text:
How to factory reset S3 with screen not working but phone working?
My phone turns on, I hear notifications when I receive SMS (as sound works) but the screen is damaged. Nothing displays at any time and I cannot interact with touch.
I have replaced my damaged phone and wish to factory reset it. How can I do this without the screen displaying? I don't think I can load an app without being able to interact with the display.

There are two methods in order to factory reset your device:
(Here is the source youtube video)
if your device is working but cant navigate or you got problems with Screen.. then Use the Hardware Method here -> follow the steps here:

Hold the Volume Up Button with the Power Button and the Home Button, all at the same time, till you feel your Phone Vibrate. note: You can release the power button after the mobile Vibrate.

After the Menu Appears, Use Volume Up and Down to Navigate to 'Wipe Data Factory Reset' then Select it by pressing the Power Button.

Then Use the Volume Buttons Again to Select 'Yes -- delete all user data' and press the power button on it.

now just wait tell it finish Wiping, it will just wipe then the menu gets back again, After it gets back just select Reboot the System.

If your device is working and its display appears well, follow the the steps here:

Go to Settings, Backup and Reset and select 'Factory data reset'.

Make sure that you made Backup for your data.

Press on the 'Reset Device' Button Appears at Bottom of the Screen.

You will have to Confirm your PIN, Enter your PIN then go Next.

Now Confirm your Decisions, if you want to factory reset your phone just Press the Delete all Button.

This is how i verified the reset completed correctly. I connected a usb cable to view the files and recorded with a printscreen. I then booted the phone to get to the system menu. However, when i heard the music of the phone i know i did not hold the 3 keys long enough. 7 seconds did it for me. I used another phone to confirm how many menu clicks were required to reach the options. After i left the phone for a couple of minutes to give enough time for the reset. i booted the phone and found with the usb cable that the files and folders on the phone were much different/reduced. Job done.

if the screen isnt working you cant see the prompts,or menu,thats the problem


text:
Is it possible to "unsend" email in Gmail?
Is it possible to use Gmail's "unsend" ability in the Gmail Android app?
I can't find anything on it, in settings or searching.

I presume you mean the "Undo Send" in Gmail Labs. No, you can't.
It's for that reason that I have the "Confirm before sending" turned on.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Can Waze cause the cell phone to overheat even after being closed?
By closed I mean clicking "switch off" in notifications panel and closing it in "recent apps".
Waze consumes at most 20% of my battery during normal use but after turning it off, my cell phone keeps getting hotter for no apparent reason.
Things I tried:

Turning it off and back on. It does cool down when it's off but after turning it back on the heating continues gradually.
Using Juice Defender in agressive mode. No change.
Troubleshooting with Watchdog Lite. The process consuming the most energy is Android System (around 10-15%).

I suspect Waze has something to do with this because the problem exists even when I only opened this app that day.

The simple answer is No!. Waze is just an app, a piece of software and has no bearing on battery life or heat generation.
Heat is generated from devices within your phone running with too much power. Waze maybe the app that starts these devices going, but ultimately, it is the phones hardware that is causing the heat.
Screens generate a large amount of heat to provide the brightness needed, try reducing the brightness level on the screen. Also, the satellite tracking system may be needing more power if the signals being received are too small. some phones have a self boost amplifier and these can also burn battery power. Anything that runs these types of hardware would cause you phone to get hot, and lack of cooling would not help.
Most phones are designed now to be as thin and light as possible, this is done by sacrificing heatsinking (the designers assume the phone will only be used for short periods at a time).

Answering "no" to "can an app cause the cell phone to overheat" is drawing a distinction without a difference. If the app makes the CPU run at full power continuously, it'll make the phone heat up. The heat's physically coming from the CPU, but that doesn't mean the app's not responsible.

Waze definitely not just causes my Samsung S3 to get hot, but always causes the phone to heat up wildly until it crashes due to extreme overheating.  I can get a maximum of 30 minutes out of it before my phone overheats and dies.  It's the only app that I've ever seen do that.  Also, it uses more power than my phone charger can provide, so the battery level drops consistently even when plugged in to a charger that can provide 2.1 amps.  I've had to stop using Waze.  Too bad, as it seems like a nice app, but I can't run something that's going to destroy my phone.

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


text:
Call log is not showing in my mobile?
Call logs are not showing in my mobile from last 7 days. I did all things whatever I know, like clearing up in badge provider and then restart. I even removed the battery, re-inserted it, and re-started the device – but to no avail. It's showing messages whatever I am getting, but not calls.
What is the major issue, any s/w issue or normal only? How can I solve this?

It seems to be a software issue wherein the ROM you are using simply does not record your calls. Are you using a Samsung Original ROM or are you using a Rooted Custom ROM. If you would post more details about you Software by going into System Settings->About Phone and posting a screenshot of the same, I'll be happy to help.
You can also visit this website (www.galaxys2root.com) in case you would like to switch your ROM in for a better one. I have a GT-i9100 and frequently use the same website to try different ROMs.

I had same problem.
Later I noticed that my phone's date was set to year 1970. I corrected date. And now the problem is solved.


text:
CyanogenMod delete WhisperPush account
This question is about the new WhisperPush-feature in CyanogenMod-ROMs:
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/whisperpush-secure-messaging-integration
Prerequisite:

Me and a friend of mine have both enabled the new WhisperPush-feature on our CyanogenMod-phones.
Our mobile plan allows us to send unlimited SMS without extra cost.
We don't have a constant internet connection (no mobile-data plan)

Scenario:

I currently have an internet connection (via WiFi) and send a SMS to my friend
WhisperPush sees, that we're both using WhisperPush/TextSecure and sends my message (encrypted) via TextSecure.
My friend does not have an internet connection right now.

As far as I understand the system, my message will not be delivered until he gets online somehow. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Since this is not what we want, we both want to disable WhisperPush.
Question:
How do we do this?
If we just uninstall the WhisperPush-App, wouldn't that mean:

That our accounts remain active (and the data remains on the servers)?
If a third person using WhisperPush sends me a message, it will be send via TextSecure, but never received by me, because I disabled the app?

Since the App does not offer any option to delete my Account, how am I able to effecively disable my account and delete the app without any further consequences?

The messages are encrypted. You can't delete the account through the phone.  You likely have to do it through a browser, logged into your account, and use the option that might or might exist there.

Is there a possibility to login via a browser? Do you have a link? I haven't found anything

I just took an educated guess that WhisperPush is a third-party service. I was mistaken.  Looks like TextSecure instead encrypts your text messages. So your text messages are being delievered by your provider and the contents are encrypted.  There is no "account" to delete per say.

To be clear your service provider is the one who would store the encrypted message.  You would have to get an entirely new phone number, and even then, they wouldn't delete your the old account for other regulatory reasons.

No I think you got this wrong. TextSecure doesn't encrypt my SMS. It is a messaging platform similar to WhatsApp, Telegram or others (but with end-to-end encryption). And WhisperPush is a kind of Middleware that decides whether my message is being sent via SMS or via TextSecure. Hence there has to be a TextSecure account in the background storing my contacts-list etc.   (Or did I completely miss something here?)

The TextSecure website itself says it encrypts your SMS messages. The encrypted messages are indeed sent through the OpenWhisper servers. Of course I am not sure how "encrypted over the air" provides ends to end encryption. Telegram ( isn't secure their "encryption" is not secure ). It does not appear you can delete any information stored on the Open WhisperSystems TextSecure server.  My guess is the account is simply an identifier type account ( i.e. DeviceID@PN@MACADD type deal ).

I have an answer for you.
Cyanogenmod should implement a simple solution!
The fix can be found on the final post of this page:
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/87482-critical-flaw-in-whisperpush/
You'll need android studio installed on your PC to use "adb" in terminal/command-line.

These are the steps that are suggested on that site:

You could try to unregister manually:
pc:$ adb shell
phone:$ su # (enable root for ADB first)
phone:$ cat /data/user/0/org.whispersystems.whisperpush/shared_prefs org.whispersystems.whisperpush_preferences.xml
# take note of pref_push_password and pref_registered_number
pc:$ curl -v -X DELETE --basic --user $pref_registered_number:$pref_push_password https://whisperpush.cyanogenmod.org/v1/accounts/gcm/
# add -k to skip the certificate warning

The HTTP response code should be 204.

Source: http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/87169-disabling-whisperpush/#entry448596

Perfect. Seemed to work with curl -v -k -X DELETE --basic --user "$pref_registered_number:$pref_push_password" https://whisperpush.cyanogenmod.org/v1/accounts/gcm/. At least I got a 204.
Hopefully my account is really deleted.

Cyanogenmod now has a website that allows you to unregister from WhisperPush if you forgot to unregister during first setup right after installation. With this you can stop using the service completely or switch to Signal Private Messenger (formerly known as TextSecure).
How to unregister from cyanogenmod whisperpush:

Visit the Whispertool website
Enter your phone number
Enter the verification code they'll send you
Done!


text:
Memory management of Android devices
According to manufacturer, my phone has:

ROM-4 GB
RAM-1 GB

But when I look in my phone, there is

PHONE STORAGE(.98 GB)
INTERNAL MEMORY(1.77 GB)

Now is that .98+1.77 from those 4 GB (ROM memory) – or from where? And what is the difference between this phone storage (.98 gb) and internal memory (1.77gb)?

Welcome to the Android Enthusiasts – and congrats, you've found the correct tag for that question!
Now a little magic which is not that obvious (and thus often overlooked): Hover your mouse over the tag, it will reveal a short description and some links. Click on the info link, and find your answer :)
In short here: When manufacturers speak of "ROM", they quite often use this term in a wrong way. The correct meaning of the term is Read-only memory, which is clearly not the case for those 4 GB. What they rather are is the all-over storage contained in the device: system (read-only) + internal + device storage. For details, please see the already mentioned tag wiki.
Manufacturers use the term ROM in a wrong way to show off with "big numbers", unfortunately – which causes a lot of confusion amongst customers.


text:
How to get back a card in Google now which was removely accidentaly?
I have recently installed Google Now app in my Note 3 and I found its working and helping me in my daily work.
By any unknown command I swipe the informatiom on the card it appears for me. Now when I want it back it will never turn on. Any idea on how to get the cards back or how to add a new card manually for any information we need in the nearly future?

I don't quite understand what you're asking. Could you [edit] your question and explain a bit further? Are you trying to get back cards you've dismissed?

I mean the cards which appears in google now through my daily search results . I need tht to edit or atleast I can add a card for any update I require for any perticular subject. E.g I was searching for bb q20 for some page and it automatically showed me the release date the next day. Which was quite good but I swipe to delete by mistake which I dont know how to get it back .

@user53714 Were you able to configure that in Google Now. It availble in the Google Now settings. You ca now manually configure the card that you want to display.

on the bottom of google now there are 3 icons. Click the magic wand (middle one) and select others. There find the topic and tell Gnow that you are still interested.
New cards will be added automatically once you search for them with google now. Once a new cad appears tap the three dots in the upper right of the card and than yes when prompted if interested.

I cant see any middle button but I can see the magic wand on my right which is only 2 icons in total. When I click it there is no others option in it the last . The only option in it is everything else where there is no such option to mark or redo the correction

*Google Now Cards appears when needed..
For example:
You went to shopping then Google track your location and it will show a  Google now CARD on your Notification Screen as well on Google now Page saying that " You are _ Km from your home, and shows you path to get your home back.
Etc.. There are many others like show you a card of whether if you went to some another state or country.. Etc. Etc..
It will show when needed and you manually can't get cards.
Play with Settings in Google now to know more.


text:
Galaxy s4 watchon app
How can removed Samsung watch on from notification area? This app still standby in my notification area and don't move!


text:
Access encrypted internal storage without touch
Is there a way to access the encrypted internal storage without using the display?
I damaged the display of my nexus 4 (Android 4.4, cm-11-20140104-SNAPSHOT-M2-mako) and need to access the encrypted storage to do some backup. adb shell is working in recovery mode.

What is it about people damaging screens and then trying to get adb backup out of it, there's seems to be a trend here... :) Use the search facility...

I find information only about backing up unencrypted devices.

There you go, similar question Searching took 5seconds tops...

I also found this question (and this https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/19286/will-a-custom-recovery-work-with-an-encrypted-device?lq=1). But it doesn't solve my problem...


text:
Turning on Android device with motion detector (external device?)
Problem
I'm looking for a motion detector that can be set up to wake a rooted Android (4.3) tablet and turn the screen on when someone passes by it in a radius of maybe 2-3m.
Ideas
I'm definitely willing to get an external device for this and invest a (reasonable) amount of money, it would just have to be one that I can somehow connect to the tablet.
Are there maybe any proximity detectors from the home automation field with a decent detection quality (good angle and configurable distance) that can send Android push notifications?
I'm able to write some code from scratch if necessary, but I'm very clueless and unexperienced in the hardware field, so I wouldn't know how to hold a soldering iron, for example. ;)
Background
The idea here is to transform an old tablet into some kind of stationary dashboard screen, so I'm not particularly worried about battery wear (it's end-of-life now and will from now on be used with the power cable plugged in until it dies) or intense usage (unless we're talking about 100% CPU 24/7, which would probably kill it in a few days).
Previous research
I investigated a little bit whether this could be done with the existing sensors in the device and I believe that is not possible.
The problem with using the proximity sensor is that it really only returns whether something (assumed to be your ear while in a call) is right next to it (a few centimeteres away). But I'm looking for something in the 2-3m area.
The other idea would be the front-facing camera, but the problem seems to be that a) the camera in many devices automatically shuts off when the screen is off and b) only foreground apps can access the camera, but I want the tablet to show another app on detection.
I had a quick look regarding waking up the screen in response to push notifications and that doesn't seem too hard using the PowerManager API. Not sure how quickly the device would respond to a push when in deep sleep, but that's a secondary problem.

Why not use Bluetooth or NFC using a custom script? Have seen a similar proof-of-concept elsewhere, using bluetooth on PC, and a bluetooth device worn around neck, leave the PC desk and PC locks up, arrive back in vicinity of PC, PC unlocks itself.

@t0mm13b I don't really want to wear anything. This is intended as a permanent setup and I don't want to wear a BT device for the rest of my life. ;)
NFC would mean that this is no longer hands-free, which I would also prefer it to be. But keep them coming, that's the kind of creative ideas I was hoping for. :)

In apps there is the "home automation" and alarm control type of apps and hardware. That might be a way to get an infrared human detector sending info back to the device.

@Psycogeek Yeah, do you a decent motion sensor from the 'home automation' field?

I do not know of a specific one.

Wow! It is a new idea of utilizing an old device.

If you want to use the camera of your tablet for this purpose, there is an app in the Play Store called 'Background Video Recorder', which can run in the background even when the screen is turned off. Then you can use some automation scripts to access that camera view to achieve your goal.

Just to let you know I have some up with a simple solution it combines an app from the app store called Motion Detector by jastrzab: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.motion.detector
Then install a plugin called Turn Screen: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.jastrzab.plugin.screen

Install both apps.
Open the Motion Detector app and turn on "Send" at the bottom of settings. Click on motion detector (at the top) and then scroll down to "camera" and select "front".
Open the Turn Screen app. click the only button to make it active.
Open android settings, Turn off the lock screen or select "none".
Change the sleep settings to time out in the desired time.
Turn off Daydream.
Open the app (or home screen) you want to have displayed on the screen when the tablet wakes, and you're all set! Wait for the screen to go to sleep and walk by or wave at your camera and it will wake it up.

Works great during the day or with the lights on. I'm currently working on an external PIR motion sensor that will allow the tablet to wake in darkness. Simple design so far just uses a cheap PIR sensor and a small led light mounted below the camera. When I walk by the PIR triggers the LED light allowing the camera to see, which triggers motion. Hoping to figure out how to eliminate the LED and just run the PIR directly into the tablet using the headphone jack or USB on the tablet. Suggestions welcomed.

Oh and don't forget to turn on the motion detector by clicking the blue circle on the top of the main page of the app (next to "motion Detector"). Enjoy

This worked great for me, thanks! Using android 4.4 kitkat

The link you provided to Google Drive is broken. :(

As mentioned by Dallas Partin here, there is a free app called Motion Detector. I've been using it for a while, and can tell you it will work with other apps in the foreground and with the screen locked. This will detect motion using the built-in camera, so it's free. Also, you don't have to root your device for this.
You said that you didn't know how to solder, but there is a very simple way of making your own external sensor for this. Out of two methods that I'm aware of, I've mentioned one below:
Method #1. Using built-in camera

Download Motion Detector.

Download Tasker.

Download AutoStart

Launch Tasker app and tap the three dots in the top right corner.

Tap Preferences → UI (at the top), uncheck Beginner Mode.

Exit out of that, and tap the Vars tab at the top.

Tap + and name it %DISPLAYSTATE.

Go to the Profiles tab, and tap + → select Event → Display → Display On.

Tap Back key/button. Tap New Task, name it Display On.

Tap + → Variables → Variable Set. Tap the pencil icon next to Name.

Tap %DISPLAYSTATE and where it says To, make it 1.

Repeat "step 11" except that change everything to Display Off and change where we put 1 to 0.

Go to the Scenes tab at the top.

Tap + and name it something.

Hold down and drag on the dashed line and make it the size of your screen.

Tap the gear icon in the upper left corner to go back.

Tap on Profiles, and create a new one by using the + button.

Tap on Event → System → Intent Received.

You can ignore everything except where it says Action. Here you need to enter org.jastrzab.move.ACTION_GLOBAL_BROADCAST (caps are important). If this doesn't work for you try the following instead org.motion.detector.ACTION_GLOBAL_BROADCAST.

Tap the gear icon (back) in the top left corner. It will pop up with a menu.

Tap New task and name it something.

Within that task, tap the + again and hit Scene → Show Scene.

Where it says Name, tap the magnifying glass icon (not the pencil) and tap on your scenes name.

Now where it says Display As, "Activity, Full Display, No Bar".

Scroll to the bottom and it will say if. Tap the pencil icon and select %DISPLAYSTATE.

Tap the button in the middle and change it to Equals. On the right box, type 0.

Tap + and do Task → Wait.

Change MS to somewhere between 25 to 100.

Tap + → Scene → Destroy Scene and hit the magnifying glass icon on Name. Select your scene.

Now go back to the main screen of Tasker app.

Go into the Motion Detector app, and make sure it is turned off. If not, tap the blue circle.

Go to the bottom and where it says Send, make sure it is On.

Go back to the top and tap the blue circle again to make it turn on.

Open Auto Start and make sure it says On.

Tap Add → Show all applications → Motion Detector.

Check "go to home screen after auto start" and change "start delay" to 5.

This has been working flawlessly for me!
Also, do note that in Motion Detector there are settings you can change when Motion Detector is off. One of the most important is Camera. If you are experiencing problems, please make sure that Camera is set to Front.
You did say you wanted an external sensor that could sense distance within 2-3cm, but if your fine settling for a farther sensing solution, this is very reliable and relatively easy to set up! But if you still have your heart set on a external sensor, I would be more than happy to give you some instructions for that as well!
Good luck, and I hope this helps you!

Thanks for your answer, I'll give this a try eventually! (But currently don't have time for this project, unfortunately.) I believe I read that whether the camera works in the background is device-specific, but I'll see if my device can do it.

Note that I didn't say I wanted a sensor that senses motion within "2-3cm", but rather I said "2-3m", i.e. when a person passes through the room the device is in.

note that I didn't say I wanted a sensor that senses motion within "2-3cm", but rather I said "2-3m" Ok, I was thinking that seemed a little close:)    I've read that most devices will work with the camera in the background, but yes, that does mean that not all will. If it doesn't work on your specific device and you still want a solution, making a external sensor is not that hard to do for under $10. However, this method is much simpler and more configurable. Good luck with this whenever you have time to work on it!

UPDATE: The intent package has been renamed to org.motion.detector.ACTION_GLOBAL_BROADCAST. See documentation here: http://programy.jastrzab.com/help.php?lng=en&app=org_motion_detector and discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/27bvf8/help_motion_detector_app/ci0s5or The above still works; just switch out the package name with the new one in this comment.

@AndréChristofferAndersen Good to know! Thank you for pointing that out; I'll add it to the answer to prevent confusion.

@DanielFord And thank you for the guide. It works. It's cool how I can walk past my fridge and my tablet lights up to greet me. Although I did simplify it somewhat. I set the screen to turn off after 10 minutes and Motion Detector to only send signals at most every 5 minutes. Then I removed the %DISPLAYSTATE mechanism, relying only on the screen flash to wake up the tablet without a condition. It doesn't bother me that it potentially flashes an extra screen while working on it. I seldom spend more than 5 minutes in front it anyway. Maybe I should add my method as an alternative answer.

@AndréChristofferAndersen That seems like a pretty good way of doing it! Personally the flash would bother me, however I'm sure for most applications that would be no big deal at all. One question though, you said "and Motion Detector to send signals at most every 5 minutes" I'm not sure I understand how that would work since it seems like your movement would only be detected every 5 minutes and ao you would only trigger it if you walked by exactly every 5 minutes:) Correct me if I'm wrong though!

@DanielFord As long as the display is set to be on for longer than the sensor cool down time it works out. The display stays on for 10 minutes, while the sensor is ready to fire another signal after 5 minutes. If I leave and come back after 2 minutes the display is still on and there is no scene flash. If I leave and come back after 7 minutes the monitor is still on and there is a subtle scene flashes. If I come back after 12 minutes the display is off and the scene flashes thus turning on the display. Never failed thus far. And the tasks I do on the tablet takes less then 5 minutes so np.

Thanks for taking the time to write this extensive guide. In point 12 you say "Repeat "step 11"..." shouldn't this be "Repeat step 8 to 11"?

Instead of creating a Scene you can download Secure Settings (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin&hl=en) which is a plugin for Tasker. Secure Settings has a Wake Device task built into it that you can then plug into the intent listed above.

I don't know if this suits you but what about a power plug with a movement sensor? When it detects movement, the tablet will get the power connected and the screen will turn on. Plus with Tasker you can configure much more things to do when it detects movement.

I hate to say it guys but all I did was attach my feed from my PIR in the ceiling (which already controls leds in the shower) to my android. When someone comes in the power switches on the phone and bob's your uncle.

Using the device's Screen on when Power On/Off feature. Nice.

I have been looking for a way to have the tablet screen on when I get close to the Tablet which is mounted on the wall to monitor my home. Just like the Nest thermostat. I recently purchased the Konnected alarm system board and the wifi module from Nate Clark  He suggested me to use www.ozerov.de/fully-kiosk-browser/ There is a small licence fee. It works well for the intended purpose. I am using Actiontiles integrated with my Smartthings. My tablet is wall mounted with continuous power supply.
           Nate Clark <nate@konnected.io>

You might want to check out Wimoto. They are small, and cheap, bluetooth sensors that come in a few flavours (temperature, motion sensing, liquid detection etc). They say that there is an Android app incoming, and that there is going to be an SDK released in the near future for it.
Then again, if you want something more simple (and your tablet has a front facing camera) you could simply use an app. For example (just after a quick search so haven't used it) Camera Trigger.
Hope this helps.

Wimoto sounds like the kind of devices I was thinking of, but I couldn't find a motion sensor. Do they have one?

Camera Trigger has the same problems mentioned above, it doesn't work with the screen off or when having another app in the foreground.

Yeah, they call it the Wimoto Sentry. I've also come accross Twine that is also a micro sensor with a couple of features

You're right. I got confused because on Amazon it's (incorrectly, I guess) listed as a "Bluetooth Smart Water Sensor". Looks good, but apparently it's gonna be a few more months until we can get one.

The only affordable and reasonably accessible motion sensor I could find is the Belkin WeMo Motion.
Ian McCracken created an inofficial SDK for the WeMo called Ouimeaux (docs, PyPi).
My current plan is to write a tiny application running on a Raspberry Pi that uses Ouimeaux to respond to a signal from the WeMo Motion and send a push notification to the Android device. And then an even simpler Android app that responds to the push notification and wakes up the device and turns on the screen. (The latter might also be doable with Tasker instead.)
As a second step, the relevant parts of Ouimeaux could be rewritten in Java and then it would be possible to connect straight from the app to the WeMo, making the Raspberry Pi superfluous.
Improvement suggestions welcome, of course. In particular if you know an existing way to wake up an Android screen from a Python/shell script/otherwise trigger push notification. That sounds too trivial to require writing a new app.

If you disable the device lock, you can create a small application that takes input for action, and uses a Java ProcessBuilder to run an shell command for a key event, for instance 'shell input keyevent 26' (Power button press), that should in theory work. I'm currently running a shell command after a button press, to run the new 'screenrecord' feature in Android KitKat, in background for an app I'm creating so I can verify that running shell commands in this way works.

@Hrafn I didn't quite understand: what's the intention behind doing that?

You were asking for possible ways of waking the screen up. If you can get some kind of input, you can create a Java Process (as a part of an Android program that is running in the background) and make it run a power button click in the shell of the device. That should, if the device is configured to not lock, wake the screen up.

@Hrafn I see, but then you can just use the PowerManager API that I already linked to in the question. It only requires about four lines of code. Although one possibility would be to keep the device connected with a cable and just trigger the waking up via adb with something like Wakey Droid.

Sure. But to use the PowerManager API you need to manage the wake state your self (I think). So if you acquire a wakelock you'd want to send a power down signal after a certain time. With the keyevent call through a shell, you don't have to manage that, and can just let the system handle everything.

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


text:
my phone may have virus but my antivirus scans clean that phon is protected
A pop up window appeared on my phone ,about some wifi booster simuntaneously an other window got on and told that my phone was infected by an virus ,but my antivirus was active and then i scaned my phone but it was clean . Please explain did my phone really have a virus in it?

A lot of advertisers try to mislead you by saying there is a virus on  your phone. I believe Google banned the use of misleading advertisements such as the one you are speaking of.  So if it was a pop-up ad, I would not worry about anything. Just be aware that some pop-up ads on websites don't have a cancel button, and if you press the back button on your device, it's like you pressed OK.


text:
How to get Gmail new message notifications without having to sync?
How can I get Gmail new message notifications without having to sync an account with my Android phone?
I thought there may be a way by either :

going through XMPP somehow
configuring Gmail to notify Google+ when I get a new email and then I would get a G+ notification which would be fine.

I just want my phone to tell me "you have a new email" without having to actually sync anything.

What exactly do you mean by "without having to sync"? Gmail already uses push (via Google Cloud Messaging) to deliver new mails to your device, so it has no more overhead than the G+ solution you're thinking of.

I want to be notified that I have a new email without having to sync my gmail account with android. Yes Gmail does this but it requires syncing your account which totally destroys the whole point. The whole point of getting a push notification is to save your battery and data not having to PULL/SYNC every 5 minutes.

It doesn't pull every 5 minutes. It runs when it gets a push message, to download exactly the new mail it's just been told about. It's the most efficient way to see your mail.

I want a push notification without syncing. That's what I'm asking for. I want to get as many of those services in my settings, stopped as possible. I know how much data and battery all those services are using and gmail is a big one. I just want push without sync

The closest thing I've found is zappier.com and it's a paid service :(

Google Cloud Messaging, which GMail and most other Google apps use for push notification, runs on the Google Talk infrastructure, which is XMPP already. Can you explain which part of sync you don't like? I thin kwe're getting confused by the fact that your definitions of push and sync seem to be different than ours.

@GAThrawn, i don't like that syncing pulls data at set intervals when i do not necessarily want that data stored on my phone nor do i want to spend the battery life or data on pulling that unwanted information to my phone. Just send me a popup telling me the email is there and I'll download it if i want it or check it on my home desktop if i want to. I don't want my phone syncing with google however many times a day

I don't think i can explain it any better. I want to get a notification that i have a new email and at the very same time i do not want to have my email sync or stored on my device at all.

@Joshua, so why not just go into GMail options and turn off "Sync Gmail" while leaving "Notifications" on?

@GAThrawn that is not working. That is exactly what i have done. But i have foind an answer. There is an app called IM+ which is a jabber client that has something called push mode. It does exactly what I want from a quick test. I'll do a bit more testing and possibly offer it as the answer.

Turning on sync in the settings doesn't necessarily poll for updates at set intervals. For some apps it will, some (like Gmail) it won't.

@Dan, not sure which gmail app you're using but mine gives me the option of syncing either all or the last 30 messages or nothing. And it turns off push automatically when you turn off sync.

What's that got to do with whether it uses polling or push? All it affects is the initial sync when you first add the account, and when it deletes locally cached messages.

Push does not work without sync and sync automatically pulls the newest 30 emails to my phone which i do not want.

More and more i am becoming frustrated with ALL the apps that require sync in order to give you push. Why are they mutually exclusive? They are completely different processes. Push uses the server resources to give you a simple notification when you have a new email.  This requires LITTLE strain on your battery and dada plan and CPU. BUT syncing requires MORE strain on the user's CPU and involves pulling data from the servers and running cycles to check what data has been downloaded and what needs to change etc. Twitter also requires that you check on sync in order to get notifications. So ann

Here is a (mostly) non-Android solution for you.
You'll need to (sign up for and) use If This Then That.
Create a recipe.1
Your This will be the Gmail channel, specifically the Any new email trigger.2
Your That will be however you'd like to be notified. I like Pushover but SMS will work just as well. You'll use the Send me an SMS action (or send a notification for Pushover).3
Now you can be notified of new messages in your Gmail without even actually having Gmail on your phone.4

1 If you prefer, you can just use this recipe (SMS) or this recipe (Pushover).
2 If you don't want to be notified on every new message, there are other triggers you can use, like "New email from" or "New email from search" that can be more specific.
3 Unfortunately there is no Google+ channel. There a lots of other channels for lots of other services.
4 IFTTT triggers usually don't go off more than every fifteen minutes, so don't expect your notification to be instantaneous.

I have to say. I am very very thankful for this solution. I had no idea about this free service until now. It looks amazing. I'll check it out and get back to you for the answer. Thank you @Al E.

Ifttt by the way can only currently push ONE email account.

@Joshua: yes, unfortunately you are currently limited to a single email account. They've also recently added the Pushbullet channel if you're looking for a different alert mechanism.

I gave the answer to Al E. For taking the time to help me and provide a great working solution. ( though not the solution I ended up going with as 1)  I didn't want to fork over $5 for the pushover app or 2) I'd already implemented another solution that works great as well.
THE SOLUTION I WENT WITH WAS THIS
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.shapeservices.impluslite
The app is called IM+
It's free to use and install with ads.
Set it up with your email accounts and go into settings and switch on "Google push mode" in "push settings"
Turn off or even disable the gmail app and voila -- gmail push settings without syncing. The great thing about the  XMPP Network is, there are a lot of other services you can get push notifications for for free.
Thanks to everyone who helped out with this.


text:
How can I send SMS to hundreds of users in my phone list?
How can I send SMS to 500 to 600 users in my contacts? This is usually done on a weekly or monthly basis.

How do I ask a question that may require recommending a product?

I have Android Tablet, I have Android Phone. But how do i send to my all contacts at once SMS????? what is missing???

possible duplicate of Pop up message when sending large amounts of SMS messages

@GAThrawn I don't think that's the problem here. User has not mentioned that issue.

Rephrased so it doesn't get closed.

You can try using gosms app, which has an option to select the contact book and send an sms.


text:
problem with pasting an arabic text on a note
I own a galaxy note3 and it types Arabic correctly but when I copy Arabic text and past it on a note the characters appear separated and randomized .. what can I do to cover this problem?


text:
Can the Mobile Management facility of Google Apps For Business be used to control which apps are installed from Google Play?
Am considering buying Google Apps For Business to improve management of a large number of Android devices.
We will provide an app that we have created to our users through our private channel. We do not want users to install any other apps unless we have authorised them.
For example, we may wish users to have WhatsApp but not Flappy Bird 2.
Can the Mobile Management facility of Google Apps For Business be used to control which apps are installed from Google Play?

Am not 100% sure where you're coming from, but Google Apps is free and on majority of Android devices, unless you're talking about some enterprisey version of Google Apps for business usage - might be better to deal directly with Google about this... Even am not sure if this is a valid question as it seems to govern corporate usage of the google channels which may be outside of scope for here... unless another AE user would give their opinion on this?

Please see edited question. I mean Google Apps For Business

Ok, fair enough :) Its a business enterprisey version you're referring to, as I have stated in my comment, you need to talk to Google themselves to find out if that can be done... :)

I think this question is perfectly on-topic for the site, but as @t0mm13b points out, I don't think our regular users have experience with Google Apps for Business. Since this is an easy pre-sales question, Google should be able to give you an answer. Please post it here when they do, to help future visitors!


text:
PHone and Messaging icons do not show unread message notification or missed call in 4.04
I get the sound notification and it shows up in the notification bar, but nothing shows up on the Icon itself for new unread emails or missed phone calls or unread messages. They do show up on the voicemail icon for unheard voice mails. Is there a setting for this. Phone is a ZTE Force from Boost running 4.04.
Thanks

Would you normally expect to see it on this phone? It's not a standard Android feature but some manufacturers add it. I don't know whether ZTE has added it or not.

See also Notification numbers for a lot of apps don't show up.

I got the same problem a week ago and I found the solution myself by using "trial and error method" for my Samsung S3 mobile (Android 4.3).

Go to Settings > Application manager. There you will see turned off application which is named as BadgeProvider (in Android 4.3 it is in "turned off" application list but some version hasn't that "turned off" application list and in that situation you will see that application in bottom part of "ALL" application list.
So after you got that application you have to tap it and turn it on.

Now your problem should be solved. (Sometimes you have to restart your mobile after this process).

Yep on my S7 it was in notifications. App icon Badges was turned off. This occurred after the the update. I guess I could get used to it but it is working now. Thank you for the help.


text:
Android virtual keyboard pop-up issue on focus
We are using a web app (built for desktop) in Android tablet (Motorola ET1). Issue is that android soft keyboard is popping up whenever focus goes to a text box.
On page load, focus is set to the text box but keyboard is not popping on page load. Users scan input data using tablet's scanner into this text box, we take scanned input and submit to the server. If the transaction is successful, text box gets cleared and focus is set in this text box to scan next input. when focus is set this time, android keyboard is popping up.
I tried using blur to prevent keyboard popup, it prevents keyboard from popping up but focus is not in that text box so user cannot scan the input data.
As an option, I installed null keyboard on Android tablet and provided jquery keyboard (https://github.com/Mottie/Keyboard/wiki) to enter input data if they want to enter data manually. This option seems to work technically but this shuts off the keyboard for entire tablet and users have other apps on the tablet so they are not happy with this solution.
We are using dolphin browser in this tablet. Dolphin has cordova plugin to get an access to device's native functions. But I don't see anything related to keyboard. Also I am not finding any reference in HTML5 documentation also.
Can you please suggest if there is any solution to this ? Please note that our application is a standard webapp and not built as Android app. Thanks.

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts. Please read the [FAQ] as to why this is voted-to-close because its a development related question. Would be better fit to post at StackOverflow.

I think this question is okay for here. "How to keep the keyboard from popping up when I tap on a web form input field" is something an end-user might want help with.

@t0mm13b I have posted it on StackOverFlow as well, but no reponse yet.


text:
LG Optimus P500 system essential apps deleted accidentally
I recently rooted my LG P500 successfully.
But after that, in removing some bloatware I deleted some of my system apps.
After that my notifications area is visible but my home screen and apps screen are not visible.
Also, I performed a factory reset to the phone. So the USB debugging is gone, so cannot connect through adb.
Please help!

If you performed a factory reset, it would restore the phone to its default state as if left the factory, at this point, the phone should be ok and booting normally, read you will have to re-root the device again, so what's the issue here?

I got this :) . Everything was working normally, but only the system default packages were deleted. I used LG MOBILE SUPPORT TOOL and update it again, which brings the phone default ROM to its original state. Thanks for the reply.


text:
How to install Stock Android on Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 s7270
I was wondering if it is possible to install the official stock android operating system from google without the customization of the manufacturer like Touch Wiz on Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 s7270, is there a way to do this

Maybe XDA might have the answer for you on how to mod your device and install AOSP on it, you are rooted? You have custom recovery on it?

No do you know any tutorial for this ? How can I install stock android on galaxy ace 3 ?

Seems that its recent and there's no interest in custom ROM's for the device in question... XDA am not sure as really its the community that dictates the popularity of devices, could try Modaco?

@DanHulme Do you read english how this could be possible of a duplicate I am asking for stock android released by google for mobiles not for a custom ROM

Google doesn't release stock Android for other manufacturers' devices (except for Google Play Edition phones, which are still in partnership with the manufacturer). If you want a close-to-AOSP build for your phone, a custom ROM is the way to achieve that.

Flash a smartphone with vanilla Android ROM might be a better duplicate (IMHO)


text:
Installing/updating apps over mobile data
On my LG G2 device running Android 4.2.2, I can't seem to install or update any applications while on the mobile network. I can still access the Play Store but upon tapping "Update", the download progress bar remains at 0% and fails after a while (presumably timing out).
I have only restricted background data on YouTube and Instagram but I don't think this would affect the Play Store.
Is this problem solvable or was this done by design? I am not rooted and do not have intention of rooting the device.

Perhaps you're in a poor signal area in which downloads fail or that there's a cap limit?

I experience the problem no matter where I am, with LTE or 4G coverage, and I have plenty of data left for this billing cycle. Even on slow WiFi networks, updates still download slowly. They don't even start when I'm on the mobile network.

are you rooted? what android version? are you running something that is interfering with Google Play Services?

4.2.2 and not rooted

@rink.attendant.6 Could you enable the background data for all the apps and try updating. If it works, I assume the data restriction for Youtube is being applied to Google Play Services as well. It wouldn't hurt to try.

@k1chy It still did not work

Is it working via wifi update?

@user3275057 Yes, installing and updating apps over WiFi is the only way I can get them to install and update.

@rink.attendant.6 then it may be problem with the mobile network. Did u tried in another network

@sameer No, there is nothing wrong with the mobile network as other people using Rogers Wireless can install updates over the mobile network. I've brought my device into the store and they tried resetting my plan but that didn't work either.

@rink.attendant.6 are you restricting data usage for media. In your mobile goto Settings-> Data Usage-> Mobile Tab-> Media, un tick restrict background data. Now try.

@rink.attendant.6 is it working now?

@sameer No it is still not working. Restrict background data was not checked for "Media".

I think I found it, as I had the same problem:

In the Settings go to Mobile Data.
Scroll down to item "Media" and tap it.
Scroll down and see if "Limit background data" is checked. If so, uncheck

This was the cause in my case, because for the Play Store app the same setting was not active. The problem with Android in this situation is, that there is a global setting "Limit background data" and there's a per app setting. Unchecking the global setting does not uncheck the per app setting. Doh!

Sorry, this should have been a comment.

This seems like an answer to me.

@infiniter this is an answer to the question so it should be an answer...


text:
Bash-Shell on Android Tablet (Transformer Pad TF701T)
Is there any way to get a fully working bash shell on Android together with a terminal emulator, that supports a hardware keyboard (German Layout)?
The features I need at least (Terminal Apps, NOT graphical!):

Bash working with normal .bashrc and scripts (Function Definitions, Aliases...)
SSH-Client with hostname lookup and the ability to do some SCP stuff
GIT-Client with hostname lookup and at least push, pull, clone, commit, branch, checkout
less and nano or at least a vim, when it accepts my german keyboard.

Also would it be nice to have:

rsync client to do some rsync stuff
curl and ping
grep
some tar and or zip-stuff
clang-compliler, python interpreter, php interpreter

I already found Terminal IDE but it is unusable, because it doesn't support my german keyboard layout of the tablet's hardway keyboard. Also it doesn't support Hostname Lookups.
Also I found KBOX2 but it doesn't have a git-client and uses the zsh shell.
BTW: I am using Android >= 4.2
As a Terminal Emulator, Terminal Emulator looks good; But is made for Gingerbread.
Just found out, that Kbox2 uses Bash as Shell Interpreter, so I just need Git Packages for it to fulfill my wish.

You may be in luck; I just finished building git for KBOX2. Once I test it and figure out how to run a staged install for redistribution purposes, I can upload it and post a link
EDIT: I've contacted the KBOX2 developer; if the client works hopefully he can package it for download/install to the KBOX2 system.
If you're feeling adventurous (or impatient), you can always build it in KBOX2 yourself; there's a couple of gcc packages available in the downloads section

great! Will this be a full featured git client?

It won't support https until I can build libcurl...and that won't happen until I can figure out how to generate a configure script without autoconf.  It should do everything else...but since (for now) I only use git to clone repos, I can't say if it does everything.

Well, i need clone, pull, push, checkout and commit - a usual it workflow...

It should do all of that...but I don't want to guarantee it as i haven't tested anything but clone.  I'm a Windows admin by trade; I just started on Android development recently (minus the gcc port I did last year) so I've yet to do much beyond working on ports to the KBOX2 environment, and thus don't have any experience working with repos.  Feel free to post or comment here if something isn;t working and I'll look into it as best I can.

FYI...the binaries are now available for download here: http://kevinboone.net/kbox2_downloads.html

Small feedback, first thanks for building these packages, but curl dynamic linking seem broken (could not load library "libcurl.so.5" ...), I don't know how git would be affected as I use it over ssh

@dvhh: Try copying libcurl.so.5 to the /lib directory in KBOX


text:
Possible to charge one phone off another?
What's stopping the ability of charging a cell phone from another cell phone? If I were to create a crossover/patch USB cable and connect it between two phones or tablets, would there by any way to have one of their USB ports provide a charge to the other?

It's fully possible to do that if the charge-from device has USB On-The-Go (OTG) support.
You just need a USB OTG host cable (like this one), which you connect to the charge-from device, then plug a normal micro-USB cable into that, then into the device to be charged.
The only obstacle you may run into is current limitations.  A USB OTG port almost certainly will not provide as much current as an all-up USB port, much less a charger.
Best case, this will mean that the charging device will charge slower.
Middle case, you won't get enough current to charge the device while it is powered on.
Worst case, the charge-from device will simply say "You're drawing too much current.  You're cut off."

I was able to charge one Moto G XT1032 with another using a USB Connection between the two, a fully charged phone can only half-charge another phone due to overhead.


text:
What's in Chrome's data?
I'm running stock 4.1.2 on a Wolfgang AT-AS43D4 (not rooted). According to DiskUsage, I have about 755 MiB app storage in total, of which I have currently around 100 MiB free space left, so I try to keep the internal storage as empty as possible.
I see Chrome taking up 94.4 MiB, (134 MiB after the latest update) of which about 24.3 MiB is data (up to 28 MiB by now).
My question is twofold:
What is in there? What does Chrome keep there that's almost over 25 MB big?
How can I selectively clean that? I can delete the data wholesale, but I don't want to. Is there any other way? I tried various options in Chrome, but couldn't find anything useful.

Edited: a previous version of this question mentioned an insufficient memory error. This had little to do with the question; I was conflating RAM and app storage.

It contains:-

Resource files for Chrome itself. These are really part of the app, but they're downloaded by Chrome itself so the APK doesn't need to contain all the resources for all locales, and to make them easier to update.
Local storage for websites that use the HTML5 local storage feature. For some sites (e.g. Twitter) this can get quite large.
All your preferences, just like any other app. This amounts to a few KB.

Well, "insufficient memory" sounds like you're having problem with your memory(RAM), not your storage space.
DiskUsage is a very good tool, but it only checks disk space and not your memory(RAM) usage.
I just checked out the specs on your phone, and you have 512mb memory(RAM). That's 1/6 of what i have got on my phone, Samsung Galaxy note 3 with 3000mb memory(RAM).
I know it can be confusing with the terms when reviewers and everyone use memory, sdcard, storage and ram very loosely. I use the same terms people use on computers.
My chrome application is currently using 91mb of storagespace as "data". I believe that chrome is just storing pictures and tempfiles for the open webpages in data, along with your settings, passwords and so on. You can at any time go into the settings on your android menu, choose "applications", find "chrome" and delete data. Your Chome application will then act like you just installed it. You can try to see if this helps. and it might help for some time.
I think the main problem is that you don't have enough memory(RAM) on your device, and running a almost new os(4.1.2).
If you compare your phone with my previous phone, Samsung galaxy S2 as it was released in 2011 and has twice as much memory(1000mb RAM) as your phone. This phone came with Android 2.3. which does not require as much as newer versions.
I looked up on your os, Android 4.1.x, and the minimum requirements are as following:

7.6.1. Minimum Memory and Storage
"Device implementations MUST have at
least 340MB of memory available to the kernel and userspace. The 340MB
MUST be in addition to any memory dedicated to hardware components
such as radio, video, and so on that is not under the kernel's
control."

Source: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/source.android.com/no//compatibility/4.1/android-4.1-cdd.pdf
This won't give you much left to other applications.
Well, i think that Chrome also have a share of the blame, as this is no lightweight browser. To solve the problem then I'd first try to set for another browser that is lighter. I would, for example, try "opera browser", which is designed to use as little data traffic as possible and to run on slow phones. The browser also has a feature that allows when you're phone is asking for a webpage, it will fetch the entire page onto Opera's servers and compress images before the webpage is sent to your phone. This means that the images are not displayed in full quality, but since the screen of a cell phone much smaller than on a pc, its just as well. Since the images is compressed, and use less data traffic, it will also use less space on the cellphone's storage-temp-space. Hopefully, this will solve your "insufficient memory" problem.
I hope this helps :)

Thank you for your answer. I indeed conflated RAM and app storage a bit. I should probably edit the question.

I have used Opera before, mainly on desktop. I had it on my phone as well, but ditched to make room. But yesterday, I ditched Chrome and installed Opera instead. More space. Opera is smaller and can be moved to secondary storage, leaving room in primary app storage.

ahh, thats good :)

Bonus awarded to you because your answer helped me the most.

In dealing with the limited 8GB of RAM in my Samsung Tab 4 7.0 disk space used by app data, caches, downloads, et al, affects the RAM/internal memory available to run programs(apps) and even the OS itself. I may have some of the official names and labels wrong but the bottom line is that the Windows model of internal RAM, hard drive space and virtual RAM does not exactly apply to the Android OS as there is no physical hard drive
Settings|General|Store|Device Memory lists:
Total space 8GB
System memory@ 3.28GB
Used space 4.14GB
Cached data 11.46MB
Misc files 125MB
Available  space 460MB
Under Settings|General|Application Manager it lists:
Device memory 4.3GB used / 469MB free
RAM 1.0GB used / 230-290MB free@@
@ "The minimum amount of storage space required to run the system"
@@ The numbers varied as I switched between apps and the screens in Setting while composing this post in Evernote
In any case I definitely wish that we could delete the huge Internet cache in Chrome without deleting our personal settings and passwords. :-(
I will try the Incognito mode in Chrome 46.x.x (I run older versions of Chrome which work fine with KitKat.)
sssteeve
P.S. All of this is based on my own observations in dealing with the limited RAM on my Samsung tablet. I dl a lot, saving articles, etc., so I am always freeing up disk space just to avoid those nasty messages about having insufficient space available. :-(

It turns out that all of the data Chrome stores is actually the Internet Cache. If you look at the Desktop counterpart of Chrome it regularly stores ~100+ MB of Internet Cache.
I have done some experiments:
I have cleared the cache and ran chrome without browsing to any sites: Just started it
It did not grow very big ~5MB or less.
BUT when I did browse to sites got big very fast. I have a Nexus 7 v1 and a ZTE 665c and both replicated the same results.
This is typical of Google Chrome and the Internet cache. What I would recommend to you is getting a better Storage medium if you can. If not then I would recommend to browse in private mode because it keeps the internet cache to a minimum.
Here is some interesting facts on what is deleted. I know that is for the desktop version but most of it applies to the mobile version.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95582?hl=en
And as Dan Hulme Said it also stores this data:
It also contains:

Resource files for Chrome itself. These are really part of the app,    but they're downloaded by Chrome itself so the APK doesn't need to
  contain all the resources for all locales, and to make them easier to
  update.
Local storage for websites that use the HTML5 local storage    feature. For some sites (e.g. Twitter) this can get quite large.
All    your preferences, just like any other app. This amounts to a few KB.

To wrap it all up the main offender is the internet cache. The websites that you visit also give you extra files as stated above and last but not liest are the settings. The give you only a few KBs but it all adds up!
Have a great day!

Don't paste other people's answers into your answer. That doesn't add anything to the site.

But the other answer had relevant information. If I didn't include his then I would be missing information from my answer!

@DanHulme Your answer is valuable and I had more to add to it!


text:
mm-qcamera-daemon causing massive battery drain
Recently, mm-qcamera-daemon has been causing massive battery drain on my Nexus 5, and making it become rather warm. At the same time, the camera appears to be locked, meaning opening the default camera app (or any camera app) causes the alert Camera is currently in use to appear.
Numerous forums around the web site apps such as Snapchat and a Yahoo video app as the issues, but I've never installed these apps before.
Restarting the phone does seem to fix the issue, but after awhile (more than 12h) later, the battery starts draining again.

UPDATE: Like the top answer says, this problem should have been fixed by the 4.4.4 Kitkat update that rolled out.

Something is definitely accessing the camera. Do you have any security software like Cerberus installed that takes pictures when you get your pin/pw wrong? It could be accessing the camera and failing to release it when done. Or it could be another app with camera permissions. If you are rooted, you could probably see in the log files what is accessing the camera, although know that this can be tedious.

@abqnm its nothing to do with that, see the answer below given by piotrpo, its a firmware problem on Nexus 5.

@t0mm13b thanks. Hadn't seen that issue. Also from the looks of it, it has only started in the last few days. This would lead me to believe that it may have something to do with a recent Play Services update.

I have 4.4.4 and problem appeared after some app update. Are there tool to monitor which app is causing issue? Is it skype again

Solution:
Wait for the next Android maintenance update:
Comment #475 on issue 60058

Thanks, everyone, for reporting about this problem.
We believe we have fixes for the current high CPU reports on N5 due to
  mm-qcamera-daemon, and they will be included in the next maintenance
  update. At this point, we don't need more reports of the problem, with
  some exceptions I'll detail below.
More details:
We've had scattered reports of persistent high CPU usage of
  mm-qcamera-daemon since our last maintenance update, and based on
  those, found a number of bugs that were then fixed.
More recently, there's been a significant increase in the frequency of
  reported problems. These may be related to a recent update to Skype,
  which seems to access the camera regularly from its background service
  in some way that triggers this bug (note, we don't currently believe
  there's a bug in Skype itself). Investigating this, we've identified a
  few additional fixes that we hope resolve this issue for good.
  However, since the high CPU usage is an intermittent problem, we're
  continuing to test our fixes to verify the problems are gone.
Unfortunately, I can't provide an estimate for when the maintenance
  update will be ready, due to all the testing we need to do for this
  and other fixes. Until then, rebooting the phone is the only way to
  stop the high CPU usage/lack of camera function once it starts.
Uninstalling Skype may substantially reduce the likelihood of this bug
  appearing, but I realize Skype is a very important application for
  many people.  Other camera-using applications may trigger this bug as
  well, but that's been relatively rare. Most applications also do not
  access the camera when not in the foreground, so they will only
  trigger issues when actively used.
I'd also like to note that instances of high CPU use of
  mm-qcamera-daemon on other devices besides the N5 need to be reported
  to their manufacturers - while those devices also use a Qualcomm chip
  for their camera processing (and thus have a mm-qcamera-daemon
  process), each has differences in their software and issues with them
  do not necessarily mean the N5 has the same problem, and vice versa.
If you are seeing high CPU use of mm-qcamera-daemon, and you have not
  used the camera at all, or installed an application like Skype that
  has a background service that accesses the camera (typically,
  applications that provide video chat may do this), we would like to
  know about it.
Otherwise, for Skype and other typical camera applications, we believe
  we have fixes identified, and you don't need to add more information
  to this bug - remember, any note added here will send updates to
  dozens of people.

Yes, Google has acknowledged this bug, and should be in the next KitKat update. Reference: Cult of Android: Google Vows To Fix Android 4.4.2’s Camera Battery Drain Bug

FYI - Skype has just updated to v4.7 which includes a fix for battery drain on 4.4 devices. "Workaround for the KitKat bug which caused a runaway process when the camera was synced in the background." Source

I had this problem - after uninstall of Skype and phone's restart problem disapeared.
More information you can find here: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=60058
I have N5 4.4.2 - I understand that some camera apps can cause this issue - for me - Skype is camera application. At this moment the only non-system application with camera access is zxing code reader.
All I know is that this error occured while I had Skype installed, and had not occured since the uninstall of Skype. I do not know if is it coincidence, or I "solved" the problem.

Why are you assuming the OP has Skype, gave no indication of that either.

I don't know that - simply - this fixed problem on my nexus (as far as now) - I don't know what is the matter of issue so I can't say if skype was really draining or it was just coincidence.

I highly doubt its to do with Skype or any other video app, from reading the above linky (thanks for that) in your edited answer - its more prevalent issue on Nexus 5 and KitKat, which would go some way to explaining the issue, see #358 onwards, snapchat/instagram or any other, is not the source, its firmware issue with KitKat. You have Nexus 5 with Kitkat? +1 from me for that linky! :)

I do have Skype installed but I've used App Ops to revoke its camera permissions, yet this isssue is still occurring.

I had the same issue on my Nexus 5 (stock). mm-qcamera-daemon was draining 50% according to battery stats. The issue started when I tried to take photo from Hangout app, camera could not started. I don't have Snapchat or use Skype for video call from my phone.
I went to Apps and cleared data for Camera app.
Old:
By far, I now see the percentage dropping to 24%. My phone does not get hot when using other apps as it did while qcamera service was running.
New:
mm-qcamera-daemon is not even in the battery stats list. 2 days by now. I regularly use Hangout app, which initially triggered mm-qcamera-daemon.

I can't say this is a fix or workaround.

I feel your pain.
In the Google bug thread, someone suggested a temp fix that worked for them. Install Disable Camera device ICS/JB.
While not being able to take pics without enabling the camera is a pain, randomly having a dead battery on your N5 is worse.
I have installed the app and will see if it helps me any.

Update: Since I installed the disable camera app I haven't had this problem so far.


text:
Motor disability – In Android Home or “All Apps”, tapping on right edge = swipe to the left – Tap bottom in Chrome = swipe up/page down?
Microsoft has the Sticky Keys accessibility option so that you don’t have to hold down a modifier. Too much holding down, like in mouse dragging, and swiping on a touchscreen can be bothersome for people who suffer from a repetitive strain injury, or other people with motor disabilities.
On the Android Home screen or “All Apps”, tapping on the right edge = swipe to the left, which moves you to the next screen on the right.
When browsing Chrome, or YouTube, is there a way that you can similarly touch somewhere near the bottom edge of the screen to execute a swipe up (page down)? Perhaps an accessibility option can be turned on to add a page down button in the Navigation Bar?
It would be like browsing a webpage on the desktop, and instead of just tapping the space bar, or page down buttons, you have to keep swiping upwards on the screen.
Thanks.
(Posted on Accessibility Google Group https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/accessible/YM1pNjRcD1Y)


text:
Manually add UID to a system group
Let's say i create a custom group on Android (We will call it GID 5000) and i want to add users (apps) to this group, how can i manually add the app's UID to GID 5000 ? If possible, without touching the APK.

You should not override that, that is the package manager's job to allocate the UID to the APK upon installation, and also, you need to be root to achieve this regardless. Also groups do not really exist in the realm of APK's.

Package manager does a poor job when it comes to share files among loca
l users.

That is the whole idea behind application security! To prevent other apps manipulating other data that does not belong to it.

User custom folders are affected too and it prevent local users sharing for example a music folder. Better create a new group and include UID of the app for local users than making the permissions 777.

why? am trying to make sense of what you are attempting to do. It sounds rather like, you are defeating the whole point of security. Think about it, malicious app could overwrite or create havoc with another's private data, which could make that app crash due to "corruption" as result! Fyi, 777 is a serious glaring security hole waiting to be exploited and abused! Are you using a tablet with JB or later in regards to multi-user accounts?

Based on Linux, Android supports the addgroup and adduser commands (I just checked on one of my devices, and the command exists). I'm not sure whether it supports the full set of options available on Linux, but what should work is at least
# create a new group
addgroup [--gid ID] group
# add a user (app) to that group
adduser <user> <group>

From the adduser man page:

If called with two non-option arguments, adduser will add an existing user to an existing group.

That requires root permissions to be able to use the commands. ;)

@t0mm13b Sure it does. But the question implied that – or do you know of any way to fulfill that request without root? If so, please report it as security issue to AOSP :)

My device doesn't have addgroup / adduser, what rom/version//device are you using ? Maybe i could port it to my device. (Tried with toolbox and busybox)

I doubt you want to do that: I've checked on a backup of my old test device (Motorola Droid²), stock Android 2.2 – and my LG Optimus 4X, stock 4.0.3. Both have it in /system/xbin, at least the latter as links to /system/xbin/busybox.

I'm currently checking if it's possible to add adduser/addgroup via a custom busybox compilation on device without it on stock. If it works it would mean the solution is general and will flag it as answer.

@Izzy addgroup doesn't work on my rooted tablet. Are you supposed to run this from the emulator or the adb shell?

I rarely work with emulator (if at all, and that's quite a while I go I did it last, it's Android_x86 in a VirtualBox) – so I'd say via adb shell. Don't forget those two commands only work if you are root, @PrahladYeri :)


text:
Galaxy S3 mini (i8190N) stuck in boot-loop after flashing custom ROM
I've got a S3 Mini (i8190N) & I tried to install a custom ROM to it which failed. My phone will boot but then before the ROM/OS starts it reboots so it's stuck in a Bootloop. I cannot get into Recovery 'cause when I try that it simply just reboots. I can get into download mode!
I'vve had enough messing about trying to find a custom ROM; I don't think there is any out there. (The one I tried was mentioned later on in the thread that it isn't compatible with the model I've got.)

So what's the actual question here?

there could be various reasons for bootlooping like installing ROM which has size larger than your phone's HBOOT,
or a bad ROM.


text:
How to install from an unknown source with my AT&T Galaxy S phone?
I have an AT&T Galaxy S phone, but I can't find install from an unknown source. How can I install apps I receive?

May help a bit: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1070/how-to-install-from-unknown-sources-on-att

You need to download and install Android Central Sideload Wonder Machine to your computer and connect your device to the computer. This link will surely help you out. Just follow every step carefully and you will get rid of that issue. Hope that helps.


text:
Show a dictionary when long-pressing a word
I have a Kindle app. My favorite thing about it is that I can long-press any word and a dictionary pops up for me.
I am wondering if there's an app that does that for my phone. So if I'm reading a research paper or something, I can use the same feature across all mediums of news and reading.
I've looked around and found lots of apps for dictionaries, but I want an interactive one.
Does anyone know if that exists?

The reason that long presses for a dictionary function works there is because it is a simple OS working only as a reader app. Long-press in the Android OS has an entirely different meaning. For something to happen across all apps like you describe, the program would have to layer atop the operating system to subvert the operating system level's interpretation of that event. Anything the OS does from that keypress would become unavailable, unless the layered program passes it through after evaluating the conditions.

There is an app-Flying Dictionary on the Play Store which does the same things that are your needs. It works similar to the Kindle feature. Go try it out!

You probably mean "Fly" Dictionary. The reviews report this app to be buggy, especially those reporting about this pop-up functionality.

I personally use the app on a daily basis and it works great for me. My comment was solely on the basis of my user experience!

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


text:
Where are "Auto backup" photos stored?
I have a S4 (4.3, verizon) and want to download the photos I have in "Auto backup" in my gallery. It has a picassa web albums logo (this thing) on it, but I can't find it on:

My phone, when connected via MTP (I tried searching for a specific image as well)
Google+ images
Picasa web albums

I want to somehow download it, how can I do this?

For Auto Backup access there are several options open to you.

Phone: Select the Gallery app which should bring up a listing of your Albums. One of your albums will be titled Auto Backup (assuming you have photos/videos in the album - otherwise the album will not appear).
Website: Google+ Auto Backup
Website: Picasa Web

There are 1000+ images on my phone in auto backup but only a few hundred on those links. Also I'm trying to export them, what do I do for #1?

You can go to the Google+ app > settings > Auto Backup > Backup all. The photos should then appear on both websites. If they are only on your phone, then plug your phone into a computer and open up windows explorer Computer > [name of device] > Internal storage > DCIM > Camera.

Auto Backup photos on your phone and websites should be identical. There is no reason for them not to be. Perhaps there is an album with a similar name? In Picasa sometimes this album is named "instant upload"

You can access them from the Google+ website.  There is an auto backup album under photos.


text:
Android Spy Apps
Is it possible for someone to install a spy app on an Android phone JB os? Do these spy apps really work? Can anyone install this spy app to your mobile phone without your knowledge? If you suspect that it's been installed to your mobile phone, how do you find it and uninstall it? Would it show as an installed app in your internal files accessible by apps like All-in-One Toolbox?

It is my understanding that, in a non-rooted android device at least, all apps are available to be seen by the user. Now unless there is a security vulnerability that I am unaware of a "spy-app" will be visible to the primary user and owner of the phone.
This does not mean it will be called "spy app" or anything that is obviously malicious but it does mean that if it is there then it will be visible.
A great way to check if an app could be a "spy app" is to check its permissions, other than that its just good practice to know what is on your phone (so you could see if an app is installed that you did not install).

In simple words YES! Can they be installed without your knowledge? Mostly no, but with hackers finding innovative ways to push malware through you could get affected.
Any app during installation asks for a few permissions, if I were to develop an application to spy on your location, your contacts, your messages etc I could very well just add these permissions on the app and discreetly upload your data. How would you prevent this? Well if you are downloading a music app and it asks your permission to send and receive messages or access your messages you can make an educated guess that something could be wrong here.
Your best bet at finding spy apps would be to see the permissions for apps downloaded and see if they match the functionality that is provided by them.

That could be mitigated by using a firewall to block spying apps in a rooted device.


text:
How to remove the picture next to my name in gmail
here is my problem. I recently bought an samsung s4 Active. When I started using it I noticed that there was a random picture next to my name on all my outgoing emails from my phone. The picture is a random screen shot from a youtube video I uploaded years ago. I come to find out that google has taken it upon themselves to somehow link all my stuff together and now assign this picture as my "profile picture"
After some internet searching i find that I need to delete the album inside of Picasa that is labled "profile pictures" that i never created. That didnt work.
Now im told to create a google+ account and then turn around and delete it to remove this picure association. That didnt work either.
So my question is:
If I dont have a google+ account, have deleted any folder that is called "profile picture", and gone into my gmail settings to select "no picture"...what else do I need to do to remove this random picture that appears next to my name on all my outgoing emails from my phone???

The picture is linked to the google+ profile. When YouTube switched to g+ for comments, existing YouTube accounts were basically converted to a limited g+ profile. So, you may actually have more than one g+ profile.
Go to Google+ on the computer. Trust me it will be easier than the mobile site or the app. In the upper right corner, click on the picture or icon that is there. You should see the g+ profile you created and below it your YouTube profile.
If you are already on the profile with the picture, click on the "change photo" banner that appears over the profile photo.
If you aren't on the profile with the picture, click it to switch to that profile. Then click the picture in the upper right again and click the "change photo" ribbon over the picture.
Now you can change the photo to whatever you want or just upload a generic or even solid color picture. I don't know of a way to completely delete it, so maybe just upload an all white box instead.

Google has linked YouTube to Google+, so now, if you have a YouTube channel, you have a Google+ profile.
To delete the profile picture:
1.) Go to your Google+ profile. press the picture that you have as your profile picture, and then press on the blue button that says "View Profile."
2.) Once you are there, you will see a profile picture and a cover photo. Press on the profile picture. When you hover over the picture, you will see a camera inside a circle. Don't click on the camera, just click anywhere on the profile picture other than the camera.
3.) You should see your profile picture. On top of the profile picture, there is a row of things that you can do. At the very right of that row, there is a picture of a trash can. When you hover over it, it should say, "Delete photo." Click on the trash can, and your profile picture is gone. The photo should switch back to the default profile picture, and voila!
I'm not very sure if this will delete the screenshot that you took, but it will delete the profile picture.


text:
ZTE Nubia Z5 Problem?
I have a Zte Nubia Z5 ("2nd Hand") with a software camera problem (I think is a software problem because the camera works sometimes)
The phone has Android 4.1.2. I tried to hard reset the phone but I just got a white screen. And I tried to enter into Recovery Mode and get the same white screen. The phone in adb devices is recognized as "NX501 Recovery". Normally is in "NX501 Device". That means something in the Recovery NAND or something I do not know is bad.
The phone was normally working fine, since my brother installed Chainfire 3D and is stuck in the boot logo, a normal tune is heard as normal like its entering in the OS. But still stuck on the boot logo. I read that is a Chainfire 3D problem in some devices.
So I start to try To install some custom recovery CWM, TWRP etc. It was difficult to find a Recovery because all the information you can find on the internet about this phone is in Chinese and Russian.
I did find a TWRP Recovery (Also a CWM too), but both in Chinese. I tried to enter in boot-loader mode to install the custom Recovery. The phone does go into the the boot-loader and gets recognized as a "Sooner ADB Device", but in ADB does not get recognized. With ANY of the ADB Drivers, ADB Composite, ADB Interface etc.!

try sudo fastboot flash recovery openrecovery-twrp-x.x.x.img or sudo flash recovery recovery-clockwork-x.x.x.img?

@t0mm13b Nothing Happend!


text:
what app/script is responsible for video media?
When podcast videos or youtube videos or flash videos play, what app is behind that?
I'd like to be able to use that script/app to as a trigger for tasker to do something whenever ANY video is playing.
I don't  want to make the apps a trigger because sometimes when apps like YouTube you are just browsing and not watching any video. I want to make a trigger when the media is actually playing.

You were assuming State → Hardware → Media Button coming close to your wishes – but No: That event triggers when One of the media buttons is pressed, as the name suggests, not when a video/media is played.
When looking for a fitting Tasker trigger, the only thing coming close to it is checking the %MTRACK variable, but that only works for some audio players. To extend that, you can use some Tasker addons as e.g. Wave Control or Media Utilities – but again, according to their descriptions they seem to work for audio only.
I'm not aware of any possibility to achieve this with Tasker; but feel free to check out my Collection of Tasker Resources, maybe one of the many tutorials mentions anything I overlooked, or one of the addons got updated in this regard.

Right! Whenever any video or audio is being played, something is connecting its audio to the speakers. There is a global media stream for audio at least and if that could be used as a trigger, that would be awesome. And yes Media Utilities is spotty in its effectiveness.

There isn't a single app or script that runs for all videos. Some video support is built into the Android framework, and each app also have its own logic for playing videos.

I noticed in tasker "state -> hardware -> media button" this is probably close to what I'm looking for. Some way to figure our when a video was played.

After some testing that was a no go either. I guess the best way is to check if youtube is launched in landscape mode. That is generally how i view media. It's disappointing that there isn't a better way to do this.

@JoshuaRobison I don't know of any OS that has a hook for "anything on the system is playing video". It would require all the apps to co-operate and, if you don't mind me saying, isn't a widespread need.


text:
Custom Layout in Minimalistic Text?
I'm using the free version of minimalistic text on android 2.3.7 and I can't seem to find any option for custom layout. There are references to it on the net but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Is that a pro only feature or have they removed the option altogether?

Since you're talking about Tasker, have you seen this comment from their Google Play page:

Tasker integration:

add a Locale variable to your layout and set the variable name (click it)
in Tasker select Plugins -> Minimalistic Text for an action
Click "Edit", a new activity starts
enter the name of the variable and the text that should be displayed for this variable (you can use Tasker variables)

Everything else is customizable. Add a new row, and use the + button to select and add new elements by checking them.

After you create a widget, you'll be able to customize its settings as you see in the flow below. In the 3rd image, the layout section is the 3rd tab (or whatever it's called).

I'm not talking about editing a predefined layout. I'm talking about creating a custom layout from scratch where you can display Tasker variables. See this: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-gorgeous-textonly-widgets-free-minimalistic-text-android/


text:
Can non-HD Android devices output full HD over HDMI?
What is the chance Android 4+ phone or tablet with physical HDMI-out connector will be able to output FullHD resolution if the device itself does not have FullHD screen? Are there any rules for this? What if the device's screen resolution is even smaller than 720p (like 800x480)?

The screen is irrelevant, it's down to what the camera hardware can handle. That's on a device by device basis depending on the rendering software and the hardware sensor. Probably not on anything dual core or less I'd wager, maybe not on others.

@RossC What has the camera got to do with anything?

@DanHulme Ross probably lost the "e.g.", and meant the camera as an example. If the camera cannot take Full HD, you cannot stream the camera image in Full HD.

There aren't any rules for this, so it's entirely up to the tablet in each particular case. I can give an example: the original Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 has a < 720p screen, and its HDMI output is a pixel-for-pixel mirror of the screen (i.e. the HDMI output is the same pixel size as the screen).


text:
Files left after formatting
I factory reset my android phone. When I saw the log after formatting(yet no app installed), I was getting
Processing Container com.mapswithme.maps.pro
Container com.mapswithme.maps.pro-1 slate
..
..

and for other apps that i earlier installed. Why is android looking for it after i format the phone. If these files still exist on phone how to remove them. My phone is NOT rooted. {and i intend to keep it that way}. the apps are in mnt/secure/asec
any possible solution ?????

I can think of two relevant facts.

Apps that were pre-installed as part of the system (i.e. came with the phone) are not deleted by a factory reset: they just go back to the original version, and will probably be updated by Google Play later.
If you had Back up my data turned on in the device settings (on the Backup & reset page), then as soon as you signed into your Google account, the phone will have started to reinstall all the apps you had installed previously, and the data of all the apps that support Google backup.

pre-installed app are in system/app but the above mentioned app are in mnt/secure/asec


text:
installing app without copying apk file
How can I install some apps to android without copying the .apk file? I can do the same in iOS. that must be a possible thing, but I couldnt find it neither here nor Google.
EDIT:
Imagine you want to install your own app to someone's device without letting them have the apk file.

It's not clear to me what you mean by "without copying the apk file". The APK is the app, and it needs to be on the phone to install it, even temporarily.

What are you actually trying to solve here?  Is there anything that prevents you from installing the APK file normally?

Do you have physical access to the phone?  If so, you can use adb install app_name_here.apk in terminal/command prompt, provided you have Android SDK tools installed.  However, all this does is copy the APK to the target phone, and register it with the Package Manager.  A user with enough knowledge (and root access) can always find and copy the APK from the phone.

@chahk your answer is what im looking for,correct. please provide it as an answer so that I can accept it. thanks

I still don't see what advantage that should give. Once installed, anybody with physical access to the device could simply use apps like AppMonster to grab the .apk of any installed app. See Dan's answer.

Provided you have physical access to the device, you can manually install your app by doing the following:

Install Android SDK tools from this page (Download for other platforms → SDK Tools Only.)
Install USB drivers for the phone (usually from manufacturer's site.)
Turn on USB debugging on the phone (in Settings → Developer options)
Connect the phone via USB (you can also do this over Wi-Fi with a number of apps if the phone is rooted.)
Open Command Prompt or Terminal and navigate to the "platform-tools" sub-directory of where you installed the SDK tools.
Issue the following command: adb install path_to_apk\your_app.apk

Keep in mind though that you are still essentially "letting them have" the apk, since the installation simply copies the APK file to the appropriate directory on the phone (usually /data/app or /data/app-private) and registers it with Android's Package Manager.  A knowledgeable enough user can still retrieve the APK.

Thanks for the edit, @DanHulme.  I knew I forgot a step in there somewhere :)

The APK is the app. Installing an app on someone's phone is itself giving them the APK, so it's a nonsense to talk about installing the app without giving them the APK. It's analogous to asking if you can run a program on a Windows machine without giving them the EXE file.
If you instead want to install an app on someone's phone without them being able to copy the app to a different phone, the author of the app needs to use an anti-piracy library (a.k.a. "licensing service") to stop the app when it's run on an unauthorized phone. As programming questions are off-topic on this site, I won't discuss that further.

I agree with Dan and @Izzy.  If you are worried about giving the user source code, you can stop worrying for the most part. APK files contain compiled bytecode (along with resources like images and icons.) It can still be reverse-engineered but again, requires some technical knowledge. Your best bet to "protect" your intellectual property is indeed licensing.

The way most developers do it is through an application distribution service (google play, Amazon appstore...). But if you are not ready to publish those options may not seem like good ones. So your alternate option would be to install over ADB, done either over a cable or network.


text:
Why are my Contacts icons on my phone with different colors?
Example:

Why is that? Does each color mean something? What is this?

What contact app are you using? What device? What Android version?

What do you mean Contact app? Device is GalaxyS2 Plus, 4.2.2 I believe. Not in my hands atm. It's my mom's phone heh.

like seriously, is that what questions have came to on Android SE?

Purely random placeholder picture. The colors are quite likely different so it looks more colorful than having one single, boring placeholder picture on every contact.

The most random thing I've seen then.

Well, if it is purely for looks then it isn't THAT random. Colorful is always better than monotone and boring.

Is it on all Android phones? The colorful contacts thingy?

Not that I know of, no, and I handle a lot of android devices at work...

Nothing in the manual about it, and I haven't been able to determine any type of pattern with the colors. I think it's totally random to break up the monotony of the contacts list or something.

It's most likely that you have several different accounts configured on your phone, and have sync'd contacts with each of them.  One color back ground shows google contacts, another for hotmail, another for lotus notes, etc.  I have the same thing on my android.

Unlikely. I have only 1 account configured here (WebDAV, no Google etc.) but still have at least 6 colors present (and the screenshot in the question clearly shows 3 Google contacts with different colors). Good guess, though, as that at least would make some sense :)

The varying colors of the contacts is not random on my phone (Galaxy S5).
Each time I add a contact it selects the next color in the sequence...
Blue, Green, Orange, Orange
Blue, Green, Orange, Orange...
It just looks untidy in the Contacts list, and I see no way of changing it - apart from adding a contact a few times until it's the color you want, and deleting the unwanted ones. You could also create some simple color pictures to assign to each profile picture (if you don't have their photo)

Your answer has arrived. The different colors in your contacts represents the type of phone carrier and device an individual is using.

Source, please?

I somehow doubt that. First, how does the remote device become known locally? Even if you call me (or I you), I know you have a device but not which. Second, in my contacts I only have mobile and landline numbers, which would make 2 colors. But there are at least 6 colors present. So that doesn't match.

It goes by who you contact the most.

Could you explain that a little more?


text:
SGS2 screen gets more and more dark blue, possibly after overheated charging
My phone screen is gradually becoming dark blue and then black--see photo. Started with a single light blueish edge, and growing during the last hours to what can be seen on photo.

The only serious reason that I could think of is that the phone has recently overheated while charging: it stayed for several hours under the pillow, and it was very hot when I took it away from there. Another guess is a recent drop on the floor, but in its 2-years lifetime it dropped dozens of time, frequently much harder than today.
What could be the reason, and how it can be fixed, ideally DIY or at all?
It's Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100.

Looks like a damaged LCD that's slowly "leaking out."  Overheating could definitely be the culprit, as could the drop. Although damage from the drop is usually accompanied with a visible crack.  Most likely it was the combination of the two.  The fact that the phone booted up and is (sort-of) functional leads me to believe that replacing the LCD assembly would fix it.
There are plenty of replacements to be had on eBay for up to USD$100.  I would go for the LDC+digitizer combination, even though the glass itself looks intact. There are simply too many issues with properly separating LCD from the glass that could cause you to break both and spend even more money.  It is definitely doable on your own, provided you have some basic tools.  There are videos on YouTube with great walkthoughs to help you along the way: probably most detailed (even though it's not on GT-I9100, but on other modification of SGS2); some others specifically on GT-I9100. A guide at iFixIt can be also helpful.

Thanks, definitely helpful! Will upvote the answer as soon as I get enough reputation here.

From the local parts dealer (which is faster than eBay for my country), I can get either A ($90) or B ($173). Which one looks more relevant to the problem?

Looks like option B also includes the entire front panel, which is probably an overkill for your case.  I'd say option A.  Just to be sure though, I'd open up the phone to see if there is any more damage that may require replacing the front panel too.

As the original answer linked to a different modification of SGS2 (not GT-I9100), here are several links that also helped me: YouTube 1 and 2; an archived guide at iFixIt. @Chank, do you mind if I suggest edit to your answer to include [some of] them?

Not at all, go ahead and edit. So you managed to replace the screen then?

Only teared down so far :-)

Replaced the screen, will see how long it lasts :-)

Have you checked if reconnecting the LCD cable solves the issue?


text:
Is flashing a new ROM enough after phone was stolen?
A friend of mine had his Samsung Galaxy S 2 stolen and returned some 20 minutes later after he talked to the pickpocket and tried to play her guilty consciousness.
USB debugging was active when I checked with the old ROM, so I assume that everything was possible. The bootloaded was already unlocked, but the phone was not rooted, as far as I can tell.
I flashed Clockwork Mod Recovery and then Cyanogen Mod onto the phone, and formatted the external SD card with mkfs.vfat on Linux. Is that enough to get any malware off the phone?

What did you mean "he tried to conjure up the good in one of the pickpockets"?

I am not sure how to word this in English properly. He said that he talked to her about it being really bad manners to steal the phone (and attempt to steal the wallet) of someone on vacation. So he played on her guilty consciousness. I think that is a better way of saying it.

Fair enough, but getting malware on device after 20 minutes timeframe of disappearance, in what you did, seems bit overkill,  a factory reset would suffice.

I think this is more than enough. Flashing your ROM again should be more than sufficient. This not only allows fresh installations of any old apps to prevent spyware, but also dormant any other app data from existing apps to be largely overwritten or deemed as corpses. You can also perform a cleanup using SD Maid just to be sure.