your device back to 4.4, I'm pretty sure it would still be on 6.0. A factory reset would wipe all user data on your device without touching the OS.
If you some want to wipe all installed apps (bar system apps) and user data then a factory reset would do. If you want to wipe the OS too then you would need to find a full device image.

Confirmed: Factory reset never touches /system, so it definitely wouldn't "go back to 4.4". See our factory-reset tag-wiki for details ;) So yes: A clean install would be doing a factory-reset followed by flashing a "full image".

You don't need to remove the apps first, a factory reset will take care of them.  A factory reset + the X-to-Y upgrade should be identical to a clean install of the full ROM for Y.


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Is a factory reset from recovery different from one started in the OS?
Galaxy S4 I9505 on 5.1 Stock

Handset has stability issues and I can't find a clear answer if a factory reset started in the OS runs the same process as one started via recovery?

There is only one difference — on Lollipop and higher, a factory reset from Settings will remove Factory Reset Protection from your device.  It will ask you to enter your device and/or Google Account password in order to verify that you are the owner of the device.  Resets from Recovery do not remove FRP since they can be initiated by anyone, such as a phone thief.

Perfect, diagnostically identical for me so. Thanks.


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Android mobile internet not working
On my phone I'm not able to access the internet. I have signal and data coverage. I still can't browse. But as soon as Mobile Hotspot is turned on, other devices can connect to the Internet and my device can connect to the Internet. It's a strange issue but it occurs often for me.
Is this an Android issue, a cell carrier issue, or a device issue? Thanks

i have same issue with my lenovo yoga tab 3 (android 6.0.1) tablet. did you find any solution?

Follow these instructions:

Try a reboot and check the option in Phone Settings.
Check if data roaming option is enabled.
Mostly, access point settings are provided by the ISP. Still, crosscheck them.
(Click image to enlarge)

Following is the code to access detailed information about your phone and its network:
*#*#4636#*#*

I tried this but still its not working. Note the same device internet can be accessed through wifi hotspot from other devices.

Okay, open play store and download a new browser like Opera Mini.

Clearing the Proxy/Port settings of active Access point name solved for me. see this QA:
Mobile Data only working when used as hotspot


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Android app identifier?
Is there such a thing as a searchable database or a website anywhere online where someone can type in the name of an app or a package name and see a summary of what the app is for, if it is a system app, if it is just Android or iOS, list of permissions needed, etc?
I guess sort of an app dictionary/encyclopedia with more in depth info than what searching Google Play will give me.

Could you be more specific about what you want that Google Play isn't giving you?

@DanHulme Reading between the lines: whether it's a system app, and the full list of permissions? Whether it's an iOS app might be indicated by not finding it there. And unfortunately, there are tons of apps whe one has to guess really hard "what the app is for" :)

Unlikely such a site exists and is complete. See the two links in this answer: The first currently covers 1718 apps, the second ~7,350 apps. My own site currently covers ~13,000+ apps (from multiple sources: GPlay, F-Droid, Aptoide "Apps", Xposed Repo).
Google Play covers >1 Mio apps, and I have a lot of apps not covered there (so do F-Droid (~1,800 apps) and Aptoide (~90,000 apps in their main repo, plus tons more in other "user-repos"). Then there are those apps offered outside of stores at all, e.g. only on the website of some company.
All that's left is typing the package name (surrounded by quotes) into a search box (Google, DuckDuckGo, whatever) and see what pops up. As you're specifically after malware: those results sometimes include links to scan details by several known anti-X companies, which are interesting (but not easy to read).

We could theoretically build an A.I. to mine from a search engine's results, and then have the relevant info of a package included in a database, couldn't we?

@DeathMaskSalesman oh, theoretically we could be millionaires :)

Nice example, pal. Still, it's when hypothesis gets applied, that we have changes. And what you did, was to give me a nice idea.

Looking forward to what that might become, @DeathMaskSalesman – don't forget to update us then!

I am not very sure if any such searchable database or a website is even possible for anyone to create (including Google itself), given the current size of Android apps, the indie app development ecosystem of Android  and plethora of Android devices on offer, which varies from country to country and more.
I guess the simplest approach is to take it case-by-case for each app.
If you find a new/unknown app, just do a quick Google Search using app's Name.
Most likely that you will find a link to Either Google Play store (if that app is hosted on Google Play) or some other Link from where you can download the APK for the app. Developers tend to provide enough information (such as app permissions) about the app so that user can see and install apps through these links.
Having said that, I found few useful links/sites which can be visited for app info.
Link-1, Link-2
Of course, these links/sites have their limitations and they do not have EVERY Single app which is ever developed for Android.


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Do any OS upgrades (between major versions) NOT require wiping data?
I'm  an Android developer and I have a non-technical question regarding major Android version upgrades (e.g. from Android 4.x to 5 or from 5.x to 6).
Do any of the big Android device vendors offer these kinds of upgrades without wiping the data on the device?
I'm asking this question because I need to know if this kind of scenario should be supported by the app.

Hmm, good question.  I do not recall offhand whether any of the major version updates I've done have not required a wipe.

looking for some info on updates for Android devices - I could only find info on Minor version updates (like https://www.androidpit.com/android-lollipop-update-overview-for-smartphones-and-tablets). I believe that in most cases - vendors have no incentive to prepare an update (without data wipe) for a year old device as they want people to buy a new one.

There are still lots of devices that get major version upgrades, though.  My Find 7 launched with 4.3 and is currently running 5.0 (with a 5.1 update also available, but it's from a different dev branch and not compatible).

I don't think many upgrades require a wipe. It's a pretty big deal to have to set up your device from scratch again. I know there have been a few in the past that require a wipe, but think they are the exception rather than the norm.

I've never seen any (really! None of my devices got one), but AFAIK all OTAs are so-called "dirty flashes" (i.e. not doing a wipe). Dalvik/ART seem to store some version identifier in their caches and thus detect whether they need to recompile some app. The bunch of issues popping up here ("after upgrade X broke") which are magically solved by doing a factory-reset seem to confirm this. I cannot remember a post like "Got an OTA, applied it, and now all my apps and data are gone". And believe me, that would have caused a sh*t-storm :)

except some custom ROMs, I've never seen any OTAs require wiping data after update

I can offer my personal experience, even if it has almost no value in the great picture. The thing is, that I foolishly tried an update from Lollipop to Marshmallow (i.e. dirty flash). The result was that my phone was almost useless, since the core apps and policies regarding Dalvik vs. ART were very different. From a theoretical point of view, I guess that it's the same even from 4.x to 5.x (still due to ART).

The question makes me think you are under the assumption that the standard is that data gets wiped when you do such an upgrade. Why do you think that? And I don't think this has anything to do with what vendor the device is from

This should inspire some confidence: https://source.android.com/devices/tech/ota/

I must admit that I'm a bit confused by this post. Granted, I haven't been an Androider from the word go (my first device was a Nexus 7 running Jellybean), but every major update I have done has not required a factory reset (unless of course it has got stuck). This is true for all three of my devices: my Nexus 5, my Nexus 7 and my Nexus 9.
The biggest update I have done was on my Nexus 5 and Nexus 7, going from KitKat to Lollipop and that kept all my data. And of any update, KitKat to Lollipop would be the most likely to require a reset - they're very different.
Mind you, they are pure Android devices. So I'd say that if you have an official Google device (be it LG, HTC, etc.) with vanilla Android, you're pretty safe.
(Also, it would not be in the best interests of the vendor to require a factory reset before an update because then there would be less of an incentive to update.)

I've updated an old S2 from rooted 2.3.6 to 4.0.1 via Odin flash, without a data/app wipe. So it's not just pure Android. But I'm not sure if modern devices differ.

So all of your apps continued working without any need to reinstall/re-configure them right?

We have had several devices from Samsung, ASUS, Sony, Motorola, Huawei etc. get major upgrades from Android I to J, J to K, K to L and now from L to M but we never had any of the data affected. Of course, all of these were non-rooted devices with manufacturer or Google provided OSes and the updates where issued/pushed by the manufacturer. This would make sense, as there may be important data stored by individual apps.
The case may be different for custom ROMs, though good custom ROMs would try to retain app data during upgrades. Having said that, it is always wise to backup your important data before performing any OS upgrades, minor or major.

As a general rule, mobile OS updates do not wipe user data when transitioning from 1 version to the next. Such wipes would be devastating for the large amount of users that have very little tech knowledge and don't take basic precautions like backups and storing their files in multiple locations.
However, quite a few apps run into issues when upgrading the OS version. Even system apps can have this issue. For example, when I upgraded my S4 from 4.4.2 to 5.0.1, the "recommended apps" app that recommends apps to use when connecting a headphone kept crashing when doing so. That was solved after a factory reset. That's why it is recommended to do a factory reset after a OS update. A not insignificant part of the userbase does factory resets in this manner.
As an app developer, you should least prepare for the user doing a factory reset at any time. With Marshmallow, that should be easier considering google now backs up certain app data.


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ContactManager sort by other Language
It's a Lenovo a7000-a and it uses ContactManager as a phone app. I have the Language of the device set as english but my contacts are in Greek. The ContactManager does not display Greek letters on te side for quick navigation, only english. Changing the device language to greek fixes the problem but the translations feel awkward. Is there another way?

try to change the timezone settings or language input for keyboard .


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horizontal and vertical blue lines across screen, galaxy note 5
I have blue horizontal and vertical lines across my screen(galaxy note 5)
This happened once before and I was told to take it to best buy to refresh it.
It worked well for 5 months, but is back.
I would like to find out what is it and how do I get rid of it for good before I need to refresh again.
I read online it could be developer options are on. I discovered how to shut it off, no change!

Can you give us a screenshot?

From your description, I believe we are talking about the "Universal Switch" feature.

"A universal switch lets you designate certain touches or gestures to control specific actions on your phone..."

I had get in confidence with this unknown feature when my Samsung S6 was stuck, thus unresponsive, on this mysterious interface control. I finally got out of that hell by a "Power+Vol UP+Vol Down+Home" restart.
more on http://www.samsung.com/uk/accessibility/product_galaxy_universal_switch.html

This is what i did. I kept pressing the home button till my phone came back to life.


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Odin BcmCP.img fail when trying to flash gt-s5830i (galaxy ace)
So I have a bricked gt-s5830i (galaxy ace) and when I try to flash it using odin I get this error:
<ID:0/003> Added!!
<OSM> Enter CS for MD5..
<OSM> Binary Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..
<OSM> Please wait..
<OSM> Checking MD5 finished Sucessfully..
<OSM> Leave CS..
<ID:0/003> Odin engine v(ID:3.1100)..
<ID:0/003> File analysis..
<ID:0/003> SetupConnection..
<ID:0/003> Initialzation..
<ID:0/003> Get PIT for mapping..
<ID:0/003> Firmware update start..
<ID:0/003> SingleDownload.
<ID:0/003> sbl.bin
<ID:0/003> NAND Write Start!!
<ID:0/003> BcmCP.img
<ID:0/003> FAIL!
<ID:0/003>
<ID:0/003> Complete(Write) operation failed.
<OSM> All threads completed. (succeed 0 / failed 1)
<ID:0/003> Removed!!

It started boot looping after it randomly got stuck and I took out the battery since I couldn't do anything at all. This is the firmware I tried: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/download/37194/S5830IXXLK3_S5830IDBTLK1_DBT/
http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/download/14913/S5830ZXXLK3_S5830ZDBTLK2_DBT/
Does anyone know what's causing this? This is also the first time I'm flashing a phone. The rom was downloaded from sammobile because the ones from samsung-updates seem to have broken downloads.

While waiting for answers on your question, please check these other questions with similar problems. Might find your solution there already.

Maybe try this one instead, or try another country -- some of them seem to fail randomly.  Someone had a similar issue here with a different device.  I'd also suggest doing a battery pull, connecting the device, and then holding Volume Down while you reinsert the battery to get into Download Mode -- my old Vibrant always flashed more reliably when I did it that way.

No luck, I got the exact same error message.

Use Odin 3.07. Also, make sure that you start odin as administrator. I had the same problem, and it worked for me. And prior to that, if it gets stuck in Setup Connection, just boot into "download mode" once again by pulling off the battery and re-inserting it.


text:
Start an app on start up without root
I have android lollipop 5.1.1 on my Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I would like to have an app start with my smartphone's boot. It's a call recorder app (automatic call recorder). How can I do that? Is that possible without root?

I found AutoStart on the play store,  it is a free app to start applications automatically.  It has mixed reviews but might do what you want.
Alternatively you can utilize Tasker ($2.99) on the play store.  Open tasker and add a profile (+ icon).  Select "Event" from the list, you will get a popup menu,  select "System", then select "Device Boot". Now select the back arrow in the top left corner.
Now select "New Task +" from the right side of the screen.  Name does not matter,  but I would name it something like "Start App". Press the + icon on the bottom to define your action, then select "App", then "Launch App", now select the applications you want to start on boot.
With the profile you created,  you told tasker "When my device boots" then with the action you created in tasks you told tasker "start this application".
Tasker is a powerful tool to automate actions on android.  It basically works by saying if this happens do that.  I use it to disable my wifi when I'm not connected, kill all my apps and disable auto sync while on the charger and face down in order to speed up charging.  It can be used for many things,  I feel my $3 was well spent on it.


text:
Can't remove remaining facebook files
so I have 2 remaining .cnt files in /data/data/com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1/44 and /data/data/com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1/45
The thing is that they can't be removed in any way. I am rooted and tried with TWRP's file manager, ES file explorer and adb shell. All I get is:
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1/45/OiSR12MweCzGONMN1iX7RFU4zN4.cnt: I/O error
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1/45: Directory not empty
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1/44/5F38tB3DUq0HT5gzyfpNDbnOAwY.cnt: I/O error
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1/44: Directory not empty
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache/image/v2.ols100.1: Directory not empty
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache/image: Directory not empty
rm: com.facebook.katana/cache: Directory not empty
rm: com.facebook.katana: Directory not empty

What command did you use to remove those files? Why are you trying to remove those files? Are they too big in size or causing some other issue in your device?

Have you tried rebooting?  Please provide the exact command you're running as well.


text:
How do I record calls on Viber, Skype, Whatsapp, Voxer, Google, Facebook, etc?
There seem to be apps for recording for local or international calls but none for Internet calls.
Some apps on the Google Play Store claim to be able to record calls on Viber or Skype. I even found some apps not in the play store. I tried some, but I'm not sure if they work. I haven't gotten around to testing any yet. Some reviews of the apps I found seem to be mixed. I don't feel like reinventing the wheel.
I have a second phone that I would use except that sometimes the calls I make require earphones.
If it matters, the phone I use for Viber, Skype, etc calls is a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, and my other phone is a Samsung Galaxy Mega.
Please don't bring up any stuff about legality.

You could use a screen recorder, or a sound recorder recording sound internally. I haven't tried it, but i found a few people recommending this application from Google play. It will record audio internally, and therefore i guess it will also record the sound from internet calls.

It doesn't work when I call on viber. Got other suggestions?

Listen via a I/O unit that lets you record the sound, since sound is going to come from the headphone jack, you can input that to the device and route it to a pair of headphones. Might be expensive, and is a rather not mobile solution.

That app doesn't work. It says error when it should record skype or wa.

6 years later...not sure why i missed this but you said 'You could use a screen recorder, or a sound recorder recording sound internally.' yeah sounds like this could work. thanks!


text:
Is there a way to deactivate LDAP contacts suggestion on android 6.0?
When I write emails, android suggests plenty of contacts as recipient because my email is connected to an exchange enterprise account. But the company is very big and at every mail, I have suggestion of plenty of contacts before to see my personal contacts. This behavior is not very efficient : if you write a lot of emails to a person, she would be in your contacts list and you don't want other suggestion before her!
So, is there a way to deactivate LDAP contacts suggestions on android?

Go to Settings -> Accounts & Sync and disable Contact Sync for that account.  You will probably have to clear the data from Contacts/Contacts Storage afterward and re-sync any personal accounts.

@MatthewRead I had tried to remove contacts sync for this account but suggestions are still here. Could you explain me how to purge contacts storage data?

Under Settings -> Applications, find the app(s) and hit Clear Data.

@MatthewRead not working... still LDAP suggestions

You might need to clear the data for the Email app too, though then you'll need to re-sync all your email.  It's also possible that your work contacts have been synced to your personal account.


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Android OS High Mobile Data usage
Guys the android OS data usage on mobile data seems to be unusually high..
I have blocked data access for all the apps and whitelisted only a few 4-5 apps in AfWall firewall.. While play store , play services are disabled too..
Also I keep Google sync off when on mobile data and use it only on Wi-Fi..
And one cannot turn off background data on android OS
Settings > Backup and reset is turned off And all the photos backup etc too.
Anything related to Google or backup is turned off in short
The mobile is Moto G first gen and most of the OEM Motorola apps are freezed
So why so much usage by Android OS..
What packages are part of it.
Or how to check what services or packages are using the data and how to disable or freeze them.
Also can post if somebody needs to analyse

iptables firewall rules
Apps frozen or disabled

Screens:

Also:

backup is turned off
sync is turned off
no OTA updates for a long time
my normal data usage was ~20MB per month for Android OS

One way to reduce data usage it to turn off Data Roaming. This can be found under Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks.

How does this even affect when one's never on roaming


text:
Online Nandroid Backup and later restore of an encrypted Android L 5.1 device
I am using an Android One phone with rooted Android 5.1 and the Online Nandroid Backup application to do live (o)nandroid backups. I am also using the built-in encryption, which encrypts the /data partition, but as the backup is performed on a live running system, the resulting data.img is unencrypted as I've verified with Nandroid Manager being able to extract data without asking for a password. Apparently it is not doing a block-level copy of the /data.
As the backed-up system in the system.img expects encrypted /data and the restored /data is now unencrypted, my question is if the resulting backup can be restored and booted without any problems, using fastboot for example? Will Android hang while booting if the /data partition is decrypted and the system is not factory reset? What is the correct way to perform a live backup of an encrypted Android 5.1 system?

"restored /data is now unencrypted" -- no, this in incorrect. The encryption and decryption happens on-the-fly. It simply means that data is first encrypted and then written into the disk. It also means that data is first decrypted and then is passed to the apps or anything which requested a read. There is no problem here to begin with.

@Firelord So if I buy another phone alike and restore only the /data partition with fastboot, where exactly (you didn't oppose the fact that the resulting backup data.img is unencrypted) it is stated that the /data partition should be encrypted during restore? Using which password?

I looked at the onandroid script and it seems that it does a block-level copy of the data with dd only for partitions that are not mounted during the normal system operation (such as recovery partition) and copies the files on the filesystem level from the mounted ones - meaning it copies the decrypted content of the data partition and others and creates a backup images out of it. Further testing would be needed to determine what happens after a recovery is made from a system image (expecting encrypted data) and non-encrypted data image.
It seems that onandroid is "best effort" software (I didn't see any mount -o remount,ro / before copying the contents of the partition - it would probably also affect the running system possibly crashing it) and is therefore best not to use it with encrypted devices. The proper way to handle them still remains encryption-supporting recovery such as TWRP (or dumping the partitions via adb pull while in ADB-supporting recovery). I would be happy to be proven wrong by someone who knows the onandroid script in greater depth.


text:
Creating a cron job on Android
I want to write a bash script (similar to Linux) to run a cron job every 10 hour. The task is fairly simple, e.g. deleting files from cache folder.
According to this topic, I installed busybox and terminal emulator and phone has already been rooted. Here is what I did:
su -
echo "*/5 * * * * root reboot" >> /data/crontab/root
crond -b -c /data/cronjob

Note that for the test, I set the phone to reboot every 5 minutes to see if crond is properly working.
Problem is, it doesn't work! Any idea for that?

In case you are open to alternative solutions, you can consider using an [tag:automation] app to run your script after every X minutes/hours. Tasker and Automate, both can do your job easily. Related: How to clear a Folder (e.g. Downloads) automatically on a regular/scheduled basis?

Trying to test the recommended applications

Although it is obvious, I would still stress that you remove the sections dealing with cron job from your script, if you intend to test the script using those apps.

OK Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm) did the job

Requirements

Root access
Busybox : for 'crond' service
/system/etc/init.d folder to start 'crond' service at boot

Creating cronjob
Create the cronjob file in directory /data/crontab/ with filename root. Write your cronjob inside the file 'root'. Set executable permissions for the file 'root'
Test without rebooting
Now open any terminal emulator in device and run the following commands..
su -
crond -b -c /data/cronjob

Now the crond service will start, to check type...
top | grep crond

Start crond at boot

mount system partition in read write :
su -
mount -o remount,rw /system
Create a file 99my_daemon at /system/etc/init.d with executable permission and enter the following lines
crond -b -c /data/crond
Close writing the /system partition
mount -o remount,rw /system
And reboot

Example of cron filename root
*/15 * * * * reboot

Will reboot your device every 15 minutes from o'clock.

To disable read write mode need to enter mount -o remount,ro /system command

This solution will work only if there will be no OOM situation. If OOM killer starts working because system doesn't have free memory crond may be killed.


text:
CWM Recovery can't see external SD card, need to install a rom from ext SD
Phone is a SGH-I747M. Was rooted. Tried to put a custom rom on it. Something happened. Now it loads to CWM-Recovery v5.5.0.4. I can't view the files on the SD Card. I have tried mounting the card from the menu. Still nothing. Please help. I think I can save this phone, but I just don't know how.

This situation can occur if you accidentally flash recovery to /boot, probably best to return to stock with ODIN/Kies and start over.

@acejavelin Odin doesn't recognize it when it's in CWM-recovery mode

Odin is only used with Download Mode.  Put it in Download Mode.

Here is the Procedure:

Make sure latest Samsung USB drivers are installed on your PC.
Download Odin v3.07 on your PC.(Some SAMSUNG devices require Odin v3.04).
Download Recovery.tar, download link. This link Provides CWM Recovery.

Follow the Steps:

Run Odin v3.07 on your PC as an administrator.
Switch off your device, go to download mode (volume down + home screen button+ power button), then press volume up to continue and connect to your PC.
When Odin recognize your device, click PDA option(Do not touch any other options) and navigate to the recovery.tar file where you have downloaded it.
Select recovery file and hit START.

The flashing process will complete and Odin will show a PASS button with green background, your device will be rebooted.
After flashing the stock recovery file your phone should boot normally without any problem.
Now before you flash a new ROM –

Make sure you have enabled USB  Debugging on your device
Make sure you have latest Samsung USB drivers installed on your PC
Wipe cache partition and wipe data/factory reset before you flash a ROM

Above Procedure is Adapted version. Original Work.
And if you want Original Samsung Firmware.
Download Kies from Samsung Website which can put Samsung Firmware on your phone. See This.

Nicely done, a significantly better answer than your first revision, and probably the correct one. I will upvote it!


text:
Soft bricked device fails to boot into recovery, both through key combo and fastboot
I have a Micromax Canvas 2.2 A114 which is soft bricked. I am trying to get into recovery mode after flashing CWM Recovery image using fastboot with the following command:
# fastboot flash recovery /tmp/recovery.img

The command gives the following result:
sending 'recovery' (6144 KB)...
OKAY [  0.233s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [  1.098s]
finished. total time: 1.332s

However, when I try to get into the recovery mode, it doesn't boot into recovery and go into reboot again having infinite loop cycles.
How do I fix my phone?
Edit
Attempting to directly boot into the recovery doesn't work. Console remains stuck on booting... and device doesn't boot at all.

# fastboot boot /tmp/recovery.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [ 0.204s]
booting...

The chipset your device has is supported by SP Flash Tools. Find the ROM here and flash it using that tool. You can also flash the recovery partition alone and see if the device reboots into your CWM recovery this time.

Solved...!!
First of all thanks to @Firelord for pointing me to SP Flash Tools and giving the link of stock ROM.
In case anyone ever stuck with this problem in future, I would like to tell I got my phone recovered by following this tutorial:
How to Unbrick every MTK China Phone ! Preloader / SP Flashtool Fix


text:
How to diagnose battery drain on Android device using logcat?
I have been facing a severe battery drain issue on my official Cyanogenmod custom ROM. After discussing it on community forums, it was suggested that I use logcat for troubleshooting the problem.
Problem:
Every time I disconnect my device after a complete charge, it drains battery  rapidly. It loses almost 50% in 15-20 mins. As mentioned above, I am planning to use logcat to try and capture the issue. I am planning to run adb logcat immediately after unplugging the phone from power.  However, I have used logcat in the past and found it very very difficult to extract specific data from the large output. I already went through the official logcat help page and Reading and Writing Logs to see if I could find something useful, but I could not find a solution for my problem.
Question:

Is there anyway to use filters or some other feature where I can limit the logcat output to the stats which are only related to battery usage?
Can something like adb shell dumpsys batterystats > batterystats.txt be of better use to me? If so, how do I use it to get what I want?

UPDATE:
BatteryStats for my drain can now be found here at Patebin. Also this is my Battery Historian Chart:

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

From the discharge graph I'd rather assume a faulty battery here than an app (especially if it always happens that way). Maybe you try a new battery (provided your device supports replacing it)?

I think the problem is with the battery, not an app. Try to borrow the battery of someone with the same device, and test if the same error occours with the newer battery. If it doesn't you'll just have to get a new battery. If it still does, I'd still don't think it's because of an app - to drain this much battery it would need to activate GPS, have heavy network traffic and do complex processes at a time.

@Namnodorel unfortunately, it's a non-removable battery.. I also think it's not due to any app. It's either a leak in the ROM or something else. I am assuming there is not problem in the battery because as I said, once I recharge if after drop, it works perfectly fine :|

Batteries that are going bad can be inconsistent sometimes. My Galaxy S6's battery is slowly dying, and some days it's better, some days it's worse. My drain is not as significant as yours, but I believe it is not due to an application. Have you tried running the phone in safe mode? Have you tried a factory reset (as awful and unfortunate as they are to perform and recover from)?

To solve your problem you could get a battery draining app helper it will make your phone last longer

@ashhem what did you use to create that nice "Battery Historian Chart"? Might be useful to others as well :)

Are you sure, it's not any app that is draining your battery? You can find this out by booting you phone into Safe mode. Read How to boot your phone into safe mode for instructions. If your battery doesn't drain in Safe mode, try uninstalling the apps that you installed after you started seeing this weird behavior. If you are not able to figure out which app it is, try factory resetting it. Also, if the battery is draining so quickly it might very well be a faulty battery.

Well, general suggestion is good, but it doesn't really answer the real question (diagnose battery usage using logcat)

@AndrewT. Generally spoken, you are correct. But considering OP wants to solve the issue, fixing it to logcat is somehow making it an XY problem (in limits). So though not 100% fitting the question "literally", I'd say it fits the issue and offers an approach to solve it.

Is there anyway to use filters or some other feature where I can limit the logcat output to the stats which are only related to battery usage?

Sure. The easier way is to used the device monitor from Android Studio. The more complex way is to use the command line interface to adb logcat (it uses the ANDROID_LOG_TAGS env var). Cf logcat Command-line Tool documentation on developer.android.com.

Can something like adb shell dumpsys batterystats > batterystats.txt be of better use to me? If so, how do I use it to get what I want?

Battery drain is mainly because of some unexpected conditions occuring (errors conducting applications to loop infinitly, badly detected devices making access sub optimals, for ex reading byte per byte instead of Mb per Mb, etc). You should use the filtering ability of adb logcat to find such unexpected conditions. But be warned that such tools are mainly used by app or even platform devs, and it can be sometimes a little but complex to interpret such logs. However 100% of the guys who succeeded, have tried ;-)


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Bricked android lg g stylo metropcs
I need help with my lg g stylo. I was using one click root Kingo root and when it was 66% done it was rebooting my phone into firmware download and my computer running Windows 10 froze to where I had to hard reset it, and my phone froze on firmware update.
Now my phone is stuck in a bootloop on the LG life's good screen, I've tried hard resetting it ( with the volume down and power button combo) the Android guy pops up for one millisecond and disappears going back to the LG screen, not doing anything the only other the only other thing I can do is go into downloading mode( while connected to a computer hold the volume button up) but when I do that my computer does not recognize my phone saying code 10 device cannot start up.
I have called LG they refused to help me get into recovery mode. I have called Google Android support they don't know how to help, I have also called windows trying to see if it was my computer's fault and they decided it wasn't. I am kind of out of options, I'm hoping someone knows how to help me.

Can you get into Recovery Mode?  If not please try steps 1-6 here.

No I am unable to access recovery, and when i called LG customer support they refused to tell me how. I kind of tried that already with Android Studio/Android SDK Manager with adb and fastboot plugins. When I try looking for my device with (adb devices) it says, list of devices and then nothing after that, just a new command line. I have the USB drivers for LG. I've also uninstalled and reinstalled them a few times. Any suggestions?

There should be a key combo to get into factboot mode without using adb, on many devices it's Power+VolumeUp.

I've looked on Google for ways to and the T-Mobile version of my phone has a way to, but the button combo (vol down and power at same time when lg appears release both then press both again until recovery mode appears) doesn't work for metroPCS version.


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How to block touchscreen?
How can I block touchscreen? Using root permissions is acceptable. I was able to do it by removing /dev/input/event0 but recreating it with mknod does not enable touchscreen back. Thanks.

What are you trying to achieve? You've not stated your final objective.

I need to block all input from touchscreen. How can I do it?

put a piece of perspex or glass in front of it

Related: Disable touchscreen in Android x86


text:
How to check if a model can make phone calls?
So I'm looking to buy a new android tablet, but I can not for the life of me find out for any given tablet whether or not it can make and receive phone calls like a regular android phone would.
Am I correct that just because something has a possibility for a SIM card, it can't automatically make phone calls too?

You are correct, there are data-only SIMs.  You should look at the technical specifications on the manufacturer's website or somewhere like http://www.gsmarena.com/.

Which part of the technical specs in GSMArena shows me this info, because as far as I know, it is not listed there.


text:
Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 won't work with bluetooth
I have an Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 that I purchased in January.  It has static, breaks up and sounds muffled when I have my bluetooth on and wifi is on.  If I turn my wifi off it works ok. I have tried 4 bluetooth and returned the Alcatel once. Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone have a solution?  I am ready to cut my losses and purchase another phone.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both operate in the 2.4 GHz frequency band.  As such, interference is to be expected; it's not your particular phone.  Here is an interesting paper on it.
You could see if your home Wi-Fi router supports the 5.0 GHz band, and switch to using that exclusively.  You could also try changing the Wi-Fi channel.

Thanks for your response, but the paper is from 2002 and this is the first time I have had this problem.  My router does support 5.0, however, the problem I have happens when I am in my car also, and there is no wifi, but my wifi is turned on on my phone.  The static is not just interference that can be overlooked, it is so bad that I would be repeating myself every few minutes or less and the same for the person on the other end.  It sounds like they are in water trying to talk.  I will try the 5.0 GHZ band at hoe and see if it makes a difference and update.


text:
Is there a way for me to use my phone as a Xbox One or 360 controller
I let my friend borrow my Xbox 360 controller which was the way for me to stream Xbox One onto my computer. Since he now has my controller I can't really do it, so I was wondering if there's a way to use my phone to control my Xbox.

You should be able to do it with the Xbox One SmartGlass app.
Navigate the Xbox dashboard, pause and rewind your favorite movie, swipe, pinch, and tap to surf the Web on your TV, and use your device's keyboard for easy text input and search on your console.
Browse the entire Xbox catalog from your device.
Get real-time game strategy within the app.
Compatible with the following devices:
    - Windows 8
    - Windows RT Tablet 8+
    - IOS Devices up to 5S and Ipad Air
    - Android devices that run 4.x and higher
It also provide exclusive and interactive content for movies and TV shows.
More details on its website.
There is also an Xbox 360 SmartGlass app.
Both apps have positive reviews and perform well.
Alternatively, if you just want to play the games streamed to your computer, set up the Xbox App like so:

On your PC, launch the Xbox app.
Select Connect from the panel on the left side.
The Xbox app will scan your home network for available Xbox One consoles. Select the name of the console you want to connect to.

More details on their website
Then download a controller app for your phone like DroidJoy app.

Allows you to use your Android device as an Xbox like controller for playing games on your pc
Requires running a "server" app on your computer to communicate with the controller app which you can download on their website


text:
Accessing Windows PC folder on Android tablets without internet connection
I am trying to access a Windows PC folder on my Android tablets (let's say 10 tablets). I have a video folder in my PC and I want to access that folder and play video. Things I have tried are:

Using JCIFS library and Samba server: the drawback is it requires internet connection.
Using WAMP server and localhost: this solution was perfect until I tested it on multiple devices. It takes a lot of time to buffer big video files and sometimes fails to access videos.

Is there any other method to do that without root? Any other methods to connect my Android tablets to Windows PC and access the video files from a folder?

"It takes a lot of time to buffer big video files and sometimes fails to access videos" -- I would only assume that you tried to buffer those files from those devices on a Wi-Fi. Don't be surprised, well. Wi-Fi has its limitations and so as the hardware providing the Wi-Fi. :-)

CIFS/samba doesn't required internet access, a LAN is fine.

There are several File manager supporting all local file systems & LAN, so they can access your Windows shares directly – no Internet required, just a local WiFi both, your Android device(s) and Computer(s) are connected to. My (very subjective) "top 3" you can find described in my answer on our sister-site, together with some screenshots: ES File Explorer, Open Explorer (also see my recommendation here), Solid Explorer. All 3 have network capabilities and even can auto-discover your Windows shares.

I want to know how can I implement that feautre in my Android App

Wrong place to ask then. This site is for end users of Android, development issues are off-topic here.


text:
Why does any app having an active overlay is causing low frame rates?
Any app that I try on my device that is some kind of on-screen tool, such as monitoring apps, pie apps, screen filters, corner sliding apps, etc., makes the device have consistent low frame rates.
If I disable HW overlays though, the problem disappears. Why is that?
I've a Ulefone U7 running Android 4.4.2 with Linux kernel 3.4.67.

Maybe the phrasing is incorrect. I mean enabling the option which disables hw overlays.  Enabling a dev. option which is off by default, fixes the problem.

My fault. My interpretation was incorrect.

Deafult options, no osd, max smoothness
Deafult options, osd, max choppiness
With disable HW overlays I get average smoothness w/ and w/o osd apps.

I think that only the last app requesting an hw overlay gets GPU access, the rest get offloaded to CPU, resulting in crappy rendering.
But a 3dmark benchmark shows this:

Default options, osd disabled 30fps
Default options, osd enabled but not visible 30fps
Default options, osd enabled and visible 25fps
no hw overlays, osd enabled but not visible 27fps
no hw overalys, osd enabled and visible 22fps

So I suppose that with hw overlays, there is an option to "put them to sleep" while benchmarking (hence the same fps)
but disabling hw overlays keeps the (GPU) memory of all the apps no matter what, hence the lower framerate in general.
This is all very confusing and a possible answers can be:

It's hard to understand what gets offloaded to what, mtk cpu rendering may as well be on par with GPU rendering considering the chipset is balanced with a beefy cpu and crappy gpu...therefore HW overlays don't work as they should because cpu/gpu balance was thought with other specifications in mind.
MTK crap hacked backported kernel causes trouble with HW overlays at least for 2D apps, being unable to discern the correct usage of those.

I wish someone would give me a more insightful answer but I guess nobody cares about 4.4 android anymore, and nobody cares about mtk chipsets in general (and this chipset is even 2 years old which means no one among the nobodies would care :p)


text:
“Android is upgrading… Starting Apps” on boot
My phone is still stuck on "Android is upgrading.. starting apps" on boot.
Earlier, my phone said "Unfortunately, Google Playstore stopped working" and I am unable to use my apps which needed Internet access so I turned off my phone and removed my sd card before doing a factory reset. The reset was successful however it's been booting for several minutes already. I tried removing the battery and putting it back on. I rebooted the device and it is now stuck on "Android is upgrading.. starting apps." I tried removing the battery again and started wiping cache partition, doing factory reset again and rebooting the system but the problem is still the same.

How long have you left it? This step can take a very long time (i've seen it take over 15 minutes). It depends on the device and how many apps it needs to process. I'd suggest leaving it longer and seeing if it eventually finishes.

Olá (hi)
You can recovery you device by installing again its original stock rom.
See more about it at the following website: (it is in portuguese)
http://smartmundo.com/brick-matar-aparelho/

There's no reason to think the questioner reads Portuguese, so perhaps instead of posting a useless link, you could summarise the content here in English. Link-only answers - even to English-language sites - are discouraged here because they become completely useless if the linked content goes away.


text:
Put ICE on lock screen
Samsung Mega 6.3 SGH-M819N with OS 4.4.2 puts owner's info on the lock screen. How may I replace that with an ICE contact text,  so anyone who finds me Out Of Service can,  without need to unlock the phone,  see who to call for my Emergency contact?

Using an ICE app, maybe? See: I.C.E – In Case of Emergency for examples.

Interesting thought, but what's wrong with just typing it in?

@AaronGillion Nothing. Depends on what you want. Changing the owner info seemed too obvious to me, so I thought OP is after "something more advanced" :)

@Aaron Gillion,  can't put name + two numbers by selecting  text then the name of next-of-kin and their two numbers, not enough characters allowed.

@Izzy Checking ICE apps and if you know one which successfully places a widdget on the lock screen, would like to know.

I'm not using any of those. I like the idea, but somehow doubt its value. "Emergeny staff" (medics) do not check your device (they are even advised against it, privacy and such) – hence my hint to put a note on your insurance card explicitly telling them to check. In which case you also can have those details attached there to save them precious seconds. Not to forget you cannot tell who and when will even check that card: most likely not the ambulance picking you up, but rather some clerk at the hospital later. I'd like to read some "success stories" first :)


text:
Some Images and Videos Not Displayed in Gallery
On my Lenovo Vibe P1, photos and videos I download or receive via apps (Whatsapp, Xender, etc.) are not displayed in the Gallery, but photos and videos taken with the camera and screen shots are. How can I get all photos and videos to appear properly in the Gallery?

try to change the location of the videos/photos by cutting them from their previous folder and then pasting to a new location/folder.


text:
Connect through adb to a Nexus 4 with a broken touch screen?
I have a Nexus 4 with a broken touch screen from which I would like to recover some files. adb is a tool often referred for this purpose, as in this guide.
I have installed adb and fastbook on my computer and have tried to connect to phone using various methods, but always without success. When I run adb services the list always comes out empty.
Browsing through previous questions on this matter, I came across this answer where it is said a certain USB debugging feature must be activated in the phone itself to allow the connection from adb. Obviously I can not do this since the touch screen is not working.
Is there any other of connecting through adb to a Nexus 4 with a broken touch screen?

Nope. You can use an OTG or Bluetooth mouse, and/or a TV-out adapter. You can also flash custom recovery if you're bootloader unlocked, and use the volume/power keys to navigate a recovery.

The OTG mouse is a nice tip. Will I be able to draw my screen unlock gesture with it? That would pretty much give me full access to the phone.

According to this guide I would need to root the phone to use an OTG connection; not a way out either. I also do not know how to activate Bluetooth without using the touch screen.

Dang. I didn't know Google removed it through an OTA update. Still worth a try? Did you consider getting a new screen?

A screen replacement costs about the double of buying a new phone.

I would say about half.

I do not live in the US. And do not have the tools required to do the replacement myself.

Hint: Check out our broken-screen tag-wiki, this topic is covered there.

Closely related: How to do a clone / backup & restore between identical devices via USB and broken screen

I went through the broken-screen tag-wiki and could only find two suggestions for this case: 1. Use a software called Kies; 2. Use an OTG USB connection. Kies only runs on Windows and Mac and OTG requires rooting the Nexus 4.

You can access ADB if you install a custom recovery. I would recommend TWRP.

Note that the following solution requires a Nexus 4 with an unlocked bootloader. To unlock the bootloader you can do a fastboot oem unlock – but running that will wipe the user data as well.

Download the TWRP image for your device
(Download the latest one)
Power off your phone
Press and hold the Volume Down Key and the Power button at the same time, this will let you boot your device in fastboot mode.
Move the downloaded TWRP image into the folder where you installed adb and fastboot, and then rename the downloaded twrp-X.X.X-X-mako.img file to "recovery.img". Open the "Command Prompt" in that location.
Type fastboot devices and check whether your computer recognizes your device. If the list the following command returns does not show your device, make sure you have the appropriate ADB Drivers installed.
Then type in fastboot flash recovery recovery.img and wait for a SUCCESS message.
Then type in fastboot reboot recovery and your phone should now reboot into recovery mode.

Your phone should now be accessible via ADB
Now you can follow this guide at XDA.

How do I power off the phone with a broken touch screen?

Nearly every phone can be shut down holding the power button for 4 sec or longer.

I thin you should consider mentioning and stressing the fact that your solution requires a Nexus 4 with an unlocked bootloader, otherwise, the solution would simply not work and would waste a reader's time since a reader might end up thinking that they are doing something incorrectly.

I muddle through this answer, figuring out how to switch off the phone, that neither fastboot nor adb get a folder of their own, etc. fastboot devices recognises the phone, but the recovery command returns the following: "sending 'recovery' (9122 KB)...
OKAY [  0.290s]
writing 'recovery'...
FAILED (remote: not supported in locked device)
finished. total time: 0.291s"

Firelord: would there be a way to unlock the bootloader?

@LuísdeSousa yes, there is. Doing fastboot oem unlock will unlock the bootloader  but will wipe the user data as well.

Is this only the application data (e.g. notes in the notebook application) or also the files stored in the file system (e.g Donwloads folder).

i sorry... you would need an unlocked bootloader... @LuísdeSousa ... I am really sorry


text:
On-device calendar exists?
I am coming from iOS to my first Android (Samsung Galaxy S7) and having hard time adjusting. The first thing that is throwing me off is lack of a calendar app.
The phone came with Samsung's own S-Planner, but I wanted to use a more native android app (so that if my next phone is not Samsung, I don't have to relearn). However I cannot find anything else installed on the device. Any online search results in various 3rd party calendar apps. So, is there no such thing as a "native android calendar app"?
Secondly, the 3rd party calendar apps have options of syncing to Gmail/Exchange/other accounts, but is there no such thing as "on-device calendar" (like on iOS)? One that isn't linked to some account online?
Thank you

most "native" apps by Google were moved to play store, like clock, map, youtube... so that it can be updated easily instead of OTA which a lot of devices don't have latest android update

find all "native" apps here

The native AOSP calendar app was replaced by Google's own1. It went by the package name com.android.calendar, but is no longer found in either Google Play Store or on F-Droid (you can find its code on Github, though). As for synchronization, that's usually not done by the calendar app itself but by the corresponding sync service; most calendar apps use the "calendar provider" of the Android system to store their data.
If you want a "local calendar" that's not synchronized at any cost, and your device doesn't offer such, you can e.g. use Offline Calendar; but that app doesn't seem to be maintained anymore (last version is from 2013).

1: See Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

stand alone calendar claims to be developed from AOSP

@beeshyams it was also last updated in November 2013. This may not be a problem but it doesn't look like it will receive any further updates.

@bmdixon Noticed that and it is not truly "stand alone" going by user reviews. Was sharing as information

@beeshyams that's why I didn't mention it :) And "based upon" doesn't mean it's the same. It has a different package name for one. Some AOSP ROMs might still have it (and even maintain it), but that doesn't mean it will turn up on Play or F-Droid, unfortunately.

Google Calendar could be considered as native android calendar app. You can download it from Google Play. But I personally don't like it.
As for device-only calendar - I have never seen an android phone without such a calendar (I'm not familiar with Samsung devices though). Normally you can choose a calendar during creating an event.

You could try Offline Calendar. App description says

Lets you add calendars to the Calendar app, which are not synchronized and are accessible only on the device itself.
  Create the calendar in this app and it will then be available in the Calendar app.

I had tried it earlier, but gave up since I found interface not very friendly (for me at least-your experience may be different). Exporting to new device could be as you would do for other apps (backing up and reinstalling) or as I see in developer reply  suggesting interface with another app to export(see 15/09/2015)
EDIT: I posted this as a comment and by the time typed the reply, found another answer (by Izzy) recommending this !


text:
What controls the text preview in notifications?
I am new to Android (on Samsung S7 now), and trying to understand the basic (so that I can drill more into details later).
My notifications (emails) show the sender and email title, but not the email body preview (the iOS lock screen showed a few lines of the email body). I have "content preview" enabled on device settings.
What controls the amount of information displayed in previews?

Is this a device/ROM setting that all notification apps have to adhere to?
Is it the underlying email client application?
Or is it the notification application itself?

In other words, in order to see email body preview in notifications, should I be looking for a different email client, different notifier, or different ROM?

Everything in the notification is set by the app that created it. So in the case of your email, it's the email client.
Note that in recent Android versions, you can expand most notifications by pulling down on them with two fingers. In Gmail, for example, if you have a notification about several emails, you can expand it from "3 new messages" to show the sender and subject line for each. If you only have one new mail, the default layout shows the sender, subject line, and first line, but the expanded form shows a few extra lines of the content.


text:
How to calculate size for 2nd partition for Link2SD / Apps2SD?
I've moved to Marshmallow (CM13) and unwittingly fallen victim to its regression in support for apps stored on the external SD card (since adopting external SD as storage is not option), so now I'm told I need to use Link2SD or Apps2SD to move app files to my external card.
There is plenty of information online on why and how a second SD card partition is used by Link2SD or Apps2SD (not least the Link2SD FAQ), but I can't find any guidelines anywhere for how to determine the best size for the partition when first creating it.  Presumably this depends on how many apps I want to put on SD, and the nature of those apps.  So rather than asking for some highly subjective rules of thumb, I'll ask a more precise question:
How can I calculate how big I would need to make this second partition in order to accommodate moving all of my currently installed and movable apps to it?  In other words, is there an easy way to calculate a total size of all the app parts which Link2SD or Apps2SD would be able to move to SD?
There are two parts to the question:

Which components will it actually move?  All the info online seems horribly confusing.  AFAICS it will move the apk, dex, and lib files, but what about the internal data and cache files?  I've also heard about obb files - do I need to include them in calculations too?
How can I conveniently add up the sizes of all those to get a total which gives me an idea how big my second partition should be? e.g. if the total was 1.4GB, I would know that creating a second partition of around 2GB would probably be fairly future-proof.
I know Link2SD and Apps2SD both let me filter the app list to only show movable apps, and for each app they also displays the size of the apk/dex/lib/data/cache on internal storage.  But adding these all up across my 71 movable apps would be extremely tedious.  Is there is some cunning CLI command I can run locally via a shell to add these numbers up? e.g. something based on piping the output of pm list packages or similar into awk?

BTW I don't have any particular preferences for Link2SD or Apps2SD so answers involving either would be great.  Thanks!

I could be incorrect if it has changed very recently (a quick Google search didn't turn up a different answer as of this posting), but APP2SD and Link2SD do not support Marshmallow or CM13. So your question(s) may be a mute point.

I had already seen reports of people using at least one of them successfully on Marshmallow, e.g. http://forum.xda-developers.com/crossdevice-dev/android-one-general/link2sd-t3222034/post64400093#post64400093  BTW I think you meant 'moot' not 'mute' ;-)

lol... yes, moot was what I meant. Read through the thread, it looks like a lot of work and spotty success that isn't consistent... Using the split adopted method looks better IMO, where you can say XX% is external storage and XX% is internal (adopted) storage. http://blog.sam.liddicott.com/2016/02/android-6-semi-adopted-storage.html

Adopting my SD card is not an option for reasons already explained.


text:
Is there a way to download and store Google Maps permanently?
Google Maps are arguably the most accurate online maps in the world, but the problem is that the app itself has many limitations when it comes to offline use like not allowing downloads of maps bigger than a certain size and deletion of stored maps after a number of days.
Is there a way within Google Maps or using 3rd party software (available on F-Droid maybe) that can download Google Maps and store them indefinitely and also allow offline search? Or is there an alternative way to do this?

It would be really cool if there was a database+Xposed mod out there that you could launch on your device that would mimic Google's server and feed the info straight into the app.

I use MAPS.ME as an alternative. It works perfectly offline, you can save places, search anything in the downloaded maps, and it has a router for driving and walking too. Its map data is from OSM. It is also accurate enough, (but) it can be edited by anyone, though this can lead to mistakes (I've not encountered any of them so far), and on the other hand, sometimes it is even more detailed than Google Maps.
Anyway there are a lot of apps on Google Play using OSM's data.

The latest version of Google Maps 9.22.1 allows downloading multiple offline areas. Offline directions & voice navigation is also supported. You can download areas up to max 120,000 sq km. Maps are updated after 30 days.
Google Support - Download and Use Offline Areas

In the latest version of Google Maps the downloaded maps for off-line use expire after 30 days unless updated.
This beats the purpose of using the off-line feature if the user is in an area where internet is not available or too slow/expensive to do the update - like an extended overseas holiday in a third-world country.
The 30 day period is too short. Google could be more generous.

@aussie43 Google generates profits when you go online; it will never be so generous.

Google Maps is not a good source for permanent offline maps, but it does have offline map capability
Pros

Uses less memory
will automatically download offline maps along your route in case you lose signal

Cons
 - offline maps self delete if unused for a time

Here WeGo is a good Android application for offline maps.
Pros

You can download offline maps for your state/region, country, continent, or entire world.
if you phone has aGPS, this application will work with or without cell service as long as you have downloaded the maps for your location and you can see the sky.
Maps stay on your phone until you delete them.
Gives you directions via walking, biking, public transport, lyft, driving, or ride share.

Cons

You can not add nicknames to saved locations
Uses more of phone memory (Map of the entire USA is just over 8GB)
Managing saved places can be tedious.

For my personal use I usually use Waze for my day to day navigation needs, however when I go on long trips I use Here maps to download maps for regions I expect to be in, in case I lose cell signal or data connection. I only use google maps when Waze is having trouble with my request.

Google maps got one of the worst offline map options out there, try something else instead. HERE or Sygic for example.

This could be a good answer if you explain how the OP can use these apps to solve their problem, and link to the apps you recommend. Just complaining that Google Maps isn't very good doesn't help anybody.