text:
32-bit and 64-bit Android: how to tell before buying a phone
I have been looking into 32-bit or 64-bit Android versions for phones. It seems to me that the information on the number of bits of the installed Android version is always missing from phones' specs, unlike what happens for the CPU. Googling around, the ways I have found to understand whether a phone is running a 32-bit or a 64-bit OS all include actually doing something with the phone, like looking up the kernel version or downloading some app, like AIDA64.
How do I know if a phone I want to buy will come with a 32-bit or a 64-bit Android before I buy it? It would be interesting to find a layman-friendly criterion or resource that allows me to know this in advance, especially to be able to look into the cheapest phones running a 64-bit Android.

Are you looking for website or on device indicator? Or just buy a phone with at least 6GB of RAM which requires 64-bit support.

One way to know that the OS is 64-bit is to check the RAM. 32-bit OSes have (see/utilise) a maximum of 4GB of RAM while 64-bit devices see more.
Devices with more than 4GB of RAM will be using 64-bit Android.
Limits are as followed:
32-bit:  2^32 = 2^2 * 2^30 = 4GB. A 32-bit OS will go 1 bits up to 4GB.
64-bit:  2^64 = 2^4 * 2^60 = 16EB. A 64-bit OS will go 1 bits up to 16EB.
Up to 4GB, the RAM won't help differentiating whether it is 32 or 64-bit. More than 4GB, then it is more than likely to be 64-bit.
Large Physical Address Extension(LPAE) was implemented to allow physical address up to 40-bit. But as @Irfan as inferred, it is not known (at least publicly) if there are devices in the market which have taken advantage of it.
Conversion table
-----------------
2^10 = 1 KB
2^20 = 1 MB
2^30 = 1 GB
2^40 = 1 TB
2^50 = 1 PB
2^60 = 1 EB

I have Redmi Note 4 with 3GB DDR3, but it's 64-bit. So this criteria could be misleading sometimes, partially applicable.

@IrfanLatif Could you explain the misleading part? Because I said that devices with more than maximum of 4GB of RAM will have 32 bit OS. But a device with more than 4GB will be 64-bit (it doesn't mean that a 64-bit OS can't handle less than 4GB of RAM, but that the 32+bit OS can't handle more than 4GB). I will be more than happy to edit, if you think it's necessary.

@ReddyLutonadio Only windows sees restrictions in handling RAM for 64/32 bir

@ReddyLutonadio A phone comes with 3GB RAM. Based on your answer, one can't be sure if it's 32 bit or 64 bit. If RAM >= 4GB, then the criteria holds good. But some 32-bit architecture also supported larger RAMs? I remember some news from a few years back.

Also include a reference to LPAE, though I'm not sure if any devices are/were shipped with this.

Until the manufacturer doesn't describe the technical specifications of OS included with a device, it's hard to say if it's 32-bit or 64-bit. But a device with 64-bit hardware is expected to come with 64-bit OS (not always), let's take a look how to identify 64-bit hardware.
To find out if a device is 32-bit or 64-bit, you need to check the specifications of its SoC and then of its processor. For instance SoC in Redmi Note 4 is Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (MSM 8953), which contains processor Cortex-A53. It's evident from technical specifications of Cortex-53 that it's based on ARMv8 architecture, which can process 2 types of Instruction Sets: aarch64 (which Android's arm64-v8a ABI uses) and aarch32 (which Android's armeabi-v7a ABI uses). So the phone is 64-bit, shipped with a 64-bit OS.
On-device processor/SoC information can be checked using some third party app as you have mentioned, or directly from CLI: uname -m, cat /proc/cpuinfo, cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model etc.
RELATED: Android apps for “armeabi-v7a” and “x86” architecture: SoC vs. Processor vs. ABI

What you wrote is correct, however a 64bit CPU doe not necessarily means that the phone is running a 64bit version of Android.

@Robert valid point, I was focusing hardware aspect. But I don't think one would prefer 32-bit OS on a 64-bit hardware, isn't it? It's a wastage of resources then. If a phone's specs aren't out from OEM, I don't think there is way to find out if Android ROM is 64 or 32 bit. But they don't tell much about stock ROM usually, other than Android version, or if it's heavy mod on AOSP like MIUI.

I don't know the numbers but it is not uncommon to use a 32bit  OS on a 64bit capable hardware. Just think of the Raspberry which has 64bit hardware since 4 years and finally this year gets a 64bit OS.

Raspberry Pi is a learning PC, not a phone, maintained by a foundation. There isn't any beneficiary giant corporate group behind that. So they don't have teams of paid developers working 24/7. And is more open source as compared to Android based phones.

I'd also like to point out most armeabi-v7a CPUs are actually 64 bit but generally run a 32 bit version of Android. Arm64-v8a however is always 64 bit

@colbycdev I always though armeabi-v7a ABI and ARMv7-A CPU were always 32-bit.

@IrfanLatif nope. For instance the SoC in the Moto g6 is armeabi-v7a but Qualcomm spec for it says it's 64 bit

@colbycdev SoC in Moto G6 is Snapdragon 450, which contains processor Cortex-A53, which is based on ARMv8 architecture, which can process 2 types of Instruction Sets: aarch64 (which Android's arm64-v8a ABI uses) and aarch32 (which Android's armeabi-v7a ABI uses). That's what my understanding is.

@IrfanLatif hmm ok. Just know it's armeabi-v7a didn't know it was ARMv8

Also getconf LONG_BIT returns 64 on my Pixel 4a, Android 13. Not sure if it can be added to the methods mentioned in the last section of your answer. This was using Termux

And lscpu on Termux returns CPU op-mode(s):  32-bit, 64-bit (amongst a ton of details)


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Sync DuckDuckGo bookmarks between devices?
Is it possible to sync DuckDuckGo bookmarks between devices?
I wonder if the reason I haven't found anything is it defeats the main purpose of DDG, being a privacy browser?

You can import and export the bookmarks, as per the instructions below: Import/Export Bookmarks, Export Bookmarks, Import Bookmarks. They are basic import and export, like old browsers had before syncing was created. Yes, no cloud storage action due to security concerns, as the poster mentioned.

Unfortunately, no, not at the moment. You could leave a review on the Play Store asking them to implement it. Or you can install Firefox or Firefox preview both of which have sync support, as does Chrome.

Mozilla/Firefox sync service, allows to sync among FF mobile, FF preview, FF Focus, FF Quantum (desktop) and Waterfox (desktop and mobile)

Since 14 Feb 2024, DuckDuckGo now offers bookmarks and password sync on Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone: https://spreadprivacy.com/password-sync-backup/

Now live: Sync bookmarks, passwords, and Email Protection settings between DuckDuckGo browsers on phones, tablets, and computers, privately and securely.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Wi-fi wont turn on after root. Not even with factory reset!!! please help me
so, my phone went completely bananas today. It was charging and i swear out of the blue a messange showed up saying the sd card memory was being deleted. So in panick i turned it off.
The cellphone then turned itself on and showed a message saying android was being deleted, again in panick i took the battery off.
When i turned it on, a message with a "dead" android avatar showed on the screen and the boot options screen showed up. I clicked on reeboot and it had been reseted to factory settings.
I was so angry and upset because my whole life and work was on my phone.
I spent the entire afternoon dedicated into recovering the data. The only software that seems to find my files costed $50. i live in a 3rd world country so thats impossible for me to pay. Then looking online i found another one that seem promising but i had to root my phone for it. in the past i used to be really afraid of doing it but as i had an old phone i rooted once for some trivial stuff i decided to do it.
Big mistake.
After rooting my  wi-fi turned off...for good.
When i click the wi-fi switch it turns on for a  aplit of a second and back off.
i CANNOT turn it on.
So i decided to hard reset it again, i mean, i had nothing to lose.
NOTHING.
I STILL CANT TURN IT ON.
i really need this phone for work, and i do not have money to get a new one. im desesperate. really.
i reaaly hope someone can help
I understand so little about this but im great at following intructions. I will be so thankfull if anyone can help.
its a samsung Galaxy J5, with android 6.0.1

Since you have nothing left on your device, you can try re-flashing the stock ROM by downloading the flash file and flashing it via Odin. It should reinstall the corrupted modem drivers and system files.

Thank you so much, i have no idea what that means, but im guessing Mr. google knows :)

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


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How can I get all 6000 photos back out of Samsung Cloud at once rather than doing them separately?
My Samsung Cloud storage is full, and it turns out I have about 13GB of photos (over 6000 photos) in there, that have been synced from my phone.
However, I only have around maybe 1GB of photos on my phone. Clearly the majority of photos in my Samsung Cloud are not on my phone anymore.
The first part of my question is, is there any chance that there may be some photos on my cloud account which Samsung has deleted from my phone automatically to clear space, assuming I'm happy that it's still in the cloud?
And the second part is, how can I sync them back to my phone, or even a PC, so I have them again? I can't find an option on the phone and I went to the Samsung Cloud site and browsed my photos, but there's no way to methodically download photos in bulk, and scrolling beyond the first few hundred becomes painful. Is there seriously no way on either my phone or a PC to download all my photos again rather than selecting a few at a time?
Note: "Select all" on the web interface only selects those visible on screen and the system prevents you selecting more than 500.

You can't just select the whole directory to download via a long press or options menu?

Not on the web interface.  I've since discovered there's a Microsoft Store app that is supposed to be able to sync your cloud photos to your PC.  So I am trying this.


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Multi-window display keeps disabling itself
I have Samsung Galaxy Tab Active2 with Android 9 Pie. When running two apps simultaneously in the multi-window mode, it frequently happens that the multi-window display gets suddenly disabled with the following notification: "Multi-window closed. Your tablet is too hot. Let it cool before using Multi window again". The options to display an app in a multi-window or pop-up views then disappear from the task manager menu, and the Multi-window option also gets greyed-out in the Settings. This is really annoying as I need to have two apps running side by side for my work. I searched the web but was unable to find any posts mentioning this behavior at all (so I suspect this may not be a general feature of Android but some specific set-up of Samsung...). Would anyone know how to disable/override this feature, please? I know that overheating can be dangerous to the hardware, but this way of handling it is very problematic for me.
Thanks in advance for your help.

I'd say to try running it on power saving mode while multitasking. Or just limit the cpu in some way if that's possible without compromising your work.

I field-tested limiting the CPU speed by turning on the power saver, and it seems to work — the multi window does not shut down even in hot environment. Limited CPU usage might undermine the correct functionality of some apps, but that is another problem...


text:
Sensible method to edit contacts on a Samsung phone?
Currently the Samsung app for Contacts is driving me nuts on my S9+.
I used to have my contacts entered as I wanted them into the Phone address book (only one other phone number on the SIM). But then the Contacts app started to pester me about wanting to merge contacts. Dismissing those notifications by touching that X in the top right of the notification window ended up removing the one contact that was most complete for my significant other (in a sense the master contact which also contained address, birthday, siblings and stuff, aside from the phone numbers). Instead I now have her Telegram and Skype contacts as a single entry in the Contacts app. Alas, that single entry cannot be edited, only deleted. But given the intransparent handling of this stuff, I'm really afraid to delete it, because it warns me that the contacts will disappear from where ever they are defined (so presumably deleting this one entry from Contacts will end up deleting the contacts in Telegram and Skype respectively).
Anyway, so I figured I'd simply start creating a new contact for the Phone app to use, even though the phone number was already mentioned in the combined Telegram and Skype entry.
Guess what, when I create a new entry it cannot be named the same as the existing one, even though the existing one cannot be edited. I'm out of words for how badly this software is designed ...
How can I manage the contacts on my Samsung S9+ in a fashion that makes explicit where a contact is stored (i.e. where the respective data comes from), lets me merge them in either direction and lets me move them between the different address books of connected accounts (SIM, Phone, Google, mail provider)?
NB: I'd like to avoid any method involving syncing to Google or so ...

try MyPhoneExplorer from PC and edit the contacts offline (airplane mode). you will see what happens when you're back online. in case its gone you still have the backup

Try to go into your contacts (in the app you use to phone people), then click a button that says Create Contact and put the number, name, and whatever more info it needs.

did you read the question?

@Jeffrey I would not have asked the question if it were so simple. It seems indeed you didn't read the question (and whoever upvoted your answer didn't either).


text:
Why I couldn't monitor traffic from this page?
When I opened the capture log I found nothing from the page other than this when I first tried to visit it using http only, and then I get that security warning and i click proceed to unsafe anyway i still get nothing from that page
although i have the root debugging certificate installed using
HttpCanary

Clear the cache of the used app (the one you want to monitor). It might have save the old certificate and now does not accept the new one from HttpCanary.

@Robert i have tried it even with wireshark on pc and it still the same !!!
i tried to clear the "Clear the cache of the used app" but still didn't work ... btw the page certificate is invalid !!


text:
not able to install Google Fi
I subscribed to Google Fi for transferring my American phone number to this service.
I have Google Pixel 3a XL, which has esim.
To activate Google Fi service I need to install Google Fi App.
This service is available only in USA.
I have American address and American phone, but right now I'm in Canada.
So when I try ti install it, I get error:

This item isn't available in your country

Okay, I installed TunnelBear VPN, but is having the same error.
Should I try different VPN or change some setting on my phone?
UPDATE: Following this article, I installed VPN Unlimited on my other phone (Windows phone) and connected my Pixel to this phone by hotspot.
I cleared cash on both phones and set location off.
Now browser show me weather for Los Angeles. But Google Play still gives me the same error.
Btw, I have US Profile in Google Play.
Still should to try Fake GPS, but may I should drive to USA to activate Fi.

While you are using VPN your location may not have been updated. I would go into Airplane mode and use a Fake GPS provider to place yourself near where your VPN endpoint is located. Then try downloading Google Fi. Google itself may be using your old location to prevent location spoofing (1000km change in 10 mins doesn't seem real), so a few hours of device off in Airplane mode might help before connecting a renamed router (Google records wifi locations). Note that activation of Google Fi itself may require access to a supported US carrier.

okay, will try. Found interesting article: https://medium.com/@panteliszirinis/project-fi-activating-internationally-and-using-it-as-a-digital-nomad-on-nexus-and-iphone-687b04f4cf32, he used two phones, one with VPN and hotspot to connect other phone.

okay, installed from there: https://apkpure.com/google-fi/com.google.android.apps.tycho/download?from=details

Change your country setting in Google PlayStore Account settings. You'll get a notification that you can only do this once a year blah blah blah, but right after I changed mine from New Zealand to USA I was able to download and activate the app.
Cheers


text:
What is adb error on Android?
I want to send a file from my PC in Android recovery mode, but I can not get an error. The error is as follows:

adb push file.zip

*daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
could not read ok from ADB server
*faild to start daemon
adb.: failed to check server version: cannot connect to daemon

  And if you use Advacnced> ADB Sideload> Swip from an Android device from https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/sideload-flashable-zips-android-with-twrp-0176529/ an error was displayed . How do I solve it?

Data successfully decrypted , new block device: '/dev /block/dm- 0'
Updating partition details . . . . . .
done
Unable to mount storage
Successfully decrypted with default password.
Updating partition details . . .
.. .done
Unable to mount storage
Failed to mount '/data ' (Invalid argument )
Full SELinux support is present.
Unable to mount /data/media /TWRP/ . twrps
MTP. Enabled
Starting ADB sideload feature...


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2-step Verification No Popup only hear the sound?
The 2-step verification used to work. But today, when I sign in the account, my android device does not popup the verificaiton window at all. I only hear the notification sound, but no popup and no notification at all. This is just weird.
All special actions I did after its last working time are (1) create a second user account on android mobile (2) this is dual-sim cards mobile. I removed my primary sim card.
I am not sure if the above two actions are the cause or not. But I do hear a notification sound, but with no popup window at all.
So What is the problem? and How can I do the 2-step verification now?
Thanks a lot.

I found the solution. I have disabled some permission on Google play services. This is used to work well. BUT maybe due to google play services upgrade automatically or something else I don't know, it no longer works with some permissions disabled. After enabling all permissions to Google play services, it works again.


text:
E:failed to mount /cache (invalid argument) - how to format?
I have a Asus Zenfone 2 and a few days ago it ran out of battery and turned off. Then after I charged it up and restarted it, it wouldn't turn on. It gets to the logo and the loading circle and just gets stuck there forever.
I can get into recovery, but can't do anything in recovery, because everything gives this error:

E:failed to mount /cache (invalid argument)

Trying to wipe cache, factory reset the phone, mount /system, flash a ROM from SD card, ADB sideload, everything gives the error multiple times. Factory reset formats /data fine, but when it gets to /cache, gives the error and aborts.
Same thing with fastboot. I tried to flash TWRP (I have stock recovery) and I tried to erase and format cache through fastboot, but both give this error:

FAILED (remote: 'Can not mount the necessary partition')
fastboot: error: Command failed

Is there anything I can do to format the phone or somehow rebuild the partitions without being able to flash anything via recovery or fastboot?
I don't know if tools like AFT or xfstk can do anything for me.
Edit: I don't think the EMMC chip is dead, because the recovery partition is still fine, I can still boot into recovery and when I did a factory reset, it formatted /data without any errors, only had an error when it started formatting /cache.
When I was looking for a solution to this problem, I read somewhere that sometimes when the device gets interrupted, like when it shuts down suddenly, to prevent data loss android would change permissions on the /cache partition to read only or something like that. This would certainly explain what happened to my phone. Just need to think of a way to access ADB shell on it to try to change permissions. Shell doesn't work in ADB sideload mode, that's the only ADB thing the stock recovery has. Is that a similar thing in fastboot by any chance?

fastboot format:ext4 cache (or without :ext4) will do the trick

That still gives the error remote: 'Can not mount the necessary partition'

Try this three together fastboot oem start_partitioning
fastboot oem wipe cache
fastboot oem stop_partitioning

fastboot oem wipe cache gave this error: FAILED (remote: 'unknown OEM command'). Now I tried to do fastboot format cache again, this time it went through most of it successfully, then it got to the end and I still got this error: Writing 'cache' FAILED (remote: 'Can not mount the necessary partition').

I tried fastboot format /cache for the hell of it, got this error: fastboot: error: Formatting is not supported for file system with type ''.. So I tried this: fastboot format:ext4 /cache and got this now: fastboot: error: Cannot generate image for /cache

The possibility of dying eMMC can't be negated if you have used your device for a few years. Some cheap eMMCs have very limited E/P cycles before they wear out. Not necessarily all partitions dye at once, usually those with filesystems and mostly /data and /cache are affected because they are excessively written to. Better is to try factory firmware flashers if you can manage to provide. See this for some technical stuff.

@IrfanLatif You might be right. Since only /cache seems to be broken I was hoping to repartition it, but don't have a way to run ADB. I was also thinking about using some factory tools, but they are mostly used to fix hard bricks without recovery or fastboot, I have both so not sure where to even start with them. Will check that thread! Booting from sd sounds like it might do the trick if it's possible.

download TWRP for your device, then fastboot boot C:\adb\twrp-3.3.1-0-Z00*.img from twrp: adb shell from shell: mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/cache

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.


text:
A wrongly 'I need help' text was sent from google maps
I left my phone where I work and I needed a #. I asked a coworker to gain access. An 'I need help' text alert was sent to one of my groups and I recieved the same message from one of them. It was sent 20 minutes before it was discovered. Upon frantically calling to find out what kind of help was needed, I found that it was bogus. It was unnerving, to say the least. Aside from shutting it off, what can be done to correct this?

Don't let your co-workers, or anyone else, unlock or even gain physical access to your phone is the solution. Otherwise I am not sure exactly what you are asking... What is it you want to correct?

From this blog and this question on Security.SE, looks like an emergency/panic feature on some Android phones by pressing the home/power button 3 times. However, I don't know if it can be disabled or not.

https://uxdesign.cc/samsungs-send-sos-messages-is-flawed-43e6a633fe4


text:
Looking for an interface for numerous video files
I'm using VLC on LineageOS, to browse and play files (audio or video) in folders that can have hundreds of items.
The LineageOS native file manager doesn't let me play some files (notably, Opus), thus I open my files with the VLC file browser. But it has 2 caveats:

The view isn't very compact, so I see only a small part of file names.
When there are hundreds of video files in the folder, VLC starts generating thumbnails for these, with is a very, very long task, and once such a task has begun, VLC hangs when I try to open any file...

Therefore, I'm looking for the following solutions:

Tweaking VLC for a more compact files view, and even more importantly, disabling thumbnails generation.
Finding an alternate file manager that doesn't have the above issues, and let me open my files (mkv, mp4, webm, opus, m4a). As a bonus, I'd really enjoy a file filter so I can search for files with specific words in the name.

I guess the VLC configuration isn't doable (but it would be so great!), so I guess I'm looking for a new file manager that will fulfil my above needs. Thanks in advance!

Are the videos stored in the internal memory ("sd-card" section) or are they stored on a physical sd-card? For the latter the access is a bit more complicated which is the reason that some videos may fail. Anyway VLC is a bit buggy in this scenario. Try MXPlayer to check if it is the file manager or the video player.

Try MX player, according to me, it is better than VLC with much flexibility.

I've tried MX Player very quickly, so far it seems great. Filenames are displayed on multiple lines so I can see the full names, and thumbnails are generated very quickly and there doesn't seem to be hanging issues.


text:
Connecting my calendar (s) to Google mini?
∆ Huawei p20 lite nova e
∆ Bundled calendar
∆ Google calendar which is set default
∆ Calendar Widget (have given access to G)
I ask my Google mini to tell me what's on my calendar or read out my agenda and it just says I'm sorry I don't understand or something like that and I've looked on a couple of websites and they all have this step-by-step that seems really outdated because my Google activity page looks very different I'm assuming it's the latest.
so folks I would like to have access to my calendar while talking to Google mini home which is a set on the same wifi and and I've tried it with VPN on and off and it still the same.
So there's no confusion I'm asking Google mini to read my calendar which it doesn't.
Thanks

If your calendar events are in Google Calendar (not via some third-party connector), you are using a regular Gmail account (not G-Suite), granted all the Google action permissions, and in a supported country/language, getting voice commands on Android or Google mini should work. The wording about how your "bundled" calendar is configured is unclear.

@MorrisonChang ok that seems to be working fine now except it won't read me my full agenda all the way to September eccetera any ideas


text:
Why did my Android's MicroSD Card just stop functioning properly?
My Android Phone is a Motorola Moto G6, Software version 8.0.0. On this device, I have a 400 GB Samsung MicroSD Card [ https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-400GB-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B074RNRM2B ] formatted as Internal Storage. This was to allow Syncthing, a peer-to-peer file synchronization app, to sync all of my files (~300 GB among 6 folders) between it and my 2 computers. I have had this setup running for 4 months, and it has been seamless.
This system appears to have stopped functioning.
For the past week, I have been taking screenshots of apps, and encountered what I presumed to be a bug. The screenshot (taken with the System's POWER+VOLUME_DOWN trigger) is taken, but for a moment the notification indicates that the screenshot failed to an unknown error. However, a moment later it reports "Click to View Screenshot." I confirmed that the screenshots saved, and synced, and brushed this off as an intermittent bug.
This morning, I attempted to save the screenshot as I always have. However, the phone reported "Insufficient Space" as the error. Curious as to if I accidentally moved some of my ML Data Sets to the Shared Download Folder, I checked my FX File Manager; it crashed. The system File Manager, Storage Management in Settings, and Google Chrome's Downloads Manager all report 90 GB free of the 366.8 accessible.
Additional Discoveries are as follows. In my attempt to get FX working, I tried to re-install it. Google Play repeatedly threw an unknown error. As an additional check, I opened Chrome to try to download a picture from a page. The download never moved beyond 0%, despite plenty of bandwidth being available to load additional web pages, and auto-play ads still loading. The Camera will not SAVE pictures anymore. I take a picture, and it goes to the corner as always for preview. This time, "Activity Not Found." The File Manager also reports that no new images were found.
In my search, I tried a recommendation to rename "Pictures" to "Pictures2", which many users reported to work for the Screenshot Issue. However, the file manager can not rename, move, or delete folders or files! Files can still, however, be viewed. I tried to do this from my computer. Despite the device being present, the machine reports "Unable to Access."
I have attempted to clear the System Cache, to no success. I have tried multiple reboots in between each effort. I have tried removing and re-inserting the MicroSD card.
These problems were not present as of 11:32 PM last night, when I last took a picture and it synced to my computers. As of this morning, the MicroSD card has become, functionally, read-only. To prevent any loss of data, in either direction, I have not run Syncthing since I noticed the problem.

prime suspect on huge cards is they're fakes.

I think that there is some problem with the SD card. It might have been faulty. If warranty is provided with the SD card, you can replace it.

Confirmed. Took card out and allowed phone to "Forget" due to having 2 backups. Attempted to load into computer: failed to even format.


text:
After android system update (Oxygen OS 9.0.3) Google can't reached via hotspot
After the system update for Oxygen OS 9.0.3, my OnePlus 3 hotspot has weird problem.
If enable hotspot on my phone and use laptop to browse google.com,
the url is not loading.
If I use a VPN in my laptop and use the same hotspot, everything is fine (so it's not problem in browser/browser plugins).
If I directly use phone to reach google.com, no problem there too (so it's not ISP blocking).
So url filter is happening only in my phone when I use hotspot.
Could someone help me to narrow down the problem?

After another update today (OS 9.0.4) the problem got fixed!
But still it would be good to know what screw up has happened in the last update.


text:
"Waxl dyne untherhouze" bug
Every time I start my device a Cleaner window appears. And in the window these words appear: "Waxl dyne untherhouze".
What does that mean? Is there a bug involved?

Sounds like you have malware. Look through your installed apps (from settings) and see if anything sticks out as fake. Uninstall it.
If nothing appears off, then the next step is doing a factory reset. Back up your information first!
If even that doesn't work, call the manufacturer for service. Fixing malware that can survive a factory reset is a very technical and risky process.


text:
Can't record voice notes in whatsapp
so my friend has a samsung edge 7. whenever she tries to record or listen to a voice note on whatsapp the voice note is full of notification sounds when while recording there was no such noise. i've checked, and the phone has the latest update. ive uninstalled whatsapp and reinstalled it, no dice.

Does she use earphones/headphones when she's recording? Or maybe she gets notification when she's recording.

neither of those two things.

Try to isolate the problem by recording outside of whatsapp then send it on whatsapp and see if the sound is still there.


text:
Android firewall? Blackhole? One IP unreachable
I have a device, an ESP8266-like, connecting my automower to my wan.
If I hardcode the address to 192.168.1.48, it is accessible from my phone and my laptop, among others I guess.
If I hardcode the address to 192.168.1.44, it is not accessible from my phone, but still from my laptop.
I don't get pings back when pinging 192.168.1.44 from the phone, a traceroute end with the phone's own IP, as I do when I traceroute to an unreachable address.
In short, something on the phone seems to be blocking that particular IP. Rebooting the phone doesn't help.
The phone is a OnePlus 5, Android, OxygenOS 9.0.6
EDIT: all devices are on the same WiFi, Ubiquity devices.

Is you wan from some router or is that of phone's hotspot? What's the phone's IP address?

All devices on same ubiquity wifi network.

And what's your phone's IP? Anyone here won't be able to know what's going on on your device, unless you provide enough logs and info; how many hosts are on the network, what are their IP addresses, what does ip -n shows, what are the gateway IP and DNS IP, is the router DHCP or you do static configuration completely, can you ping your router from phone etc. Android doesn't have a restrictive firewall, but the routing is really complicated.


text:
what in xposed caused this bootloop and how to prevent it from happening again?
My android phone is stuck in a boot loop. To troubleshoot it I was able to boot into TWPR and use adb pull /sys/fs/pstore/console-ramoops to get some boot logs (is that even the right file?).
When opening the file in a text viewer it is very corrupted, with missing letters like in this example...

Is there another procedure I can follow to either get a correctly encoded or uncorrupted log file or fix the one I got? It was literally the only way I found of pulling some logs from TWRP terminal...
On the troubleshooting part: prior to last known good status no particular action was done... just using telegram briefly.
Then I started getting crashes of system app so I rebooted. This now is the result...
Update: it seems that adb connects during the boot animation. I was able to do adb logcat -v time -b events -b main -b system -b radio >> boot.log and i got a stream of logs, will post the result once it's done boot looping or battery dies.
Update: indeed I was able to get real-time log of the boot process. It is boot looping since my logfile is growing bigger, so it's not "stuck".
Trying to look for information in the log I found this pattern of "waited one second"... which seems to indicate that something is not running or failing to run.
Here is a screenshot of what I mean:

The figure of 838 seconds waited seems right since I had my phone logging for about 15 minutes...
I am continuing to log until something happen, but now I think I need some help debugging this problem...
There seem to be two things that are waited for:
07-01 22:58:59.863 W/slim_daemon(  951): Waited one second for android.frameworks.sensorservice@1.0::ISensorManager/default. Waiting another...

and
07-01 22:59:02.359 W//system/bin/cameraserver( 3000): Waited one second for android.hardware.camera.provider@2.4::ICameraProvider/legacy/0. Waiting another...

My conclusion for now is that there may be something wrong with camera or sensors...
This seems to be readings for temperature.. 53° is pretty hot...

Also this seems to imply that the battery stats dumping took 262k milliseconds. (?)

Are there things I can look for specifically  in the log, like some known line or checkpoints like

I would attach the log file, but how can I clean any private data that may be in in there?

Initial problem is solved

I was finally able to boot, disabling the Xposed module did the trick:

booted to TWRP recovery
flashed Magisk Manager for Recovery Mode(mm-201904040.zip)
run it in TWRP's terminal with */mm
selected m) Magic mount
selected xposed_27
confirmed
rebooted with the reboot command

It booted in safe mode, since I previously had modified some files to induce that, so I rebooted again from power menu and it booted normally.
Now I think I want to know what happened specifically so that I can re-enable xposed, since I have some modules I rely on for customizations.
Also with no configuration changes I'm still baffled at how the phone got bootlooped, i remember frequent ANRs of the system app to the point of not able to run anythng and rebooting.
Is it really xposed fault or merely disabling it removed a symptom of something else ?
So the question should be what in xposed caused this bootloop and how to prevent it from happening again ?

Mobile phones are off topic here.

In TWRP, have you tried to wipe dalvik and cache? If not, do it, reboot the phone. It might take a long time for the phone to start. Wait and see.

Yes, I tried multiple times. I rebooted the phone and it run out of battery (starting from full charge) over night...

Make a backup via TWRP, then try to flash the phone's ROM (if you have it).

See update. I can actually get the log... the question should now focus on log file analysis i think

I just read 'Magisk' and was thinking, hm ...

@alecxs well there is also xposed installed No problems for over a year... until now. :P

@ReddyLutonadio phone memory is 99% filled, so no way to make a standard backup unless i buy an OTG cable i think. Also see updates.

@alecxs see update, it looks like it was xposed's fault

Bootlooping with logs this messed up probably suggests that some other process is arbitrarily reading and writing from the io stream of the log file. In layman's terms, very bad stuff.
I think your best option is to just recover as much data as you can and reflash the ROM. Something has clearly gone very wrong.

is the one i used the proper file for logs?

i don't know much about, but ramoops is just a dump of RAM so its kind of normal that bytes have changed - its not a corrupt file, just a snapshot of overwritten area of RAM. instead of analyzing logs, how about analyzing reasons? what have you done between the last successful boot and the first time the problem occured?

It was literally the only way I found of pulling some logs from TWRP terminal... The problem is that no particular action was done... just using telegram briefly. Then I started getting crashes of system app so I rebooted. This is the result... I actually got live logs... see question updates for some findings

@alecxs question updated


text:
How do you select a large number of rows in Google Sheets without endless scrolling downward after selecting the first row?
In a spreadsheet of 40,000 rows, I want to select the first 2,500 rows to copy them to another sheet. The only way I've seen is to
select the first row and tediously scroll the
"dot" down to include all 2,500 rows. On a computer, this would be a breeze with the
Shift key. How to accomplish something similar in Android Sheets? The keyboard doesn't open unless I'm editing a cell, so any keyboard-based solution seems to be a non-starter. Thanks.

Looks like someone already has an answer!  I also had a couple of thoughts, but I'm an Excel user and I'm not completely sure G Sheets will have equivalent functionalities or not:

Pre-define the selection range up to the desired row as a named range, then select the range.
Utilize any keyboard app example to circumvent keyboard limitation you mention (Android Excel app also has a button to bring up the on-screen keyboard).

Here is how you can select a range when using Google Sheets:

Select a row or cell.
Click the 3-dot on the top right, then select "Select cell or range".

Enter your range. For example 1:2500 will select row 1 to row 2500.

Click Ok. Done.

My menu does not show Accessibility Settings and does not show Select cell or range. Why would those items be missing from the menu? Thanks.

@ibc I am using version 1.19.232.06.34. Is the version the same as yours?

I am using 1.19.232.06.35.

My version seems to be a later one. Why would a later version have less functionality?

Yes, yours is a newer version compared to mine, and yet those settings don't appear.

Are other settings present except "Accessibility settings" and "Select cell or range"?

I have a menu item Create a filter. That item does not appear in your menu. So I don't have two of your items, but I have an item that you don't have.

@ibc See edit. I also have "Create a filter".

It's just very unusual for a company to remove functionality from a product. But, we' re talking about Google, a company that creates apps and later takes them away. So why not menu items?

@ibc If you other devices or if you know someone else who uses Google sheets (or who can download Google sheets on their phone), check the feature on those. I have checked on Android 7 & 8 on 2 phones and the feature is present.

I am using Android 8.1 and Sheets version ending with 35 on my phone and don't see the items. My phone is an LG Q6+. On a Samsung phone with Android 9, I installed Sheets and it is version ending with 34 and the items are also missing. So I am very confused.

@ibc Go to your phone Settings -> Accessibility, then enable at least on service. Go back to Google Sheets, you should then start seeing the missing features and functionalities. When there is no service enabled in the Accessibility settings, they don't appear.

That worked!! Thank you so much. I turned on some accessibility settings in all three areas (vision, hearing etc.), and the menu items now appear. This is really strange behavior, in my opinion. Thanks, again.

The link you sent as "Tour" took me to an article on the Verge website dealing with Android. It's not clear to me how to say thank you properly.

@ibc Here is the correct link


text:
Cannot communicate on LAN when WIFI doesnt have internet
This is pertaining to a smart phone with data.
My phone is connected to my WIFI which lacks internet currently. It is also connected to the cell network and using it for data. When I ifconfig it tells me I am connected on wlan with 192.168.1.4 and rmnet at 10.124.121.12. I am trying to ping a device on 192.168.1.55 for purposes.
If I turn off my cell network I can ping it fine. With my cell network on its unreachable.
How do I get my android to allow me to ping 192.168.1.55 while being on the cell network? I have only noticed this since the internet went out on my WIFI so its a strange and new problem.

That's expected. You won't be able to ping 55 from 4, but can do opposite. The reason is that Android can connect either to Wi-Fi or mobile data, which one has internet connectivity, if given option. If both are online, WiFi is preferred. It's because default route is set to mobile data (rmnet_data) interface. You can modify routing table manually if you have root access.

I have the same setup. I have a local WiFi network that is not connected to the internet. I found that if you go to settings on your phone, then select “Developer options” and tick “Cellular data always active” that you will have access to the WiFi network and the cell network simultaneously.
On my LG, I can be on the web with cell data and print to the printer on the local WiFi network. I just now tested a ping just to make sure and it works just as you would expect.

I am fully rooted so I will try this out when the internet dies again, its about time for it. I have seen the option but did not try it. I'll let you know how it works.

This seemed to work fine for the rare instance that my internet goes out. Upvoted both of you but not enough Reputation for it to apply yet it seems.

you cannot ping that device via Mobile Data.
You have Device 1 (yours) and Device 2 (device to be pinged).
Telling from the IPs given, both devices are on the same WiFi network. Device 1 can connect to Device 2 by requesting a ping to Device 2 on your router (Device 3).
Your router is most likely having the IP 192.168.1.1
As your router knows that you are connected to it, it will forward your ping request to Device 2 and back again.
When connected to your mobile carrier, you have a different IP. But, your router uses IPs to determine whether it knows a device or not. As you have a different IP and your ping request comes from the outside now, it does it's job: Not forwarding your ping requests. That's what the router is there for (besides establishing connections). It is a firewall and it's trying to prevent people from outside harming your devices.
When you are connected to WiFi

When you are connected to Mobile Service Data Provider

This means, that you are not actually having an Android Problem. What you need to do is to tell your router to forward PING packets. That's difficult. For that, you should head over to the Servers Fault community and ask them how you can do exactly that.
https://serverfault.com/

I've always just assumed it was connected to both networks at once and it chose a preferred path but I could force it to a certain network by using that network's IP. That does make a few ideas I had more difficult.

Yes, it kind of is connected to both. You can still receive phone calls when you are connected to WiFi, right? ;) So, you have two options: Tell your phone to send ping requests to your router while using mobile data for everything else, or enable forwarding for ping packets.

But your question asked for "how can I ping device 2 whilst connected to mobile data?", that's what I answered :)


text:
I got some files to flash Samsung stock ROM, how to use them with Odin?
My original problem is at https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/214200/.
You can simply ignore my original problem since it's kinda not related to this question. Just share some backgrounds.

Now, I am trying a different (first stock release) ROM and hopefully, this time, it can work. After downloading this ROM, I got the following 5 files:
camera.pit
CODE_GC100XXALJF_413474_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5
CSC_HOME_OLB_GC100OLBALJB_409864_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5
CSC_OLB_GC100OLBALJB_409864_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5
MODEM_GC100XXALJG_REV01_CL1210642.tar.md5

I guess CODE_GC100XXALJF_413474_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5 is AP option because it has the biggest size. But just a guess.
How to use them with Odin? Which one belongs to which option?

AP: CODE
CP: MODEM
BL: BOOTLOADER (you don't seem to have that)
CSC: CSC or HOME_CSC
USERDATA: USERDATA (same for when you need to wipe the user data)

In your case, you'll only need 3 files: AP, MODEM, and CSC/HOME_CSC which contain your carrier-specific files, settings, etc.
Note that the firmware you are trying to flash needs to have the same version as your current version on the device or higher, otherwise you'll get the error you are getting in your third screenshot.
Important: do not use the PIT file as it reparts the internal memory and can cause a brick, and actually it is the cause of the flash failing message, so it is not advised to use it.


text:
How to identify the app/process which re-mounts partitions R/W, creates files and changes file permissions?
I have a rooted device, with superuser rights granted to a few apps I trust. I have often found my /system or /vendor partition mounted read/write, and some files chmoded to 0777. Similarly directories/files with random names are created/deleted (e.g. /sdcard/.a03Degpoif), .nomedia files are created inside them to hide their contents from gallery etc.
logcat/dmesg contains no traces of all this happening in background. This doesn't happen periodically but in a slapdash way, internet connectivity isn't a condition either. I have tried disabling/uninstalling apps, looking for any suspicious processes running, but couldn't identify the culprit(s).
Is there a way to figure out who is doing this?

Note: Following solution requires a rooted device. Kernel must be built with AUDIT_WATCH, preferably AUDIT_TREE.
The only good thing Google did was to choose the flexible and configurable Linux kernel for Android, not going for something like a crippled kernel and trying to handle everything from userspace, including running a Linux kernel (1).
Linux kernel's Audit System makes it possible to log any system calls or filesystem changes made by a process. In our case we need to identify the process(es) which are writing to /sdcard or /system and making syscalls mount and chmod.
Linux distributions have a service auditd which communicates with kernel to get information about security-related events. On Android we have already logd, not as configurable as auditd but enough for basic monitoring. logd mainly covers the functionality of its desktop counterpart syslogd, but also includes klogd and partially auditd to get logs from SELinux subsystem of kernel.
We can add a few more rules using auditctl to also report events we are interested in. You can use auditctl from a minimal Linux environment on your Android device, or compile the binary from source code (should be built with --with-arm / --with-aarch64 whatever your devices' architecture is), or get one pre-compiled here.
Now create rules files in /etc or wherever you want to:
# /etc/audit-start.rules

# enable auditing, won't work in PID namespace
# won't work if permanently disabled with kernel parameter "audit=0"
-e 1

# delete previous rules (though there are none on Android)
-D

# increase the buffers to avoid failure
# no. of event to be queued, waiting for logd to read them
-b 10000

# disable rate limit (msgs/sec) to avoid failure
-r 0

# this determines how long to wait in burst of events
--backlog_wait_time 0

# set failure mode to dmesg
-f 1

# define filesystem rules, whatever file/directory you want to watch
-w /system -p wa -k FILESYSTEM_AUDIT

# define syscall rules, see all syscalls with 'ausyscall --dump' or
# here: github.com/linux-audit/audit-userspace/blob/master/lib/aarch64_table.h
-a always,exit -S fchmod -S fchmodat -k CHMOD_AUDIT
-a always,exit -S mount -k MOUNT_AUDIT

# /etc/audit-stop.rules

# clear on exit, restore Android default values
-e 0
-D
-b 64
-r 5
--backlog_wait_time 18000

Apply rules:
~# auditctl -R /etc/audit-start.rules

Now make changes; mount /system R/W, write/delete something there and change file permissions.
Depending on logd configuration, you can get audit log in one or more of different logs (2) including events buffer (3) of logcat and main buffer (4):
~# logcat -d -b events,main | grep _AUDIT

Or in kernel's printk buffer (5) and logact's kernel buffer (6):
~# dmesg | grep _AUDIT
~# logcat -d -b kernel | grep _AUDIT

audit(0.0:16122): arch=c00000b7 syscall=40 success=yes exit=0 a0=7fcec5db38 a1=7fcec5db3f a2=0 a3=8021 items=1 ppid=761 auid=4294967295 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=(none) ses=4294967295 comm="busybox" exe="/data/data/com.mixplorer/files/busybox/busybox" subj=u:r:magisk:s0 key="MOUNT_AUDIT"
audit(0.0:16126): arch=c00000b7 syscall=53 success=yes exit=0 a0=ffffff9c a1=7b839180c0 a2=81a4 a3=0 items=1 ppid=11687 auid=4294967295 uid=10135 gid=10135 euid=10135 suid=10135 fsuid=10135 egid=10135 sgid=10135 fsgid=10135 tty=(none) ses=4294967295 comm="Thread-7" exe="/system/bin/app_process64" subj=u:r:untrusted_app:s0:c135,c256,c512,c768 key="CHMOD_AUDIT"
audit(0.0:16141): arch=c00000b7 syscall=35 success=yes exit=0 a0=ffffff9c a1=7bc22a3c40 a2=0 a3=7bdfbd3098 items=2 ppid=11687 auid=4294967295 uid=10135 gid=10135 euid=10135 suid=10135 fsuid=10135 egid=10135 sgid=10135 fsgid=10135 tty=(none) ses=4294967295 comm="pool-2-thread-1" exe="/system/bin/app_process64" subj=u:r:untrusted_app:s0:c135,c256,c512,c768 key="FILESYSTEM_AUDIT"

First line shows that some process running as root with Magisk's SELinux context has made syscall 40 (mount) and the command shows it's MiXplorer app (just as example, I did that myself).
Second line indicates that the app running with UID 10135 has chmoded something.
Third line shows the same app (by making syscall 35) deleted something in /system partition.
This is a simple use case. More recursive rules can be defined to deal with complex situations, interpreting other fields of log as well, as explained here.
To clear rules:
~# auditctl -R /etc/audit-stop.rules

NOTE:

For simple cases where the objective is just to get notified of some filesystem changes (and not to trace the originator), inotify API can be used instead as explained in this answer.
In order to mark all the processes that run before the audit starts auditable by kernel, pass audit=1 boot parameter to kernel, either by editing cmdline in boot.img or use fastboot -c option.
To save audit log to a file, run logcat in background:
logcat -s auditd -b events -f /data/media/0/auditd.log &

so mixplorer changes /system and /vendor files and creates random folders on /sdcard?

@alecxs no this was just an example. I did that myself using MiXplorer. I used this method in past to identify some process which were doing something more complex. Simple eample is to make understanding easy.

Is there a way audit logs be written to the storage instead of remaining in the memory? For example, if I have a directory where random files are being created at random point of time I cannot foresee when they would be created so I would want logs to be stored for a later access despite having a reboot occurred in between this time.

@Firelord logcat -s auditd -b events -f /sdcard/auditd.log &


text:
Can a malicious application running in a container root the Android?
Can a malware root the Android when running in a container such as when running through VirtualXposed or Parallel space, or when a person is using the Guest user or any other secondary user in Android?
My device is not rooted so I can't check this on my own. If the answer is yes, how to ensure protection from such malwares that want to root your Android?

Guest Users cannot root the phone separately from the main user. If a phone is rooted it is rooted for all users. If your Recovery is not password protected anyone can easily flash Magisk and get root access on his Guest Accout. If the recovery is PW protected it will just take a few more minutes to flash the recovery again/a new one which won't have a password then. That's the big disadvantage of having an unlocked bootloader. The only way to prevent Guests from getting root access to your phone is to install MagiskManager and disactivate root access for Guest-Accounts. I don't know if this also work if the Manager is installed before rooting. If not you need to root your device first obviously.
Or just don't give your phone to someone who would root it to get access to your data or whatever lol


text:
Historical data usage on Android Pie
I'm trying to check my historical data usage on my OnePlus 6 (OxygenOS 9.0.6).
I used to be able to go to the Data Usage settings and use a drop-down list at the top to select different time periods, but trying this just now it only shows me the usage since the start of my current billing cycle, with no option to show any other period.
This is not the behaviour I was expecting, so I wonder if this specific to Android Pie on my OnePlus 7, or has Android Pie (or earlier) removed the ability to display data usage history.
Noticing that my billing cycle start date was wrong, I corrected it and found that the usage data shown now goes back to the start of the new billing cycle start date, so obviously it stores more data than is displays.
If more history is still recorded somewhere, how can I get access to it, and how far back would the history go? I'm comfortable with using adb if necessary.
My device is not rooted, nor can it be, but I'm comfortable with using ADB if necessary.

I use this apps to monitor my data usage I found it useful. You should try if you want.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.internet.speed.meter.lite&hl=en&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dinternet+monitor+android&pcampaignid=APPU_1_6egZXfunKIv6wAP8_ovoCA
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glasswire.android&hl=en&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dglasswire&pcampaignid=APPU_1_segZXchYxdb5BvHunLAF

I've used Internet Speed Meter Lite before, but it only shows you data it has recorded itself, so installing it now won't give me access to historical the data I'm after.  The same appears to be the case for Glasswire, so neither can help me access the usage data the OS has already recorded. Also, both apps need "Run at startup" permissions, so to be running in the background the whole time to record this data.


text:
How to free Internal Storage by moving data or using symlink / bind-mount with Adoptable Storage?
Galaxy S5 running LineageOS 16 (Android 9).
I'm having issues with running out of storage space, even though I have 128GB external SD card, merged with the internal storage. Is there a way to create a symlink from the internal memory to the external SD card, even though they are technically merged and aren't identified as separate storage locations within Android as a result?
I've never made symlinks on Android so I'd appreciate some pointers or resources on that as well.

post the output of adb shell df

https://pastebin.com/9a1LrHBf

it is already mounted to /storage/emulated with 100 GiB free space (84%) no need to symlink

But I get warnings about low space sometimes. Should I just ignore that or will it cause issues with the system? My intent with symlinks was to force my large music folder to be stored on the external SD card as well as my TWRP backups.

Well i haven't seen one for a day now. But if it persists then I'll comment here again with said screenshot. Thanks for the help

i can see the /data partition is full (92%) maybe you forgot to Migrate? Go to Settings > Storage & USB and tap your SD card. Tap the three dots in the upper-right corner and choose “Migrate data”

@alecxs when I select the external SD card, the three dots show: rename, eject, format as portable. I see a migrate option in the internal SD card's three-dot menu, but I believe that is trying to move data to the internal memory. I tried it anyway and it said "not enough space"

then see Irfan Latif - move the apps separately - Go to Settings > Apps and tap on an app. Tap “Storage”. At the top of the resulting window you should see “Storage used: Internal storage”. Tap the “Change” button

Okay. I've done that for the big ones (OSMand and google maps with downloaded maps). A bulk of my data are just music files and TWRP backup files. Any way to force those to be stored on the external SD card like I just did with apps? Also, is there a way to have new apps installed to the external sd card by default from now on?

nvm about default installation directory. I discovered that since merging the external sd card with internal, it installs new apps to the external sd card by default. Still curious about moving mp3 files and TWRP backup files into the sdcard though. Maybe I could use the terminal to move them into the sd card? Not sure how the external is mounted and if it's similar to Linux in that it would be located in /mnt or /media/user/

/mnt/expand/9cf8b187-cdba-4fad-
9d1c-14a17d4be4de

@alecxs thank you

First of all, symlinks don't work on Android's emulated storage. A workaround is to use bind mounts instead. See this answer for details.
But with Adoptable Storage you don't need to:

Create symlink to external SD card
Manually move data to external SD card
Bind mount a directory from external SD card

Because what you see as /sdcard or /storage/emulated/0 should already be on Adoptable SD Card.
When you format external SD card as Adoptable Storage, it's mounted at /mnt/expand/[UUID], which holds a file hierarchy very similar to /data partition, like /data/app, /data/data and /data/media etc. When you migrate your data to newly created Adoptable Storage, data from /data/media/ is moved to /mnt/expand/[UUID]/media/ and the later is now emulated and bind mounted at /storage/emulated (which apps see).

You can check this by executing df or mount command on a terminal app or adb shell.
Without Adoptable Storage:
~$ df --output=source,target
Filesystem                  Mounted on
/dev/block/dm-0             /data
/data/media                 /storage/emulated
/dev/block/vold/public:8,1  /mnt/media_rw/[UUID]

* dm-0 is FDE encrypted userdata partition, vold public volume is external SD card or USB drive.
Before moving data:
~$ df --output=source,target
Filesystem                  Mounted on
/dev/block/dm-0             /data
/data/media                 /storage/emulated
/dev/block/dm-1             /mnt/expand/[UUID]

* dm-1 is FDE encrypted Adoptable SD card.
After moving data:
~$ df --output=source,target
Filesystem                  Mounted on
/dev/block/dm-0             /data
/dev/block/dm-1             /mnt/expand/[UUID]
/mnt/expand/[UUID]/media    /storage/emulated

* Actually /data/media or /mnt/expand/[UUID]/media is emulated to /mnt/runtime/[default|read|write]/emulated which is bind mounted to /storage/emulated.
You can only move apps (along with their data) to Adoptable Storage which have installLocation set to preferExternal or auto by app developer. In case of auto, default install location (set using pm set-install-location) decides where app will be installed. See this answer for details.

If you want more free space, replace large directories (like /data/media, /data/app and /data/data) with mounts (or bind-mounts) from partitions (or directories) on external SD card. However (DAC and MAC) permissions should be taken care of, otherwise apps (or even OS) may break.

RELATED:

How to move apps from internal to external storage?
What is /storage/emulated/0/?
How disk space is used on Android device?


text:
Netffos X9 always starts each app / activity as new
I have TP-Link's Netffos X9 and from the very beginning I noticed a weird thing. Each application or activity is always started as brand new. Always, no matter, if I saw or was using given app just like 5 minutes ago, I see loader screen and a home / startup screen, instead of the one, which I left off.
I've been using around a dozen different mobile devices with Android 8.1 and hundreds other with other (older) versions of Android and this is the first time I see such a weird situation.
I have enabled Developers Options and tripple-checked that option Don't keep activities / Destroy every activity as soon as the user leaves it is disabled. I have also checked that a few applications in topic are listed among Developers options > Inactive apps as active. And yet, each time I start it up, they seems to be starting up as freshly new, showing welcome / home / startup screen.
Does anyone have any idea what is going on and how to prevent such behavior?

Netffos X9 (and probably all other TP-LINK's phones) comes with a handy battery optimization functionality which actually kills all the applications that are in background 3 minutes after phone's screen turns off.
One need to go to: ⚙ > Battery > Off-screen cleanup and disable this feature for all applications that should stay in background (and eventually be turned off by system default process, i.e. after few hours).
All applications in question were listed and enabled on the above mentioned list. Turning off this feature for all those applications resolved the issue.


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Google Sheets Read Only on Android
I created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. I shared the link with two users. They can click on the link in the e-mail and can edit the spreadsheet with no issue. However, one of the users created a shortcut on their Android Phone (LG G7 ThinQ). When she opens the spreadsheet from her phone it is Read Only and cannot perform any edits. She is using the same gmail account on her phone that I sent the link too. Any ideas what might be causing this?


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What exactly happens after rooting a smartphone?
I want to root a tiny cheap smartphone that my 6-year-old grandson uses.
He's a real techie, but he's always changing his password and then forgets to tell me so that I can store it in LastPass. So I want to install a parent protection app, where I'm the Admin, and he's a normal user (as on Windows 10). I already have Kaspersky Safe Kids on the phone, plus he has downloaded a lot of games.
There's no space for a parent protection app, and he's not allowed to use stuff like Chrome, so I want to root the phone to allow me to remove pre-installed stuff.
Here's my question: What exactly happens after rooting?
Is a password still needed for the first login after rooting - because I'm sure he's forgotten it.
Will every app have disappeared? (That would be OK.)
Thanks.

After rooting, you (means the apps and processes on your device) get the ability to get privileges of UID 0 - the super user or administrator. So the system resources which were not available to you (as a non-privileged user), become available. Now you can do everything; remove prebuilt apps from /system partition which you couldn't access before; watch your phone's inside things in more detail, break your phone in a second etc. Password will work as it is, except you will have ability to remove it easily. Will every app have disappeared? No, only those you make disappear.

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! This seems to be an XY problem. By removing preinstalled apps you won't gain any additional (user) space – as they are installed on the (read-only) /system partition – while the additional space you need would be on /data. So for that it is sufficient to disable those apps, and then delete their cache and data. That would be all you'd get in free, usable space by uninstalling them anyway. Apart from that: have you seen our rooting tag-wiki?

rooting is generally not a good idea, thats the opposite of what you want. it is for advanced users only, not for childs

Oops! I'm now in the embarrassing situation of having to accept only one of the respected posters' responses, because IMHO, they are saying the opposite as far as "bloatware" is concerned. I followed @Izzy link for "rooting tag-wiki". The accepted answer by @ keithjgrant says "If you have a few unnecessary applications (bloatware) pre-installed on your phone that you cannot uninstall, rooting will give you this ability." To step outside StackExchange, I Googled "rooting bloatware". The first two links were "TechRepublic" and "How To Geek"......

...They both agree with @ keithjgrant on SE, and therefore with @Irfan Latif. Thanks.

@OldGrantonian I hope you didn't miss my warning: Now you can do everything; ... including break your phone in a second

@OldGrantonian yes, root gives you the ability to uninstall pre-installed apps – but you wouldn't gain additional space by that. And space is what concerns you here. // I could write up an answer for your real question, expanding my above comment a bit – but that would answer what you need to know (gaining space), not what you asked here (affects of rooting).

@irfan. Good warning thanks. I actually don't mind frying a £20 phone that has surprisingly lasted a year and a half. Great opportunity to learn about rooting.

@OldGrantonian then this could be a good source if you want to learn in a bit depth.

I re-read all the articles (including link in @Izzy post).
The guys who were linking "bloatware" and "rooting" did not actually say that you gain more space for apps. I apologize for their omissions.
I did a new search: "rooting increases app space". The results mention partitioning an SD. I don't want to create a ball of spaghetti in this thread, so I think I should stop here, and ask a new question regarding partitioning an SD. Or, even better, ask an open question: How to increase space for apps after rooting? Thanks to all.

@OldGrantonian Good idea. Split it up into "fitting portions". Now that you've got an idea, that should be easier. Note there are already a bunch of questions on how to gain space (root is not necessarily needed), see e.g. what's linked from our insufficient-memory tag wiki – better check them first, so you can be more specific and thus get better answers. For rooting (and the risks/gains), you already got some pointers. Next to the tag wikis, the "Frequent" tab is also worth checking. Good luck!

PS: Hope you don't mind I've closed this one here now. Got too confusing (well, started that way – but no "blames" or accusations for that). Let's continue that in specific, dedicated places. Again, wishing the best success in all areas you just discovered :)


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Xperia XA2: Stuck on "Sending 'boot.img'"
I unlocked my bootloader, and did:
sudo adb reboot bootloader
sudo ./fastboot boot ~/Downloads/twrp-3.2.2-0-pioneer.img

But it gets stuck on sending:
creating boot image...
creating boot image - 10240 bytes
Sending 'boot.img' (10 KB)

I'm doing this on Linux and using the latest platform tools.

Apparently the XA2 doesn't play well with Linux and USB 3 so I solved it by using an old laptop with USB 2.0
https://together.jolla.com/question/193348/xa2-flashing-issues/


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What app is changing my volume?
My media volume occasionally and randomly jumps to 100%
Usually when it does happen it's in the first few seconds after I start playing music on my headphones, which makes me suspect Spotify or Bose.
How do I tell what app is doing this?
How do I tell what apps can change the media volume?

How do I tell what apps can change the media volume?

I have used aSpotCat in the past so I am recommending it for identifying apps by permission. Install and launch the app → tap on List apps by permission → tap on Misc. permissions →  tap on three dots horizontal line icon →  search "Change your audio settings".
This would list all the apps having permission to change the audio in the device globally.
Note: some users commented on the Play Store that the app shows too many ads, so I suggest using this app with internet connectivity disabled.

How do I tell what app is doing this?

This may be Android version dependent since I have tested this only on Android 8.1, but here's how you can find the troublesome app.
Setup adb in your PC and run this command on the PC as soon as you detect the spike in the audio output:
adb shell dumpsys audio

In the overwhelming output, search for the section beginning with the title Audio event log: volume changes. Observe the last written entries (by timestamp). In my test case I launched a video player app to play a video and changed the volume through it. Then I inserted my earphones which are automatically detected by an automation app MacroDroid and the latter automatically lowers the volume to protect my ears. Here's how all these volume changes were reflected in the log I got for my test case:

Audio event log: volume changes (logged when command received by AudioService)
07-22 05:03:57:687 adjustSuggestedStreamVolume(sugg:USE_DEFAULT_STREAM_TYPE dir:ADJUST_RAISE flags:0x1011) from android/MediaSessionService uid:1000
07-22 05:03:57:697 adjustSuggestedStreamVolume(sugg:USE_DEFAULT_STREAM_TYPE dir:ADJUST_SAME flags:0x1014) from android/MediaSessionService uid:1000
07-22 05:04:03:982 adjustSuggestedStreamVolume(sugg:USE_DEFAULT_STREAM_TYPE dir:ADJUST_LOWER flags:0x1011) from android/MediaSessionService uid:1000
07-22 05:04:03:999 adjustSuggestedStreamVolume(sugg:USE_DEFAULT_STREAM_TYPE dir:ADJUST_SAME flags:0x1014) from android/MediaSessionService uid:1000
07-22 05:04:04:792 adjustSuggestedStreamVolume(sugg:USE_DEFAULT_STREAM_TYPE dir:ADJUST_LOWER flags:0x1011) from android/MediaSessionService uid:1000
07-22 05:04:04:809 adjustSuggestedStreamVolume(sugg:USE_DEFAULT_STREAM_TYPE dir:ADJUST_SAME flags:0x1014) from android/MediaSessionService uid:1000
07-22 05:05:09:860 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:12 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:09:871 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:13 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:09:905 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:14 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:09:988 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:15 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:10:492 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:16 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:10:542 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:17 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:10:693 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:16 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:10:845 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:14 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:17:772 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:15 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:17:789 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:16 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:18:275 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:15 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:18:325 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:14 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:18:392 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:13 flags:0x0) from video.player.videoplayer
07-22 05:05:21:665 setStreamVolume(stream:STREAM_MUSIC index:6 flags:0x0) from com.arlosoft.macrodroid

In the highlighted lines, the term that follows after the word from is the package name of the app which triggered the change in the volume level, which in my test case are video.player.videoplayer (for my Video Player app) and com.arlosoft.macrodroid (MacroDroid app).
Whatsoever package name appears in your output, you can find the corresponding app name by using this answer of mine.


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Where is usually located the Python Interpreter on Android devices?
I have installed qpython. Just don't know what exactly is an interpreter neither where should i look for it on Android devices. Thanks

Android doesn't have Python pre-installed, that's why you need to install third party app. Now it depends on the app where it keeps it's files. Interpreter must be somewhere in /data/data/org.qpython.qpy/ directory.

I believe i found one interpreter on termux: /data/data/com.termux/files/bin/env thanks

But that's a different app, won't work with QPython.

I'll try /data/data/org.qpython.qpy3/files/bin/qpython3-android5 and will update the answer


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Permission denied when opening files from Termux
I have an issue with file permission in Termux.
For instance, I installed c4droid and copied the Termux /include and /lib folders content in the /c4droid folder where the headers are being looked for at compilation. I changed the owner and group to the correct name and mode to 777, but at compilation, it says "cannot open ****.h permission denied".
Same thing with a worldlist that comes from the SD card that I put on a folder meant to be used with hydra, not only have I have to use root access to unzip the file and move it around, but hydra itself can't open it.
What is this so important thing that I am missing about Termux and filed ownership and permissions?

I installed c4droid and copied the termux include and lib folders content in the c4droid folder. And what's the exact location of c4droid folder?

/data/data/com.n0n3m4.droidc/files/gcc/'somethinglikeaarcharm'/

So you are trying to access /data/data/com.n0n3m4.droidc/ from Termux, right? That won't work. Termux can't read/write data outside its own private directory /data/data/com.termux/. That's the app sandboxing mechanism of Android - for security and privacy. Other possible location which Termux can access is /sdcard/Android/data/com.termux. Also whole /sdcard if you grant Termux Storage permission.

No, i su in termux to put the files in c4droid folder. After that I change the permissions and ownership to the user / group of c4droid and try to compile with this app, not termux

Ok. Did you fix SELinux context of files along with ownership and permission mode? Also there could possibly be hard-code PATHs in haders / libs. Termux packages have source code modified.

I did not, how can it be done ?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The above comments hint toward SELinux blocking access to the files that are being copied around to the /data/data/ directory of apps. Yes, it is SELinux blocking the access, you just need to set it to permissive mode with SELinux_switch, and don't forget to set the user and group to the app's one.
So, copying the files from Termux with the option -pZL keeps everything in place, and once you set the correct owner and group, it will work. I have not tried having a symlink from the droidc's /includes and /libs folder to Termux's ones.
If you missed fixing permission while copying files, you can use /system/bin/restorecon -R (recurse) one both /include and /lib folders.

Don't set SELinux permissive with SELinux Switcher, it's like turning your back to a security feature in which professionals have spent years to implement. Instead set proper context on your files/directories. If you answer my question in chat, I can try to help you how to do that. If that doesn't work, you can swith SELinux permissive temporarily, not permanently. PS: you don't need an app to do that, just echo 0 >/sys/fs/selinux/enforce

TL;DR:
$su
#chown u0_a???:u0_a??? <files>
#restorecon -v <files>
#exit

or
$su
#chown -R u-a???:u0_a??? <directories>
#restorecon -vR <directories>
#exit

IMPORTANT: Commands run via sudo work differently from commands run from a root prompt via su. sudo ls -lZ ≠ su ls -lZ (which is unexpected and violates so many assumptions, but I assure you that it is nevertheless so. I assume there are a couple of other non-obvious ways these commands could fail, so I'd advise trying a couple of different ways to be root if this fails)
Make sure to get the correct username and group for your termux user via "ls -l" or similar, and use that username and group in the commands above.
I found this solution to fixing SElinux file permissions after copying from the SDcard back into my Termux home directory on a GitHub issue And it took me so much time and effort to dig up that I figured I repost it a couple of times to make it easier next time this "Why, no! you're not allowed to restore your backups!" bites my ass.
You can test to see if this is your problem before implementing this via ls -lZ. Compare to a file you can access to compare the SELinux security context of the two files and verify that they differ.


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How to get data off a completely dead Android phone?
Phone worked perfectly. Then one day completely dead, nothing at all. It may have been that "one day" was after some time of laying around, cannot recall.
Model: Android AT&T Samsung Galaxy S3 (SGH-i747 SKU S9255)
Already tried;

Charging phone: no visual output at all, no leds
Removing battery while charging: no visual output at all, no leds
Removing SIM and SD card: no visual output at all, no leds
Attempt to turn on: no visual output at all, no leds

I need to get our family photo's off this phone (stored on internal memory). I care less about the hardware/phone itself.
Thank you for any help you can offer!

Try this: Take off the back of the phone, then look for the chip that holds all your data. If that doesn't work I don't know what will.

If you are talking about the SD card, it was already removed, and it does not hold the data.

I assume Jeffrey was talking about soldering out the flash memory chip. In detail the Samsung KMVTU000LM in the S3 teardown. Once you have the chip it can be theoretically be connected to a flash memory reader that can handle such chips for reading out the content.

Have you looked at your battery state of charge? If its relatively high, then you could just try to charge it up with test probes (very carefully) with a TP4056 module up to 3.7 or 3.8V. That may get you into a position where you can turn the phone on.

You mean if the battery charge is relatively low? The battery in this model is just a replaceable one.

@Robert thank you for that reference. Do you have detail about 1) how to get the chip off, 2) how to connect it to a flash memory reader, 3) how to read the data? (Please provide full answer below to go in the run for the bounty...)

perhaps this could help? sorry this isn't that good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMoVqoVuPns

the chip off method is pretty useless when userdata is encrypted. what if just the usb connector is broken? did you try another battery or did you charge the battery outside of phone (universal external charger)?

@alecxs the userdata is not encrypted. USB connector + other battery - great ideas. Will test more. Thank you

It seems like a hardware issue (not directly related to storage), better try to get fixed. Unless the device boots at least to some bootloader stage (like fastboot or odin or edl) you can't access its memory. Or if the data is extremely important, contact some professional data recovery service which usually do one of the two:

Access eMMC directly using some low level protocol like JTAG. Special equipment - usually called some kind of box e.g EasyJtag - is used to make communication with eMMC.
Or using a chip-off method i.e. by removing eMMC chip from board.
Most devices built in the last few years use eMMC flash devices as their persistent storage. Usually eMMC and RAM are bundled in a single package; eMCP. So a compatible eMMC/eMCP reader can be used to recover data by connecting it to PC. A range of such readers/sockets is available on online stores from a number of chinese manufacturers - e.g. Allsocket and KZT - to match with different sizes and shapes of BGA packages.

Please note that there are other factors as well which may define the destiny of data recovery through JTAG or a chip-off method. Data recovery is very less probable or impossible if:

eMMC is dead i.e. it has reached the limit of E/P cycles it was designed for.
You were using encryption (FDE/FBE) on your device. Starting with Android 5.0 encryption is hardware-backed. Quoted from here:

By default, the decryption key is stored in the hardware-backed storage
  ...
  bear in mind that extracting the decryption key via chip-off or any other low-level method is not possible, so if you do a chip-off you won’t get the decryption key and won’t be able to decrypt the data.

RELATED:

Why Android devices are more brickable than PCs?
How to recover a deleted file from /data partition?

Hypothetical: would it be worth it for a person to somehow manage to get data out of emmc (encrypted it is), wait for a couple of years or probably a decade to have serious advancements in affordable parallel processing hardware (like gpu), and then brute force the way out of that encrypted data? I see bruteforce the only method (unless social engineering gives us the result) if decryption key cannot be chipped off.

@Firelord interesting. To decrypt the whole partition (FDE) or whole filesystem (FBE), master key is required which is encrypted with another middle key, and stored at crypto footer or in /data/misc/vold/user_keys/[ce|de]/<User_ID>/. An encrypted private RSA key is also stored along with master key, which is provided to KeyMaster, which decrypts RSA key and then uses it to sign the middle key. Middle key in turn is derived from user credentials and a random salt also stored along with master key. So we need two things: user credentials and unencrypted RSA key; later only known to KeyMaster.

KeyMaster module runs in a secure environment, e.g. TEE, which uses main CPU but is completely isolated from main OS. ARM's TZ is an implementation of TEE. Qcomm's implementation of TZ is QSEE in which KeyMaster runs. Ideally KeyMaster should not leak any cryptographic information, but it's been hacked, though only useful if device is working. For off the device attacks user password as well as RSA key is to be brute forced. And the later seems impossible. So this approach doesn't look like a matter of time. That's what my understanding is.

I see. I didn't know about RSA key. I only thought that user credentials with a random salt were processed into a key for encryption, hence asked about brute force. Now it all makes sense that if the device is encrypted and dead all hope is lost to recover data from it.

@Firelord yeah that was the actual story behind famous Apple vs. FBI case.


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Stock OnePlus 3 randomly rebooting multiple times per day
It might have been since the update to Oreo or just coincidence but my phone started rebooting by itself. Also noticed when it reboots after doing the usual booting animation which takes much longer than usual it will ask for unlock pattern and do the boot animation again. I notice sometimes after reboot the phone feels weird, a bit sluggish and some apps don't work properly. For example anything that calls the camera will say it is not available. Other things like for example VoIP features in messaging app won't work. Another reboot would fix the issue or it would stay the same and require another reboot. This issue got worse and worse where it would require multiple reboots or take longer and longer for the reboot sometimes just switching off during the reboot.
Of course I tried wiling cache. Didn't help.
I wiped the phone and gave it to my mom and it seemed to fix it at first. It started appearing again eventually. So I see multiple possibilities.

Rogue app. But my mom has only a few apps, different from what I used.
OS update messed up? Phone is currently on latest OTA on Pie. Would a custom rom help?
Battery issue? This would be simple to fix but the phone rebooted regardless of charge state, once I saw it even doing so while hooked up. I didn't observe a drop in charge after reboot either.
Mainboard / Nand issue.


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Unable to clear user data in Google Play Music
Google Play music occupies more than 1GB on my mobile phone. As you can see in the screenshot below, User Data accounts for most storage around ~1GB.
When I press the Clear Data button, the screen shows that storage is freed, but the data is there as soon I go back.
I have tried:

Clearing Data
Clearing Cache
Disabling app

My mobile is 10.or D2 and runs Android 8.1.0

Have you tried to force stop it before clearing the data? Is the result the same?

@ReddyLutonadio Tried it. Results are the same.

If you can use adb, try adb shell pm clear com.google.android.music

@ReddyLutonadio Tried it. It was of no use.

If possible remove the app. If the app was already installed when you bought the device, try uninstalling the updates, then clear data again.

@ReddyLutonadio There is no option to uninstall the app. I reset my mobile.

After trying the steps mentioned by Reddy Lutonadio in the comments, I performed a factory reset of my device. This solved the issue.


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Do not auto-connect to Wifi connection in Android 7.0
I have a Moto G4 phone running Android 7.0. There are multiple Wifi connections in my workplace, and I want to default to the private Wifi network, while having the building's Wifi as a backup.

In the Wifi connection's settings, I do not see an option for Do not connect automatically.
As far as I know on Xiaomi and Samsumg phones, there is an option not to connect to a Wifi network automatically. How can I achieve the same result with a Moto G4 / stock Android 7.0 phone?

On my system (Android 9, Sony) the auto-connect settings are not located in the entry of the saved Wifi itself, but in the general Wifi settings -> Extended settings -> Autoconnect. There I can enable or disable autoconnect for each saved Wifi.

@Robert AFAIK, on Android 7 (Nexus, LineageOS), there's no "Autoconnect" settings. There's "Saved Networks" behind the cog wheel icon, but there's no other options other than forgetting the network from there.

See if answered addressed here work: How to prevent Wifi auto-connect without forgetting that connection


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Iam using android emulator but i can't access root, su is not working for root in adb shell

In this image i have given the screenshot of my command prompt,anyone know this please explain how access root in android emulator

By default, Android emulator is not rooted. You might be interested in How to get root access on Android emulator? -- Stack Overflow

From your screenshot, I can't actually tell which image your are trying to boot. You could actually try running Google APIs Intel images as opposed to Google Play images. As discussed in the linked question you could also utilise an older ramdisk.img.
Alternatively just push the su binary, if you want wide-access root for any app you install on your emulator.


text:
Google Play incorrectly detects, if application is installed or not
td;dr: I see "Installed" button on many applications at Google Play which I never installed on any of my devices and which are not installed right now (happens only through website / PC). In addition, I have to login each time I click such "Installed" button even though I'm already logged-in.

What's wrong with Google Play application's installation status:

each time I browse some application, I can clearly see "Installed" even though this is not true (I don't have particular application installed on any of my devices and I never had it installed),
each time I click this button, I must login, even though I am already logged in to Google Play (and even though I was logging-in again just a 15 minutes ago, while installing previous app),
after I login I see the list of devices on which I can install given application (because it is not installed on any of it so far), but in the background there's still "Installed" button clearly visible.

How it is possible that 10+ years old Google service fails at it's very core -- i.e. providing me with the information what is or what isn't installed on any of my devices?
And why do I have to login again, even though I did it 15 minutes ago and even though I see my avatar and account information in the top-right corner of the webpage all the time.
EDIT: The described problem occurs when browsing Google Play via browser (PC) only. It never occurs when using mobile version of Google Play service.

Do you also see the Install button if you use Google Play from a PC?

Sorry, for missing a very important information. Please, read the edited question.


text:
Use bluetooth microphone in Google Assistant
I'm trying to set up my motorcycle Bluetooth headset (Fodsports BT-S2) to let me use Google Assistant. It has the following Bluetooth profiles:

A2DP-SNK
AVRCP
HSP
HFP

I've managed to find an old APK of 'Smart Bluetooth Headset' which has allowed me to map the normal 'redial last number' button to the more useful 'Google Assistant'. That seems to be working flawlessly, opening the assistant and making the normal beep awaiting voice input.
The problem I have is that it doesn't pick up the audio from the microphone on the headset, only from the phone itself. I've tried various combinations of the settings within the Google Assistant, as well as various mono routing apps to try and get it to work. One of these mono routing apps was successful at one point. However, my setup was no longer using A2DP, and so I was forced to endure poor sound quality.
Is there any way I could either:

Make Google Assistant correctly use the microphone on my headset?

Force the phone to use only the microphone part of my headset, instead of the phone's built-in microphone, whilst retaining the A2DP mode for audio?

IS the device locked at the time? Scrolling through the Google app within Menu --> Settings --> Voice there should be a section for Hands-free.

@BoLawson I believe so, could that make a difference? The phone would be in my pocket, and I haven't set it up with Smartlock. I have enabled 'Bluetooth Audio Recording', 'Allow bluetooth requests with device locked' and 'allow wired headset requests with device locked'.

Yes it could, also within the Google app Menu --> Settings --> Google assistant --> assistant at the bottom there is also a Assistant devices section is the bluetooth device added there if not try adding it and also if you click on the bluetooth device there are more options specific to that device.

@BoLawson No luck unfortunately, checked in there and it just shows 'Phone' which gives me the same settings as previously. I can only add new IoT devices in there. So far nothing I try is allowing it to pick up my voice from the BT microphone, only the one from the phone itself.

I had the same problem with Google Voice Access. I came across these instructions, which seem to be for Google Assistant. Executing them did not seem to affect the desired change in Voice Access, but I think they might work for you with Assistant.
The configuration is performed in the main Google app. After opening it, I clicked "⋯ More", then "⚙ Settings", then " Voice", and there - under the "Hands-Free" heading, I found an option for "Bluetooth audio recording", subtitled "Enable audio recording through Bluetooth devices if available. See the linked instructions for screenshots.

I have managed to make this work in a way that, although satisfactory to my needs, is an absolutely convoluted hack.

Found a version of the 'smart Bluetooth headset' apk from before the functionality to remap the redial button was stripped out.
Unfortunate this old version didn't support Tasker correctly (just did nothing when trying to select a tasker task). As such, I had to install the new 'smart Bluetooth assistant' and open this when redial was chosen. This was then set to open a module once loaded, which was a task set up in Tasker.
The task was set up to open BTmono (full version), call the BT_ON intent of BTmono, activating the hfp on my headset and allowing the microphone to work. It then waited 2 seconds before starting a 'voice search', opening the Google assistant which now hears me. Fortunately my headset cancels the BTmono connection just by pushing the hangup button, allowing the headset to return to A2DP once I had finished my command.

Convoluted, messy and takes 4 apps to get the job done, but works surprisingly reliably so far.
Would be grateful if anyone has any better suggestions, but for now this will do!

Hi Jonno. I also have been trying to figure out a way to get Ok Google or even Hi Bixby working through my Samsung Buds while driving my motorcycle. Is this still working for you? Have you found a better solution yet? Do you have to press a button on your phone to initiate this? Thanks for sharing.

This could be your Bluetooth device goes into power saving mode, and need to be woke with a button press, a more advance model device may listen for the Google wake up commands while power saving mode, or a setting on the master device.
https://support.google.com/headphones/answer/9027902?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en
https://support.google.com/headphones/answer/7520404?hl=en&ref_topic=7518050
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/113412?hl=en
https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7283669?hl=en&ref_topic=7172845
https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7394009?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en


text:
How to avoid Android Pie (call recordings BLOCKED!!!) with my security update?
My Huawei with Android 8 keeps pestering me constantly with "System Update Available for your device" and the choices are "download and install" and "later" but not "Leave me alone it's my damn phone". The update has a cryptic name like:
DRA-L21 1.0.0.151(C432)
Now, since Android 9 has made it impossible to record calls any more and that is the very most important feature in my phone, how can I be sure that this or any other update is not going to install Android 9 but only security patches?
Sources:
https://bitbucket.org/copluk/acr/issues/2418/kb-android-9-p-call-recording-issues
https://bgr.com/2018/08/15/android-pie-update-call-recording-apps-dead/
https://www.xda-developers.com/android-pie-blocks-non-root-call-recording-apps/
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/08/15/android-9-pie-puts-end-third-party-call-recording-apps/
Let me quote a paragraph from the first link, which explains the extent of the problem:

A quick search on the Google Play Store shows more than 200 million total installs for over 200 call recording apps. It is clear that there is a legitimate need for call recording support. We alone received many thank you emails from our customers telling us how call recording helped them to win legitimate court cases, recover financial losses, listen to voice of loved ones who are have passed away or even save their lives!

Screw you, Google. Screw you in hell for this. What are the alternatives now?

There are two possibilities: 1. root the device and use a call recorder that uses root. 2. System apps should still be able to record calls. Therefore if Huawei would provide such an app it would work. You could try to start an online-petition at Huawei to sign one of the call recorder apps.