text:
Increasing max # of items in Firefox for Android history
A couple days ago I decided to give Firefox for Android another chance, and it turns out its history only goes back 100 items! How do I fix this? I want unlimited history, as I've set up on my Pale Moon on PC, or at least a way to backup and import, as the FEBE extension does on PC (I don't have root on my phone).
I tried the places.history.expiration.max_pages method, but it does nothing (probably because, as I gather, FF for Android doesn't use places.sqlite). Other FF Android clones I tried have the same problem.
(Frankly I'm a little disturbed by the amount of extensions aimed at deleting history. In this day and age of ubiquitous internet traffic logging, why do people want to be the only ones not to have access to their browsing history?)


text:
How to hide Data Saver icon in Status bar?
I've recently enabled the Data Saver feature in Android (Settings). So far so good, but that icon  in the Status bar annoys me a lot. I prefer to have only a handful but very specific icons in my Status Bar.
I looked into GravityBox [O] module, All My... module and searched for some more in Xposed modules repository and outside but to no avail.
How do I hide that pesky icon?
I'm using stock and rooted Android 8.1 with Xposed Framework in OnePlus 6.

Using SystemUITuner, it is possible to remove to remove the data saver icon with or without root (need to grant permission through adb when the device is not rooted).

Open the app, click on TO THE TWEAKS.
Select Status bar. Scroll to the Networking & Data section, then disable Data Saver Icon.

Note: I performed the steps above on a non-rooted device with Android 8.1.
Disclaimer: I am just a user of the app not its developer(s) nor related to him/her/them.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to save large chat history of WhatsApp in Android phone
I'm not able to store my WhatsApp chat of single contact in email chat because of large amount of messages so how is it possible?

Sync with Google drive or save locally. WhatsApp > Settings > Conversation > Save conversation > Add your address or save locally

Why is it a problem to save large files in your email? Are you getting some errors when trying? If so, what are they?

@esQmo_ are you on the latest version of whatsapp? Cuz i remembered there used to be something similar to what you're saying, but apparently WhatsApp stopped that option, and the only option if saving a single chat with one person is only possible by emailing the chat to yourself. I'm Google drive you can only backup all the chats, and u can't view them unless u restore all at once. Is there something I'm missing?

Your WhatsApp chats are automatically backed up and saved daily to your phone's memory. You can also periodically backup your WhatsApp chats to Google Drive.
To backup your chats, go toWhatsApp > Menu Button > Settings > Chats> Chat backup > Back Up.
Now, to export a copy of the history of an individual chat or group, use the Email chatfeature instead:
Open the chat for the individual or group.Tap the Menu Button.Tap More.Tap Email chat.Choose whether to Attach Media or not
Note: When sending with media, you can send up to 10,000 latest messages. Without media, you can send 40,000 messages. These constraints are due to maximum email sizes.

Soure: WhatsaApp FAQ

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


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2 apk files for same app
I've noticed that several of my applications have 2 apk files (different versions).  Why are there two?  And is it safe for me to delete the older one?
For example, on my phone I see:
"Google Play services for Instant Apps_1.13-release-159715800.apk" and
"Google Play services for Instant Apps_1.14-release-161844041.apk"
also:
"YouTube_12.25.54.apk" and "YouTube_12.23.60.apk"
also
"Chrome_58.0.3029.83.apk" and "Chrome_50.0.2661.89.apk"
also
"Amazon Kindle_7.15.0.73.apk" and "Amazon Kindle_7.14.0.18.apk"
and more ...
I'd like to delete the older ones.  Certainly, combined, they are taking up a lot of space on my phone.
One more question.  Not every app has 2 apk files like this.  Is there a setting to limit them all to one file?  Thanks.

Hey all, thanks for the comments.  Very good point to look where the files are.  Just some background how I got here: I usb'd my phone to my PC and searched *.* and sorted by size to find what was taking so much space on my phone's internal storage (will check my sd card next).  Saw these APK files coming up and noticed the duplicates, so I asked this question.
At any rate I've gone back now and checked where they are located and it appears that most of them are in /storage/emulated/0/SmsContactsBackup/apks/.  Based on the term "Backup" being part of the location, I'm going to assume that I can delete both copies of the apk files when both are in that directory.
Again, Thanks for the comments.  I definitely should have thought to take note of where the files were located from the start.  Any additional comments or answers as to how the apks got into that directory would be appreciated.  I'm guessing that either the install put them there, or once upon a time I ran some backup program on my phone (not something I do regularly since my most important stuff syncs to google anyway).

It would help if you could point out where you found those APK files. If they are in some "download folder", it's safe to remove them. From other places, things might be different.

@Izzy It's always safe to remove anything in Internal Storage (I didn't mean /data), especially for APK files which if needed wipl simply be downloaded again by the app who generated them.

@iBug True – but how do you know where Daniel found the APKs? And not to confuse "Internal Storage" with "Internal SD card" (better use the latter term): Unfortunately, there is no "clear name" for the "internal storage" (/data) which is not the internal SD card (/mnt/shell/emulated) – and I wouldn't suggest it being "always safe to remove anything" from the former (that's why you excluded /data obviously, but just to be sure – as there's also e.g. /mnt/obb and more on internal storage ;) True, that possibly requires root, but you didn't exclude that possibility.

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


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Turn off screen on boot
How can I have my device automatically turn off its screen after booting?

booting as in having turned off the device, finished charging and turning it back on
turn off screen as in the function after single-pressing power button

At night, I turn off my device to charge it overnight. In the morning, I turn it on. Since the boot process takes a long time, I usually leave it on the counter for it to   s l o w l y   boot up. During this time, I get ready for my morning (which takes longer than for the device to boot). Taking the device with me to manually turn off the screen once it is finished booting is not good enough for me.
Short of building my own app that runs itself once on boot or having it turn off the screen after n seconds of inactivity, how can I have my device automatically turn off its screen after booting?
The device in question is not rooted, but answers requiring root privileges are acceptable
(I plan on rooting the device... eventually...)

The phone has a feature  that turn the screen off after an amount of time when the phone is not being used, just set it to, say, 30 seconds and the screen will turn off. Correct me if that is not what you are asking for.

Oe do you mean turning off the screen WHILE the phone is being booted?

@esQmo_ That is what I am trying to avoid as I usually read ebooks where I do not touch the screen before the n seconds is up (I suppose I could change the inactivity time manually after each boot)

@esQmo_ I do not mind when the screen is off, just a reasonably time during/after it is being booted

@esQmo_ At the current state, the screen is on for ~5 minutes after it has finished booting (which is a waste of battery charge)

For this, I suggest you use an app called Tasker with this app, - among other things - you can set it that when you are not using any app, the screen should timeout after x amount of time, but while you are using an app, it will time out at a different amount if time.

download Tasker. (it is a paid app, but it has so much to it that it's worth the money)
Open the app and press on the '+' symbol on the bottom right of the screen. And press 'application'
Now select the apps in which you want the display to stay on for a long time. For example your ebooks app, or any other app. Select as many apps as you want for this action.
Press on the back button on your phone. Now it will ask you what you want to happen when you open those apps.
Press on 'new tasks'
Type a name for this task something like 'screen timeout 5 min'
In this new window, press on the plus symbol, and in the search bar type 'display timeout'
Press 'display timeout', and now under where it  says 'mins' choose the amount of time you want the screen to stay on for, while using the apps.
Press on the back button twice, and you should be brought back to the main page.
Long press on 'screen timeout 5 min' (or whatever you named this task) and press on 'add exit task' -> 'new task'
Give the new task a name something like 'screen timeout x seconds.'
Here, do the same as steps 7 and 8 just when setting the time, set it to the amount of time you want the screen to stay on while you're not using the selected apps.
Now, go back all the way to the main screen of Tasker and press on the check mark symbol on the top right. (If you don't see a check mark symbol, then don't worry about it, just doing this step)
Test to see that all is working by going to your home screen and see how long it takes for the screen to go to 'sleep' it should be the amount of time selected in step 12, then go into the selected apps and see how long the screen stays on.

Tasker is a good approach. 2) It has a 7-day-trial available at its home page. 3) OP didn't ask for display timeout on an app – so the correct context would rather be Event › Power › Battery Full or Event › System › Device Boot and the Task not "display timeout" but rather Display › Stay On (set to false; assuming the device still being connected to power is what's keeping the screen on) or Display › Turn On (false again; if present at all, as this is device specific).


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Mirroring to multiple android devices
Is there any way I can mirror one android device to other Android devices in my local network?

Try screen streaming over HTTP, for that you can use an open-source Screen Stream application available on F-droid.The application allows viewing the device screen in your web browser.

It uses MJPEG to encode screen images and send them through the
  network. So it works with any desktop or mobile browser which supports
  MJPEG (Chrome, Safari, EDGE, Firefox).

Depending on what you are trying to achieve, it is best suited  to show your device screen during presentations and demos but not ideal for streaming video, and does not even support sound (since MJPEG does not support sound).

Expected delay is at least 0.5-1 second or more on slow devices, bad
  WiFi or on heavy CPU load by other apps.

The application works via Wi-Fi (and/or 3G/LTE network). Fast and stable Wi-Fi recommended because of high traffic and low network delay requirement. No Internet required, however, there must be a network connection between the client and the device.
The number of client connections is unlimited, but be aware that each of them requires some CPU resources and bandwidth to send data.
Note:  Some Wi-Fi networks (mostly public/guest) block connections between its clients for security reasons, so you may not be able to connect to the device via Wi-Fi  cell operators may block incoming connections to your device for security reasons, so you may not be able to connect to the device on using this IP address.

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


text:
Is it possible to communicate with a laptop (or other device) connected with the wifi hotspot?
Could I connect a device to my phone's hotspot and have the phone and device communicate over wifi? I'm intending to have a raspberry pi connect to my phone so I can SSH into it on the go.

@beeshyams if not in the official repo, then here in mine. In the official repo it's stuck at v1.8.0 from 5/2016; in mine it has v1.8.7 from 2 days ago. No idea why F-Droid stopped updating it.

@beeshyams The app from Play and my repo can be "cross-updated" (same signature). I have not tested the app: no raspberry, I only have 2 bananas (BananaPi) and didn't check if it works with them as well (it should for most things, but I felt no requirement for the app yet).

Thanks, @beeshyams – though it's less than 1/3 of what's in the main repo :) // Btw: Do you know whether RasPi Check works in Hotspot mode? I've never played with either. Also, the Raspi needs to connect to that hotspot first, ideally automatically when in reach (or at least when in reach and its "home network" is not available). "I'm intending to have a raspberry pi connect to my phone" could be read like "make it connect so I can …", and OP wants to SSH into it for other reasons then just doing some status checks. So OP might rather looking for a "connector app", however that should work.

@beeshyams While that app is interesting, it doesn't solve my issue. I'm looking for a way to connect to my pi, which is connected to my phones wifi hotspot rather than a common access point.

OK, as it is already connected to the "local hotspot", the question is rather "how to access a device connected to the local hotspot" – as the title already suggests (not "connect a device" as the body phrases it). The app @beeshyams suggested most likely assumes that part already solved. I've never worked with local hotspot, so I cannot tell; but I'd assume that if you know the IP of the Pi (the "I Pi"? ;) you should be able to point an SSH client to that. Have you tried?

@Izzy Another issue is that I do not know how to get the ip address of something connected to the hotspot. Though I suppose that should just be a simple ifconfig, but it's difficult to access my pi when it isn't connected to anything. (No screen, relying on ssh)

That's usually done by an ARP scan. Take a look at e.g. Network Assistant: the screenshot "Local Hosts" shows it can list all devices in the same network. That should work to find the IP of the Pi. LanXChange might also be worth a look in this context: installed on both the Pi and your Android device, the two should easily find each other.

The answer is yes, and it's easy. I know this is an old post, but it's had 80 views in 6 years, so maybe people are looking for help.
I live in the middle of nowhere, where the Internet is only available on my phone. So I connect all my devices - TV, Amazon Fire stick, laptop, media server and data server - to the hotspot. I do scripting on the phone, but I am actually on my PC connected using SSH. On the phone, I just have Termux and openssh installed. Follow this procedure. After it's set up and you have completed the key exchange, you need to set a password. On the phone, type:
passwd
and choose a password (you'll be asked to enter it twice). Still on the phone, type:
whoami
This will give you your UID which you will need to enter in the ssh command on the other device. It's something akin to u0_a123 on a Samsung phone.
Then, all you need to do on the phone when you want to connect, is type:
sshd
On the PC, you need to determine the current IP of the phone. On Linux, you can just copy and paste this in a terminal window:
route -n | grep wlp | grep 'UG[ \t]' | awk '{print $2}'
I'm not a fan of Windows, but you can always run traceroute to any site to see the IP appear towards the top of the list.
Connect to the phone using:
ssh UID@<IP of phone> -p 8022
When you want to disconnect, stop the ssh server on the phone with:
pkill sshd
in the Termux screen.


text:
How to remotely access an Android device from any device connected to the internet with root access?
Out of curiosity, I always wondered is it possibly to access your android device remotely, your files, start any app, run any function you will want to the same way you can do as if you were with the device physically. If it is, then how?
I'm kinda thinking if I should have the following;

IMEI
ESN
MEID
Google Account

It should be more than enough to grant me full access to my device.
Considering the IMEI is can be used to identify the device, ESN (Electronic Serial Numbers) and MEID (Mobile Equipment Identifiers) can link an individual to a phone. And with the Google account used on the device.
Since a remote desktop software lets you access your computer and all its applications over the Internet using another device, essentially by streaming a feed of your desktop. This works from a tablet or phone, even over a cellular data network, I feel an android device should be able to do same.
I have checked to see possible question;

I want to remotely control my Android device from my PC without rooting it. Is this possible?
Remotely control an Android tablet from a Mac or Windows machine?
Accessing and Controlling an Android Device Remotely
Can I remotely control an Android device using TeamViewer?
is there way to remotely turn on your android phone?

but none has fully answered the question.
NOTE: This is with the assumption that the android device has access to the internet and throughout the remote access, the device will have access to the internet. There's no restriction to the usage of just TeamViewer.
Any good answer and comment is greatly accepted on if there's an app that can actually do that or what it takes to make such kinda app. Thanks in anticipation.

"but none has fully answered the question" Could you explain that further? How precisely is your question different from those existing questions?

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/156946/accessing-and-controlling-an-android-device-remotely specified on using a particular app (Teamviewer) and there seems to be a whole lot of improvement in android technology compared to the time those questions where asked.


text:
Can you disable ambient display when you have an Android Wear device connected?
I have Ambient Display enabled for New Notifications which I really like. However, I also have an Android Wear smart watch and when that is connected the Ambient Display notifications are pretty redundant. Is there a way to toggle this setting if the Wear device is connected? I don't wear the watch all the time so when I am not I would like the notifications to resume.

This seems like something you might be able to do with Tasker, but I'm not sure if Tasker can access that setting.

Try Macrodroid automation app. Trigger: Android wear connect ; Action: Ambient display off. This needs root. If you don't have  root , you can give elevated privileges using ADB . I don't have Android wear to test. Try it out (App is free)


text:
Is 'SELinux enforcing' responsible?
My HTC android mobile is rooted after unlocking the bootloader, but it is with S-ON. When I write some files(I mean copy and paste) inside my '/system' partition for the purpose of applying a 'Mod', it works , but whenever I make a reboot, those files vanish. Is it due to 'S-ON' or is it due to 'SELinux enforced' ? What for is 'SELinux permissive' required?

It is due to S-ON, so changes made to /system while the phone is running is not permanent, and will be reset upon a reboot of the device.  For information on SELinux in Android, review this link https://source.android.com/security/selinux/.
A brief explanation, taken from the above link:

"With SELinux, Android can better protect and confine system services,
control access to application data and system logs, reduce the effects
of malicious software, and protect users from potential flaws in code
on mobile devices."
"Permissive mode - in which permission denials are logged but not
enforced."
"Enforcing mode - in which permissions denials are both logged and
enforced."


text:
Share location in WhatsApp showing map on continental scale
When I want to share my location with someone on WhatsApp, it gives me a list of places, two of them close to my home, and the third is Panama (the country! And I live in Brazil). I thought it was some cache issue on my phone, perhaps I've searched Panama in Google Maps recently, I wasn't sure. So I looked at the same option in both my father and my mother phones, and their WhatsApp have the same problem: Panama is also the third on the list. However, their app didn't zoom out to show Panama, as mine do. This is a nuisance, because I have to increase the zoom every time I want to share a different location browsing the map.
So, why is WhatsApp (or Google Maps?) so worried about Panama? And why will my phone zoom out to include this country in the visible map, while my parents' phones will not? Can I remove Panama from this list? (Or any other distant place, the other day it was a place I've never been to, in another Brazilian state.)
WhatsApp FAQ says: "Choose Location to send your location or a nearby place." I don't know why is it considering that Panama is "nearby" Brazil, but of course something is wrong here. Anyone have similar issues? Google only tells me about the "awesome new feature of live location", it doesn't matter if I included keywords such as "error", "issue", "strange behavior". Even the + that used to work behind a word to make it required doesn't work anymore...


text:
Why are there two different Firefox icons?

Why are there two different Firefox icons? The version is 57 I guess.

Pull the notification bar down to see why. Maybe it's a notification

I'm so forgetful that after screenshoting it I forgot to see why...

I mean, I need it to happen again, but I don't know how

Single app can use different small-icons or status-bar-icons for different notifications. In your case there are two notifications from Firefox for which the icons are different.
They are set programmatically like setSmallIcon(R.drawable.icon_name) for every notification.

What are the differences between small-icons and status-bar-icons?

they are same, programmatically smallIcon is used. status-bar-icon is common term.

ah, you should put the plural s outside the markdown. Anyway, I wonder why they need to use different icons...

there must be some logic in developers mind, who knows


text:
How to fire text message to particular mobile numbers when my device enters into geofence specified?
I want to track a vehicle fleet. Whenever the device enters into the specified geofence, it should fire a text message to the specified mobile numbers, so that they will get notified.

You don't need a specific application to do this: it can be done with Tasker. Use the AutoLocation plugin to set up a geofence event. In Tasker, create a profile "enter depot" (or whatever the area is), where the event is entering the geofence you defined, and the task is to send an SMS. (You can find "Send SMS" under the "Phone" action category.)
With the Tasker App Factory feature, you can also export an app of this configuration, to easily install on multiple devices.
I'm sure you can set up something similar using Automate or another automation app. I just know how to do it with Tasker because that's what I use.


text:
Remove Google Apps mini and install another version - LineageOS
I have installed LineageOS 14.1 (+TWRP) on Samsung S5 g900f (klte) with Google Apps mini. I followed this guide:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/klte/install
I also added Google Apps Mini zip during the installation phase.
Question:
Is there a way to remove Google Apps mini and install Google Apps nano (or pico) package? (Without reinstalling from scratch)
Regards

Flashing the LOS package again (to restore /system to a clean state) then flashing the GAPPS you need should be sufficient - I don't see a need to do a factory reset here. Of course, do a nandroid backup as always.

I'm never flashing GApps – but AFAIK the OpenGApps "flashables" perform a cleanup as first step. Apart from that, I'd second what @AndyYan pointed out.

@global_warming GApps are installed on the /system permission – which a [tag:factory-reset] never touches. So the way you've put it (as only criterion) it makes no sense.

Thankyou, @AndyYan and others, by falshing LOS again.. is it going to loss all the installed apps and local configurations? Or are there preserved?

Everything's preserved unless you do a factory reset manually.

@AndyYan If you copy your previous comments in an asnwer I'll accept it. Tnx

Flashing the LOS package again (to restore /system to a clean state) then flashing the GAPPS you need should be sufficient - no need to do a factory reset. Of course, do a nandroid backup as always just to be safe.


text:
PC-less, direct backup? (ADB apps+data, call logs, SMS, contacts, AndroidManifest, app metadata, settings, etc.)
How can these data be backed up directly in the phone itself (i.e. MicroSD, USB-OTG) without needing a PC? Is it also possible without Root?

All SMS messages.
Call logs.
All contacts and phonebooks.
Calendar
Applications and data. (either all or manually selected applications)
(lesser relevant) Battery statistics. (I have ccc.bmw71.pro (does stand for battery monitor widget, not for Bayerisches MotorWerk this time.) for that purpose. But it overwrote bmw_history.txt.)
App Metadata (AndroidManifest.xml, installation date, store, usage statistic, etc.)
Settings, other metadata and usage statistics if possible, but that is lesser relevant.
Anything else. (NANDROID would require rooting.).

Data by third-party messaging applications is usually included into application data.

Titanium backup is the answer but requires root. See the tag for it

Without root not possible

Yes and no. They can – but not without root or [tag:nandroid]. And btw, Nandroid doesn't require root, but an unlocked bootloader only.


text:
Apps aren't auto updating despite of setting and of notifications
Every morning I turn off the alarm on my phone, look at it, see there aren't any updates and unplug it.
A few seconds later I'll start to receive several notifications about apps that need updates. These updates will not automatically download or install even though I've set that option in the Play Store; instead they sit waiting until I manually go to the Play Store and hit "Update All."
My phone spends all night plugged in and on Wi-Fi; why aren't they updating then?
For reference, I'm running an LG V20, with Android version 7.0. Play Store is version 8.5.39. If it matters, my alarm is set for 3:45 am. I didn't see any option in the store to change the update time.

@beeshyams even with that off, the apps should start auto-updating with the screen on if that setting were at fault. // Benjamin: Those apps might have been installed before you set to auto-update everything. Next time this happens, check the settings for one of those apps – auto-update is set per-app on install, with the setting you mentioned being the default.

I checked the auto-update settings on one of the apps (Twitter) and it is enabled on that app.

"Keep Wi-Fi on when screen is off" says "Yes"

OK, that's weird now.Do PlayStore and Play Services auto-update themselves, or are they also part of that "pending list"? IOW: Is anything at all auto-updating, or does it affect all apps? Not that I see a pattern, but it might provide a clue to someone else.

You can try signing out of your account and setting it up again

Alright, this morning I found that apps had already updated when I woke up. I'll watch it more carefully over the next few days; I could have experienced a random occurrence for several days giving the impression of a trend.

I must have had a bad run, as the behavior now seems random. Some days apps update before my alarm, some days they don't. I'm chalking it up to chance.

Restarting the phone seems to fix it and/or plugging it in. I mean, I rather just enter Play store manually and update, but should my battery run out and the phone restarts, then it seems I don't have to do anything. But in that case it also means it's plugged in so it's hard to separate. If it's only about restarting and not about plugging in, is there a way to achieve the same affect of restarting the phone?

Maybe there's some funky battery saving feature so it isn't connecting to the wifi at night...

This is an easy fix and the reason is pretty easy to determine. The reason is that Androids' "Optimize Battery Usage" feature puts Google Play Store or Google Play services to sleep and restricts background activity. This means that when your phone screen turns off, the app is put to sleep so it does not consume battery; or if the phone is charging, it doesn't have any background activity access.
To fix this, you need to go to Settings, Apps, and scroll until you find Google Play Services and Google Play Store. Check Google Play Store first, click it and then click "Battery". If you see that it says "optimized", click the "Optimize Battery Usage" button and it will take you to a list at the top change it from "Apps not optimized" to "All". Scroll down the list until you find Google Play Store and switch the toggle to off; repeat this process for Google Play Services (most likely this will not be optimized, but just in case, check).
Now that you have done this, your phone will update because the app will no longer be put to sleep and it will be allowed to work in the background while your phone is charging or on Wi-Fi and it will update your apps. I have fixed this issue on a few phones and if this does not work for you, there is something else wrong with your device or Android.

My Samsung Galaxy Store is set to auto-update and to not optimize the battery usage, but it doesn't auto-update. What reasons could there be with the Samsung Galaxy Store?


text:
TWRP OnePlus 5T not asking for encryption password
I want to flash the new Update for the OnePlus 5T but TWRP is not asking for a decryption password as usual and hence cannot mount the data partition.
It's possible that this is not working since the last update (OnePlus 5T OxygenOS 4.7.6).
Is there a way to force the decryption, for instance by some command in the TWRP terminal? Or is there a way to reset this?
In the Android settings, the Encryption Option is not changeable, it just says "Encrypted".
UPDATE: Obviously OTA Updates are possible now, I don't know how. Till now, with custom recovery and/or root this was an issue and not possible so you had to download the Update manually and install it through TWRP or other recovery.
During OTA Update, the recovery was overwritten with the original from Oneplus.
The option for Smartphone encryption in the settings remains unchangeable, so I believe I could not change the code if I wanted to.

From the TWRP terminal enter the command twrp decrypt <your password>
Source

I tried this before I updated through OTA and it wouldn't take my password.
Atm, I don't know how to flash TWRP now, I tried in fastboot but after rebooting to recovery, the Onplus Recovery came up again.
For a fully working system (unfortunately, I don't know what's the matter here with my phone), I think this would be the answer to my original question nevertheless, so I will mark it as the answer.
Thank you!


text:
Have a confirmation on launching an app
I'm looking for a way to control other apps opening: Before opening an app, I would receive a dialog box before asking me if I would really open the application then I can say no and I'm less addict. I'm not looking for something that will block other application usage, only show a pop up with a dialog.

Please note that recommendations like Is there an app for X are off-topic here (see What topics can I ask about here? for details). For where your question might fit better, you might want to look into Where can I ask questions that aren't Android Enthusiast questions? and Where to ask for app recommendations?. I've rephrased your question to avoid it from being closed (3 votes on that already); it should still match your intention.

I'm not sure if there is an app that does exactly that, but you can use any app lock for this.
Take for example this app lock download it, and set the code to be the number 5 (example) now, go to the app lock settings > password settings > password hint. Change the hint to say something like "are you sure you want to use this app? Press 5 for "yes", or exit for "no".
Then, select which apps you want this dialogue to appear on by going to "app lock" and press on the + symbol. After you add the desired apps, you'll see an option called "fake" this will be an even better reminded not to use it. Basically if you choose this option, what will happen is, when you open the blocked apps, it will say that the app crashed, and only after long pressing on "ok" will it open the keypad.


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How do I display two different calendars exclusively on 2 different widget?
How do I display two different calendars exclusively from my Google calendar on 2 different mobile app widget?

I don't think it is possible as mentioned in Google forum- though that's about two years old
You would need a third party widget for that- see Izzy's Calendar widgets collection. I tried Widget What and When Free and it works fine with two different calendars in two widgets

Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for, you are genius. Thanks a ton.


text:
Automate: Enable WiFi Calling in GPS Coordinates
My goal is to configure my Android LG G5, running the stock ROM, to enable Wi-Fi calling when I'm at home.
I downloaded the Automate app from the Google Play Store. Next, I created a new workflow, and searched for a "block" (workflow step) to enable/disable WiFi calling. I searched under the Connectivity, Telephony, and Settings sections, and couldn't find this block type. However, there are all sorts of other settings for setting the cellular network type, enabling / disabling WiFi in general.
Is this a gap in the Automate app?

I don't use Automate but I think that WiFi calling is a network enabled function and is unlikely that you you would be be able to automate unless your device is rooted and probably use a Xposed module or app

You mean specific to my cell phone errors? I figured that might be the case.

No, I mean in general

Apps are not allowed to access such features. Even on a rooted device it may be difficult since Wi-Fi calling in managed by third-party (carrier) apps.


text:
Contacts Call Log
I have several hundred calls to one of my employees over the last 2 years. Every time I try to call up his contact information, the entire call history loads and it takes minutes. How can I prevent the call log from loading when I open contacts - it isn't helpful to me and I don't need it. Thank you in advance.

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! What device and Android version are you using? Call history usually is limited to something about 500 calls altogether, and shouldn't be loaded when opening contact details AFAIK (unless you touch the call log / call history tab, of course).


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Make Android to handle a hardware keypad properly
I got the following phone for Christmass: GuoPhone N2 (also sold under the names Swell N2, Landrover N2, Cube1 T1C, ...). It has a build-in hardware keypad and runs Android 6.0. However, writing messages is quite cumbersome since there is no special software keyboard (like LG keyboard for LG Wine Smart) which would handle the keypad properly. I would like to be able to do the following:

Write "." by pressing 1 instead of searching through the list of characters.
Write space by pressing 0 shortly instead of holding 0.
Write numbers 0,1,...,9 by holding the corresponding buttons.
Switch input modes (capitals, numbers) by pressing # shortly.

Can I achieve this by changing the configuration files (e.g. /etc/system/usr/keylayout, /etc/system/usr/keychars) or do I need a special keyboard app? If there is no available solution of my problem I will consider downloading the source code of the Android keyboard from here and trying to modify it. However, it would be a lot of work for me as I don't have any experience with programming for Android. Is here anybody who finds this task easy and could give me any instructions?
Thank you very much for any help.
P.S.: I tried Swift Keyboard, Google Keyboard, etc... but they cannot even handle typing letters by multiple clicks so I can write just numbers with them. Only the preinstalled Android keyboard can handle multiple clicks.

Solved by installing Traditional T9 Keypad IME.


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Phone unlocks when call comes in
I have a Samsung SM G930V, Android v 7.0
My phone is set to lock with the fingerprint scanner, but when a call comes in the phone automatically unlocks and when I pull it out of my pocket half the time I inadvertently hang up because I touch the hang up button as I am pulling it out of my pocket.
How do I make it stay locked even when a call comes in?
Meaning I want it to wait till I unlock before letting me answer or hang up.
Of course, if I am in the car with bluetooth I still want the answer button in the car to work without having to unlock it manually.

Are you saying that you want it to ask for your fingerprint before answering?

Yeah, a little unclear what the issue is.

Ask for fingerprint or correct swipe gesture. Am I really the only one with this problem?

Why don't you disable the setting for using volume/ power button for disconnecting call? Of course, you would have this behaviour persistent when when screen is unlocked

I am tapping the soft, red hangup button on the screen not the power button.

No, you can't do that unless you are using some other app for calls that doesn't shows incoming call screen while the phone is locked.
As phone apps are generally set with a  FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED flag, which enables them to show incoming call while phone is locked.

Always love it when I can add a non-technical answer. Thinking outside the box, you simply need a protective phone case from Ebay. For example I have this little beauty headed my way for my brand new Pixel 4A 5G with CalyxOS.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/353791237308
The case will prevent you from pressing any buttons inadvertently, and additionally it will extend the life of your screen. Problem solved.


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Canot enter TWRP recovery because of "fastboot erase userdata"
I want to flash a new ROM for my Android phone.
I clean data by fastboot erase userdata
but after that, I can not enter TWRP recovery because can not mount /data
I tried fastboot format userdata
then below errors occured:
Couldn't parse erase-block-size '0x'.
Couldn't parse logical-block-size '0x'.

So how to make the TWRP work again?
Or how to rebuild the data partition by fastboot?

Try adding the the format to the fastboot command. Like: fastboot format:ext4 userdata

@BoLawson Thank you very much, but I have not opportunity to verify it again. I flashed newest version TWRP,  this TWRP can be entered, and I format data partition in this TWRP. Then everything was OK.

I had the same problem but from a different reason. I was trying to unlock the bootloader, and I think my phone erased all the existent data for protection.
After I installed TWRP custom recovery, then my phone started booting, showing those errors every time TWRP appeared and restarting it again.
In my case, I solved the problem selecting recovery mode, then formatting the partitions from TWRP wipe screen. I took me a while to realise that my phone was displaying TWRP, but the phone wasn't in recovery at that point.


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How to get Huawei Product ID without stock ROM?
I have Lineage as opposed to the stock ROM, so putting:
*#*#1357946#*#*

does not work for me.
Recommended on alternate posts were downloading a program called "Huawei Product ID Generator", but this does not work for me as my device model is not an option listed (my device model is KIW-L24).
And this generator (http://www.rootjunkysdl.com/files/) does not have my phone listed either.
Do any of you know how I can get my Product ID since these three methods do not work for me?
Thank you!


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Want to change country in Google Play store
This is not duplicate of other questions. I've been struggling with this issue for last 3 weeks and have contacted Google over chat, forums and other avenues too without any luck.
I moved from USA to India and now some of the apps can't be downloaded due to payments profile being in USA with an active Google Domains subscription.
So far I've tried following steps -

Went to payments.google.com and created another profile with India as country. Now I can see two payment profiles as USA and India.
Added credit cards etc so that it's a valid one
Went to Apps > Play Store and cleared cache and data. Removed my google account and restarted my phone to add Google account again.
Can't delete my cc info from USA payments profile due to active Google Domains subscription. Tried cancelling it, but it takes me to Domains billing page which again asks me to go back to payments page to cancel. So kind of catch 22 situation here.
Unless I cancel Google Domains subscription, can't close my USA payments profile.
Went to Google play to purchase something and it doesn't allow me to buy anything with India card, so other solution to at least reach 'Accept & Buy' stage can't be done.

I'm stuck with USA google play store now and would appreciate any help to change country so as to get to useful apps.

Just to be sure, you clicked on the drop down arrow and actually switched your profile to India, right? I have both of them active and can switch between the two

You removed your Google account and then added the same one back? Maybe try adding a different one back? Like here https://android.stackexchange.com/a/185787/241679

One option to do that is going into your Google Wallet Setting and add a new profile for that Country / Region

You are allowed to change the country of your account once a year.  If you have moved permanently, you can change it under Accounts

Settings
See All Settings
Accounts and Imports
Other Google Account Settings
Payments and subscriptions

Method-1

Manage Payment Methods
Select a card and change the address
If there aren't any, just add a new card with the desired address.

Method-2

Settings
Edit Name and Address

If you have not moved permanently

Create a new Google account with the desired address
Add it as an account on your mobile
When required, just switch the account for the country.

Some apps are more determined and require a VPN to that country as well as an account change.  I do this routinely with my multiple accounts and vpn.

Add a new gmail account to your phone.  In Google Play app, select the new gmail account using the drop down arrow, then set everything up using your new country address and cards :)

While this would work in theory. "Use a different account" is an extreme - last option - measure.
You will never be able to consolidate apps and payment profiles after this, and backups will not be enabled on the apps purchased from the second device, considering backups are tied to a single account.

@RaghdHamzeh - this is incorrect.  I have 5 accounts for various countries.  For account related activities you can just switch the account in playstore.


text:
How to close a malware tab in chrome?
A webpage got redirected to a "virus alert" malware page and I can't close it.
Deleted the cache, both the general tablet cache as well as the chrome cache, deleted the "unimportant data", did "force stop", restarted the tablet, but chrome still automatically opens that tab where I left off.
Google should make an option to close all tabs on exit or otherwise.

Run anti Malware app and see if that fixes

Deleted cache, data of chrome(Have you stopped[force stop] chrome before this operation). Try reinstall chrome  .

Yes, did force stop.

And "delete data"? Another thing to try: the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen has an entry for "tab overview". Tapping that, the screen looks like "recent apps", just showing the tabs of Chrome. From there you should be able to close the tab (just saw the same thing on another device a couple of days ago, and while not even the "back" button had any effect, this approach worked).

Well you can try entering a different address in the chrome address bar

@anurag No you can't

Can you post a screenshot of the screen with the tab in chrome.

Issue Resolved:
Clicked on a link in another app that opened in chrome, and then by pressing X on as many tabs as fast as i can, was able to close that tab.
(PS Chrome should make a feature whereby you can close all the tabs automatically all at once instead of individually each one.)


text:
Do a Fairphone 2 backup without Google-Services
I ran into some problems with my Fairphone 2 and it has to be fully replaced. So I'd like to backup my information including contacts, sms, wi-fi passwords and if possible too Whatsapp-conversations.
Now it's not like Fairphone doesn't provide a tutorial for backing up your phone. The issue is it completely relies on Google Services and means I'm going to store all kinds of private information voluntary on random Google-Servers.
As I'm also using that phone for work and university I was advised NOT to share everything with Google.
I have been trying Titanium-Backup, but for that it's necessary to root the phone. (Well, and before I do that I'd surely like to backup everything so...)
So Helium seems to be a good option. The app is downloaded and on my Linux I got the their scrips, connected my phone, opened the app and typed:
qohelet@ubuntu:~/Downloads/linux$ ./run.sh
error: device not found

adb is installed.
I switched on the USB-Debugging as asked and it wants to use the PTP instead of the MTP (which I think I did, but nothing changed).
Installed Chrome and used Helium as a Chrome-App instead. No changes still.
I'm pretty much suck now. Fairphone doesn't offer any other support than relying on Google to solve that issue for them and I'm not aware of other backup-options.
What's the easiest way to do a backup?

This will help but in addition you may need third party tools to back up contacts. SMS etc

@beeshyams - contacts, SMS are exactly my problem. I don't know how to do a backup on them

Helium only cares for apps and their data. It is based on ADB Backup, which is known not to cater for SMS either. The question @beeshyams linked tries to sum up how to achieve a full backup (as full as possible). Our backup tag-wiki does give you an overview as well. With your device not rooted, you will probably need a combination of apps plus ADB to achieve your goal.

for sms and contacts see this

@Izzy - thanks for the link. Actually there is a lot of useful stuff to be found. Some tutorials inclusive. Just what I needed. Would just be great if some tutorials would be linuxier.

@Qohelet I know what you mean (I'm a Linuxian as well). To quote your name-sake indirectly: "there is a place for everything". Only few found ours it seems :) And btw: keep in mind our nice tag-wikis. Many of our tags have them :)

@Izzy - I will. I'd just wish Google would keep them in mind too ;)


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How to decrypt an undecryptable micro SD card?
I encrypted my micro SD card and used it (and encrypted/decrypted it) without issue during some months. But one day, without explanation, my micro SD card is no more decryptable: the encrypt screen at Android startup (or SD card inserting) is loading unending or showing "0Mb/0Mb - 100%" and micro SD card still unavailable and invisible.
When I connect the SD card directly to PC or Mac, files tree is browsable, files are visible but unreadable.
I tried some softwares like Android File Transfer or Android Data Recovery (Wondershare Dr.Fone for Android), without success.
I don't want to reset my phone because I will lose all my micro SD card data. Is there a way to recover data from corrupted and undecryptable micro SD card?

Phone : Samsung Galaxy 7 (SM-G930F)
Android : Marshmallow 6.0.1

I finally find a solution in an recovery-android.com comment by vid971 :

Go to Lock Screen and Security and select None and Keep Fingerprints. You will then be asked for setting up a password.
Remove the SD Card from the phone and Reboot.
When phone has rebooted put your SD Card back in. You will have windows prompts, for you Sim card Pin and Mobile Data usage, and after
  that you'll be on the Encrypt SD Card page. Click Encrypt. As your
  card is already encrypted it will be fast.

From then your SD Card should be recognised again and usable.


text:
Android 4.3 external and internal sdcard
I am new  in Android so please be gentle.
I have the problem, that my phone doesn't use the external sdcard and try to save everything on internal 2gb storage.
So I rooted the device and get a shell on my device.
then I checked the mount point and saw that the /dev/fuse is used everywhere
   /dev/fuse /mnt/shell/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
   /dev/fuse /storage/emulated/legacy fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
   /dev/fuse /storage/emulated/0 fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
   /dev/fuse /storage/emulated/0/Android/obb fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0

   /dev/block/vold/179:33 /storage/sdcard1 vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0

my idea is to change the mounts everywhere and change /dev/fuse to /dev/block/vold/179:33
is there any special program technically location in Android to edit and save the new mount points?
Thanks!!

don't do that.. there is the option to format your SD to "adoptable storage" which makes it kind of part of the internal storage

Hi Robert, thanks for the advice, but in my android 4.3 there is no option like this. I suppose it's only in new android versions. Do you know where can i find fstab or something like this? because vold.fstab is not the right one

Yes that feature came with 6.0... 4.3 is kind of old. Anyways, I don't know for sure, but in settings -> apps ->  -> storage , there should be a button ”change” on some of the apps ? I'm not sure if 4.3 had this...

Sorry I can't give you firsthand experience with this. Best to change your title/question and tags to reflect android 4.3 usage

there is only mount/unmount, delete and move data to sdcard, but it doesn't use after move, just store.... :D
so there is two ways new os or change the mounts. but I do not know androit enough to find the "fstab" or similar file

Try the SDFix application (for KitKat Writable MicroSD) on Google Play, which simply adds a line to the platform.xml permissions file (at /system/etc/permissions) to allow writing on the extSDCard.


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How to root Moto G 3rd generation running Marshmallow?
For the past few months I have tried various methods of rooting my Motorola Moto G 3rd gen (Android 6.0.1) and they have all failed. How on Earth do I root my phone?

Excerpt from my XDA Tutorial on rooting the Moto G 2015 -

This guide covers ALL Moto G 2015 models (including the G Turbo) that can be bootloader unlocked and have TWRP available, it doesn't matter if it is the XT1540, XT1541, XT1543, etc., the method is identical. In fact, this method will work on all 2015 and 2016 series Moto phones running Marshmallow, including the Moto E, X, G3, G4, and Z.
Please read completely and make sure you understand each step and how to do it, if you don't get something search the thread or ask an open question.
tl;dr version for advanced users: Skip to "How to do it" section
I am writing this tutorial because there are still lots of failed root attempts using older "standard" methods that do not work on this device. I also do not like the "one click" root methods, because they can and do fail (KingoRoot will brick a Moto G3, regardless of what it's web page says), and when they do people have no idea how to fix it. The manual way is not difficult, and it teaches you how to work on, fix, and use your device on a level above that of the average smartphone user.
I will only cover the details of rooting, the prerequisites are covered elsewhere in detail and I will link to reliable sources for the information. Specifics of the prerequisites are outside of the scope of this tutorial, but are open for discussion in this thread.
Prerequisites:

Device must have an unlocked bootloader. See Moto - Unlocking the Bootloader for more info. NOTE: Performing this prerequisite will give you all the tools (fastboot) and drivers needed to continue, and wipe your device, meaning erase all your information and programs. Make sure to backup any important data first. This step will also permanently void your warranty once an unlock code has been issued by Moto, it doesn't matter if you even use it, your warranty is done.

You need to have TWRP installed or one-time booted via fastboot. CWM and other recoveries will NOT work at this time. See TWRP for the Moto G 2015 or TWRP for Moto G Turbo.

You need a copy of the latest STABLE SuperSU ZIP from Chainfire's site on the internal storage or SD card of your device.

Reboot and start TWRP recovery, the method you use to do this doesn't matter (boot or flash).

How to do it:
Now, the procedure is the same whether you are trying to root the first time, or you did it the old way just flashing SuperSU and are now not able to boot...
In TWRP, go to Advanced and open the Terminal, in the terminal type this EXACTLY as shown:
echo SYSTEMLESS=true>>/data/.supersu
Now press enter (there is no confirmation returned), then exit and press the Home key. Go to Install and select the SuperSU zip file you downloaded from Prerequisite #3 and swipe to flash it and reboot. No need to clear caches or anything else but you are welcome to if you wish. You can install SuperSU updates normally through the app going forward (as of this posting).
Why do I have to do this???
For whatever reason, the install script for SuperSU does not recognize that this device (like many others) requires a systemless root installation. By creating /data/.supersu in the TWRP recovery environment, the SuperSU install script parses the file and sees "SYSTEMLESS=true" and ignores what it auto-detects and forces a systemless root installation.
Hope this is helpful to someone!
As always, if this is the first time you have booted TWRP or attempted root... BACKUP IN TWRP FIRST!!! Once the system is modified, it cannot be undone (easily) and you will always have a known good starting place if the worst happens.
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for anything that happens... Your device, your responsibility, no matter what happens... Although all the information here has been tested and is known to work with no issues except where noted, things occasionally can and do go wrong and we cannot foresee every possible scenario or circumstance.
If you need assistance, we need detailed information about what what's going on and what you have tried to do... Please provide details including:

Device model number and Android version
TWRP version
SuperSU version
Output of 'cat /data/.supersu' from TWRP terminal

And a copy of recovery.log if possible, and any other pertinent information you can think of. Without  specific information there is nothing that I can do to assist you and request for help may be ignored.
Photos added showing what a proper command and flash should look like. Note that in picture 1 the exit command is not needed, you can just back out. In pictures 2 and 3 a proper flash of SuperSU is shown, note that system-less mode is specified and the boot image is patched, this is what should occur. It is normal for it to loop once or twice, but that is it, first boot could take 10 minutes plus.

acejavelin my Moto G 3rd Gen already boot-loader unlocked. If I 2 to 4 after that will it wipe the existing data from internal memory.

@Ajay It will not... The unlocking process is what wipes the data.


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z3c 5803 Lollipop 5.1.1 rooted -> TWRP Factor Reset -> Now Philz Touch 6 instead of TWRP
I used TWRP to make a backup ( with the default options ) to make a backup to my external SDCard.
Then I used TWRP to perform a default factory reset

I did not manually touch anything else. I booted my android to check if I got a factory reset but I did not wipe anything else or install anything.
If I now boot into recovery I see "Philz Touch 6

Now I am confused, normally at this point I saw the TWRP GUI ?
Is TWRP still on my phone
Why is Philz Touch there now ?
PS: This was the first time I used the key combination to boot into recovery.
Before the factory reset I used the app "quick boot" to boot into recovery.

But I assume both methods ( app and physical buttons ) have the same results.
So my Question is where is TWRP after I performed a TWRP Factory Reset ?

I see on XDA that your device has custom recoveries that can host both TWRP and Phil's. Did you flash such a recovery? (Most likely). In that case it's better to go through the recovery forum and you may find the reason. You can always post the findings here :)

Yes, under http://nut.xperia-files.com/html/xzdualrecovery-manual.html I could find that I have both recoveries and that there are different key combinations to launch either of them

After the comment above I see on XDA that your device has custom recoveries that can host both TWRP and Phil's I searched my windows PC for the installation file that I flashed to install TWRP. The filename is XZDualRecovery
Google then gave me this link having the manual
This means I have both PhilZ Touch AND TWRP installed.
I solved my problem by the correct key combination during startup:

press VOL-UP for PhilZ Touch;
press VOL-DOWN for TWRP.


text:
Is there some documentation how exactly does the Factory Reset Protection (FRP) works?
Is there some detailed documentation how exactly does the Factory Reset Protection (FRP) on Android devices works?

I think much of this is intentionally kept "quiet"... in researching some of this myself a while back, this is the most I could find "in detail".
https://github.com/intel/kernelflinger/blob/master/doc/FRP.md
Bootloader Policy and Factory Reset Protection
Google's verified boot (GVB) specification and Google Factory Reset Protection (FRP) for AndroidTM define a set of security protocols for ensuring system integrity and dis-incentivising device theft, respectively.
There are legitimate reasons to unlock the bootloader without knowing the screen unlock PIN; specifically RMAs. An RMA processing center should be able to unlock device flashing restrictions in Fastboot and return the device to a factory pristine state without requiring the user to disclose their screen unlock PIN or potentially opening their user data to compromise.
This documentation describes the solution for defining a class A device and a mechanism that allow for unlocking a device for RMA regardless of FRP or class A status. It meets Google FRP security requirements by ensuring that there is no single skeleton key to unlock devices if all security considerations are implemented. It also allows devices to be provisioned so that the entity with unlock authority could be Vendor, the OEM, ODM, a carrier, or an enterprise organization.
Device User Experience
User boots the device to Fastboot
User obtains an action challenge
fastboot oem get-action-nonce force-unlock
User gives the challenge to the action authorization agent and receives an action authorization token file (details later)
User flashes the action authorization token
fastboot flash action-authorization token_file
Fastboot performs the authorized action
Implementation
The OEM action authorization protocol is a simple challenge response where the device's Fastboot generates a one-time-nonce, the OEM action authorization agent signs the nonce and approved action using its private override authorization key (OAK) to generate an authorization token, and then the device's Fastboot validates the action authorization token and executes the action.
Override Authorization Key
The override authorization key (OAK) is a public key that is set in the device during manufacturing and that is used to validate action authorization tokens. If an OAK is not set, then all action authorization features are disabled and default bootloader and Fastboot behavior specified in GVB and FRP is in effect. Since the OAK is capable of overriding the class A and FRP policies, it is important to ensure that it cannot be changed by unauthorized code, which would change the identity of who can override policy.
The OAK may act as a validation root certificate if the certificate authority attribute of the certificate is "true" -- standard X.509v3 certificate handling. This means that the OAK can be used to issue certificates that are also able to sign action authorization tokens. This is the preferred method of setting the OAK in cases where multiple entities need the ability to issue action authorization tokens without having access to a single key.
OAK is stored as the OAK time-based authenticated EFI variable under the Fastboot GUID of 1ac80a82-4f0c-456b-9a99-debeb431fcc1. The content of this variable is the SHA256 sum of the OAK certificate.
Bootloader Policy Mask
Bootloader policy mask (BPM) is a set of 64 boolean policy flags. If a BPM is not set, then Fastboot defaults to a policy matching a BPM value of zero. If a BPM value is set, a one bit indicates the corresponding policy is active.
The BPM is set in the device during manufacturing.
Policy Name Bit(s)  Description
CLASS_A_DEVICE  0   If set, the bootloader enforces the behavior defined by GVB for class A devices.
MIN_BOOT_STATE  1-2 Minimal boot state required to boot the device (0 for red, 1 for orange, 2 for yellow and 3 for green)
BPM is stored as the BPM time-based authenticated EFI variable under the Fastboot GUID of 1ac80a82-4f0c-456b-9a99-debeb431fcc1.
Generating One-Time-Nonce
The one-time action authorization nonce has the form "::<8 bit action id>:<16 client random bytes>" with all fields hex encoded. It is generated when the fastboot oem get-action-nonce  command is used. Fastboot saves the value for a limited amount of time before it expires. Each time the command is run a new value is generated and previous value is overwritten. The value is not stored persistently. If Fastboot is restarted, the old nonce is no longer valid.
The following actions are defined.
Name    Action ID   Description
Force unlock    0x00    Makes Kernelfliner execute the Fastboot flashing unlock command as if the "enable oem unlock" developer option is enabled. All standard GVB properties apply, including secure erase of the user data partition.
The version field is a one byte value. It must be zero for the current version.
Creating an Action Authorization Token
An action authorization token is generated by signing the action authorization nonce with the OAK. The token is a PKCS #7 signed document, where the body takes the form "::<8 bit action id>:<16 client random bytes>:<16 auth agent random bytes>" with all fields hex encoded. The auth agent random bytes added when creating the authorization is to prevent an attacker from mounting an attack by supplying known plain-text values.
The token must contain all certificates required to validate the signature chain of the token.
The action authorization agent must verify that the nonce is exactly in the prescribed format.
The action authorization agent must verify that the action ID in nonce is a recognized value.
If possible, the action authorization agent should verify that the serial number is valid.
Flashing the Action Authorization Token
The authorization token is sent to Fastboot using the special "action-authorization" flash target. Fastboot verifies that the token is valid, invalidates the current one-time-nonce, and executes the authorized action.
Fastboot must validate that there is no extra data after parsing the token.
Fastboot must verify that the signature's certificate chains to the OAK set at manufacturing.
Fastboot must verify that all values in the token body have the prescribed values.
Fastboot must verify that the value returned by the "oem get-action-nonce " command matches the value in the token body and the nonce has not expired.


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Disable notification sound for PingID on authentication
PingID is an authentication tool used for 2FA login, after initial login to a system it will prompt the installed app on phone to loudly beep when it is asking for authentication (by swiping a widget). Since this is used in office, I don't want to annoy others around me and nor do I need a reminder sound when I know exactly when I will be asked to use the app.
Is there a way to disable the audible prompt only for PingID (or, if you don't know about this specific app, then steps to do so for any general app)? I'd prefer methods that use existing Settings or tools if possible, but am open to installing other apps if necessary.

You could silence the notification sound manually (and globally). App-specific solutions usually require root for that.

You can try the solution here by modifying it to include your app https://android.stackexchange.com/q/188131/131553


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Downloader app failing to download apps over a specific wifi hotspot (Error 495)
This may look like it's beating a dead horse, but it's not.
All of my Android devices of different brands and different chipsets, from Exynos, Snapdragon 820, Snapdragon 435, with stock or custom ROMs, AOSP-based and manufacturer-based ROMs, all fail to download apps on a fully functional WiFi connection that has no problems with accessing every possible resource that I ever needed.
Updating/Downloading apps fails with Error 495. I had done everything I could to mediate this, but since this is happening on all of the devices that I tried, with more than 1 Google account, it's safe to say that it's not the device's fault.
The fault is in the Downloader app (the one that downloads the apps for Google Play), in communicating with my Asus RT-AC66U router with Asuswrt-Merlin on it. Everything else works fine, including when I connect to another WiFi hotspot on the exact same internet connection. But it also doesn't work if I connect to a WiFi repeater that's hooked up to the same problematic WiFi hotspot on the Asus router. (Both the 2.4 and 5GHz hotspots fail)
Rebooting both routers, and making them go a power-off/on cycle, had no effect. Unhooking the repeater off didn't help either. As I've said, everything works fine. Other WiFi devices on the same hotspot have access to HTTP, HTTPS, with no reported broken keys that would suggest a security risk or anything. I didn't change any settings, and updates used to work just 4 days ago.
So the question is: What is so special about the Downloader app, or about Play store, that makes it the only thing that's failing?
Or how can I diagnose this? Maybe an easy to use packet sniffer that's able to show the failing request and allow me to reproduce it outside of my phone, and figure out what exactly about my router's settings it doesn't like. I promise to share my findings, and will describe in detail every step that I took, if it helps me fix this issue. Because right now I don't even know where to start looking.

Have you seen What is error code 495 on Google Play and the YouTube app? Can be found in our nice google-play-store tag-wiki, in case you need another error code in the future :)

I've gone on xda-developers and around 50 sites and forums and everything android-related, tried pretty much every trick in the book. The problem is that after going through every single settings in my router and turning off every non-vital feature, and everything that can be changed without breaking it, I finally got it to work.
And the solution was indeed not in the phone, or the account, as pretty much every single description of the problem tells. The bad thing is that the actual solution got zero attention.
I'll post my answer below.

maybe its a dns problem
try resetting your router

Lucky for me, my router has a connection log, that I could look through.
From my phone that was trying to download an app, there were many connections, but these brought up my interest:
tcp   192.168.1.174:51959                      52.15.96.207:443                         SYN_SENT
tcp   192.168.1.174:51974                      52.15.96.207:443                         SYN_SENT

Indeed, the remote IP did not respond. But the feature worked on other access points. I decided to change the DNS settings in the DHCP server, from the ones provided by the ISP, to OpenDNS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDNS
This can also be done from the phone, from the advanced WiFi connection settings, when you choose something other than DHCP.
That did the trick.
As mentioned by What is error code 495 on Google Play and the YouTube app? too. Please, if this solves your problem, go upvote, so that it doesn't sit on the bottom of the answer list.


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Select from screen - text recognition is gone
Before I was able to long-press middle button and get mini-menu with things that was android captured from the screen, including ability to select text directly from images for translation etc.
Now when I long press middle button I get big menu at the bottom with Google assistant, I still can get things captured from the screen if I press "what's on my screen" option, but text recognition from images is gone. I need it back.
I don't know exactly when this option disappeared, sometime in the previous 2 months.
Android 6.0.1

It's the new Google Assistant that replaced the old Google Now on Tap. There are few hacks around to remap your middle button back to Now on tap, but all of them will fail eventually as Google starts depreciating the old feature.
One temporary way is to go in Google settings and change your language to something other than US English (Maybe UK, Aus or Ind?)


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Moto X4 lock screen blurry wallpaper
When I set a wallpaper on the lock screen with Moto Display on (by default), the wallpaper is blurred when there are any notifications.  I turned Moto Display off and it stopped blurring, but now it's started again, and I don't know how to disable it, since Moto Display is still off.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

what's the resolution of image? Moto display pop-up with black screen only no wallpaper shown during pop-up notifications.

@RahulGopi:  The image shows clearly when there are no notifications, so not sure why the resolution of the image would matter, but it's 0.3 MP and 500 x 690, if that answers the question.

screen resolution of  device is 1920x1080. if resolution is lower it will affect clarity.

@RahulGopi: This isn't a matter of normal clarity, though - the picture is fine normally, but it is intentionally blurred by the system when there are notifications.

I also had moto x4, only added wallpapers of resolution 1080 and higher. If less than 1080, the wallpaper on screen have several shades of light intensity.

@RahulGopi:  But, again, the wallpaper is fine when there are no notifications.  This is an intentional addition of a blurring effect by the system.

@RahulGopi:  To demonstrate my point, I set the lock screen wallpaper back to the default one that comes with the device.  It has the extreme blurring effect when there is a notification.

Add some pictures, it'll be helpful to clearly understand the extent of blurring

@beeshyams:  I don't see Moto Display installed.  Is there another name?  I can see the image fine through Photos.

@surajck:  I went to take pictures and it appears to be working correctly now.. If it happens again, I will come back with images and more details on which notifications are up.

Also see if the solution here helps https://android.stackexchange.com/a/166782/131553

I think the solution suggested above would help (look at the comment below that solution)but they're hasn't been any revert on this from you


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Force app to fit on screen
I am trying to use an Android app which is not designed very well. Part of the UI is not visible which prevents it from functioning. Is there a way to force it to fit on screen? Possibly by overriding the display DPI with a developer option?
This is a screenshot of the app:

Screenshot from Google Play Store. Yes, it says iPod. Lol.
On my phone the "pairing" button is not visible as it is off the bottom of the display, and there is no scroll bar:

Screenshot from my phone.
As you can see, the UI is simply too big to fit on the display, so some parts get pushed off. Since the UI does not scroll, they are inaccessible.

@beeshyams yes. it had no effect because that question is completely unrelated to mine. this app does not "place a menu on the system bar". in fact it does not have a menu of any kind. only buttons. which do not fit on the screen.

Thanks for clarifying. Retracted close vote and upvoted answer

After googling for a while I found a solution. Enable adb debugging on the phone and run this command:
adb shell dumpsys display | grep mBaseDisplayInfo

Find the part that says "density". This is the screen DPI. Reducing it will make Android think your screen is bigger, and it will shrink all of the UI respectively. I changed it from 240 to 200 by running this command:
adb shell wm density 200

Now the problem app looks like this, and I can use it:

screenshot showing fixed app
Note that this will affect everything on the phone including the homescreen.
I found this solution here. Contrary to what that page says, I did not need to reboot for the change to take effect.


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Key icon in notification bar lg aristo
Sreen shot of home screen with notification bar

So what is your question? You did not by any accident confuse us with Imgur?

That indicates you are using VPN to connect to Internet
Either you installed a VPN or a firewall / ad-blocker app that uses VPN (I see you are using Orbot, that could be it)

I wonder how you guessed what OP wanted to ask. If it was a question at all. To me the "question" rather looks like OP confused us with Imgur :)

@izzy: Got your point. It seemed to me that he wanted to know what the icon was and didn't know how to upload (not unusual to see links ). That said, there is no question explicitly asked (which I missed) . If you decide to close the question , will delete my answer, no problems with that :)

Nah. My guess is you figured it correctly. I did not – until I saw your answer :)


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The Wi-fi on my UMDIGI keeps switching off on its own
The Wi-fi on my UMDIGI keeps switching off on its own.
i have checked the setting and seems normal.
all work colleagues have the same problem and the problem started at the same time !

Did you check with the workplace IT/ resources admin ?

If everyone around has the same problem, it's rather not an Android issue but something with the router. As @beeshyams pointed out, you'd better contact your IT staff on this – we won't be able to help out.

Thank you. the same issue happens at home too, this eliminates the rooter option.


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Does MiA1 support Rescue Party?
I wanted to check if Rescue Party, a much touted feature of Oreo is active on my device ( since it is not mandated in Android Compatibility Definition Document as the linked source says)
The first step is to override USB connection (suppression) , since

All rescue events are suppressed when the device has an active USB data connection because that's a strong signal that someone is debugging the device

To do that  run
adb shell setprop persist.sys.enable_rescue 1
My device returns
setprop: failed to set property 'persist.sys.enable_rescue' to '1'
Can I conclude from this that Mi A1 doesn't support Rescue Party?
 ( some explanation would help)
Aside, this XDA thread No, Android Oreo’s Rescue Party is not the bootloop fix you were looking for gives useful details on Rescue Party ( Please note that my device is not rooted )


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Why can't my Galaxy S7 send and receive messages simultaneously?
So I've had my S7 for several months now, and by and far the most annoying thing is that it can't seem to send a message while simultaneously receiving a message. Way too often I'll be texting back and forth with a friend, and I'll hit send at the same time my phone receives a new text message. This causes my message to "spin" (the circle next to it spins) for about thirty seconds, before the notification about the message failing to send appears. It's super annoying, because I'll usually copy & paste the text and send a new message before the failed message notification even appears, because the new one will send instantly, while the other still is spinning!
Is this a common issue for the S7? I don't recall it happening with my Galaxy S4. Or is this expected behavior for the messaging app?

It's also possible that it's a network issue.

This is not your mobile phone's problem, but it is the issue with service provider, which don't allow this to be done. There is a point where it gives a few seconds to check if there are any stuck messages. It may also be the messaging app your using which might have a bug. During call, do you receive messages ?


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Cannot connect: Obtaining IP address
This is not a duplicate of 'Android stuck on obtaining IP address' and similar questions
When I try to connect to my home network with my android phone, it displays this message and never connects:
"Obtaining ip address...".

This only happens when it tries to connect directly to the modem, rather than another access point (which is much much slower in my case).
I have followed tips online, the standard reconnect, reboot everything etc.; aswell as changing from DHCP to static IP. After assigning a static IP I successfully connect to the modem, but I have no internet connection. Rebooting and using different IPs does not help.
This problem is infuriating. Sometimes when I leave it for (DHCP) ages (10-20 mins) it manages to connect successful, but then the connection typically breaks down again maybe half an hour later.
The modem in question is a virgin media fibre modem, model EVW3226 manufactured by Ubee.
The internet works perfectly on all other devices we have, although sometimes it crops up on the Samsung tablet aswell.
The problem device in question is my Oneplus X running the latest version of oxygen (android 6.0.1 in this case) for this device.

Does your modem have free addresses in dhcp pool? I didn't configure this model but I had some device with restricted internet access for static configured IP. anyway it's look like your dhcp server has some issues.


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Is there any Android TV that could act as a Bluetooth center?
I'd like to develop an app for Android TV that can control BLuetooth devices.
Is there any Android TV that could do that ?
Alternatively, could a TV box such as the Xiaomi Mi TV do that ?
http://www.mi.com/en/mibox/

It would be helpful to know if there are specific devices you are trying to connect/control or if you're wondering about the possibilities of connecting general Bluetooth devices.

I am wondering about the possibilities of connecting to general Bluetooth devices from the TV. For example, any Android TV app able to  play music on a Bluetooth speaker would prove it's possible.

The official Google Android TV support page has instructions for connecting devices via Bluetooth. This page (written in January 2018) specifies these steps for connecting Bluetooth speakers:

Find and select Settings from the app menu
Select 'Bluetooth' (may be under Wireless and Networks or Remote & accessories)
Use the Pair button on your speaker (or other device) to start the pairing process
Follow the dialog on the screen to complete pairing.

According to this answer on Stack Overflow, you should be able to connect up to 7 devices as long as they are above Bluetooth 4.0. The MiBox you linked to does have Bluetooth 4.0/3.0.
All this considered, yes, controlling Bluetooth devices via an Android TV is possible.
However, in relation developing an app to control Bluetooth devices, there are several in the Play Store now, but development questions are best handled on StackOvervlow.

Thanks @jlehenbauer do you know any app for Android TV controlling a bluetooth peripheral ?

When you say control, what exactly do you mean?

I mean connect to the peripheral in Bluetooth LE and send it command. The app on the Android TV would for instance connect to a Bluetooth speaker and play music on it

It sounds like this is possible using the steps above with a somewhat recent (less than 1 year-ish old) Android TV device.

Do you know if these steps can be done programmatically @jlehenbauer ?

No, but I'd imagine the much-referenced Tasker might be able to help.


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How to mount system.img on Android (or Linux)?
I want to modify some files in my system partition of the phone. It's EXT4. I plan to flash it later on my phone. I tried:
mount -w -t ext4 -o loop /storage/sdcard1/system.img /mnt/njz

and got this:

open backing file failed: Permission denied

Also, the phone is rooted, and the shell says it's rooted.
I also tried using su command before that command.
Also tried adding additional options after "loop", like
nosuid,nodev,default_permissions,user_id=0,group_id=0,gid=0,uid=0

Why no permissions?
Also tried file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777, and still same result.
I tried mounting this on Linux (Tiny Core Linux), and no problems. I used: sudo mount -t ext4 -o loop system.img /mnt/. In that case, my system.img was mounted from NTFS partition.

Apparently, my file was read-only, which I set up in Windows. That's a problem with "permission denied". For some reason, Android cannot change this, I had to use Windows or Symbian OS to unmark read-only property. Xplore doesn't show the permissions option for any files except if they are on some EXT partition. Root Explorer shows, and that's how I first noticed my problem, accidentally. I've seen all other files had different permissions in detailed view in Root Explorer. I tried changing permissions to 0777 using Root Explorer or Total Commander, and although they say it set it up, it didn't. This can't be done on the FAT32 partition. Of course, when I changed it using Windows, it showed the same permissions as other files. I remember I set this file to read-only a month ago to avoid accidental modification.
Later, I experienced an additional problem with mount, that is when I use -o loop only, it says 'device or resource busy'. But when I found where are my loop devices by searching for 'loop' using Xplore, I found there are files loop0 to loop7 in '/dev/block/'. So when I used -o loop=/dev/block/loop0, it again said the same problem message. But when I used -o loop=/dev/block/loop1 it finally mounted. I didn't have to use '-w' option to make it writable, just skipped any letter.
And forgot to say, we can mount it to any folder, but that folder has to exist. So, I made folder njz or nijaz or sistem in the root folder of my device using Xplore (set in settings superuser + mount writable, so it can make these things) and mounted it there. Note that that folder disappears after reset. Also, umount worked for unmounting: umount /njz/.
Also, that's what caused my original firmware to not work. It is always boot-looped just because the file is read-only. This is a huge problem in Linux. Need to contact Linux, Xplore, Total Commander, Root Explorer developers. SP Flash Tool was used to flash files, but the problem was in the file property.


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To report Youtube security bug
I found security vulnerability/bug on YouTube. I want to report. How can I report it? Is there a quick way?

Being that YouTube is a product of Google, You can report the bug on Google's report security bug, page
From the page:

If you have found a security bug in a Google product and want to
  report it to us, you've come to the right place. Please fill out the
  following form and we'll be in touch shortly. If this is a valid
  vulnerability report, it might also be eligible for a reward as part
  of our Vulnerability Reward Program. Thanks!


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Android (Nexus 7) bypass swipe/notification screen
I have fixed in-car install of a Nexus 7 (5.1.1) using Timur's kernel. For years this has been working fine - turn on ignition,and the tablet boots straight to the home screen (or last activity it was doing).
I only take the table out to charge every so often, I DO NOT alter settings - I'm happy with them.
Now, suddenly, the tablet boots to the Swipe/Notification screen - this is a royal p-i-t-a. If I don't react quickly enough the screen turns off and I have to take the tablet out of the dash in order to access the power button.
No updates have been applied to the tablet, I'm sure of it.
All accessibility options are turned off.
Noticed Security is set to swipe - but I haven't set this. How did I disable it?
Thanks
Not sure if this a coincidence, but only seemed to happen after I had changed the car battery....

Simply setting lockscreen security back to "none" should do. Also, you should always keep a BT keyboard paired to the device in the car, so you can wake up / manipulate the device handily without having to take it out.

Thanks Andy, but I don't have the option of "None"

Solved it :
Switch to Guest User, click the icon in the top right of quick access notification panel, remove Guest user then : Settings | Security | Screen Lock - select "None" (This was previously missing)


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SMS sending is auto-blocked, how to fix?
To a specific number, when I try to send a SMS, it is automatically/instantly blocked and fails.
Once, by mistake, I blocked sending messages to that number, but even after unblocking, the messages are still being blocked as if that number is still blocked.
I have deleted all old messages to that number, and also deleted all data and cache of the Messages app.

I have also tried to block and unblock again.
I went to application settings for this app but all looks ok.
I can send SMS to other numbers, it shows a waiting spinning icon and sends properly. But for the problematic number, it fails instantly, as if it doesnt even try to send the SMS at all, is blocked locally, by the Messages app...
Galaxy J7 Marshmallow.

@beeshyams after reboot, on the 1st try, it will show the spinning wait icon for about 3s and fail. All subsequent retries will instantly fail. Could this mean it was ,in some way, configured remotely on the provider as a blocked number, and my phone just retrieves that cfg and insta-blocks on sunsequent tries?

Mmm.. if I could send sms thru other apps that would be a workaround! bbl

Worked! And I set the new app as default! Should have tried that 2 years ago  :/. Thx!

I didnt find a fix the bundled messages app.
As workaround I just installed google's one and after 2 years I can send messages to the specific number again, thx!


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Apk Security on Automatic date and time
Is there any way to "mock" the Android date and time even while the option "automatic date and time" is turned on?
The reason I'm asking for such information is that my new app will have to operate offline while still being safe, thus I would need to know the "work arounds" in order to block/prevent the change of date and time even when checking for "automatic date and time" returns true

It's possible on a rooted device with Xposed module Per app hacking

Allow set a fake time to fake an app to a specific time just like time machine. Time format is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI

Nice, I'll do some "reversing" on the app to see what exactly I can do to try to avoid it (I hope, I'll be able to), thank you

There may be Magisk modules too, though a quick search didn't show up. Worth checking that out as well


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Adding account to android device running android version 2.3.6
Had this old phone lying around. I thought I re-purpose it for some IoT stuff. It an old Micromax A50 Ninja (running ginger bread 2.3.6). I want to make an app on this device that communicates with arduino. However, I cannot sign into the device. I re-checked with my credentials else where, and they checkout to be fine. But on this device, the sign-in still fails.
Is this because the OS is outdated? Well, can I do anything on this phone, now that this is the state of the device os?

"Secondly" is totally off-topic here (this site is for end-users, not for development issues) – so I took the freedom to remove that part. Furthermore,  this site works best if you put each question in a separate question post. As for the remaining part: Why? You don't even need any account to use the device. Have you tried a factory reset? Being that ancient, there's no danger of encountering "factory reset protection" (FRP); simply boot into recovery and do it.

The best solution seems to be to add an app password: https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords


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What is this square chat bubble / balloon icon on the top left of a screen. It has a call out arrow on bottom left

There is a square chat balloon icon or chat bubble appearing on the notification panel on the top left of screen. What does that indicate ? It has a call out arrow on the bottom left.

Pull down the notification panel and see for yourself

It is not on my phone. Saw it on someone else's. I have never seen it before

Taking into account that it is a chat bubble icon, it means that you have got a new message from a person while the chat/message app was closed or in the background. I think that it is almost the same as the chat notification indicator of 'Facebook lite' app

Through help in another forum I was able to find out what the square chat bubble icon with the left callout was on my phone... an indicator that my Walgreens app was running in the background. I was able to set up a widget on my screen (hold, select widgets, select Settings 1x1 and drag to screen, select Notification Log as type) which shows my notification log and Walgreens has been running and/or using battery all-day every day for a few months. This is a problem as I do not often actively use that app. Guess I'll be uninstalling Walgreens.


text:
Access phone without entering SIM PIN
I have a SIM card completely stuck in the SIM slot of my old phone so it's asking me for the SIM PIN every time which I do not know. Opening a Samsung S6 to access the SIM-slot on MB is not the easiest thing so I'd rather not...
How can I close down the SIM PIN prompt to get into the phone?
I do know the PIN of the phone but not for the SIM
Phone: Galaxy S6

In order to unlock you need PUK code. If you have your SIM card kit, that was given to you when you purchased your SIM card then you might find PUK code on that. Since you pointed out that your phone is old so you might not have PUK or SIM kit in  that case Contact your carrier for PUK(Personal Unblocking Key).

@global_warming Comments are for seeking clarification only. Please post what you just wrote as an answer.

same Q as https://android.stackexchange.com/q/159746/55984

In order to unlock you need PUK(Personal Unblocking Key) code. If you have your SIM card kit, that was given to you when you purchased your SIM card then you might find PUK code on that. Since you pointed out that your phone is old so you might not have PUK or SIM kit, in that case Contact your carrier for PUK, they will ask you some details which varies carrier to carrier.
Then you have to block you PIN by entering it wrong multiple times(5-10 times) and you will be asked for PUK code. Remember, if you enter incorrect PUK code 10 times you SIM card will be blocked and you will get a message SIM card registration failed.


text:
Gmail on android - notifications for multiple users using the same account?
I have a Gmail account which accessed by multiple people. Sometimes it happens that we receive an e-mail and one of us doesn't get notified.
I'm guessing this is happening because when the e-mail arrives, if one of us gets a notification before the others and reads it too soon, then Gmail marks it read and doesn't notify other devices.
The only workaround I can think of is setting up an e-mail forward for all of us and then just disabling the notifications from the shared account.
Is there a better solution to this?

Is this really an ANDROID problem, or merely a misapplication of Gmail to serve many people? To extrapolate, would this be an ANDROID problem if the singular account served 5 THOUSAND people, or even just 2? This is a misused Gmail problem. Please investigate how to configure THAT to satisfy your application scenario .

Don't have a good suggestion on this issue. Just wanted to mention that when you have a few people in the same account, you might wanna watch out for this

@wbogacz nope. That's why I originally asked this on superuser but it was migrated here. I just mentioned android to give full details of what we are using.

@Abochur I'm aware of that. These accounts are actually "gmail for business" accounts used by my institute and they have disabled that. So you can't remotely install apps or do anything with your device with access to the account


text:
Android Install button inactive, cancel works
Unable to tap on the INSTALL button for an app (that I created). Cancel button works fine.
I have looked into other answers and they all seem to be talking about screen dimming / blue light filter apps - I am not using any screen dimming or blue-light filter app/tool, or have any such settings on (that I am aware of).
My phone is an Honor 6X. Its a phonegap/ cordova app that I created for my personal use. Have been using it for months, and have installed updated versions many times with no issue. Few days ago, while using the app - it got stuck (it was writing a lot of data into an SQL database) when it sorta hung up for a long time. So I closed the app - and after that it stopped working. It just won't start again. (I guess the SQL file got corrupted because I forcefully closed it when it was still writing data)..
I uninstalled it, and when I tried to reinstall again - the INSTALL button won't work - seems to be inactive.
I then changed the app ID (reverse domain id), app versions etc - and tried to install it as a new app - but that didn't work either.
Finally, I downloaded another third party app - (which I had successfully installed on my phone before) - and same issue - unable to tap the install button. So it looks like I am unable to install any kind of third-party app, not just that app. Can somebody help?

Are you able to give runtime permissions to app?

Try installing with ADB Shell. If the problem persits, you might need to perform a factory reset that may solve it.

Do you have any type of screen filter app switched on? In such cases, these problems do occur, like in my case.

Well, this might sound stupid but when you are on the install screen lock your phone and then unlock it(by pressing the power button) and then see if it works. It worked on my Amazon Kindle fire.

@global_warming - how do I know?  During the setup - it shows a grey bullet, and says - this app will get the following permissions (read and write into SD card). Cancel OR Install. But I am unable to tap the install button here. It used to work fine before - this same app with the same permission requirements.

@esQmo_ thanks. Looking into it. Will update on how that goes..

@WrichikBasu - no, I don't have any such apps. I do have a option for it in settings (and I have used it in the past as well), but its turned off right now. I played with many options in the 'Display' settings to see if turning something on or off will make it work. But no luck.

@AnuragThakur thanks for the unique tip. just tried it a few times. but no luck :(

Did ADB install worked? As suggest by esQmo_?

@AnuragThakur - not yet - still looking into it and figuring things - will give it a try sometime later and will update here..

@AD1 I'm sorry should have made it clear. Can you tap on allow/deny during runtime permissions for any app? Generally that happens when "draw over other apps" is on. Under apps->configure apps->special access->draw over other apps

@global_warming - yes, I am able to allow/deny various runtime permissions for other apps. I have many apps that use the "draw over other apps" permission. I am not sure my app (the one that stopped working & won't install again - let us call it MBMT) needed or had that permission.

No, the problem doesn't lies with your app "MBMT". Package Manager is used to install apps means you won't be able to install any app. I would suggest you to revoke 'draw over other apps' from all apps that are allowed (have draw over other apps ON) and then try installing.

SQLite has transactional integrity, so force-closing the app in the middle of a transaction can't corrupt the database file. It just loses the in-progress write. But perhaps the file was already corrupt for some other reason, and that's why the write was hanging in the first place.

@global_warming - thank a lot, will give it a try. Have 220+ apps installed on my phone, so might take a while for me to do that..

@DanHulme - oh, yes probably..

@esQmo_  it worked. Installing it using adb shell worked, and was really simple too. Thanks a lot!

I'm glad I helped :D

Anurag's suggestion worked for me. From the install screen lock your phone with your power button then unlocked and voila there's the install button

Same problem as I had.. My trick is to DL the app then open download folder tap the app, scroll down to the no install..  Hit back then tap on the install screen u see.. Voila it now allows Install


text:
Browsing PC through phone with adb shell
I am connected to my phone from the laptop using wireless adb. After that, I connect my phone to laptop physically with a usb-wire. Now with the wireless adb-shell open, I want to find the wired "connection" and browse my pc through android-phone. (Like open a shared folder on the laptop with adb-shell)
Is that possible and if yes, how? (I want to replicate a similar scenario with my phone so I can connect it to my car-navigation system and browse through the system from my PC using adb-shell).

By adb you can copy files from the phone to your pc

Not possible. ADB is a one-way channel. Excerpt from help:

When you start an adb client, the client first checks whether there is
an adb server process already running. If there isn't, it starts the
server process. When the server starts, it binds to local TCP port
5037 and listens for commands sent from adb clients—all adb clients
use port 5037 to communicate with the adb server.

To access PC you would have to set up an ADB server on your mobile device, which is currently impossible.

can you use adb shell without root?

yes, you can freely