text:
Download Apps for Android 3
I have an Android 3 device but the play store doesn't work.  I have tried updating it.
Is there a way to force the download of apps?

Google Play services and the Market (ie Play Store) should update themselves as long as you have a valid Google account on your device and there is sufficient space on the device. Try going here first: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gms and click Install/Installed button and select your device press Install. After it is successfully installed, reboot and open the Market app, it should open but don't do anything but close it, wait about 15 minutes and it should auto update to the Play Store and you are good to update/install apps.

@acejavelin your answer worked thank you!  You may post it as answer if you would like or I can self answer.

Glad it worked... posted as an answer!

Google Play services and the Market (ie Play Store) should update themselves as long as you have a valid Google account on your device and there is sufficient space on the device. Try going here first to update Google Play Services manually and click Install/Installed button and select your device press Install. After it is successfully installed, reboot and open the Market app, it should open but don't do anything but close it, wait about 15 minutes and it should auto update to the Play Store and you are good to update/install apps.


text:
Nexus 5X recovery via fastboot or adb?
Has just crashed and refused to turn on reliably, gets to white google logo and switches off. Occasionally gets to Fastboot menu, but never gets to recovery menu
I suspect battery issue, although I have power cable connected, and was on 70% when it crashed
Erase the current recovery by using fastboot:  fastboot erase recovery
Flash the recovery.img file using fastboot:  fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
Now you've flashed a fresh recovery image to your device. You can do this without losing any data, and if you use a custom recovery like TWRP, these instructions apply as well. I do this all the time when I reload the stock software on my Nexus 6.
Running latest Ubuntu GNU/Linux on laptop
android-tools-adb                                    5.1.1r36+git20160322-0ubun
android-tools-fastboot                               5.1.1r36+git20160322-0ubuntu3
Google LG Nexus 5X, running latest updates.
But isn't showing up as a device I can use by fastboot or adb
$ lsusb
show one extra device:
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 05c6:9008 Qualcomm, Inc. Gobi Wireless Modem (QDL mode)

Apr 29 15:04:59 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157627.493587] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:05:04 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157632.606057] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:05:19 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157647.823323] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:05:19 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157648.039307] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:05:25 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157653.151722] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:05:35 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157663.392584] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:05:40 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157668.505031] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:05:55 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157683.722224] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:05:55 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157683.938212] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:06:00 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157689.050650] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:06:16 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157704.267841] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 29 15:06:16 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157704.483826] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 10 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:06:21 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157709.500278] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
Apr 29 15:06:26 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157714.716594] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
Apr 29 15:06:26 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157714.920605] usb 3-1: device not accepting address 10, error -62
Apr 29 15:06:26 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157715.032581] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 11 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:06:31 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157720.045014] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
Apr 29 15:06:37 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157725.261441] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
Apr 29 15:06:37 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157725.465430] usb 3-1: device not accepting address 11, error -62
Apr 29 15:06:37 ubuntu1404 kernel: [157725.465488] usb usb3-port1: unable to enumerate USB device

Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.754673] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 12 using xhci_hcd
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.885855] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=05c6, idProduct=9008
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.885862] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.885865] usb 3-1: Product: QHSUSB__BULK
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.885868] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.887133] qcserial 3-1:1.0: Qualcomm USB modem converter detected
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158668.887354] usb 3-1: Qualcomm USB modem converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 mtp-probe: checking bus 3, device 12: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-1"
Apr 29 15:22:20 ubuntu1404 mtp-probe: bus: 3, device: 12 was not an MTP device
Apr 29 15:22:22 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158670.847529] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 12
Apr 29 15:22:22 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158670.847868] qcserial ttyUSB0: Qualcomm USB modem converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
Apr 29 15:22:22 ubuntu1404 kernel: [158670.847914] qcserial 3-1:1.0: device disconnected

Are the flashing red led codes any information? (5) (12) (35)
Any suggestions appreciated!

Can you make it stay in fastboot? And run fastboot devices

Hi Sumeet. Thank you for your reply. I've not been able to get it to switch on for last two days. The red LED in the lower speaker flashes. Does that mean not enough power to switch on? Could indicate low power?    I wondered if that "Qualcomm, Inc. Gobi Wireless Modem (QDL mode)" message, means that it is stuck not charging, and stuck in some kind of firmware mode.

Nexus 5X has an internal battery (not user replaceable) but I found online how to take cover off. Is it worth trying to disconnect the battery, to force a reset?

maybe that will work, but my knowledge on hardware issues would be based on guesses and nothing else

Tried to connect to the  Quallcom QDL serial device, but no luck with a few baud rates
microcom -s 38400 -p /dev/ttyUSB0

Hi. I carefully look off the cover, earthed myself, and disconnected battery for 1 minute. Reconnected, but same problem when reassembled.  I might buy replacement LG BL-T19 battery, or borrow one

borrowing is a good idea, because if it's not a battery problem then you'd save a lot of money but then again your name is rich, have you tried going to LG support? (it's also an LG device)

Hi, thank you for your reply. Yes LG provide 2 year warranty, however they told me all data is lost. So that is not much use alone, I didn't sync holiday photos :-(    I wonder if it is just the charging circuit. Doesn't even turn on now, just the flashing red light within speaker. Do you know what that means?

No but if it was a problem with micro USB then it would not have been recognized in your lsusb, right?

Good point Sumeet! Yes, if USB data connection is working, it would be surprising if charging was also broken.. although charging circuit may be separate. Usually separate powermangement chip (I am an embedded software developer).  Certainly the device is stuck in Broadcomm QDL mode..

That might be the case

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How do I take 2-second long exposures on the Google Pixel?
This post on the Google blog says that the Pixel camera supports shutter speeds up to 2 seconds. But I'm unable to use shutter speeds longer than 0.7 seconds, no matter which app I use — Lightroom, Camera FV-5 and Open Camera.
Do I need to flash the Pixel with a custom build of Android in order to do this?

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


text:
Problem with new Marshmallow 6.1 on Samsung J5
the Facebook Messenger app & Whatsapp audio & video calling is not unavailable, it wants the access for camera & microphone, when the settings come I do it but it doesn't work, what to do?

After clicking audio or video call on messenger screen

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! Please see: “Screen overlay detected” dialog?, Screen Overlay Detected, Permission problem and all the other similar posts.

Try to delete and reinstall the application, id don't work try to reset the phone


text:
Why does multi-user exist in Android if it doesn't work?

/sdcard -> /storage/sdcard0
/storage/sdcard0 -> /storage/emulated/legacy
/storage/emulated/legacy -> /storage/emulated/0

Based on the above, if all the locations point to the same virtual storage, what's the point in having separate storage locations for each different user?
If /storage/emulated/0,1,2,3,etc. all point to /storage/sdcard0, and saving files in any storage location make it appear in all other locations, how is it possible to have user designated storage if all information is the same for all users?
Or is it not supposed to be designed this way...that every user's storage should be the exact same, but if that were the case, then why does having multiple folders with different numbers for multiple users exist? Am I missing something here? Am I missing some key piece of information? Why allocate folders for a specific user if they all point to the same location and contain the same exact information?

See my comments on your similar question: When files are created in Android 4.2 and above, are files ever stored in one location? – and do read the Wikipedia article on symbolic links I told you instead of re-asking the same again. As I already wrote, you're looking at it from the wrong end, symbolic links work the other way around: it's not /storage/emulated/* pointing to /storage/sdcard0, but just the opposite – so sdcard always points to the current user's storage.

@Izzy On my 5.1.1, /storage/sdcard0 points to /storage/emulated/legacy. All hail the Symlink Hell!

@DeathMaskSalesman Yes, same as in Narcotixs post. Now, where does /storage/emulated/legacy point to? #3 above. So what is accessed finally, and where are data written to and read from when accessing /sdcard? The storage area of the logged-in user (in the example above that's the device owner, as the 0 in emulated/0 indicates, because the device owner is logged in – if you follow the chain of Narcotixs' questions, OP never tried with a "secondary user").

@Izzy So, what you're saying is that /storage/emulated/legacy points to /mnt/shell/emulated/X, with X being the currently logged in user, is it?

@Izzy Yes, from the output of mount, I can now see that /dev/fuse is mounted on /mnt/shell/emulated. Pretty hacky way to handle things, especially if you consider that the internal storage visible to a non-rooted user is just a subset of the /data partition (i.e. /data/media).

@DeathMaskSalesman You got it, yes! That's what I'm saying all the time :) Just with minor device/ROM-specific differences (as what in our case is /mnt/shell/emulated/X in the OP's case is /storage/emulated/X). But results are the same, the corresponding ROMs just chose a different mount-point (to achieve better confusion – after all, isn't it a "mounted con FUSE"?)

@Izzy That's the layer of psychotic hell the developers usually hide from the power users, heh. Why don't you write a huge answer with all of the above?

@DeathMaskSalesman because I already did that on Narcotixs' original question? Of course I could add my "Latin joke" ("mounting with FUSE (Latin: ’con FUSE’) leads to conFUSion") #D

@Izzy Not just Latin, but modern Italian as well!

@Izzy , I finally understand now, it all makes sense. Symlinks just redirect content and data to the current user's designated storage location.They don't actually hold any data at all, there merely reflect what is in that location. So if that's the case, then for example, let's say I'm "user3" and my designated storage is "/storage/emulated/3". All the symlinks would only point that location, because that is the current user that is logged in. Thus, multi-user actually works.

I wonder what would happen if a different user tries to access and save data in a different user's emulated storage (e.g., user3 attempts to access user1's emulated storage folder). Would user3 be able to gain either read or write access in the first place? @Izzy , any thoughts?

\o/ Yes, exactly so :) And no, the mechanism should take care for that. If you take a closer look, all those targets belong to "root". I don't know how exactly that works, but accessing another user's content should not be possible (except when being root).

Interesting...Well, I've exhausted you two, @Izzy and Death Mask Salesman, and I'm sorry for the confusion. Thanks for helping me understand symlinks and emulated storage. All hail the symlink hell!

@Narcotixs let me close this one here as duplicate. I will update my answer with some additional details I found (the answer why you cannot access another users storage obviously is because it's not mounted – at least not in "your context", and you cannot access what is "not there" ;)

@Izzy so when a different user logs in, all other users emulated storage is unmounted? So if you are user3, all you would see is /storage/emulated/3 for example?

Something like that, yes. A bit more technical, though. Please see my updated answer for more details.


text:
Stuck notification on LG 's Phone app "new voice mail"
My phone's an LG G4 on Android 6. I've received a new vocal message which I've read already. The notification won't go away.
I can't force close the app as it's a system app ( "Phone" )
I can't disable notifications on this app for the same reason.
When I reboot the phone, the notification show up again...
Any idea would be appreciated. Thx

Have you tried clearing the data/cache of Phone?

Hey thank you! there was no data in Phone app's cache but some storage was used. The notification is removed once storage  cleared! I'll tell you if the notification pops out again ^^


text:
Reboot drops battery by 2% each time
I have installed custom ROM, Official Lineage OS 14.1 on my Redmi 1S. I used to reboot device sometimes. And, I noticed that each time after reboot, battery percentage reduced by 2%. I also, tested on my Redmi 3S, running stock ROM, But, there, it won't drop battery. Does the device really use 2% of battery to reboot?

Yes and no
It does take energy to reboot, but it isn't the phone rebooting that takes this energy. The energy is lost through hystersis which the battery algorithm is accounting for.
Krexington_III, who worked for a summer as a fuel gauging engineer for a major cellphone manufacturer in northern Europe and says:

Hysteresis is simply the fact that once we've got the battery
discharging, if we stop discharging it (say, by turning the phone
off), it will keep on discharging by itself for a short while.

(Paragraph 3)
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qrdc9/eli5how_do_digital_devices_know_how_much_energy/
Phones need time to tell how much energy the battery has, and don't keep track of the battery while it is off. Your phone was programed to estimate that 2% was taken away while the phone was off due to Hystersis. Your other phone does not make this estimation (the user won't notice).
I suggest reading Krexington_III's post for (a lot) more information on how phone batteries and their algorithms work.


text:
google play services constantly crashing
My sister's got cyangonmod 11 to have android kitkat on here sony Xperia P.
At first it was smooth but now she's facing constant crashing of google play services app.
I've seen these links before :
Google Play Services crashing constantly
Cyanogenmod: Google Play Services keeps crashing after update
Google Play Services and Play Store crashing
The error message I get in the logs is different from the first question, I tried to install google play services from apkmirror as suggested by the second answer, I tried to install versions 10.2.98 and 10.5.53, the version needs to be 030 as suggested by apkmirror and I'm sure about this.
Reinstalling google play services from apkmirror and clearing data does solve the problem at first but the next day or so it comes back.
The output of adb logcat *:F is this :

F/libc    (25812): Fatal signal 7 (SIGBUS) at 0x00000000 (code=128), thread 26060 (pool-48-thread-)
F/ActivityManager( 2121): Service ServiceRecord{431644d8 u0 com.google.android.gms/com.google.android.location.reporting.service.ReportingAndroidService} in process ProcessRecord{42556cf025812:com.google.android.gms.persistent/u0a23} not same as in map: null
F/libc    (26063): Fatal signal 7 (SIGBUS) at 0x00000000 (code=128), thread 26135 (pool-45-thread-)
F/ActivityManager( 2121): Service ServiceRecord{43304570 u0 com.google.android.gms/.phenotype.service.PhenotypeService} in process ProcessRecord{4295d810 26063:com.google.android.gms.persistent/u0a23} not same as in map: null
F/ActivityManager( 2121): Service ServiceRecord{431afc48 u0 com.google.android.gms/com.google.android.location.reporting.service.ReportingAndroidService} in process ProcessRecord{4295d81026063:com.google.android.gms.persistent/u0a23} not same as in map: null

I'm sure those are the crashes because that's where I say the crash message.
I don't understand that not same as in map : null thing , could you tell what does it means ? and how do we solve this issue ?
My sister also tried the suggestion in this site :  https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/found-a-fix-for-google-play-services-crashing-constantly.312830/ which didn't work.
If you need the full output of adb logcat or maybe adb logcat *:E I'll be happy to add them, the phone is also rooted and TWRP recovery is installed just so you know.

Just some raw guesses: "map" might refer to the Google Services Map (kind of a list of available services), which seems not to know about the one that wants to start (null). And: as all that GoogleService stuff usually needs to be a system app, have you installed it as such?

@Izzy yes I have it installed as such

@Izzy I've got to admit though that I had removed it using System apps remover, I recoverd it and cleared google play services data, will report back if that solves the issue :)

Ah! That could indeed be the culprit. OTOH, I found that kind of installation (just using the .apk from APKMirror) reported unstable more than once. Usually, one flashes the entire GApps zip file. Or uses something better and less privacy-intrusive, like microG :)

@Izzy I did flash GApps zip file, I just resorted to apkmirror because I thought it needs reinstallation or update

If it needs an update, it usually takes care for that itself (more often than you'd like sometimes). And folks wanting the very latest immediately (not waiting for it to update itself) often reported trouble thereafter :) So did making it a system app again show any good results meanwhile?

@Izzy it did but since the problem sometimes comes back xD I'll still wait before posting an answer

The problem solved, previously we had used System app remover to remove some system apps we thought we don't need, we removed google maps, as Izzy guessed google play services was looking for it without finding it ending in a constant crash.
When we restored back google maps app , cleared data no more crashes since then and the phone became faster and more responsive too :) .


text:
ANZ goMoney AU not alllowing developer options to be enabled
I have recently purchased a Nexus 6, to install Kali NetHunter.
After installing ANZ goMoney AU, It opens, and prompts me with:

We noticed that you have some Developer Options turned on under your Settings.
This can cause issues with ANZ goMoney.
To continue, please turn them off and restart the app.
EXIT

I was wondering if there was any way to bypass this screen, as I use developer options for a lot of things.


text:
What process happens when there is a system optimization?
My question is the following: Not long ago I was moving apk, data and .dex files to the directories / data, and they did not show the applications I had manually installed, if not until I rebooted on the device and a message appeared saying "optimize the system" from the moment I was curious about this.
My purpose is to learn what happens in this process and to know how to be able to repeat it manually.
If you know anything about this, I'll be happy to hear your comments and answers.

To repeat this process, install the APK file as you normally will. Odex-ing is part of the installation process.

It can be misleading that files in /data/dalvik-cache/ have the extension of .dex, because their actual format is odex and is different from what you extract from APK.

What is Android doing when it says “optimizing apps/system”?
Basically the android system will be creating an optimised version of each application. This process makes each app start as fast as possible with the new Android version.

While it says ‘optimising,’ operating system generates ‘odex’ files
  for your apps from scratch. As a simple explanation, odex files can
  help the system boot faster and reduces the time needed for launching
  applications.

Apk files and odex files

The longer story is that when an APK file is added to your Android
  system, it’s not actually stored that way. It’s converted to something
  called an “odex” file.

The Android OS does not store apps as is after installation (i.e., one single APK file). An optimized version of the app is stored in the Dalvik cache — called the odex file.”
What Is an Odex File?
In Android file system, applications come in packages with the extension .apk. These application packages, or APKs contain certain .odex  (Optimized Dalvik EXecutable) files whose supposed function is to save space. These odex files are actually collections of parts of an application that are optimized before booting. Doing so speeds up the boot process, as it preloads part of an application. On the other hand, it also makes hacking those applications difficult because a part of the coding has already been extracted to another location before execution.
Deodex
Deodexing is basically repackaging of these APKs in a certain way, such that they are reassembled into classes.dex files (Dalvik EXecutable).

By doing that, all pieces of an application package are put together
  back in one place, thus eliminating the worry of a modified APK
  conflicting with some separate odexed parts.

In summary, Deodexed ROMs (or APKs) have all their application packages put back together in one place, allowing for easy modification such as theming. Since no pieces of code are coming from any external location, custom ROMs or APKs are always deodexed to ensure integrity.
There are several explanations on how this works:

In Android, applications come in packages with the extension  .apk.
  These application packages, or APKs contain certain .odex files whose
  supposed function is to save space. These ‘odex’ files are actually
  collections of parts of an application that are optimized before
  booting. Doing so speeds up the boot process, as it preloads part of
  an application.
Android OS uses a Java-based virtual machine for running applications,
  called the Dalvik Virtual Machine. A deodexed, or .dex file contains
  the cache used by this virtual machine (referred to as Dalvik-cache)
  for a program, and it is stored inside the APK. An .odex file, on the
  other hand, is an optimized version of this same .dex file that is
  stored next to the APK as opposed to inside it. Android applies this
  technique by default to all the system applications. Now, when an
  Android-based system is booting, the davlik cache for the Davlik VM is
  built using these .odex files, allowing the OS to learn in advance
  what applications will be loaded, and thus speeds up the booting
  process. By deodexing these APKs, a developer actually puts the .odex
  files back inside their respective APK packages. Since all code is now
  contained within the APK itself, it becomes possible to modify any
  application package without conflicting with the operating system’s
  execution environment.

How to do the process manually;
If you want to manually optimise your apks, there are some options:

You could try using  using applications like Lucky patcher
Alternatively with Windows you can zip-align them with
Apk decomplier (apk sign tool)

Acknowledgements

What Is Odex And Deodex In Android
What is Android doing when, after an upgrade, it tells you it's "optimizing" the apps?
http://alvinalexander.com/android/what-android-doing-optimizing-apps-after-system-upgrade-restart

Thanks for the info, but I have another question, I already copied the dex in the dalvik-cache directory, however the app icon is not displayed in the android launcher.

Because the .dex will not be "built" into te dalvik virtual machine as explained above, and this process happens during booting hence you have to reboot after movibg your dex file so that it will be optimised first in cache, and associated parts moved to respective locations.

But there is no way to activate this process at any time without having to restart the device. Thank you

Nevertheless, did the explanation help you understand what happens when android says "system is optimising"?. From the look of things, it seems that was the main question , I aplologise if I misquoted you

You are not right my curiosities, they took me off the subject. Thank you

The link you provided for Lucky Patcher is not the official site. It have the potential of containing malware. This link (above) is correct.


text:
Google Cardboard Icon not displaying Samsung Android Phone(s) in Youtube App
I am unable to get the cardboard icon to display on any 360 videos in youtube. I have Cardboard and Google VR Services installed on my Samsung S5 (just factory reset it, no other apps).
Youtube is updated to 12.15.55. The cardboard app works fine as expected (responds to movements of the phone).
When watching a 360 video the cardboard icon is not available and the video just shows in "flattened" mode. It is running Android 6.0.1
All the other threads I have found on this have been older and deal with updates to YouTube of the OS which I think should not be my issue?
I am having trouble with the same on an S3 too, but thought that might be because it is older.

You could try these methods to resolve the issue:

Logging out of Google account in the Youtube App

Some users suggest a workaround involving logging out of the Youtube App to resolve the cardboard icon.

Here is one user's explanation:

I logout my google account in the youtube app, the cardboard icon
  appears and can view the video now in 360°

Fix resolution of phone.

If you happen to have changed the DPI on your phone, try reverting back to regular resolution.

3. Uninstall Youtube Updates

Since the cardboard icon used to work fine in older builds of Youtube, temporarily downgrading the Youtube App in the meantime until the issue is resolved.
Many issues feel the issue has to do with the Youtube App itself :

Only appears to be a problem with YouTube. Cardboard apps and other
  videos I have tried work fine.

Also;

The cardboard icon disappeared after last update and it was working
  perfectly in previous version.The cardboard VR apps are still working.

Other issues: Incompatibility

Your device may not be marked as compatible with Cardboard. If your device isn't compatible then that explains why you don't see that option.

Hope this helps
References

YouTube Help Forum: No cardboard icon displayed in updated Android YouTube app
No Cardboard icon in YouTube app

Strangely - on the S5 logging out of the YouTube app fixed this. On the S3's logging IN TO the YouTube app corrected the lack of cardboard icon displaying. I think the fact that I had two phones, one in each state, kept me from testing that as an issue.

Thanks for confirming the results!,  its great that this issue is resolved

Phone must have gyroscope for this feature to work. Try installing Cardboard app, if you are not able to, then your phone is not compatible.

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


text:
Nexus 5x No Wifi. Default MAC 02-00-00-00-00-00 change attempt
So I bought new Nexus 5x with android 6.0 and everything worked fine, but when I updated to 7.1.2 suddenly wifi stoped working. (It seeks for wifi networks forever). When I go to settings I can see MAC adress which is default one 02:00:00:00:00:00. I've noticed that its common problem for phone like Nexus 5, 5x 6p and Pixels but all solutions I could find just failed.
What i have tried:
first simplest solutions they gave like pulling off SIM card, turning off phone, charging battery to 100%. - Failed
Then i was trying to install other versions of Nougath 7, 7.1 , 7.1.2. Switching back to Android 6 makes wifi running again.
Some people said that changing MAC adress resolved issue, so firstly I have rooted my phone. Then I have tried to use some external programs for changing MAC but they didint worked.
Problem
I am trying to change MAC manualy. I did it few times on other linux/windows machines with no issue.
when i check for avalible network interfaces throught
ifconfig
it outputs
bullhead:/ $ ifconfig
rmnet_ipa0 Link encap:UNSPEC
      UP RUNNING  MTU:2000  Metric:1
      RX packets:843 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:1129 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
      RX bytes:563887 TX bytes:210944

dummy0    Link encap:UNSPEC
      inet6 addr: fe80::78e6:16ff:fe96:3cf7/64 Scope: Link
      UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
      RX bytes:0 TX bytes:210

rmnet_data0 Link encap:UNSPEC
      inet addr:10.156.9.217  Mask:255.255.255.252
      inet6 addr: fe80::53e3:f4d7:6ca9:be5e/64 Scope: Link
      UP RUNNING  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:843 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:1129 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
      RX bytes:568878 TX bytes:210944

lo        Link encap:UNSPEC
      inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
      inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope: Host
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
      RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
      RX bytes:0 TX bytes:0

there is no eth0 interface nor wlan0. All of those interfaces does not have mac assigned. As I have tested rmnet_ipa0 and rmnet_data0 are probably for mobile connection (ifconfig (rm..) down makes mobile connection off.
So my question is how do I find network interface for wifi so I can try digging in it.
Thanks!

If nothing works, you could try flashing the latest factory image. [7.1.2]

I did. Same issue

https://forum.xda-developers.com/general/help/qa-wifi-stuck-mac-020000000000-g2-g3-g4-t3452133   Seems to be a hardware issue. You could try sending it to the manufacturer if it's still under warranty

Strange thing. But if it was a hardware problem - wifi on android 6 would not run either right? But it works

what is your fastboot critical unlock state?

Install lineageos and see if it works
As I see, vendor firmwares are quite glitchy on nexus phones (I have nexus 5 (Hammerhead, non-X) and vendor android 6 worked with freezes while latest lineageos nightly works perfectly (though without gapps))


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Tasker/IFTTT - Dual SIM missed call auto sms respond
Is it possible to create a script that send sms automatically when there is missed/declined call but send them based on which SIM the call was missed?  For example i miss a call that was going onto SIM 2 so it sends a sms from SIM 2 and vice versa.

Automate has dual SIM support, i.e. Subscription id in the Call incoming and SMS send blocks.


text:
How to install an application manually in the /data
My problem is that I want to be able to install an application manually without the help of the android system, ie I want to be able to install an application by copying the apk, dex and data files in the data directories, and be able to present the application as installed. Because I copied the files previously and the application does not appear as installed, if not until I restart the device.
The purpose of my question is to learn more about the system I use the most famous Android
If you know of any way to help me, I'll be happy to hear from you. Thank you

Anyway even if you correctly put the files into the right place, you still need PackageManager to update its database. And on every boot PM automatically scans for new packages that's not found before, so you may still have to reboot.

Installing an app involves more than just placing random files somewhere on the data partition. In short: each app get's its own user and group id, SEAndroid context, entry in the app database mapped to the internal user id, optimizing the DEX file for the hardware to either ODEX or OAT, scanning for launchable activities, registering broadcast handler etc. You can't even do half of these actions manually because of the sheer complexity. Let the package manager handle everything for you, it's there for a reason.


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Is it impossible to pull a database file from non debuggable app in a non rooted device?
Here's what I tried:

adb shell "run-as my.package ..." doesn't work because the app was installed without the android:debuggable option.
adb backup doesn't work (it produces an empty file)
I can't use the app to copy the database to sdcard, since I'm using a new computer which has a different signature (then, AndroidStudio asks to reinstall the app)

Do I have any option to extract the database?

You need to root your device or at least create a NANDroid Backup

Impossible without rooting.


text:
What is the reason why partial amounts of files show up while connected via MTP?
This question is in reference to an ongoing issues brought up in the past about being able to see all files on a device through an file manager app, but only a partial amount showing in Windows Explorer while a device is connected to a PC via MTP.
Below are some recollections of this issues:

Not all files are visible over MTP
SD card not showing files when connected to pc
Nexus 4 not showing files via MTP

As for why folders and files do not show up in Windows Explorer while connected via MTP, it’s not exactly known what the cause or reason is. Kevin Panko in link #3 said that "The MTP cache gets out of date...", but I'm not sure if this is correct since there was no further explanation.
My hypothesis is that if you create content in any other storage location other than user designated storage, it gets transferred to the user designated location (e.g., /sdcard --> /storage/emulated/0), and does not directly communicate with Media Storage, avoiding the process of being added to Media Storage (a system app that contains the current state of the current user's storage). Thus, I believe Media Storage is programmed to only collect changes that occur when they are made directly in the user designated storage, or /storage/emulated/0 for example.
The Media Storage app dictates what is being shown in Windows Explorer. If you clear the Media Storage app, a user won't be able to see any content at all when plugging in their device into a PC. So therefore, if it never gets added to Media Storage it will never show up on a PC via MTP.
To add to this hypothesis, when you create a file in user designated storage, /storage/emulated/0 for example, that file will show up on a PC through MTP instantaneously, even while simultaneously connected via MTP. This does not occur when created in any other storage location.
What is causing this issue?

Reasonable hypothesis and corresponds with my own observation, but still, the core question remains. +1 for visibility.

@AndyYan , not getting any visibility, what should I do? How do I bump this question?

Edits, like you already did. Or bounty, which you can't do right now.


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Do system apps automatically get root permissions?
If I install the famous App "Tincore Key Mapper" as a system app, will it get the required root permissions without my phone being rooted or damaged? If the answer is positive: How to do that via ADB?

If your phone isn't rooted, then none of the apps can get root access, regardless of whether they are installed as system app. Also, I quite doubt how you can install extra system apps without root. Rooting may require a custom recovery and may not be easily done with only ADB.

Exactly that (+1). But, if installed as system app, it can use permissions restricted to such (i.e. permission-levels 'system' and 'systemOrSignature') if requested. Moreover, an app doesn't get permissions automatically, it must explicitly request them via its Manifest. Same for apps that should use "root powers": no app runs with "root powers" automatically without explicitly requesting root access itself.

@Izzy Some apps use exploits to acquire and even "conquer" root permissions. For example KingRoot steals root from SuperSU.

I could say "now you contradict yourself" – as your answer text states the opposite. But yes, using exploits (if available) a malicious app could do that. And some in fact do, then migrating themselves to system apps (to survive even a factory-reset). As far as I've heard, some even root the device without the knowledge of the user. But IMHO the question wasn't about that aspect ;)

The system apps do not have root access, but they have a lot of access. Maybe you can install Magisk Manager like a system app and gain "something like root". Installing system apps can't be done by adb, unless the phone is already rooted.
Theoretically, you intercept the phone's WiFi traffic (Bettercap) while it is updating a normal system app like Camera (update from the Settings.) Then you can modify the camera.apk file of the fly and put the magisk.apk.
This won't work on every device because most of the phones check if the app is signed by the manufacturer.

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.

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


text:
How to log app run time
Long story short, I need to log these things some apps: The starting time of the app, total running time and the end time of the app.
Edit: I would want to run this a whole week, to see how much time these apps are using
.

Tasker is a good candidate for this.

@xavier_fakerat Well Tasker seems like overkill for me but I'll try, does it require root?

Not really, only needs to be enabled in accessibility services, besides this particular project doesn't need any elevated privileges. Two key things fr this task: set a variable with day, time for both start and end task then you need the "write file" action in both tasks , I recommend to use .csv file (better presentability).

@xavier_fakerat Could you please assist me with this process? I'm kind of having some problems with figuring that

@user218893 Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! I've slightly rephrased your question – as asking for apps (or other off-site resources) is off-topic here (see What topics can I ask about here? and Where to ask for app recommendations?). Should solve your intention nevertheless: if there is a way to do it with the stuff that already is on your device, you'd certainly accept that as well if you knew hot to use it, right? ;)

Here is a workaround you could use.
Objective: Create a Task make an application runtime log.
Profile
Application >> Select target application e.g Facebook app (Tap back to exit out of this profile.
Long press the first context and select Add >> Day >> Select number of days e.g 7 days
Tasks
Task 1 (entrance) You can name it Facebook login time or anything.

A1 Variables>> Variable Set [Name: %Logintime to %DATE %TIME (leave everythin as is)]

Tap back to perform second action.

File >> Write File >> [File (give any name e.g sd_card/Facebook logtime.csv) Text (Start, %Logintime) Tick Append, Tick Add New line]
Save and exit this Task

Create another task
Task 2 (exit) You can name it Facebook logout time or anything.

A1 Variables>> Variable Set [Name: %Logouttime to %DATE %TIME (leave everythin as is)]

Tap back to perform second action.

File >> Write File >> [File (give any name e.g sd_card/Facebook logtime.csv) Text (Start, %Logouttime) Tick Append, Tick Add New line]

Save and exit this Task
Explanation: When the Facebook application is opened, the log file (that .csv file you created) is written the start time, and when you exit it writes again the end time, such that after a week it shows time you used the facebook app, hence you can calculate the time.
Please note, to perform calculations within tasker is possible but is advanced so I just did it the simple way.
Happy logging!


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What are trust agents and why should I trust "Profiles trust provider"?
I don't know if this is a new thing in Android 7, or if I've just never came across it before.  I suspsect this is a new thing.  I am using OctOS M, which is based on LegacyOS, the new name of CyanogenMOD.
In figuring out how to turn off Smart Lock, some new whiz bang thing that reduces your phone security in the name of conveinance, I came across another trust agent called "Profiles Trust Provider". Searching the web gives me a couple of Android dev pages, which are never helpful to explain anything (They restate the obvious ususally. It's pretty bad when you don't know anything and the man page only restates the obvious [to someone who doesn't know anything]).
Does anyone know what this is, why I should trust it, what the feature does and if it does what it claims?

I'm wondering the same thing, but found only this German discussion: https://www.android-hilfe.de/forum/android-sicherheit-antivirus-firewalls-datenschutz-verschluesselung.910/cm13-was-ist-trusted-agents-anbieter-fuer-vertrauenswuerdige-profile.802610.html It's pretty readable when translated.


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How can I remotely control my Android device via PC?
How can I control my Android device from a windows PC though a HotSpot. I mean there's no Internet, no LAN and no USB between PC and Android. I'm looking for something like ShareIt, but for mirroring android screen and controlling it via PC mouse.

What have you tried? Is there some reason VLC (the first Google search result) doesn't work? It doesn't rely on Internet or USB, but you do have a LAN connection between your device and your PC if it is connected to it's hotspot.

VNC should work I thought VLC was a media player

@William Yes, I meant VNC in my first comment, not the media player software.

For Online:
try TeamViewer. its a good remote control app from PC to PC and phone to PC and PC to phone.
TeamViewer
For offline:
try AirDroid its good and it worked for me.
AirDroid
If you need just simple commands(enter text, press, perform actions):
adb shell input

text, keyevent, keyboard, mouse, joystick, touchpad, trackball, dpad and more.
Usage:
adb shell input text "Hello"

ah really? i pressed accept then edited...sorry

thanks! airDroid is fine , but it doesn't let me connect through LAN unless it uses USB & debugging , with LAN it makes every thing except screen mirroring . However,i found MirrorOp Sender for Android and MirrorOp Receiver for PC is amazing (required root ) .

ok! hope everything will work well for you.

I found MirrorOp Sender for Android and MirrorOp Receiver for PC is an amazing app for screen mirroring (required root )


text:
How can I enable swipe for back in Chrome for Android
Recently bought a new tablet, its running Android 6.0. On my touchscreen Windows 10 laptop, I can swipe the screen with one finger to go back and forward in chrome.
How can I do the same the same on Chrome for Android?
I've searched the internet, but can only find custom apps to perform this function. I have never installed anything custom to get this working on Chrome for Windows.

With newer version of Chrome for Android, it's possible to go back or forward by swiping left or right from the edge of the screen. If it's not enabled by default, follow the steps below:

In the address bar, type chrome://flags.
In the flags search box, type "history navigation".
You will either find depending on your Chrome version "Enable gesture navigation" or "Overscroll history navigation". Click on Default, then select Enable.
Restart Chrome.

Swiping left or right from the edge of the screen on tabs will take you back to the previous page or forward to the next page.


text:
Disable WiFi-discovery notifications on the LG G6
How does one turn off "WiFi Network Available" notifications on the LG G6? It's a mite spammy in cities.
I could turn off notifications for the app entirely, but that would hide "sign in" and "incorrect password" notifications.
This question is LG G6 specific because its interface does not admit the more general solution.

Possible duplicate of Nearby wifi networks causing notification

Does not apply. The LG G6 interface does not have that setting in the same place.

Can you provide a screenshot of the Advanced menu under Settings > Wi-Fi?

Did you ever find a solution for your question?


text:
Invalid sim card/no sim card inserted error
So I will do my best to explain what's been happening and what I have attempted to fix the issue.  First off, I have a g3 us990 under US Cellular running octos marshmallow (custom ROM) along with TWRP and have been for well over a year.
Last week I noticed I had no signal in my phone and a message on the lock screen saying invalid card.  I have been able to temporarily fix it anywhere from 30 mins to a day where it then would stop and show the message again and texting/calling would stop working.  I have tried restarting it(random if it would fix it or not), reinserting the sim card(found sometimes the no sim card is inserted error would show up), factory resetting(same as restarting), restoring from a back up(still nothing), and I have even went out and got a new sim card and activated it to see if that was it.
My next plan of action is to restore back to stock using the LG flash tool.  But I feel that won't work either.  Another idea of mine was purchasing a new sim card reader off eBay and doing some soldering, but I want that to be a last resort.
So at this point I am thinking it is the sim card reader in some way, but I would figure that if it was the sim card reader, it wouldn't work at all.  I'm hoping someone that has had experience with this before knows a fix or any other ideas on what to do because I am just about out of them.

I had this issue around the same time.  Did yours also progress into the full boot loop issue like mine did, and this link hints may be typical??

@JeopardyTempest I eventually got a new phone,  but if it helps, I think my phone has more of an internal problem because it would randomly shut off and not turn back on unless i take the battery out.

Likewise, and sounds like that's a pretty central theme of the boot loop.  I was pretty convinced it was internal hardware (like the board), but now who knows.  Will post back for the benefit of any others if I sort it out :-)

@JeopardyTempest please do, I still have the phone and If someone finds a way to fix this sort of issue, that would be awesome!!

check if sim card is inserted probably, been having same issue. the metal pins should be properly in contact with the gold part on the sim.

that's the thing, the sim card only goes in one ways and it has to slide all the way into the slot in order put the battery in


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Turning on screen, flickering.. with logcats
Flickering is only noticeable in 10/255 and above brightness, in 255 brightness the flickering is extreme and it only occurs in the bottom part of screen(almost the size of keyboard)... So whenever I turn off the screen then touch the screen multiple times then turn the screen on again there will be flickering. It also happens sometimes  if I plug the charger while screen is off.btw im rooted but this flickering was here since before i rooted. I tested lots of things like disabling almost all system apps and it was still there.
This live logcats are screenshotted right after turning on the screen so flickering occurs when it was created. I also noticed that flickering can only be seen when there is a layer of darkness created in the screen such as pulling the status bar, the home screen, and in the toast notification(just the whole bar of the toast notfcation)
So what exactly causes the flickering according to the logcats? amy clues on how to fix it?
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6cwi1mZj5KEUnNER1hQeW9jVVk

sorry it's a 5.1.1 version and not 5.1

uhmm can someone help ?

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! I really dont understand what you're asking here. Please see How to ask section in hep centre

ah sorry. my question is what exactly causes it to flicker according to the logcats? and what might be the fix for it? tnx for responding

The symptoms you describe sound much more likely to be a hardware problem than a software problem. You probably need to get the backlight of the screen replaced (or the whole screen, if it's an OLED screen).
You shouldn't have rooted your phone when it had an existing problem, if it was still under warranty. As things are, you'll need to pay to get your phone repaired. Take it to your local phone repair shop.


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Full Backup of non-rooted device in 2017
My Galaxy S7 has developed a problem with it battery (where it is continually turning off / rebooting) and so I need to get it repaired/replaced by my insurer.
The only issue is that, for data protection, they wipe every device before repairing.
Although I have back ups of most of my apps, all my photos, contacts & sms messages I have a lot of settings, multiple non-web based email accounts etc. set up on the phone so having to start from stratch would be a real hassle.
I therefore want to back up the entire phone, like a drive image, onto my Macbook so that I can simply copy the backup onto my new/repaired device once the battery issue is sorted.
I thought I had found a solution in this thread: Full Backup of non-rooted devices
However that is nearly 5 years old and so the instructions do not match the current version of Android SDK, seemingly now called Android Studio (the previous instructions ask you to locate a folder called 'platform-tools' but this isn't created by the current version of the SDK).
Anyone know of any updated instructions on how to do this?
Thanks!

Android Studio has nothing to do with it (that's a development environment). The instructions for adb backup remain the same (for the basic requirements, follow our adb tag-wiki to "minimal installation of ADB"). I'm not aware of any news in that sector, speaking of "full backup of non-rooted devices".

Nothing really crucial changed since then. Android SDK is now installed together with Android Studio, however can be installed separately. Platform tools, which contain ADB, are now delivered separately from SDK. Here is the link:
https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html
After the installation you will find adb binary in platform-tools directory. All other points from those answer are still true.
Consider also TWRP backup possibility, which though, requires TWRP.

Where can I find the 'platform-tools' folder though? That was why I was thinking that the change to Android Studio had made the instructions invalid.
Doing a Finder search for any files or folders with 'platform' or 'tools' in the name doesn't bring this up on my Macbook...

Yep, platform tools now go separately. Updated the answer.

Did you try Samsung Smart Switch? You can easily make a backup of your entire phone: Contacts, emails, messages... including your apps, settings and so and save them to your computer and easily restore them when needed
You can find a list of some softwares that can help you backup your phone's content here


text:
Prepare SD card for removal from Cyanogenmod 13 HTC Desire HD A9191
I installed CM on the above phone. I wanted to remove the SD card, but when it boots up again the phone says 'Encryption unsuccessful'. It works again if I put the card back in and reboot the phone.
I want to move the SD card to another phone, and have this one without an SD card. I know that it works without an SDcard, but how? Do I need to move the /data partition somehow? How do I do that?
Edit: It was the CM build I used, which was aceopt. The opt part means that it uses the SD card as internal storage. So I need another build if I want to take the card out. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a non opt version of CM 13 for this device, so I'll have to go with 12.

Insert your SD card in your phone, reboot it, then go to Settings - Storage & USB, press "menu" button and choose "format as portable". You should be able to use your SD card on other devices after that.

Ok just tried that. Nothing happens when I press the menu button. The button works fine in other contexts, vibrates, etc. When i select storage and usb it comes up with 'internal storage'. In other words, it appears to be using the sd card as the data partition.

Sorry - forgot to mention that you need to choose "SD card" before prsssing menu button and selecting "format as portable". But, since you only have "internal storage" in there, try choosing it and doing described above there. And you rebooted your phone after inserting your SD card back to it? It is needed for system to recognize SD card inserted on some phones/ROMs.

Yes, I put it back in, but not really sure what you mean. The phone won't boot up at all unless I have the SD card in. I can't, for example, boot it without the SD card and then boot it with the SD card. There is no option to select SD card. If I select 'Storage and USB' it takes me straight to 'Internal Storage' without asking me what storage I want to configure.

I was suggesting that in case if SD card was removed from a phone you having troubles with then you better reboot your phone after inserting it. And... I also meant that you should try clicking on "internal storage" then "menu" button and "format as portable" if available. Because, in some old CM13 builds when SD card mounted "as internal", Settings app will display only internal memory (with internal memory and SD card memory summed up) as much, as other applications.

Right. I think that's what's happened. Only 'internal storage' is displayed. As far as the phone is concerend there isn't an SD card, because it thinks the SD is internal storage and freaks out when it isn't available. And as I said, the SD card doesn't come up as an option and the menu button doesn't produce a menu.

You can check if your device have SD card merged with internal memory by typing "sm has-adoptable" into Android Terminal. You can download Android Terminal app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jackpal.androidterm

That returned 'false'.

It's not what causes your problem then. Try going to Settings - Security and tell me if there "encrypt phone" option available.

Yep, that's available. Or it's not greyed out. I didn't press it because I didn't want to actually encrypt it and complicate the situation further. Or do I need to?

No, you surely  don't need to do it. I just suggested that you turned on encryption and that's why this error on boot is present but it seems like my suggestion was wrong. Did you tried to seek assistance in your device thread on XDA Developers forum? It looks like this could be something specifically related to CM13 build for you phone.

Good call on the device thread. I was being dumb, see edit.

Just glad my advice appeared helpful to you. And nothing dumb here. You can't be born knowing it all.

I guess not. There's a lot to read when trying to do stuff like this, and xda has some very good content but it's a dog's dinner in organisational terms. Thanks for your help.


text:
Take bug report for specific application
I am starting Android development, and I am looking for a way to get a bug report from a user's phone.
I know about the Settings / Developer options / Take bug report system, but from what I have seen, it dumps all logs from all sorts of apps I don't really care about.
Is there a similar method which would generate a similar file, with just logs relevant to my app?
(I also know about adb logcat, which I can then filter on my computer during development, but it's not easy asking users to do that!)

You just program your app to generate log with a specific tag, and use adb logcat with filter to only show logs with that tag.

Although this question is asked from a developer POV, I'm voting to leave it open because it could also be thought of as how can a user collect enough information to report a bug to an app developer.

You should try third party libraries such as Android Bug Tracker.  You can find many other on github.


text:
Device Can't Power Down
I have an Android device which had a custom os..It was for educational purposes and I could not even open another app on it. After the end of the subscription period I thought of using the device. I tried opening it's recovery mode but instead opened some factory or diagnostic mode which was in Chinese. By mistake I pressed the power key to select an option ending with "emmc" and now It boots but shows a black screen with navigation buttons and time...Any keys pressed make no effect and I am unable to shut it down. When I press the power key for a few seconds it reboots but shows the same screen. I just want to shut it down somehow. Please Help!!
Edit: I found a way to shut my phone down. I connect it to my pc and then press the power button for 10 seconds then the screen goes off and the charging percentage shows up after a couple of seconds, I pull the usb cable out and the screen disappears and voila ! My phone is switched off.
Thanks for all your response.

Seems like a clone... What phone is that?

It is a tablet : Lenovo tab 2 A7-10

Just pull off and reinsert the battery.

-1: you shouldn't presume that the battery be removable, without knowing the device model.

Correct. The battery is non-removable

Thank you guys for admiring my effort to help - you too kind. And, by the way, suggesting something so probable is a good way to save time. It's not like there's many options - battery is either removable or not so it was wise not to specify that first. Because as result, there are only one my comment posted instead of two or  three.

And, after all, you can always try to reboot your phone continuously for battery to get empty more quickly or, which is more likely option - just leave your phone turned on for night. But I'm not sure if this will help after all. You can try it still since there's not much of options available.


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How to set a tethered Wi-Fi connection (tethered to another phone via Android personal hotspot) as "metered" connection
I have a number of apps set to "Download on Wi-Fi Only" on Android. But the moment I tether, the phone considers itself on Wi-Fi, even if the upstream device is a metered 3G/LTE connection.
Under Windows 10, I can declare a given Wi-Fi connection to be "Metered", and thus save data usage.  Is there an equivalent on Android?  Setting the tethered phone to "Data saver" is a partial solution only.

There is a rather hidden feature, that will let you achieve this:
This option is found under Settings > Data usage (Wireless and Networks).

Tap on the three dots in the top right corner, and press "Mobile Hotspots." (In android 4.3) In later versions of android   the similar option is "Network restrictions" > Metered connections

Next you'll see  a list of saved wireless networks, and you can check the ones which are mobile hotspots.

Edit
I have included the screenshots for Android 7, since interface and options are different from Android 4.3 above:

Such that the options are found under Settings > Data usage (Wi-Fi) > Network restrictions > Metered connections

In this way Android applies the same data restrictions as it does with "Data connections" so no data hogging.
Update
Other devices like Huawei have this setting hidden but can be also enable using adb:
After setting up adb, follow this proceedure to set a metered wi-fi network.

In a command prompt or terminal, execute the following command: adb
  shell
Type the following command into the command prompt or terminal to get a list of all saved WiFi networks: cmd netpolicy list
  wifi-networks
You’ll be given a list of saved WiFi networks with a true/false boolean value. True = metered & False = non-metered.
So from here, you can enter the following command in a command prompt or terminal to change the setting: cmd netpolicy set
  metered-network Wireless true
     (In this case the SSID  is “Wireless”)
You can always revert the setting to false if you want to switch it back to a non-metered network.

Hope this helps

On Android 7.1, this is in a slightly different place: Settings->Data Usage->(WiFi) Network Restrictions

@mattm Thanks for putting this up, please feel free to edit if you like.

Was unable to follow these steps (Huawei p20 lite), comment by @mattm did not help as I cannot even find data usage. -- I did find a data saver somewhere (which might help on an ad hoc basis) but doubt whether it is the same.

@DennisJaheruddin I have updated the answer to workarounds for devices with this setting hidden.


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Disable Briefing Notifications on Galaxy S8
It seems once or twice a day, I get some Briefing notifications on my Galaxy S8. The icon for these notifications appears similar to Flipboard, though I don't have Flipboard installed as a standalone application.
I believe these notifications may instead be coming from Bixby, which appears to use Flipboard for its news feed. Right now, I'm really not interested in using Bixby or its Briefings. I have the Bixby Home Screen turned off, and would probably even disable its dedicated hardware button if I could do it without rooting.
However, I can't find any options to disable notifications from Bixby nor any options related to turning off Flipboard/Briefing alerts. Is there something I'm missing?

Bixby --> scroll down till you see News --> click the 3 little dots on the right and disable notifications


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How to confirm WiFi data is being used, not data plan?
How can I confirm that I am using data only on WiFi?
In other words, I am connected to WiFi at home and work, yet I get notices that I am close to hitting my data plan's max limit.  Is there a way to somehow confirm that my data is being sent via WiFi when at home/work?
When connected to WiFi, even if the signal strength is say 1% of the WiFi connection, it's my understanding that my cell data plan will not be used until the phone disconnects from the WiFi, correct?
I know there's a way to see the amount of data sent over WiFi and the Data Plan, but I'm wondering if there's a way to somehow confirm that I'm on WiFi and the data is actually being sent via WiFi, and not using my data plan at all (without turning off the Data Plan in settings).
I'm just basically trying to confirm that my data is all going over WiFi, and not Data Plan, when connected to a WiFi Router (with any signal strength).

I use a Galaxy S5 running Android 6 (Marshmallow) and my phone has different icons for wifi and data.

My phone also has little arrows that turn white if there are packets are being uploaded or download.
You can see data usage by app in the data usage setting.

And if you find that an application decides to use a lot of background without telling/asking you, you can click on it, and disable background data.

Yeah, I use those too to check what's being used. I have an "alarm" set up to notify when my data (not WiFi) goes over a certain amount. I was wondering if there was a more technical way to check, because it just "feels" (for lack of a better word) that while I am connected to WiFi, and the WiFi icon is showing, that data is still being used over the non-WiFi data connection.

Your Android will never lie about which wireless is being used, if there is no data symbol, data is not being used. The data usage page will show you a graph of data used. If you are using a data monitor, other than the one built into android, then it might also be recording data used on wifi as well.


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Enable none screen lock
I cant disable my screen lock , it says it was disabled by administrator , what should I do?

Screenshot (click to enlarge)

Do you have any VPN configured?

Or any other device administrator (e.g. an MS Exchange account)?

Some apps have thirselves installed as administrators, which some of them use to block you from the none lock screen option:


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How do I stop a Google account from syncing contacts?
I have multiple email accounts on my phone. Some are personal emails and one is for school.
The problem is that my school email is syncing all of my school contacts to my contacts. This is a problem for two reasons:

I do not want 2,000+ people that I do not know appearing in my contacts when I search and
I like to keep my school information and personal information separate. I only want to use my school email for email, docs, and drive.

When I go to my account, I unchecked everything except those three options and my school contacts are still synced. If there is anything I am doing wrong or something I can do instead, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

You can go to Settings - Accounts - Google and uncheck "Gmail" to turn automatic synchronization off I think but doing so will stop push notifications about newly received emails and information from your main account won't be synced too.

Right, that's the problem I have. Thanks though.

What if you make two different Chrome profiles? Am I correct in assuming that you are now logged in with 2 Google accounts in your Chrome browser? If so the first account you logged in with is your main account and all the following accounts you add will synchronise with the data from the first account.
You have to click on your name in the right top corner of the Google Chrome browser and then click Manage people. Then add person 1 and you use your second Google account to log in.
Now you should have 2 Chrome profiles on. The one you use now, all the Google accounts you add will sync to the first account you logged in with. On the second Chrome profile in which you used the other account to log in, all the accounts you add will sync to that account. Do not forget to log out of your second Google account from the first Chrome profile (the one you use now.)

The question doesn't have anything to do with Chrome at all.

Chrome on Android does not support multiple profiles in the first place.

You should go to Settings - Accounts - Google - your email - contacts to turn sync off.

This is the same thing that Vyacheslav V. already said, and the questioner already explained why that doesn't help with this particular problem.


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Downgrade Android 6 Marshmallow version
Okay so in the first version of Marshmallow it was possible to move apps to the SD card without having to set it up as internal storage. Now they removed this feature, only allowing to move apps when you are using the SD card as internal storage. Does anyone if it is possible to downgrade to that first version of Marshmallow where it was possible to do this?

You didn't even tell us what device you have.

@AndyYan I meant it more as a general question. But I'd like to try it on an Alcatel Pixi 4 (7'')

It is possible by using TWRP or any other custom recovery of your choice but you must have desired firmware file as recovery flashable zip archive first. Unmounting adoptable storage and performing all available wipes from recovery before downgrading is also required. You can find detailed instructions on what custom recovery is and how to install it on specialized forums (I recommend XDA Developers one) as well, as desired firmware version for your downgrade (head to your device thread and seek there if you interested).

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately I've been unable to find the files needed to do this. I have an Alcatel Pixi 4 7'' (9003A) and there doesn't seem to be a lot of information about this specific device or how to root it on any forums.

Check first post of this thread: https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/general/alcatel-one-touch-pixi-4-t3376597

Thank you. I was actually the one who asked the OP to upload those files as they weren't there before


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Algorithms used in Android's Accessibility Colour Correction
Since Android 5.0 there is an accessibility feature that allows the recolouring of everything that is displayed called Colour Correction. This is meant to help people with impaired colour vision.
But how exactly are those options remapping the colours?
Is there any information about which algorithms are used?


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Unbrick An AT&T Sony Xperia Ion
Yesterday I was looking for a CWM rom to flash and I found this: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2682782 . I had flashed this from my TWRP recovery that I got from here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2634375 . While I was flashing the rom, the progress bar never moved but after about a minute or so it said that flashing the rom was successful. After I tapped Reboot System the screen just went black and wouldn't turn on. I wiped dalvik-cache, cache, and data prior to doing this. My bootloader is locked and flashtool does not work because of this. Any way I can unbrick my phone? My device is a LT28at.
Edit:
After leaving it on the charger, I got a red light and after a few seconds, it turns green for the same amount of time then goes back to red. And if it matters, I have disconnected the built-in battery and plugged it in and it gave me a red blinking led.

You can't boot into recovery either?

no I have tried. I also tried force shutting it down and rebooting

And you can't access ADB from a computer either I guess?

I have tried ADB and Fastboot. My computer recognizes my device as S1 when the green light is showing but that's it.

Sorry to say, but your phone is as useful as a paperweight now then. Can you update your question with the model of the device you tried to flash so I can at least try to figure out what went wrong for you?

My device is a LT28at and AT&T is the carrier.

My best guess is that either you flashed the recovery incorrectly or the recovery itself has issues. Sorry, but as I said above,mother phone is done.

No chance of unbricking it? My computer recognizes it, so is it possible to oem unlock the bootloader with the code I got from sony?

Calm down, your phone is not dead, you still can revive it simply by flashing a stock firmware using Flashtool. You should be carefully flashing Sony devices when having a locked bootloader.

Download the firmware here
Download the Flashtool here and install it.
Go to the folder that contains the Flashtool (Usually C:/Flashtool) and launch it by clicking on either FlashTool.exe or FlashTool64.exe, whether on 32 bit machine or 64 bit)
Return to the folder and open the Drivers folder, install the drivers.(C:/Flashtool/drivers).
On Flashtool, click on the thunder icon, select Flash mode.
Now you should open the firmware select Window. The source folder address should be C:\User\your_name\.flashtool\firmware . Copy the firmware you've previously downloaded to that folder. It should now appear on the selector window.
Now click on flash button. Plug the USB cable while holding the volume down button or back button. Drivers should be installed and the flashing process started.
Just wait until the end.
Et voilà.

Deleted my answer.

flashing the firmware for lt28h on a lt28at harm the phone any more? And wouldn't I need an unlocked bootloader?

@JamesEstes No, you don't need an unlocked bootloader to flash a stock firmware! And I think flashing a firmware made for another variant can harm your phone unless they have same hardware specs, I think both your variant and the lt28h share same hardware specs.

ok. I was just wanting to make sure before I did this. I have also had the problem of the phone not staying in fastboot mode.

We won't use fastboot mode here. The phone will be flashed in flashmode (Connect USB cable while holding volume down button)

@JamesEstes how do you get in fastboot mode?

It goes into fastboot mode by itself and won't let me control when it does and doesn't @esQmo

What do you mean? I don't understand


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PLEASE HELP E: failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)
I have a problem every time I turn on my phone (Karbonn Sparkle V) and I tried to google to solution and I couldn't find any
E: failed to mount /efs (No such file or directory)
E: failed to mount /system (No such file or directory)
# MANUAL MODE #
-- Appling Multi-CSC...
E: failed to mount /system (No such file or directory)
can't mount '/system' (No such file or directory)
E: failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)
can't mount '/cache' (No such file or directory)
E: failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)
E: can't mount /cache/recovery/last_recovery
E: failed to mount /data (No such file or directory)
E: Can't mount /data/log/recovery_log.txt
E: failed to mount /system (No such file or directory)
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log
E: Can't open mount /cache/recovery/log
(These errors then repeat in various order)

Please do help as soon as possible!

Seems like data on the eMMC chip is corrupted. You should flash this phone.

@esQmo How to do flash ? what things i have to do? please explain me in brief!

I have drivers for marshmallow 6.0.1. I don't know about flash files and flashing s/w. can you suggest one or two? @esQmo

Your phone is a Mediatek device. So you need flash files with Scatter and SP Flashtool for flashing. You can get all here
Edit:
Steps below are for flashing Mediatek devices using SP Flashtool and a Windows computer:
What you'll need:

Download your device ROM files. You can find it here
Download SP Flashtool. Can be found here
Download Mediatek drivers, or here (for Windows 10)

How you'll do it:
Downloaded files should be ziped (rar, zip or 7z format), unzip then proceed by installing the drivers and . Also unzip SP Flashtool and the ROM file to somewhere you can access quickly - say in the Desktop.

Go to the SP Flashtool folder and launch it. SP Flashtool opens on Download tab. On Scatter-Loading field, click on Choose.
This will open a file selector dialog. Browse to the folder where ROM files are located. Select the scatter file. Flashtool should load all files now.

Click on the drop-down list and choose Format All + Download

Now power off the device. Click on Download then connect the device to the computer with a USB cable.

Flashing should start and simply wait for the software do its things.
The flashing ends when the green check mark pops up.
Note: This can be also solved by flashing a custom recovery, such as TWRP and manually mount the partitions.

Warning: Do not Format All + Download Mediatek devices https://blog.hovatek.com/so-whats-all-this-talk-about-meditek-secure-boot-and-da-files

Thanks for pointing this out. However that article focuses more on MTK devices with Secure Boot. Wasn't common in the time this question was answered.

Sure, didn't notice the date. Kindly update your answer. It is never good idea even on old devices with no secure boot you still lose device specific IMEI, Mac address, calibration data etc (see #464, #470)

When you're dealing with issue like corrupted partition table, Download Only or Firmware update don't fix such issue which is/was very common on old MTK chips. So You had to Format All + Download. Never lost IMEI or MAC Address doing this. And this is something I do for a living.

Also repairing IMEI on MTK is easier and can be done in seconds


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Listen to YouTube on Firefox in the background
On some pages I found the advice, that I could let YouTube videos play in the background when using Firefox for Android. And it works with the video in the article, but not on YouTube.com. Unlike suggested in this reddit post, it also happens on Firefox beta and is not connected to the bug referenced there.
Is this a restriction by YouTube and if, is there a way to circumvent it?

Check this article to fix it: Fix Firefox's YouTube Background Playback Feature on Android (I found this related news from the page shared in the question.) I use Firefox Beta and for me it works perfectly.


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Disable mobile data permanently
A strange request I know... but I am quite keen to disable mobile data from my phone permanently (as opposed to just switching it off in the settings) so that I can only browse the internet when I'm connected to Wifi.
I've tried getting my network provider (O2) to do this with my account but they said it's not possible.
Is it possible to achieve this in Android instead? I'm basically just looking for a way to 'break' it... whether that's by installing some kind of app then that would be fine (perhaps if I could then return it back to normal with a factory reset)

I don't think this is possible but you can do this by deleting the APN in Settings > Networks

Community bump prevention: this question was closed because the question seems to have been abandoned (OP has gone and existing answers have not been voted for more than 3 years). If anyone can evaluate the existing answers, feel free to vote accordingly and reopen the question (or mod-flag the question requesting for reopening). For anyone else having the same issue, please post a new question and refer to this question as additional context.

You could delete your APN settings on your phone's configuration, or use airplane mode.

thanks, I can reach the APN settings on my device, but can't see a way to remove them?

Enter to the APN you want to delete, and you'll see the three dots options menu on the top right corner. There should be an option to "Delete APN" there. You have to do that with every single one of them.

unfortunately I only see 'Reset to default' when I do that

Well, you could change the settings of the APNs with random wrong values so they don't actually connect...

I'm not fully sure wether you can permanently disable data or not but you can always create a dummy APN and select that as default. With this, even if you enable data accidentally via toggles, it would still not connect. The best and sureshot way to stop mobile data is to delete the APN's (Access point names).
Check this post from android enthusiast.
If you are rooted you can even consider using droidWall like apps to prevent data access to apps

You can get a custom recovery, then go to "wipe" section and there should be "EFS" Option. Wipe the EFS partion if you don't want mobile data.

Don't you think this would erase the IMEI number as well?


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Remove Galexy edge s7 system update notification
I want to remove system update notification and never update it's system.
it's force stop is inactive. what can I do?
Many Thanks in Advance

Almost all options require root.

The most clean and safe option is to edit build.prop file. Use any file manager which provides access to root filesystem.
You can learn about build.prop here.
The setting which is of interest to us is ro.build.version.release.

ro.build.id=JSS15J ro.build.display.id=JSS15J.I9505XXUEML1
  ro.build.version.incremental=I9505XXUEML1 ro.build.version.sdk=18
  ro.build.version.codename=REL ro.build.version.release=4.3
  ro.build.date=Tue Dec 10 14:28:08 KST 2013
  ro.build.date.utc=1386653288 ro.build.type=user ro.build.user=se.infra
  ro.build.host=R0210-09 ro.build.tags=release-keys
  ro.product.model=GT-I9505 ro.product.brand=samsung
  ro.product.name=jfltexx ro.product.device=jflte
  ro.product.board=MSM8960 ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-v7a
  ro.product.cpu.abi2=armeabi ro.product.manufacturer=samsung

Just change it to 7.0 and Android will be fooled and think that you already on Nougat. For 100% fooling you can also change ro.build.id, ro.build.display.id and ro.build.version.incremental properties to NRD90M, NRD90M.G955FXXU1AQDG and G955FXXU1AQDG values correspondingly (aka Nougat values).
Reboot after the applying changes.

If you lack root, you still can try Titanium Backup. But this way can also require root though.


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Block internet access before firewall starts at boot
I have an old Android phone with Ice Cream Sandwich and DroidWall as a firewall, which makes sure that apps can't use the 3G unless I enable it for that app. DroidWall starts on boot but there is a very brief time before it starts when any app can use the internet.
What I would like to do is stop all incoming and outgoing internet access until DroidWall automatically runs on boot to put the firewall rules in place. DroidWall allows running a script when it starts so conceivably I could undo the block-everything rules when it starts. The phone is rooted but doesn't have a /etc/init.d/.
Basically I want to make sure there is not even a second that traffic can get out before the firewall. 3G is expensive but I need it so I can't turn it off.

Would it suffice if an automation app disables the mobile data during shutdown and enables it after n seconds of boot (assuming Droidwall would be started by than)?

@Firelord Is there a flag I can set to make sure it always starts with mobile data disabled, and do you know how I can enable it after the script runs?

See https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/246459/how-to-prevent-network-connectivity-after-a-phone-restart-before-the-netguard-fi

Things have changed, DroidWall is no more maintained, rooting techniques have to be changed with Android 5 and 6 releases; particularly SELinux has to be taken care of, and there is always init.d support available with Magisk. But the question still stands valid.
Android depends on Linux kernel's builtin firewall which can be controlled with iptables. Default policy is ACCEPT which can be set to DROP on boot, unless all rules are loaded. This can be done with a simple init.d script or directly from Android's init services:
# /system/etc/init/firewall_policy.rc

on post-fs-data
    exec u:r:magisk:s0 -- /system/bin/iptables -P OUTPUT DROP

After boot, set policy back to ACCEPT. AFWall+ does this automatically.


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How To Fix: Data Recovery from Broken Screen without USB Debugging
I have the OnePlus Two phone whose screen was broken a while ago and i want to back up some of my pictures and videos which were stacked in its internal memory. Please note the below points for better understanding:

Screen can show content but the touch is not responsive.
I don't have an OTG Type C connector.
USB Debugging was not active before phone was damaged.
Need some software which can help me project my phone screen on laptop/pc so that i can draw patterns or do stuff like transferring of data to Google Drive etc. in short i can access phone over PC.

Please advise me suitably over the above as I need to get out of this quick.
Thanks in advance :)

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! First hint would be to check with our broken-screen tag-wiki and other questions using that tag (to further narrow it down, here are the ones having at least 1 answer), as this question is asked quite frequently. Then please [edit] your question to indicate you've checked that, including what you've tried and why the approaches you found didn't work for you. We don't want to duplicate our answers here :) Good luck!

Even if you did not activate adb it may be active when the recovery is booted. (At least for recent versions of TWRP it is.)
Depending on what you want to do this may be enough. If it is not you could try enabling the OS's adb from recovery adb (see here for an example of the relevant configuration files). After this is done adbcontrol is can be used to remote control your phone using a computer and adb. If you use an unlock pattern that includes a polygon of swipes this will not help (a pin would be fine).
In this case you would have to reset the unlock code, but I messed up something on my phone which may have happened while doing this, so I am not comfortable giving you advice on how to do it. In any case make backups (e.g. via adb pull) even of you configuration files before doing any modifications.


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No Signal Sign on Samsung S3 GT-I9300 Possibly After Deactivating Mobile Tracker
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 since 2012. I've never rooted it. The last app I've installed was a few months ago. I'm running Android 4.3.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I've got "Uninstall harmful app. 'Mobile tracker' can damage your device." notification, exactly the same as in the following thread: Uninstall harmful app. 'Mobile tracker' can damage your device.' At first, I discarded it but when it happens again and since it was from google, I said 'OK'. Later that day, I don't know if it is due to this or not but my phone started to show no signal sign and not recognizing my SIM card. I re-enabled this mobile tracker from Application Manager but still I get the same no signal sign.
When I put another SIM to my phone it works, when I put my SIM to another phone it also works. It only doesn't work when I put my SIM to my phone. I cannot understand how this can be possible, but it is the case unfortunately. Any help would be very much appreciated as I do not want to reset my phone.

I too have a Samsung galaxy 3 that I brought in 2012. This morning the same error message and a warning triangle appeared on my phone for the first time. I contacted Samsung support - the rep hadn't heard of this issue before - but talked me through a factory reset. Did this and the triangle & message have gone. Would have liked to have found a solution that didn't involve a factory reset though. (She also advised me to delete my Google account first - bcos otherwise apparently it's a little difficult to reinstall afterwards..)


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Many apps using sound crash after approx 15 minutes
I have a 100% normal Samsung Galaxy A3 2015 (SM-A300FU) with Android 5.0.2. It is non rooted. I notice that every time I use an app using sound (this might be an effect, but not the cause):

WhatsApp phone call
Music Folder Player Full
a webradio app (that plays radio continuously)

the app crashes after ~ 15 minutes. It happens with no dialog box, it returns to desktop screen.
What could cause such a bug? How to solve this?

@xavier_fakrat's useful answer provides many potential reasons that could have caused the crash. After more investigation, here is what caused the crashes: the Android app optimisation feature, that can be found in Settings > Battery > Optimisation.
The solution for me was to disable optimisation for Whatsapp and music player apps.

The issue of applications constantly crashing in Android Lollipop may be attributed to bugs in this Android version or other reasons which are described below:

Audio bug (possibly AudioFocusLost)

This bug is described by a user on this thread: Why are my music player apps crashing frequently since recent Android update.

This is an inherent flaw in Lollipop where apps crash constantly. You
  notice this with music apps as audio stops. Some apps stop restart
  where they left off, others don’t. With this bug when the app crashes,
  the audio just cuts out, there is no on-screen error message.

In addition, more information about this bug is revealed through an error logging of different audio apps by one user, and it produced this error:
Java.lang.Exception: AudioFocusLost
With some possible reasoning that;

this exception handling may have been broken across audio apps in
  Android Lollipop, or possibly an overly aggressive process causing
  this exception in other apps

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS6/comments/34ipjr/music_players_pausing_andor_closing_when_playing/

Over-utilisation of system resources (e.g RAM)

It is possible that with many applications running in the background, the system resource tends to become overconsumed by RAM and CPU hungry processes such as social media apps etc.
In this case the inbuilt task manager in Samsung devices tend to kill such processes unless explicitly turned off in Smart Manager settings to conserve power and memory to cores apps (known system apps to me include media scanner and DRM content storage –consume a lot of resources when apps accessing related media are in use).
That is, I why I think it’s a possible cause although certain android versions have more pronounced effects than others, possibly due to poor memory management in a certain Android version.

Android System Webview bug

This component was also held responsible for causing app crashes due to a buggy update. Many apps using the feature (typically those rendering webpages internally) could also crash. Newer versions are based on chromium however. So uninstalling the buggy update could save app crashes.

This is not the whole list of bugs causing application crashes in Lollipop, but there may be more but with respect to the question I found these reasons to be more closely related to the issue in question.
Possible fixes

Before going to any advanced operations, regular cleaning of application cache and closing recent application no longer needed is a good habit to preserve system resources.

Prioritising the affected applications in system mangers (Smart Manager) and preventing be “killed” when RAM is too low.

If this is futile, then more advanced operations are required.

Wiping cache partition

Follow these steps:

Turn off your device
Press and hold the combination of keys (press and hold Volume Down, Volume Up and the Power button)
Hold the buttons until the Recovery menu shows up
Use Volume buttons to navigate to Recovery mode (and select it using the Power button)
In the Recovery mode menu, navigate to Wipe cache partition and select it with the Power button
When this is completed, navigate to Reboot system

Factory reset

If nothing seems to work, maybe your device needs a fresh start.
Factory data reset will wipe everything off, all the apps, settings, etc. Don’t forget to backup your files!
Go to Settings
Tap Backup & Reset
Next, tap Factory data reset
Tap Reset phone

Upgrade Android version

Upgrading the OS version can be an important way to solve bugs as developers often fix bugs in subsequent OS versions. You can do this through Settings ≥>System updates and check for available updates. Alternatively downloading appropriate firmware files from manufacturers' website and flashing via Odin

References

Google Acknowledges WebView-Related App And Device Crashing, Says The New Version Should Fix It
Apps Crashing Like Crazy on Your Android Phone? Could be Latest Android System Webview Update
My apps keep crashing (many different ones)
These few fixes may help you fight those Lollipop bugs
How To Fix Apps Freezing And Crashing On Android


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Impossible to transfer mobile banking app data between factory resets
I have two banking apps installed on my device:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.infinum.rba
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hr.asseco.android.zaba
It is impossible to transfer the app data on the same device between factory resets in a way where it is not needed to reactivate the apps using the activation process of the given banks. I've tried backing up the apps and their data using ES File Explorer PRO and App Cloner Premium. I've also attempted to copy the app data and the apps manually between system to no avail.
Since the device is the same, the IMEI is the same, the operating system is the same, i see no reason that the app data couldn't be reapplied after a factory reset, resulting in a fully functional mobile banking app - however I've found no way to do so, nor have i found which mechanism the apps use that prevents doing so.
Help me out here.

Assuming that the IT department of the bank has implemented some sort of check in their Android app to ensure that you can't restore its data between different installations (which also includes factory resets), they're probably using something along the lines of a unique ID such as ANDROID_ID.
This answer (and specifically Seva Alekseyev's comment) explains what I suspect is causing your issues; this ID also changes on factory resets. This is purely a security measure and a very good one, because it would be terrible if I could log into your Google Play account on my phone and restore your banking app's data from the cloud, allowing me to access your bank account, right?

Thank you very much, I wasn't aware of this feature / function in Android. I'm certain that's the cause as I see no other way for the apps, once their previous app data is applied, to realize they are on a system that has been factory reset.

You're welcome. I didn't either and had to research it, so I learned something new as well, thanks to you!

Im sure that it should be possible to get all important data with root and transfer it this way.
However...I cannot provide you with an exact solution how to do this. Additionally to this, some banking apps wont work / show a warning if you are using root because of security reasons.
Since i dont use this apps personally, rooting your phone might result in them not working anymore

Thanks for the response. Making a copy of the data and applying it to the newly installed app is not a problem, the issue is that the apps refuse to accept, recognize and use the applied data. It's very likely that famdekk's reply offers an applicable explanation.


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How to access a video file that an app is hiding
There is this app that uploads some videos. You can watch the purchased ones only through the app! (free videos can be downloaded in pc with IDM)
So I purchased a video and downloaded it so I can watch it offline, and my phone's free space decreased by 1G. I want to copy and save that video on my laptop, but it's not accessible in the phone nor the laptop. Is there any way to find that file?
My phone is a Galaxy Note 3. I checked some programs ("Wondershare MobileGo for Android" and "YouWave Android") but they didn't work...
The app is V – Live Broadcasting App. For the other videos I need at least 7G free space!! I was thinking about moving the videos to my laptop so I can download the other 6 episodes :(

Where those files were downloaded..can you see them in your phone

Since your free space decreased by 1G,  you might be able to locate the file through Grid Size (assuming the video is not split into several smaller files). But as Izzy wrote you probably wont be able to watch the video without the app anyway.

Most likely you can see it only from within that app: the file will be stored in the app's "private" directory where only itself has access to (unless you use "root powers"). See my answer here for details.
Even assumed you'd manage to extract the file (e.g. using root powers) and transfer it to your laptop, you most likely won't be able to watch it: those applications normally use DRM (see these questions for details), and their media files are encrypted.
Without knowing the identity of "this app", it's hard (or rather impossible) to say anything more specific.


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Will a US tablet imported into the UK get OTA updates?
I would very much like a Samsung PM-580 (Tab A 10.1, with S Pen) but Samsung are either being slow to release it in the UK, or potentially might not at all.  Via Amazon.com I can import one to the UK at what I consider to be a reasonable price, and I can see no technological problems with using it here.
However this tablet is getting an OTA update to Nougat very soon (if not already), and obviously I'd want this for mine.  So:

Will a US-serial number tablet still get its OTA updates in the UK?

It would seem odd to me for the answer to be "no", since this would involve Samsung insisting that you connected to a network in a particular location before giving you the OTA update.  But it would be reassuring to know for definite before investing my cash, and perhaps others have had similar experience?

Yes, if you bought it in the US it will get otas.


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Can't connect bluetooth -- invalid pin or passkey (Android 6.0)
When I go to connect an Android 6.0 phone to either of the instant pot or car, I receive an error message that the device can't connect, because it has an invalid pin or passkey.  How do I work around this fairly glaring bug?  Is there a file I can edit?
Back when my phone ran a slightly older version of Cyanogenmod, it worked on both of these devices.  So, it's not the phone itself.  Also, I have a second Android 6.0 phone that I've tried to connect to the instant pot, and it has the same issue.  Thus, I am fairly certain it is a bug with the operating system -- just need to find a work-around for the bug.

One thing I've seen work for some people is to go to Settings -> Developer Options -> Services -> Bluetooth services, and then stop all the services. Then reset the phone. This didn't work for me.

Another thing I've seen work for some people is resetting their network connections: Settings -> Backup and Reset -> Reset Network Connections. That also did not work for me.


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USB OTG Hardware support on Galaxy Grand Duos
Does Galaxy Grand Duos have hardware support for OTG ? Is it just restricted by software or is hardware support also lacking.
I am little bit confused after reading this post.

As the +2 voted answer said, the kernel is crucial in supporting OTG, and by default no support is present for such low-end devices.

What if I flash the kernel ? Then do I get OTG support ? By question is that is the hardware at all present for the OTG ?

I don't really think hardware is of concern. Back when I was using the age-old Nokia N900, OTG was not even a concept, so the Manufacturer never had provision for it, yet people still crafted kernels for it and used a tool to enable OTG.