text:
Does XMod work in Bluestacks?
In Bluestacks app when I am installing the XMod, the app says to root device. But how can I root Bluestacks? Please help.

Related post  How do I install and run XModGames in BlueStacks?

Yes it works and I have been using it for some time now.

Download the XMod APK This is official site
Now you need rooted bluestacks
Here is the link to Rooted Bluestacks I am using
This bluestacks does not require rooting s it is pre-rooted
Install it on PC and open the XMod APK using Bluestacks

And that is basically it. I hope it helps. :)

You have to root your BS, to work around for XMod in Bluestack.
Well there are tools that can really work to root your Bluestack. There is a best XDA thread that really works.
You need this tool - BlueStacks Auto Rooter / Unlocker

Download this tool and Chainfire's latest SuperSU. from the link given below.
Choose the 'CWM / TWRP / MobileODIN installable ZIP' version.
Extract this program and add the downloaded 'UPDATE-SuperSU-*.zip' to the program folder.
(Re)Start BlueStacks, wait until it is fully loaded, then run MultiTool and press 1.
WARNING: DO NOT stop this tool in the middle of the rooting process.
Follow the instructions on the screen carefully.
Run this tool as Administrator if your current user account is restricted.
Your BlueStacks will be restarted several times to accomplished the tasks, do not close or stop it.
For older versions of BlueStacks, press 'Yes' immediately when prompted if you want to Quit.

Taken Source :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/xda-assist/ive-alreadyy-rooted-bluestacks-plz-tell-t2991334
To install XMod in BlueStack : Watch this Video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvJ1JOx3kXQ


text:
Can I get my refund after 15min trial?
I have purchased some application before. Later, developers claimed that their application become free, like Link Bubble etc. Can I get my refund? I know that there is a 15 minutes trial after purchase. But I have purchase a Input method application, however 15 minutes trial cannot let me try all functions. And after 15 minutes I cannot get my refund. Can I get my refund back in this condition?
I take Link Bubble as an example, I really like this application. I'd like to purchase this application whenever how much it cost. However there is really a problem that I have purchase one application years ago and never used later. It really bothered me.

hasn't the refund window been increased to 2h? 2) Ever bought a cup of coffee and then stumbled, pouring it on the floor? No refund for the coffee, I'm afraid – though it probably was more "expensive" than that app :)

You can get a refund from the app's page of the Play Store within 2 hours from the purchase. If 2 hours have passed, the official guideline by Google is:

Contact the developer
If Google Play's 2-hour return period has passed, the developer is responsible for deciding if you are eligible for a refund. Contact the app developer directly and ask for a refund. You can find an app developer's contact information listed on an app or game's detail page on Google Play.

and:

Optional: Contact Google
If the developer hasn't helped, Google may be able to. Contact our support team for help solving your problem.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Device keeps on asking me to sign into my wifi network
This issue just started today and I am at my wit's end because my phone still asks me to sign in to a wifi network which I have been using perfectly well for the past week.

These are the details:

I'm using Samsung Note 4
I can use other wifi networks since the issue started, but I can't use the one at home.
I can go online but it disconnects automatically after a few seconds.
Page directs me directly to google and there isn't any sign in prompt there
Nobody else is having the same problem that I have

These are the remedies that I've tried:

Obvious reset of router/phone, I've even restored the router to default and reconfigured it again (still didn't work)
Changed wifi setting from DHCP to Static, sign in prompt disappeared but so did the internet
Cleared cache data
Took out my sim and turned it off for a few minutes (still didn't help)
Downloaded a few apps which were suggested by a few forums I read, nothing happened.

I hope anyone can suggest something that I haven't tried before, thank you.

Go to Settings › WiFi (the place shown in your screenshot), long-tap the network, select "forget", then re-add it. There were several reports where this helped. Let us know then if it worked out for you. Good luck!

When you are asked to sign in to continue, instead of allowing the redirect to open in chrome or any other browser you installed open it with androids built in browser instead.

My guess, you are using bsnl broadband with an unlimited plan, for me this happens when the broadband plan reaches it usage limit where the speed declines. So then i use the laptop to open any page and it automatically redirect into the bsnl official site asking to upgrade the plan or to continue with the declined speed n i use to choose the decline option and they ask to restart the modem. later the problem will not happen. But still its a pain to do this every month.

You can go tosetting -> WiFi and then forget the WiFi network and then try reconnecting to the network. If you use BSNL Broadband then it may happen because you may have consumed all data you had. It happened with me too. You have to renew your pack or you can use laptop/desktop and go to the redirected page.

It's mainly caused because you exceeded the bandwith limit of your ISP.
I faced the same issue with BSNL Broadband. The problem was solved after clicking on an option on the ISP Upgrade page.

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

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


text:
Samsung Galaxt Tab 8.9 (Wi-Fi) stuck in charging screen, doesn't turn on at all
Recently, I have decided to install a custom ROM on Galaxy Tab 8.9 (Wi-Fi) and messed up everything.
I downloaded some "ICS 4.0.3 or something" .zip file to my root folder. Stupidly didn't install any ROM manager (Play market couldn't download any app in my tablet). Tried to download .apk file, and when failed, I fed up with everything: turned off the tablet, then turned it on with VOLUME UP and POWER buttons pressed. Then in the stock recovery pressed "apply update from sd card" and chose the .zip file...
...the Samsung Galaxy Tab icon was showing up on the screen the whole night. I was thinking that it's being updated and went to sleep. But I was wrong. The next day it was turned off and when I put the charger in, some stupid big charger symbol came up. I can't turn on the device and pressing VOLUME UP and POWER buttons brings me to the recovery menu, where I've tried anything (wipe user data/factory reset, reboot) with no success.
However, when the tablet is in the recovery menu, my PC sees the device through adb when i run "adb devices". I can even push some file to "/data/local/tmp" with "adb push" command. Now I want to know: can I still somehow install some ROM or at least factory reset to my tablet?
"I want to hide under some rock for a couple days until someone helps me"

Same way you did it last time: push the .zip file to the SD card, and flash it from recovery. This time, make sure the ROM you're flashing is really intended for the device you're flashing it to – unless your device is named "Samsung or something", the previous one might have been wrong ;) This post might help you finding a match: Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device? Good luck!

But my tablet doesn't have any SD card slots...

I didn't say "slot" :) It certainly has an internal SD card. Alternatively, you've been able to flash from your "root folder" before, so put it there.

Can I do this with adb, and how? My PC doesn't see the tablet's storage.

Try adb push <update.zip> /sdcard/<update.zip> (replace <update.zip> with the real file name). You can also push it to /data/local/tmp (which you already did before), and then use adb shell to move it to where you want it to be (e.g. via the copy command: cp /path/to/update.zip /new_path/to/update.zip).

Finally I learned what is Odin used for, a tool all samsung noobs need. I've flashed Android ICS 4.0.4 downloaded from this link with Odin(v1.85) and it looks great!

Well, no points to leave comment, so here is my (unchecked) advice.
Since You can login via adb, remove zip from sdcard, and reboot tablet into recovery mode, and select restart. I don't think flashing anything or selecting 'wipe' is necessary. Probably the patch didn't even apply. If this will not fix it, then I guess You'll need to adb push working ROM and repeat update from sdcard procedure in recovery mode.


text:
SMS shows up in alert box. Why?
I have recently been using a particular 2-step authentication system and there is something odd about the SMS messages I am sent which I have never seen before.
When I receive and SMS from the system, there is no notification, and the message does not immediately show up in my hangouts inbox. Instead, the SMS pops up as an alert dialog over whatever I am doing with the phone at the time with the option to "Cancel" or "Save". If I tap "Save", the message is then stored in hangouts and I get a notification.
What I would like to know is why this happens. Is there a (rarely used) part of the SMS specification which provides this functionality? Is this 2-step auth system making use of that? Perhaps setting a flag in the header or something?
EDIT
I am running Android 5.0.2 and the default SMS app is Google Hangouts. I'd like to be clear though that this only occurs when receiving texts for this particular 2-step authentication process. All other messages are received as normal.

Sure it's an "alert box" – and not "headup notification"? Which Android version is your device on?

@Izzy maybe dialog box is a better word for it. Grey box in the centre of the screen. Displays the SMS content + "Cancel" and "Save" buttons below.

What happens when you press "cancel"? Also: what's your current default SMS app? Still open: Android version?

What is the name/version of your "sms" related application? This is likely the expected behavior of some app that interceps your SMS messages.

@Izzy oh, I forgot sorry. Android 5.0.2. Cancel just removes the dialog. Nothing more. Default SMS App is Hangouts.

Thanks! And I assume you've verified that Hangouts is still the default SMS app (because AFAIK only the default app is capable of receiving SMS – which would make your issue looking really strange). Another suggestion: Could you please [edit] your question and integrate the details collected in the comments, and then we do a little cleanup?

@Bonatti default SMS app is Hangouts.

Is this 2-step auth system making use of that?

Could be, in order to be sure, we need details on the application. Open the config tool, check the application that is creating the confirmation box, and check if that app has access to read your SMS.

Perhaps setting a flag in the header or something?

There are no "headers" in the sms PDU. They can either filter by "sending number" (the number from the SMS sender), or by filtering words inside the message. Check if the received message always starts with something such as "X company says..."

What is going on?

Again, this is speculation, since we saw no details on your problem. But...
It is possible to intercept SMS messages, read then, check for a condition, then use an ordered broadcast to open an application, and given a specific condition, become the default sms app, stop the continuation of sms delivery intents, and erase the message, then stop being the default app, or just let it fly onwards...


text:
Help Installing a custom ROM
Hi I need some help with this,I want to install a custom rom to my Samsung galaxy s4 mini (I9190), I already know what rom is, and how that works, but  I don't know how to install it on any device, I don't have custom recovery also. So if some one could guide me step by step, that would be great. Thanks!

Begin by rooting (if you didnt already). Then using whatever custom recovery you chose to install, you can install the ROM. Search around for tutorials.

Installing a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP try this link
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2398143
After you have installed a custom recovery boot into that recovery (usually it's by pressing home, power and volume up buttons simultaneously, leave the volume up button as soon as you see Samsung logo)
Make a backup of current Rom for safety.
Then choose apply update from sdcard navigate to the custom Rom file and flash it. And wait for some mins.
You will be in the new Rom :)

Use apps like flashify from play store on your own risk! Flashing custom rom without custom recovery is risky business! Custom recovery helps you to take nandroid backup.


text:
does restrict background data hurt performance of phone
Do I "restrict background data" yes or no and does it have more negative side effects than positive?

Consider explaining the reason behind this thought.

Here is my phone's (Note 4 Edge) warning screen for "restrict background data".  The implication is that this is a feature meant to protect users with miniml plans from accidentally incurring charges.  It's also darn handy when travelling overseas or out of plan range.
I do not expect it would hamper performance, but may cause some functions to not work at all.

Thanx  sooo much for the direct answer it helps as I am new @ this and have a very minimal plan!!!

It doesn't harm your phone..it restrict background data which means you will not receive notifications of mail or messenger while doing other stuff. And some apps like Google Play won't work.


text:
How can I debug "Homescreen has stopped working"?
I have an LG L40 D160 Android phone that repeatedly gives me errors. When it boots, I always get the message "home screen has stopped working". This pops up repeatedly and makes it hard to do anything. Not that there is much to do as the home screen is just black. Internet forums have suggested to delete the app files for the home screen via the settings app, but this didn't bring any change.
This same situation happened less than half a year ago. At that time I sent the phone to LG to get the problem fixed. They simply flashed the phone with a new (or even the same?) firmware.
As this has now occured once again, I don't think this is something that can permanently be fixed simply by flashing the firmware. It seems there is something inherently broken in one of the apps or the firmware itself. I would like to find out which app causes the problem and disable that, if possible.
I am a tech savy person, software developer by trade. However, I have never developed on Android and am therefore not too familiar with the architecture.
I have put the adb logcat output of one boot and shutdown cycle on a filehoster as it is too large for pastebin: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=01407861783018316845
From looking at the log file, it seems this is the relevant error message:

[ 11-30 19:02:36.686  1410: 1410 F/libc     ]
Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xd2305848 (code=1), thread 1410 (m.lge.launcher2)

However, I have a hard time deciphering what exactly the problem is. Seems the launcher just dies with a segmentation fault.
I have already tried the following steps but the problem persists:

Clearing data for Homescreen app
Factory reset of the phone
Booting in safe mode
Official LG firmware update does not let me re-flash the phone because I already have the latest version
Selecting "EasyHome" as my home screen instead just changes the error message to "EasyHome has stopped working"

What can I do to further diagnose the problem? Are there any more temporary files I should be deleting?

Unless you give a log from adb logcat, its kinda difficult to tell from just this much info. But you can probably try backing up things and then factory resetting and see if that helps? Otherwise a little more log would be required to know the issue. usually the first instance of this error you see.... its around those lines you get the reason.

For the understanding of the log from logcat, consider these resources:  How To Logcat || Learn to logcat like a Pro || Doc: debugging with logcat. Later on, update the question with what you understood and also give us the full log (use a paste service for that).

Always use a paste service such as pastebin.com or gist.github.com to show a lengthy code or code-like output. It may be a big turn off to a lot of people if they are asked to download a text file just to take a quick look.

@Firelord I tried, but that file has more than 3MB and pastebin doesn't accept pastes of this size.

On 8/15/16 , spoke with a Verizon Tech for my "Homescreen is Not Working"issue. The fix is simple:
Hold   Power and Volume Down simultaneously, till the phone powers on
When screen comes back all icons are working.

Please mention your device in the answer (by editing)- as it stands you could be talking of some other device which may/ may not help OP or those in future who see your answer

Tried the previous answer on droi with no change


text:
Is power consumed from battery to run the phone when charging?
I want to download torrents while keeping the device plugged to charge. My device is made by Samsung.
Is the power consumed from charger, or battery, to power the device when charging? Will my battery take a hit?

Related: Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone?

Related Don't charge the battery but use connected power to run the phone

Of course your device requires power to run – whether you've set it for charging or not. Question is: Does it use more power than it gets by charging? Which depends on multiple factors:

Your "power source". USB only charges with 500 mA (USB2) resp. 900 mA (USB3), A/C with up to 2 A.
Your devices power consumption. Depending on what it's doing. Display turned on max brightness already uses more than USB can provide, recording/playing HD videos takes bit bites, and even a WiFi download might exceed that (see the table in my answer here for some example values).

So in your case, all depends on the power source. If it's USB, it might just "hold the charge", get a "trickle" or lose "a trickle" or more when downloading on WiFi – or probably constanly lose charge when on mobile data.1
Btw: Your device might get quite hot in either case :)
Edit: Reading your question again after the discussion in the comments, it looks like I've missed a major part of it. Asking whether the "battery will take a hit", you most likely wanted to know if "torrenting while charging" causes any harm to your battery. Hard to say absolutely, as it depends on device an battery; but a good indicator is "temperature". Batteries used today are mostly Lithium Ion (LiIo), seconded by Lithium Polymer (LiPo). Both have in common not to like "extreme temperatures". So if in the process the device gets hot, that's an indicator your battery might not like that for long.
For details, please also see our battery tag-wiki and charging tag-wiki. Both give general information on them.

1: Note that the values in the linked post are exemplary only; your device might differ, but relations will be comparable.

Well, what if the device was powered off (although that's precluded by the question)?

@TamoghnaChowdhury Then you can't download torrents

This doesn't really answer the question of "does it use battery or pass-through from the charger when the charger cable is plugged in". And the answer is, it depends on how that particular phone was designed. Although I presume most use a pass-through and then trickle charge the battery with whatever is left over - as you can pull the battery out of the phone and it will run just fine from the charger cable.

If consumption is higher than feed, the "battery will take a hit". And as you correctly stated, @SnakeDoc, whether power is "passed through" depends on design; I doubt a generic answer to that is possible, so I've skipped that part. Maybe I should have explicitly stated?

@SnakeDoc There really isn't a concept of "pass-through" in most battery setups. Either current is moving "into" the battery in the mode in which it does work to result in increased chemical energy in the cell (net charge) or it's moving "out" of the cell (net discharge). It's not like a single battery cell has multiple cathode and anode connections, so it could be charging into one point and discharging out the either simultaneously. The only "round trip" power might make is down-regulation from 5V to battery charging voltage back up to voltage needed to run core/etc).

@hexafraction I meant  a "pass-through" (or better yet, bypass) in the sense that the battery is not required to power the phone. If you remove the battery, but leave the charger plugged in, the phone will continue to operate. Obviously there it has circuitry to directly power the phone regardless if a battery is present or not.

@SnakeDoc Sorry, I pinged the wrong user. I was meaning to address Izzy (author of this question) in regard to their last comment.

@hexafraction I saw it and upvoted it. I'm afraid we're drifting into a theoretical/technical area the OP had no intention to. Reading it again in the context of our comments, the question is most likely "will it cause harm to the battery". I'll update my answer accordingly.

Tests done to arrive at the answer posted below were correct but the interpretation of results was erroneous on my part. This was validated by two sources including Battery University and based on the correct interpretation and additional inputs a separate answer has been posted. This also helps in readability and understanding

Power is consumed by the phone from the battery when charging, if in use, as in your case.
Point to understand here is that two simultaneous processes are happening, of topping up and draining. If the battery charging algorithm and implementation in OS is not well designed and implemented, there's a possibility that this situation ends up "confusing" the charger process into thinking it is supplying less charging current when it is not.
Hence a safe practice is NOT to use the battery when it is being charged. While I cannot talk authoritatively about your phone battery being hit, better to stick to safe practices in interests of battery life
Quoting from Charging Li ion batteries, which gives a view of three stages of battery charging and current/ voltage behaviour in these stages (emphasis mine to highlight)
"Some portable devices sit in a charge cradle in the on position. The current drawn through the device is called the parasitic load and can distort the charge cycle. Battery manufacturers advise against parasitic loads while charging because it induces mini-cycles, but this cannot always be avoided...."
"A portable device should be turned off during charge. This allows the battery to reach the set voltage threshold and current saturation point unhindered. A parasitic load confuses the charger by depressing the battery voltage and preventing the current in the saturation stage to drop low by drawing a leakage current. A battery may be fully charged, but the prevailing conditions will prompt a continued charge, causing stress."
Link posted from "Battery University", has many other informative articles on battery charging which may help
EDIT
Want to add diagram from Battery University link above and explain the impact of "parasitic load":

Three stages of charging (click image to enlarge)
In this typical example, charging completely is shown to take little over 3 hours with "saturation stage", accounting for 2 hours.
In the saturation stage, the voltage add to the battery is not increasing and the current is steadily decreasing.
Now, when you are downloading a torrent , assuming through WiFi, it takes 550 mW (for Samsung Galaxy S3), which is heavy duty. Thanks to @izzy for pointing out the source in his answer here.
This load will definitely divert a part of current towards torrent download (am trying to determine how much ). Whatever be the exact value of that current, it will continue as long as downloading happens and the tapering of current as shown will not happen. This is the first detrimental effect
Next, because of this current, the voltage, instead of being flat, will increase and more threatening aspect is towards the end of saturation stage. Here, the voltage is expected to fall sharply once the maximum voltage is reached, but will not happen since the parasitic load (torrent load) current is not tapering. This would result in battery staying at maximum voltage, which increases the temperature internally and creates stress in battery, damaging it.
A related aspect is that cell phones are designed to discharge rapidly from 100 to say 90%, which may be noticed say compared drop time between 80 to 70%, with same usage. This is designed so that cell  temperatures internally are kept at maximum for least time. More on this Your battery guage may be lying...not a bad thing
EDIT 2
I carried out tests using Honor 6 , and results to my mind conclusively point to saying don't use the battery while charging.
These test results are on the sister SE electrical site and am hoping to get their view on that as well. Would update here once I get more inputs
Till then,
Don't use the phone while charging, at least for downloading or uploading or any other heavy  duty (high power consuming activity).
This appears to be better approach, since using the phone while charging can't be avoided
While I suspect device manufacturers would have catered for minimal loads or usage while on charge- I haven't been able to investigate this as it is not documented AFAIK.

Modern batteries wont have noticeable impact on battery life even while usage during recharge. And there's basically no real battery harm in doing so either. I have been personally doing this since years! Modern batteries and algorithms to deal with them are pretty smart.

Since the charging circuit is built into the device, you'd hope it would be designed to charge while the device is on.

I have a battery pulled out of a Droid RAZR HD which will testify to the truth of this post. It was overcharged in a scenario like this and puffed up like a balloon.

While you certainly should avoid "heavy duty while charging" due to overheating (extreme situation: A/C power while recording HD video + uploading the stream via 3G/LTE + receiving an alternate stream via 3G/LTE + playing the received stream with your display on full brightness = use gloves when touching the device or you'd burn your fingers: ~6W consumption while ~2W charging), I doubt your "parasitic load" having large effect in "everyday's case" – as otherwise there'd be a fat warning on the cover (or we'd heard of plenty related warranty cases).

@izzy firstly, it is not just the load but on  which stage of charging it occurs. Of particular concern is the saturation stage,.  Where charging current should taper down to prevent voltage build up. Secondly, I expect and hope (though yet to come across any documentation) that OS algorithms take care of typical usage while at charge and was addressing that aspect on the second para. Thirdly, downloading torrent is a fairly heavy duty and therefore care exercised. Finally, I don't think device manufacturers care about battery lasting beyond warranty, part of planned obsolescence

@beeshyams Agreed. Though I think this issue is "overrated". I have multiple Android device in use here, some of them for 5 years now, and always charge them while turned on – somethimes even work on them via ADB (USB charging along). Especially the 5-year models are still of perfect battery health. Of course, none of the "duties" applied by during charge are "heavy" :)

@Izzy. Thanks for the input in your answer giving link to typical values. Helped me collect thoughts and edit my answer, "over rated" as you termed it but best IMO to give a clear view and everyone is free to take their call

@beeshyams I've upvoted your answer for all the efforts and details you've put into it. Still, in my experience this seems to be a theory I didn't feel much effects from practically. Maybe the "duties" I put on my devices during charge never were "heavy" enough to cause an effect – or I've got an extra perfect battery :)

@Izzy. Possibly some amount of correction is provided by smart battery algorithms for minimal usage and that's why it didn't hurt.I want to explore this possibility and search but don't know how and where to start :-).Thanks for +1, coming from you counts more !!!

"small corrections" sound reasonable. Maybe there's a "margin" for "minimal load" permitted which can be corrected – otherwise plenty of things wouldn't make much sense (think of Daydream, night stands etc.) or at least would be very questionable (think of "keep display on while connected" in the developer settings; and now cross-check that with my "consumption table" – that would mean about as much consumption as USB2 would feed).

@izzy.  Managed to test with screen on.  Your views please?  Also tried hard to see if your "consumption table ", has been updated, but  couldn't locate the original itself, even with Google translate

@beeshyams Thanks for the update! After a quick glance, I share your conclusion (as I did before you wrote it): "Don't apply heavy load while charging, while light use is OK". As for the articles: the originals still exist, and I doubt they have been updated. It's primary a print medium :)

@izzy. Just as FYI. Ran same test on my current device and results appear different. Time permitting will post on electrical SE to better understand and may link it . It's not correct to post suspect results, you will agree. Apologies, since you spent time on editing it in addition to reviewing

Short Answer

Is the power consumed from charger or battery to power the device when charging?"- Power is consumed from the charger.
"I want to know if my battery will take a hit [while downloading torrents]"- No

Long and Technical Answer
In continuation with my earlier answer quoting Battery University BU-409 Charging Lithium-ion
Noticed that there were other other questions on this site, which directly or obliquely touched upon this aspect of using mobile device /tablet while on charge

Is it safe to use phone while charging with portable powerbank?
Computing when on charger - long term effects on battery life
Is it possible for a device to consume more power than it is
wall-charging?
Should you be on a tablet when its charging?
Will playing a game in a Android phone while charging damage or cause harm to the battery or the phone?

Majority of answers leaned towards saying, "it's safe", very few advocating cautious use / advising against using mobile devices at all while on charge. Answers were based on experience and / or technical factoids but lacked an in depth technical justification.
So, here's what I did to try and see how the bad guy "parasitic load"(as explained in my previous answer) troubles us:

Ran tests on using my device (Huawei Honor 6) while on charge with a couple of load conditions to simulate usage (more about this later)
Posted these test results on sister SE Electrical site with a bounty to validate interpretation of results by electrical experts.
Mailed Battery University, requesting their views on the test results. I am extremely thankful to Bruce Huang of Battery University who went through the test results and offered valuable insights and also for permitting me to quote his mail

Test Setup
Airplane mode activated and running apps minimised. OEM charger and charging cable used.
Thanks to @Izzy for the table provided here, used values corresponding to Samsung Galaxy S3, since OP has a Samsung device and results may bear a closer resemblance than testing with Motorola values.
First test was charging, with cell phone kept on (ideally, it should be off as advocated but then how do I test?) and measurements taken using 3C Toolbox. 3C Toolbox was configured to record changes at every 1% change in battery status. More frequent sampling is possible but that would have drawn more power, possibly distorting test results.
Screen brightness was kept at 0% or minimumcorresponding to 567 mW from table.
Second test was with keeping screen brightness at 50% and enabling "Screen will never sleep while charging", in developer options. Reason for choosing this and not downloading follows.
a) Screen on (should) give a stable, continuous load and help catch the "parasitic load" in action.
b) WiFi download consumes 549 mW. Display at minimum brightness is 567 mW and maximum brightness is 1568 mW. Since testing is done at 50% brightness, we can perhaps average it and consider screen load to be 1058 mW, which is nearly double of downloading by WiFi and approximately equal to UMTS download (refer table), since downloading torrents was OP's concern.
Test Results
As can be seen in the linked site having the test results voltage graph looks very different in both cases and I was sure of having nailed "parasitic load" in action. Based on this, logical interpretation was that using the device while on charge for downloading was harmful to battery.
I was wrong in reaching this conclusion, while the tests were correct. I had erred in not looking at the scale (Y-axis) of the graph in both cases, while concentrating on the min and max values, as pointed out by Bruce Huang of BU and @ericnutsch on his answer at the linked site. What this means is that both graphs are pretty much similar and not skewed as it appears.
But this exercise gave good understanding which is covered below.
Conclusions

As brought out in answers on electrical site quoting technical literature of 2008 vintage, it has been the best practice to electrically "isolate" battery and load. what this means is that the charging circuit differentiates between battery and load (here screen power or downloading) and meets their needs separately. 8 years is a long time in electronics and I am pretty sure all major OEM device manufacturers have implemented this if not improved on it as also suggested in the answers of linked site (does this explain why devices are shipped without a warning saying " Don't use the phone while charging ?). And if the load is significant enough, it could impact charging time. Quoting Bruce Huang verbatim

Since the charge current is smaller with screen on, it should take longer time to charge the battery. From the chart provided, I can't tell if the "Constant current charge time" is longer or shorter (he is referring to the current charts in the test results).

To further verify this, I ran a third test. This was also charging with the screen on but the brightness was reduced to the lowest level permitted by ROM. This renders the screen almost opaque. This was to ensure that device is on while consuming least power possible. Pro version of  Darker(Screen Filter) permits you to do this . Results:
a) Charging took 5 minutes less than earlier two tests.
b) Voltage and Current graphs were similar to previous tests.
An easy analogy (not technically rigorous) to understand - consider a tap (Charger) connected by a pipe to water a flower bed (Battery). Now you want to fill a cistern (load or using the phone while charging). So you fit a contraption to the tap using which two pipes can be connected independently (electrical isolation). Depending on the size of cistern, it may be filled before the flower bed is watered or may delay the time taken to fill the flower bed.
This answers first part of OP question "Is the power consumed from charger or battery to power the device when charging?"

"Parasitic Load and Current drop". Battery University says

"A parasitic load confuses the charger by depressing the battery voltage and preventing the current in the saturation stage to drop low by drawing a leakage current."

Quoting Bruce Huang verbatim (emphasis mine)

I don't think the parasitic load is going to prevent the current drop forever. I guess the parasitic load only delay the current drop for a period of time. In this test, the parasitic load may be too small (turning on screen with 50% brightness is not huge load) to create a significant delay to the current drop.

This fully explains why the current drop is similar in both cases and not different since parasitic load was not significant enough.
This answers second part of OP question "I want to know if my battery will take a hit [while downloading torrents]"

Does this mean we can do anything with the cell while it is on charge?
I am afraid not. Implementation of charging circuit, their tolerances, characteristics etc would vary from device to device and among OEMs. This does not imply you can pretty much do anything when charging. Device specific details being proprietary, are not likely be available on public domain nor provided on request.

Hence, I would not recommend using the cell while on charge for intensive, power hungry applications (just to be on the safer side) using Izzy's table as a guide, if you really care for your battery. Besides keeping your hands off the cell for a couple of hours a day would give you a break too :-)

Yes. Phone does use power from battery when recharging. Although thats something which would more likely depend on how phone is designed, so it may not always be true... but most phones are this way.
I am basing my answer on a test I did. I reduced the charging voltage while at the same time making my phone (my old Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300) use high battery by turning on wifi video streaming, full brightness, volume etc. The battery started discharging more than recharging, and gradually decreased to zero. Soon after battery reached 0, my phone automatically shut down as if the recharger was not connected (it was connected and it started recharging normally after turning off).
Not to mention I wasn't able to run while plugged in without battery.
Again, results may vary.
As for downloading torrents, there will be a slight impact. Because nothing hardware intensive is really going on. You can probably use Android's built in battery monitor to judge if your phone will make it till the download completes or not.

Your test says nothing. If your charger was not able to provide enough power for your phone it's obviuos that the phone will take energy from its battery. No test is needed to find it out.

@Alex.S IMO that comment suits the question not the answer here. OP simply doesn't understand the obvious stuff, otherwise, the question wouldn't have existed at first place. It is only to explain the obvious stuff that he example was needed. Of course, the poster would explain the situation better here.

It sounds like your charger isn't very good.

@Firelord It is not obvious stuff, battery use while charging is bad for battery health, according to other answers here, so intelligent design would be to no battery usage during charging, and that can be implemented by running device on charger's current.

@q126y if that were the case, USB charging would be turned off by default when an ADB connection is detected. Thousands of developers use their devices this way. And as I wrote in another comment: My device with best battery endurance currently is my 2010 Milestone² – which I always charged while turned on. It still uses its original battery. While I write this, it's charge is at 82% – after being on battery (power disconnected) for ~18h today. The only devices I mostly charge while switched off are two of my tablets which I rarely use; one even is almost permanently connected & running ;)

@Izzy and Android devices know if it is being charged from charger or USB, still we cannot say, "obviously" that device runs on battery when connected to charger. :P

@q126y That's correct. And the Android device knowong when it's charged (and even from what power source) just confirms my previous comment: if charge-while-use would be really that harmful, it would be prevented (at leas on devices with no removable battery – on others one could argue manufacturers speculate on "specific sales" that way ;) Remember: often, even the battery falls into the 2 years warranty. Do you think manufacturers would take big chances here? So either the harm is "calculable" – or it's "ignorable". In both cases it must be minimal at worst.

iPad 3, when empty and stuck in the charger, needs a (pretty long) time of solid charging before the battery has recharged far enough for the device to be able to boot. The Samsung Galaxy 1 needed about one minute of charging when completely empty, or boot would often fail.

I had some phones that I connected to the charger and then removed the battery, and the phone would still work normally as if the battery was inside.
At best, it is possible that you can sustain your whole phone only from the charger, but that is device dependant I think.
Regarding device getting hot while charging and being in use - theres a chip that regulates the current inside, so it's not the battery that is getting hot, its the chip that has to handle charging + discharging at the same time.

There are lots of answers that are right and go into depth. But IMO it can be put really simply in a formula:
Battery = Charger - Phone
I.e. if the charger is putting more current in than the phone is drawing then the battery will still charge (albeit slower than if the phone was off). If the phone is using more current than the charger is putting in, then the battery will drain (and not charge).

One word answer : "Yes"
Yes smartphones use your battery while in use even when on charging,

But it is not a good practice to use mobile while charging because it
  Slowly kills your battery life.

"But it is not a good practice to use mobile while charging because it Slowly kills your battery life." - please elaborate. Consider adding some credible sources. If possible, cite only the technical ones. While you're on it, consider following How do I write a good answer?

But, the answer is correct and reasonably complete (i.e. warning that using while charging may be bad for battery) . No sources should not be a reason to downvote into negative imho.


text:
Root/tips to make camera app start faster?
I am specifically concerned with the camera app on my new Nexus 6P. The camera starts slow compared to iPhone cam even though the shot quality is great.
Is there a way to give the camera app more access to RAM so that it can run more smoothly? Or is there any hope for Android to be as smooth as iOS lol?

You can make your Camera as Quick access, may be the camera widget can work for your problem.
Take a look on this pro app - InstaCamera Pro, Works like charm, as you want. It works very fast, with two widget you can operate it very well.
Features Included from the Play Store:

Choose the folder your photos get saved in
Take multiple shots in a row (up to five)
Mute the shutter sound
Turn the "Image Saved" confirmation off
Change the photo resolution (default is max)
Set the focus mode (including fixed, infinite, auto and macro focus modes)
Set the shutter delay (from not-even-focusing to two seconds) in case your camera hardware needs extra time
Stay in camera mode after taking instant photos (then you touch the screen to take more, and back button to quit)
There are two widgets: the 1x1, which is just the camera button, and the 2x1, which has a camera button and a settings button.

Free Version of InstaCamera App -  InstaCameraApp


text:
samsung geofence error 1000
I keep getting a geofence error 1000...How can I fix this error? I looked it up and tried some of the ways it says to fix it but it hasn't fixed. Is there a way to fix it and without resetting my phone?

Similar Thread : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19082482/error-adding-geofences-in-android-status-code-1000

To fix it:

Settings -> Location -> Mode
Choose "Device only (Use GPS to determine your location)"
Choose any other option to get the popup (e.g. "High accuracy (Use GPS,
Wi-Fi and mobile networks to determine location")
dialog ""Use Google' location services" is shown
choose "Agree"

Please refer below thread to know more.
Geofence Error code 1000


text:
To configure tethering as two step login in CM13?
I have given my password of wifi stations to group of people.
However, I want to allow only specific people to login at specific time.
Attempt
I could not enable a basic MAC filtering for devices. Without it, I think this is not possible without a third-party application or without a change in the default options of settings.
I could not find anything that is designed for the purpose.
I did not find an option in the settings which could enable such a feature.
You can

see which devices are connected to your network in the settings, and
to signout all devices from your network at once

but you cannot determine

which devices are allowed to be in your network at specific times.

How can you manually decide which device can connect to my network?  I am running Cyanogenmod 13 (Android 6.0), unrooted.

How can you manually decide which device can connect to my network?

hostapd, a deamon that manages access point in Android (supports Linux and FreeBSD) is controlled by the configuration file hostapd.conf located under /data/misc/wifi. At least in my device, the configuration file inter alia notes:

# Station MAC address -based authentication
# Please note that this kind of access control requires a driver that uses
# hostapd to take care of management frame processing and as such, this can be
# used with driver=hostap or driver=nl80211, but not with driver=madwifi.
# 0 = accept unless in deny list
# 1 = deny unless in accept list
# 2 = use external RADIUS server (accept/deny lists are searched first)
macaddr_acl=0

# Accept/deny lists are read from separate files (containing list of
# MAC addresses, one per line). Use absolute path name to make sure that the
# files can be read on SIGHUP configuration reloads.
accept_mac_file=/data/misc/wifi/hostapd.accept
deny_mac_file=/data/misc/wifi/hostapd.deny

The configuration defaults to
0 = accept unless in deny list

while you need
1 = deny unless in accept list

To do just that, change the value from 0 to 1 in macaddr_acl, mention the MAC address of the target(s) which should be allowed to authenticate with your hotspot in the file hostapd.accept, start or restart the hotspot and see the magic.
Example of hostapd.accept:

# List of MAC addresses that are allowed to authenticate (IEEE 802.11)
# with the AP. Optional VLAN ID can be assigned for clients based on the
# MAC address if dynamic VLANs (hostapd.conf dynamic_vlan option) are used.
60:XX:YY:ZZ:AA:BB
8c:BB:AA:ZZ:YY:XX

In above example file, only the machines with those MAC addresses are allowed to authenticate with my hotspot. Any machine with MAC address other than those two would repeatedly failed to authenticate.
Unfortunately, you may not be able to make any good use of this solution without root access.
Note: this solution is tested on an unofficial build of CM13.


text:
advanced hotspot settings in android 5.1
After upgrading to Android 5.1.1 I have some issues with the hotspot. It works, most of the time, however at what seem to be random times it just switches off. I once half saw a message as this happened, but I only saw "Switching of hotspot because...". So I think it's a feature, not a bug. It might be related to my phone losing internet connection, as I use the hotspot on the train with poor connection quality.
In previous Android versions, I knew how to find advanced Hotspot settings. In this version, I only find very basic settings, like network name and password.
I have CyanogenOS 12.1 / Android 5.1.1 on a 1+1.
Sorry if this question has been asked before, I did not find anything recent anywhere.
Update: I saw the message on switching off now. My cell phone loses network connection, and the hotspot remains on. When it is back within cover the message reads "Switching off hotspot because SIM service change". So I'm guessing it's some kind of protection against getting overcharged for data use.
(Andyes, the laptop remains connected to the hotspot until it gets turned off)

Aparently this is a known bug in the latest Cyanogen (12.1) which should be fixed in the next release.
http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/116964-hotspot-disabled-due-to-sim-subscription-change/


text:
How to search in files content using terminal emulator?
I have tablet with android 4.4.2. The tablet is rooted. I want to search for a string in the files in the whole file system. I tried to use the 'find' command but it didn't work. What command i can use to implement this search and is it possible to install 'find' command line tool on android?

Have you tried grep? FYI, this is more of a *nix question than  Android app itself. You might need to install BusyBox for grep or find.

How to use grep to search for string? I tried this but it didn't work: grep -i "serach string" /*

What was the error? If it says grep wasn't found out or such, you probably need BusyBox. Did you try the man page for grep for learning the correct usage?Try googling "man grep"

I think i am using wrong command parameters. I will search google for grep command usage

I found that this command is working: grep -r "search string" /

Use grep -r -I if you want to search only in text files and not in binary files (executable, audio, video etc.).


text:
How can I unlock my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 without factory reset
I suddenly cannot access my phone with my normal password. it just keeps saying its incorrect. How can I unlock my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 without factory reset. Very urgent help needed please.

Don't you get an option to use your Google account to log in after 10 or so tried to enter the password?

No there is no such option. I have tried it keeps saying you have typed the wrong password 10 or 15 times, try again in 30 seconds.

Pat, you should have mentioned that the points mentioned in the answer don't work for you before posting. Please do so in the future as it helps to prevent us from posting useless (for you, that is) information.

Sorry about that. Any other helpful tips please?

Yeah. Please go through this: http://android.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask

Follow the below steps if you forgot lock screen password.

Enter a wrong lock screen pattern five times (shouldn’t be hard if
you don’t remember the correct one)
Select ‘Forgot Pattern’
Now you should be able to enter a backup PIN or your Google account
login.
Enter either your backup PIN or your Google login.
Your phone should now be unlocked.

You can also follow Device Manager by Android steps
Ensure that you had enabled Android Device Manager as a device administrator under security settings before trying this.

On a computer or other mobile phone, visit:
google.com/android/devicemanager
Sign in using your Google login details that you also used on your
locked phone.
In the ADM interface, select the device you need to unlock (if it
isn’t already selected).
Select ‘Lock’
In the appearing window, enter a temporary password. You don’t have
 to enter a recovery message. Now click ‘Lock’ again.
If it was successful, you should see a confirmation below the box
 with the buttons Ring, Lock and Erase.
On your phone you should now see a password field in which you
 should enter the temporary password. This should unlock your phone.
Now, before you go on with your life, go to your phone’s lock
 screen settings and disable the temporary password.

Disable your lock screen using custom recovery and “Pattern Password Disable”

Download the pattern password disable ZIP file on your computer and
 put it on an SD card.
Insert the SD card into your phone.
Reboot your phone into recovery.
Flash the ZIP file on your SD card.
Reboot.

Your phone should boot up without a locked screen. Should there be a password or gesture lock screen, don’t panic. Just type in a random password or gesture and your phone should unlock
That’s it!

Thanks for the response but I've tried all these before posting my question and it still didn't work. The device manager keeps saying device is offline or network is unstable. but my device is online with pretty stable network,

Also, please ask for clarification or comment on the OP's question as comments, not as part of the answer

Try to reconnect with network again and try. If this not works you may go for erase all details.  You need to move on to more drastic measures. In case Android Device Manager is enabled on your phone and unlocking it didn’t work, you can use it to erase all data by selecting the Erase button. Be aware that this will delete all apps, settings and other data on your phone. The good thing is, once the erasing process is done, you can use your phone again (after setting everything up).

Erasing my data isn't an option right now. I have a lot of info on my phone that I cant afford to lose.

Have u tried Samsung's "Find My Mobile tool"?.This is an easy way to unlock your Samsung device if you created a Samsung account and registered it beforehand.

Yes but its not working either.trying to contact the samsung website now

ok then if you know rooting and custom recovery you may try this "Disable your lock screen using custom recovery and “Pattern Password Disable” zip file. If your ok with it i'll edit my answer with this method

I do not have an idea how to do this can you put me through please

Edited my answer with third method. Please don't try if you don't know root and custom recovery.

I do not know root and custom recovery. Thanks for all ur help

I had similar problem and to me it was weird! It happened like this:
My Note 3 hot spot (tethering) stopped working. When I switched it on it displayed a message "hot spot in use" and it did not connect to any of my devices as usual.
I reinstalled my device (reset to factory settings) and it worked perfectly. Hot sport stared working. Then I set my common password to my Note 3, and actually I used it for a couple of times. Later, the devices rejected my password! All the time it said "wrong password"!
I used several options including locking it using "Android Device Manager" exactly as the method is suggested here above. Yes, my phone was locked with a black screen but it did not REPLACE the lock screen with one I put in the website for Android device manager! (I think this is not good. Android device manager should be more serious) So I was stuck again!
What I finally did was to go to the "https://account.samsung.com" and put my Samsung account information and used the "unlock" button. All passwords were wiped clean! Now I can access my devise.
I hope this will help somebody
Frank P. Seth

The other two answers are good, this is just another system/recovery way of backing up your data in case you don't have access to a backup PIN or Google Account. But of course, you'll need to have access to fastboot and CWM recovery image of your device for this to work!

Start your phone in fastboot mode by long-pressing DnVolume+Power button.
Connect to a PC using USB cable (ensure ADB drivers are installed) and run this command (replace path with your CWM image path):
fastboot boot /path/to/CWM.img

Once inside CWM recovery you can use adb commands! Mount the /data and /system partitions if they aren't already, and pull whatever data you want. For example, to list all the files and folders in your external sdcard, run:
adb shell ls -al /sdcard/

To copy a file, run:
adb pull /sdcard/foo.bar

This way, you can recover anything you want from the phone/tablet even if you forgot your PIN and don't have access to internet or google account or an OEM alternative method!

requires unlocked bootloader, and fastboot is not available for samsung devices


text:
Nexus 7 (2013) stuck at Google's logo after downgrade to factory image 4.3 (JSS15Q)
I have a Nexus 7 (2013) shipped with Lollipop 5.1. I downloaded the 4.3 factory image from https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images and flashed it on the device. But after reboot, it just stuck on the Google's logo screen. I tried to search the solution, but didn't find one.
Please help. Thanks.

Updated 1:
Just for test, I downloaded another several different factory images after that, which are 4.4, 4.4.4, 5.0 and 5.1. Finally, I found all images below 5.0 can't work on my device.
I flash the image just by running "flash-all.sh"

Updated 2:
I also noticed there're some errors in the recovery mode. Here's the screenshot

I discovered there's a similar question with me Nexus 7 Error: Failed to mount /cache. I tried with "fastboot format cache" and "fastboot erase cache", but doesn't work for me.

Did you ever find a solution? I'm experiencing an almost identical problem, except that now I can't even flash a 5.0 stock ROM (which worked fine last time I tried, around a year ago).

Unfortunately I didn't find the solution. Instead I used another device eventually. I searched a lot on the internet, someone said it's the hardware's problem. But I can always flash back to it's original firmware.

I was able to successfully resolve a very similar problem with my 2013 Nexus 7. However, I have not actually confirmed that it works with an Android 4.X stock ROM yet.
I discovered that my system default fastboot command (located at ~/bin/fastboot) was a symlink pointing to an executable fastboot-mac from the CF-Auto-Root package. (I must have made this change a long time ago for some other purpose and forgotten about it.)
The solution was to change the symlink to point to the proper fastboot executable located in my android-sdks directory. I then flashed a 6.0.1 stock ROM (MOB30X specifically) using flash-all.sh, and after 10 minutes of the Marshmallow boot animation, it successfully booted into Android. (Flashing the same stock ROM using the same procedure had not worked previously.)
I have a bit of evidence that suggests that this change was actually important, in addition to the fact that it worked this time. In the previous flash attempts with the old fastboot-mac executable, the flash-all.sh log messages included the following:
erasing 'cache'... OKAY
rebooting...

However, they did not mention that the cache partition was actually rewritten at any point. The new fastboot includes the log messages:
erasing 'cache'...
OKAY [  0.026s]
sending 'cache' (10984 KB)...
OKAY [  0.375s]
writing 'cache'...
OKAY [  0.466s]
rebooting...

which explicitly says that the cache has actually been rewritten.

Note: I had also previously used TWRP to change the /cache and /data partitions to use the f2fs filesystem instead of ext4, which seemed to get rid of some of the error messages in your question. However, I don't think this actually helped, because I attempted multiple unsuccessful flashes after this change.

After 10+ unsuccessful flashes and 1 successful flash, I'm too concerned about being left with an unusable tablet to try again with a 4.X stock ROM. But if you try this, please comment to let me know how it goes.

Boot to recovery.
Backup everything you need using MTP Usb connection.
Wipe system, data, cache, and dalvik.
Flash the image again.

Yes, I just used flash-all script within the factory image package and flashed the whole images.


text:
adb doesn't work
I downloaded SDK from the official website.
I installed it, but when I try to use it this happens:

What mistake did I make?
I use Ubuntu 14.04.

Does it have executable permissions? What does 'ls -l' gives?

Why don't you just download adb directly ?

Did you install additional packages required for adb to work?
According to Google Android's SDK Page

If you are running a 64-bit distribution on your development machine,
  you need to install additional packages first. For Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy
  Salamander) and above, install the libncurses5:i386,
  libstdc++6:i386, and zlib1g:i386 packages using apt-get:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 zlib1g:i386

For earlier versions of Ubuntu, install the ia32-libs package using
  apt-get:
apt-get install ia32-libs

You can check all the dependencies an executable needs using objdump -x ./adb | grep NEEDED.
Make sure all required packages are present in your system. And finally, as @Firelord said, also make sure that the file is executable.
Also have a look at this and this similar questions.

Why don't you just install adb from Ubuntu official repository.
Run:
sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb

In terminal for adb and
sudo apt-get install android-tools-fastboot

For fastboot. In this way you can use adb and fastboot in any directory! Make sure your usb debugging is enabled.

Because he has it already.

Also, you are right, this will install necessary dependencies, in case they were the problem.

"In this way you can use adb and fastboot in any directory!" - that is true but if OP solves the actual problem they can make an alias for the ADB binary in SDK which would work from anywhere in the system too.


text:
Is there any way to disable Direct Share on Android 6?
The Direct Share on Android 6 looks like this:

The problem is, I very rarely send something to contacts. It is much more frequent for me to look for some app, usually for processing the image, e.g. sharing from Google Camera to VSCO cam, or from VSCO cam to Instagram, Facebook, etc. Thus, the app list must be shown first. But I see this contact list that I will very unlikely use. I even doubt the contact in the rare occasion of direct share will be on the list.
This functionality also slows down the dialog, it takes quite a while for it to be shown.
So, the question is if there is any way to disable this functionality. I just don't need this.

Check this question http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/128053/removing-contacts-aka-direct-share-from-share-panel-on-marshmallow?rq=1, it seems the possibility to remove/edit direct share is not available yet.

The answers on the linked question are certainly relevant to this question, but as that question is about removing individual contacts from the list, I don't think it's a duplicate.

There's an even easier way (if you know xml) and it doesn't require xposed; use Android's built in Intent Firewall (ifw) and block the Direct Share intent. It does require root. I've posted about it somewhere on SO, will look it up and add it here, too.

If you are rooted but don't want to use Xposed you can use Android's native Intent Firewall to block direct share. This works on Android 6.0 all the way up to 8.1:
As answered earlier here:
Removing contacts (aka “Direct Share”) from Share panel on Marshmallow
It turns out that - for rooted people - there is a way to completely turn off Direct Share!
In my search for a way to stop this stupid feature from bugging me I had a look at how the feature is actually implemented in apps by developers. It turns out that they register a service with an intent receiver (read: event listener) and when I realized that, I started looking for a way to block certain intents from broadcasting through the system. Well, Android actually has that built in. It's called the Intent Firewall. I quickly figured out how to create a rule for it to block apps from receiving the "Hey are there any apps that want to bug the user by putting a couple of Direct Share buttons under their thumb as they're about to tap something?"-event.
You just create a simple xml file like and drop this into it:
<rules>
  <service block="true" log="true">
    <intent-filter>
      <action name="android.service.chooser.ChooserTargetService" />
    </intent-filter>
  </service>
</rules>

Now you have to put it on the phone and copy it into the Intent Firewall directory. On most devices that would be
/data/system/ifw/

I simply used Root Explorer to copy the file there (no chmod required), tried to share something that caused Direct Share targets to pop up and BOOM! Nothing!
I recommend to do some background reading (see links above), especially about how the Intent Firewall works and how you can find the folder.
Happy not-sharing!

Some blatant self-promotion: I've built (actually, updated) an app that replaces the Android Share dialog. I guess Andmade Share and AppChooser are fine alternatives, too, but I've tried to have it look and feel like the native share dialog. Try it here: https://sharedr.rejh.nl

Sadly this seems to be no longer working on Android 10. After placing the XML file, the share dialog starts crashing on open.

Thanks for creating Sharedr! Also, you may be interested in this similar question for recent Android versions: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/253273 :-)

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


text:
how do I set the max allowed volume on Android?
On iOS, it is possible to set the max volume limit so I don't get deaf. I know Android has the warning but I much prefer to set the limit.
I did checked the settings on the Xperia and nothing stands out.
Thank you.

Possible duplicate of How do I set a max allowed volume limit?

but that was 2014. Android (or AOSP) has changed since then? :)

You can probably use some volume control like Viper Audio.
Or afaik (not someone who uses tasker, so not sure) this can also be accomplished with tasker (detect certain level of volume using tasker and if it goes above that level, reduce it back).

Possible duplicate of How can I boost the volume on my Droid's speaker?

to lucky: the discussion you linked is dated 2010. A lot of things has changed since then on Android


text:
How Doze (marshmallow feature) work during playback?
We know that Doze mode starts the 'ultra power saving' when the device isn't moving.
But what happen if we leave the device on a table playing music with the screen off?
EDIT: I experienced the volume decreased after sometime when playing with Google Music app. Is this a feature of the app or some intrusion of the Doze ?

Related:   Doze mode and foreground service

Related: how-many-idle-time-is-needed-to-doze-start-its-job


text:
How much (Idle) time is needed for "Doze" to get activated ? (Android 6- Marshmallow)
Consider a device that was left on a table, unplugged, and no movement. After sometime, the screen turns off, and the screen lock may (or may not) be auto activated, according to lock and smart lock settings.

Firstly, let's assume its locked, how much time is required for Doze, working to save power?
On the other hand, if the smart lock is acting (like by geographic location), keeping device unlocked for several hours (is six the limit, right?), how will this affect "Doze" functionality?

First part of your question "Firstly, let's assume its locked, how much time is required for Doze, working to save power?"

Idle time is not specified by Google and I guess this is implemented differently by OEMs
Quoting from Google documentation  Optimising for Doze and stand by  (emphasis added)

If a user leaves a device unplugged and stationary for a period of time, with the screen off, the device enters Doze mode. In Doze mode, the system attempts to conserve battery by restricting apps' access to network and CPU-intensive services. It also prevents apps from accessing the network and defers their jobs, syncs, and standard alarms.
Periodically, the system exits Doze for a brief time to let apps complete their deferred activities. During this maintenance window, the system runs all pending syncs, jobs, and alarms, and lets apps access the network.

Edit : This may answer from a user perspective as this is what developers are apparently planning 9 minute interval
Source https://plus.google.com/+AndroidDevelopers/posts/94jCkmG4jff

Dianne Hackborn17 Nov 2015
+Petr Nalevka Sorry scheduling alarms so frequently is currently not supported in doze....For what it's worth, the minimum time between while idle alarms will be changing to 9 minutes at some point relatively soon (even on devices running the current Marshmallow builds).

Second part of your question ".... if the smart lock is acting (like by geographic location), keeping device unlocked for several hours (is six the limit, right?), how will this affect "Doze" functionality? (and a related question of yours How Doze (marshmallow feature) work during playback?)

It is difficult to answer this correctly as

As can be seen from the answer to first part of question, developers seem to be improving / modifying the behaviour of "Doze" functionality and only once it is matured and implemented, one can reach a conclusion.

As can be seen in this post https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33018306/doze-mode-and-foreground-service, thanks to Firelord for highlighting this
, documentation by Google is lacking in details and developers/ OEM may implement varying behaviors, so nothing can be said at this point of time with certainty.


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bad calls on custom rom on I9500
For quite some time of trying out various roms on my I9500, I've found out that on all of them I had a call issue, where the other person kept hearing himself twice (echo).
I've tried today to flash a modem for it, but for some reason, now it doesn't identify the sim card anymore.
I've tried flashing other roms, including wiping of everything except for internal&external storage, of course.
The sim card itself is fine, as I can see it working well on Nexus 5.
What can I do to fix this?

EDIT:
ok, I flashed an old modem, and it worked:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=58658207&postcount=2729
Sadly, the calls still have issues, but at least the sim card identification is ok.
If anyone knows how to fix this, please help


text:
Can I factory reset my tablet remotely?
I sold my Galaxy Tab 3 Lite on eBay. After I mailed it out to the buyer, I remember that I'd forgotten to erase it first. The problem is not about sensitive information. The problem is (still using my Google Password) the buyer might not be able to get into and use the tablet.

You can use Android Device Manager to remotely wipe (or other tasks) with your android.
Just login with your google account (should be same as the account on your device). And then select the Erase option.

While Jaskaranbir's answer should work if you've setup device manager to do that (AFAIR it requires you gave it the corresponding permissions on your device), there are other means you can use in case you have not. Order of tasks might be important here, since as soon as your device "lost contact" to its Google account, you can no longer address it remotely:

Login to your Google account using your web browser
locate Plan B, and hit the Install button. Select your device from the popup, which pushes the app to it.

Now you should be able to access the device via the corresponding web interface of the app developer. Another app working in a similar way is Android Lost. You can find additional details in our lost-phone tag-wiki.
You can still try ADM after having pushed one of these apps. Just make sure to not lock out (i.e. "de-authorize" it via device manager) the tablet before you've reset it; once de-authorized, you can no longer access it ;)


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New Icon after L upgrade
I started seeing the left most icon on my screen a few days ago and I can't find a reference to what this image means.  About a week earlier I upgraded my 2nd Gen Moto G to Lollipop.

Some techniques to find an image:

I recommend checking the official list of icons for Lollipop first. The icon depicts that the device is currently in vibration mode.

Other icons, as Jaskaranbir mentioned, in the order left to right, correspond to Network Wi-Fi, Signal Cellular full bar,  and Battery partially filled with flash depicting charging.
If the official list isn't enough, do a reverse image search. Crop the icon and use it in a reverse image search engine (such as Google). See the example query.
At times, using your analysis of the icon in a web search also works.
When it comes to icons in  right side of the status bar, it is safe to assume that the icon is part of SystemUI app, in which case, simply look into latter's drawables. Often, drawables have name that represents the logic behind the icon, so you can get a very good guess out of them.

For that Resource Browser can prove to be a very useful app. It can list all the drawables of an installed app in a single page, so you can view all of them easily.
(Click image to enlarge; image source: Google Play Store; no affiliation to app at all)

An alternative is to extract the APK in a folder, then run this command in that directory using a terminal emulator app
find ./ -type f -iname *.png -o -iname *.jpg -o -iname *.gif | while read line; do cp "$line" ./; done
You may need Busybox app installed. The command would recursively find all the images with PNG, JPG and GIF extension and copy them in the root of your directory. You can later see them using a file explorer app.

From left:
Vibrate, Wifi, Mobile signal, Battery
So yeah, its the Vibration symbol means your phone is set on vibration mode.

Turned it to vibrate at a dinner and forgot to increase the volume.  Thanks


text:
How do I temporarily disable an app when there is no "Disable" option
There are two memory hungry apps, Facebook and Facebook Messenger, which I want to disable at times but not always. I used:

settings → apps → downloaded → Facebook → force stop
settings → apps → running → Facebook → <weird service name(s)> → stop
settings → apps → all → Facebook → force stop

But the app restarts after few minutes, often accompanied by lots of thrashing. Ideally I would like to disable the app and remove it from memory until I decide to use it. What is the best possible solution?
Android version is 4.4.4, almost stock, not rooted.

Is the device rooted? am force-stop PACKAGE would easily  work here.Combine it with an [tag:automation] app and you're good to go.

If you are rooted you can also just find the apk in /data/app and then change/remove the .apk extension from file.
App will be disabled for good and wont ever execute till you change the extension back to original. (ofcourse you can create simple automation scripts).

@JaskaranbirSingh that may result in app data loss should the device reboots when the APK is not found for the app.

While I have accepted an answer, the solution that actually worked for me was to uninstall facebook and messenger and use the browser. Task killers (including Greenify) actually make things worse. Facebook and messenger apps have some creepy "wake up" mechanism which consumes extra CPU and memory during the process. My last attempt was to use a "permission manager" app (which extracts, changes and re-packages the permissions file of a package) but disabling the run at startup permission did not work. Without facebook and messenger I always have 250+ MB RAM free and longer battery time.

Manual methods might be tricky here. I'd recommend taking a look at Greenify, which will take care for such apps automatically (after you've told it so – you're the boss after all ;)

Greenify (source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)
As the screenshots show, Greenify can "hibernate" apps automatically when the screen is off (and it can do the same when configured apps are not in foreground) – which is basically like an "automated freezing/disabling" of the app. Big difference: you no longer have to care for that yourself. App icons and everything remain accessible. From the app's description:

Greenify help you identify and put the misbehaving apps into hibernation when you are not using them, to stop them from lagging your device and leeching the battery, in an unique way! They can do nothing without explicit launch by you or other apps, while still preserving full functionality when running in foreground, similar to iOS apps!

To point out some details which where misinterpreted1, please take a closer look at the first screenshot. You can see it shows 3 sections:

"Not hibernating automatically" (showing "Lux Lite"): This shows you've got the last word which apps Greenify shall deal with. In fact, without you doing so, Greenify won't deal with any app.
"Will hibernate in minutes after screen is off" (showing Evernote & Co): This is one of the ways Greenify can deal with apps: things which do not need to be active while you switched off your screen can be sent to sleep (though the selection in the screenshot seems weird to me: I'd never put my automation app – here IFTTT, in my case Tasker – into this section)
"Hibernated" (showing "Amazon Kindle"): So the apps there are put to sleep, though the screen is on (otherwise this section wouldn't make any sense as you'd never be able to see it). These are the apps "put to sleep" whenever they're not running in foreground: why should an eBook reader (here: Kindle) be active when you can't see it (unless it's using TTS to read a book aloud, of course)?

Greenify comes for free and doesn't require root to work (see top of second screenshot: "Working Mode: Non-Root") – though it unleashes its full powers with root, its Donation package, and the xposed-framework.
If you want to learn more on this app: there are currently over 70 answers mentioning it, feel free to browse :)

1: before I complemented my answer with this information; see e.g. comments on this other answer

Well, @Izzy, not that you needed it, but +1 anyway for helping a lot of battery-anxious people out. Not that I'm one of them ;)

@TamoghnaChowdhury Thanks! Helping them out was indeed the purpose for my answer, as usual. And increased rep is always a nice and welcome side-effect :)

My device is not rooted so all Greenify does is stop the app using the "Force stop" button. And the app wakes up again after few minutes. It still does half the job.

I'd hoped for more (but couldn't tell for sure, as all my devices are rooted). But so at least it automatically does the very same tasks you'd otherwise had taken manually. If you one day consider rooting, Greenify should do the job better – but even without root, it still seems the best you can achieve.

This is an alternative solution. You could  try 3C Toolbox. This is a veritable toolbox that can do a lot of things. For your need, you need to access
DISCLAIMER: The non-root validity of this method cannot be verified by me or @beeshyams.
This was confirmed to be working without root in an earlier Android version. If someone can verify that this method works on the OP's Android version, please edit out this disclaimer.
App manager → select user apps from menu at bottom → choose manage (last option on right side) → from the drop down → choose crystallize and you get the options → choose option 1 (for both your apps)
Explanation of the options offered by the developer on his thread at XDA (option names are different as in earlier versions but functionality is same) is
1) Never Runs in Background : the app is not autorized to run while the UI is not visible, ever. Good for standard apps on which no other app relies. App is restarted each time you start its UI.
2) Never Runs in Background,keep UI Until Screen Off:  Same as above, but keeps the app running until screen is turned-off.
3) May run in Background when Screen is on  App may run when screen is turned on, but is stopped when it is turned off. Good for apps on which other apps relies. Good for Play Services and similar apps.
You can also create a widget shortcut for app manager module, to be placed on the home screen, for quick accessibility in case you need to change the behaviour. To enable your apps you can choose option 2

Will this work without root? 3C Toolbox does not request a device admin allowance before enabling this (In my experience). Also, these options refer to crystallizing/freezing an app, don't they?

@TamoghnaChowdhury. They did work for me without root long back. Had bookmarked XDA explanation then. Now I have no way of rechecking as I am rooted. Yes these refer to crystallize options

Yeah, I can't verify this either as I am rooted. You should edit in the last Android version it worked without root as a disclaimer, in case it doesn't work.

You should keep it. It isn't exactly confusing, but then Greenify has its whole set of problems.

"not activate the method only when screen is locked as Greenify solution posted": You might have missed "do the same when configured apps are not in foreground". Greenify doesn't only do it's job when the screen is locked, but whenever a specified app is not "actively used". So as soon you switch to another app, Greenify can hibernate the now unused app – see the first screenshot, bottom of screen: "Kindle" is shown "hibernated", but screen is (obviously) on or you wouldn't see that. // @TamoghnaChowdhury any details on the "whole set of problems"? I didn't experience any when I used it.

Thanks noted @izzy.but root is required for xposed(  second screen shot ) and OP clarified his device not rooted. Are you sure same behaviour assured without root. I have greenify but can't verify being rooted

Well, @Izzy, it's not Greenify's problems per se, but it works best with root & xposed, like how I used it, and, well, if Xposed's buggy, Greenify will be too by extension (Anything on Lollipop 5.1 on ARMv8 and MM 6.0 on ARMv7 &ARMv8), like my N9.

@TamoghnaChowdhury I see. So maybe I didn't notice that because a) my devices are all rooted, b) none runs on Lollipop or above. Thanks for sharing!


text:
How do I set Android’s Clock app to vibrate for timers?
When I set my Android to All Notifications Vibrate mode and set a timer with the Clock app, the only notification I get is an on-screen display of the time counting negative past zero. There is no vibration, so I can’t tell that the timer expired when the phone is in my pocket (especially when using headphones with my computer). I can’t figure out how to ask the Clock app to vibrate the device when a timer expires. How do I enable vibrations for this notification? If this is a bug, how do I report it most effectively?
Normal notifications such as toasts will generate a vibration so that I can tell there is a notification when the phone is in my pocket. The normal alarm function of the Clock app will vibrate the device just fine.
I’m using Clock-4.2.1 (2383161) on Android-5.1.1+OxygenOS-2.1.2 on a OnePlus2.


text:
How many SIMs does Data Usage remember?
The Data Usage screen of Android seems to remember data usage per SIM. What I want to know is how many SIMs does it remember before deleting the old ones or does it not do that?
With my carrier it's cost effective to activate a new SIM (heavily discounted) every month so was wondering how much data the Data Usage screen would take up.

Each time you change the sim card and use internet, The data will be added up to the previous data. In lollipop, The Data usage moniter screen will show the entire data. If u want to clear that, You have to Root the phone or Reset your phone.
There are many third party apps on Play store to Record usage. And u can also customize them for your need.

I'll have to confirm that again but as far as I remember data usage is remembered per SIM - changing SIM to another one resets the data usage but it's still remembered and if you put that SIM back in again the data usage is remembered.


text:
Why voice records are not saved in mp3 format?
This is not particularly an android related question. All the phones I have used so far, don't record voice in mp3 format. Is it a limitation of the phones? Is there any benefit in recording voice in other formats than mp3? I really don't get it.

In short, MP3 is a Compressed audio file format, which means some details of Audio will be deleted to reduce the size. If you record your audio in MP3, the quality will be low than recording in Other  formats such as ogg or aac.
Hardware is not a limitation. Recorded audio can be converted into any other format using simple software.
Note: Now-a-days many applications in Playstore which can record directly in MP3.

Ogg Vorbis and AAC are also lossy compression formats, like MP3.

In addition to the other answers MP3 also requires some CPU, not a lot by today's standards, but enough to make a difference especially when in the background with other applications competing for CPU time.


text:
How to do a factory reset on Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4?
I decided to try encryption on my Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 wifi version just for fun. But during encryption process (somewhere at the end) it turned off the screen and hung.
Anyway my tablet was encrypted, but I wasn't asked for setting a password or encryption key. And it's appeared to be hard to do a factory reset on an encrypted device, since I have Cyanogenmod instead of stock ROM and TWRP instead of stock recovery. Any "official" way to hard reset the tablet was unsuccessful - for some of them I was asked for decryption (I don't have a password) and for the other TWRP recovery was unsuitable - it just led to an infinite boot loop.
So how can I do a factory reset?

So the only way I could resolve the issue and reset my tablet was to install CWM recovery (the last working link I found). I believe stock recovery would work as well, but I didn't have or find one.
The second step is to go the Settings → Backup & Reset → Factory data reset and clicking "Reset tablet". It will warn you about unavailability to backup or recover your data since device is encrypted and then will reboot device to recovery and provide factory reset.
Again, it would probably not be a problem if I'd have stock recovery. But in my case this was the only way to provide reset for my device and it took some time to find this out.
I also could try using restoring stock ROM with Kies or Odin, but I didn't have a working copy of Windows...
BTW here a few different ways you could try for other devices:

If you know your password or you have a stock recovery it should not be a problem at all - just use the default way to wipe your data (through recovery or android settings).
Use fastboot erase userdata (it didn't work for me, because Samsung has no fastboot mode, they have their "Download mode", which is a bit different)
Probably there is a way to reset/recover your device through some vendor provided tools (like Kies/Odin for Samsung devices).
You are so unlucky :(. Try to search about how to do factory reset for your particular device.


text:
Multiple Music libraries
My primary music library is English music (~15 GB) but I have a huge (>10 GB) of Hindi music too. My problem is:

I want to maintain these two libraries (preferably on the same device)
I want the songs on the Hindi music library to not show up when I "Shuffle All".

How I managed this until now was that I have been using iPod and I check the "Skip while Shuffling" for the Hindi songs. On Android, I can't figure out a way of doing this.
Any ideas?

To hide media in any folder showing up, you need to add .nomedia file to it. If you search your device, using file explorer (either stock or your preferred),you are likely to find quite a few of these scattered around. Copy-paste one of these into the folder you want to hide (Hindi in your case) and the contents should not show up in your player
If you can't find .nomedia file, you can easily create
If you want an  app to do this and offer more functionalities, you could try nomedia app from play store. It offers you the flexibility of choosing folders to hide. App claims to do this (Works on 4.4.2 on Honor 6)
"A tiny tool to hide multimedia files and prevent media scanning. Touch and hold the directory to toggle. Media library will not display the files in red colored folders."
Alternatively, you could use MortPlayer Music, taken from Izzy's  list, which takes the approach of choosing which folders you want to play and which folders you want to ignore. It over rides .nomedia file presence and provides an easier alternative
Thanks to Izzy for completing the solution and suggesting alternatives

And which folders should be hidden? If OP hides the Hindi music, it cannot be played at all – and only the English library is left. So that's no (full) solution; you're missing an essential part: How to play Hindi then? Hint: There are players not using the media library but going by folders, see my list FolderPlay & AudioBooks. A combination could work here.


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Time service / monkey test
I have "Vonino onyx QS" tablet and "Monkey test , Time service , Guard service" are always open . How uninstal this?

To remove the complete malware, you have to root your phone, as it needs to hectic tools to remove.
By XDA Forums :

Root your Tablet with root app, or by using Root Software, the complete guide is here: Root your Phone

[Note: USB DEBUGGING MUST BE ENABLED Turn on Usb Debugging by going to settings> developer options> Usb debugging]

Turn off wifi/3G/4G, and then go to settings> apps> all> disable time service and monkey test. (If already frozen via titanium backup or other app) skip this.
Open Root explorer go to system/xbin and see if there is any file starting with a dot (eg: .ext.base) also note that every (.) file has diff permission then the rest of other files. So just remember those files with dots because those are the one that you're going to remove in terminal emulator.
Go back to system and then go to Priv-app folder and look for these two files
1 cameraupdate.apk [2] providerCertificate.apk and also notice permission of these two files are different then the rest of Apks so these two are the base of MT TS virus and needs to be deleted.
Open Terminal Emulator OR if you have access to your device via adb from a computer.
WHAT TO TYPE IN TERMINAL EMULATOR or ADB (CMD Windows)

adb devices (Type this line if you're using adb Windows)
adb shell
su
mount -o remount,rw /system
cd system/priv-app
chattr -iaA providerCertificate.apk
rm providerCertificate.apk
chattr -aA cameraupdate.apk
rm cameraupdate.apk
cd ..
cd system/xbin
chattr -iaA .b
rm .b
chattr -iaA .ext.base
rm .ext.base
chattr -iaA .sys.apk
rm .sys.apk

[NOTE: If you are using older version than KK you need not to type priv-app just type cd system/app]

Please make sure you type the file name correctly just as providerCertificate C is capital otherwise permission wont change.
Exit Emulator/ADB

Taken Source :
1) http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/general/fix-monkey-test-time-service-virus-t3194907
2) https://akshatshibu.wordpress.com/earn-easy-money-by-sharing-links-on-the-internet/how-to-remove-monkeytest-%EF%BC%88ghost-push%EF%BC%89malware/


text:
Using alsa mixer (root) to boost sound in an intelligent way
I'm looking for a way to boost the headphone output of my Moto X (2013). I have rooted it and installed Alsa Mixer so I should be able to run shell scripts and modify it.
The thing is.. I can't find any good guides for this.
What I'm trying to do:
- Boost the volume using a compressor (like radio stations tend to do)
- Maybe apply a limiter after that just to be sure I don't blow up my headphones.
Can somebody help me plz?

Welcome to the Android Enthusiasts! Have you already tried our powerful search feature, and checked e.g. for volume boost? Was your solution amongst the results? :)

My suggestion is to install Viper4Android. You can increase output by (as I recall) 8dB, and besides that, you will get a lot of options to adapt the sound to get the best output. Using it for a couple of years and still haven't found a better alternative.

Thanks I stumbled upon this myself yesterday but wanted to try it for a littke before answering my own question. It's a bit of a hassle to get it working (softbricked my phone because I forgot to restore build.prop file permissions) but once it works it really works!

In settings, set the UI mode to Expert, you will get all the options available. If you stay in default mode much of the options (including the output dB strength) are hidden.


text:
It is possible to call without sim by adding a number as emergency number...?
It is possible to call anyone without sim card...I mean adding anyones number as emergency call number and call anyone as emergency call?

You cant add a number as emergency number. The mobile phone and the SIM card have a preprogrammed list of emergency numbers. When the user tries to set up a call using an emergency number known by a GSM or 3G phone, the special emergency call setup takes place.
You can dial emergency numbers without sim card. But the numbers should valid in that country. Here are some emergency numbers
112, 911, 118, 119, 000, 110, 08, 999 etc.
However, some GSM networks will not accept emergency calls from phones without a SIM card, or even require a SIM card that has credit. For example, Latin American networks typically do not allow emergency calls without a SIM. Also, GSM phones sold in some countries like USA do not accept 112 as an emergency number even if they have a SIM card inserted.


text:
Transfer music files from PC running WinXP to Samsung Galaxy S6
Android n00b, here.  I finally got my PC to see the folder structure of my S6, but it won't allow me to paste files onto it.  When I go into the Music folder and right-click, the word "Paste" is grayed out.  When I try to drag-n-drop, it won't even let me hover over the S6 peripheral.
I'm doing all this via Windows Explorer, running on a machine with WinXP SP3.  Can someone tell me how to get my MP3's onto my S6?

Do you have Windows Media Player 10 or even better 11? I would highly recommend not using Windows XP at all (discontinued, no support for modern technologies etc.). What format are those music files?

What about using Kies?

Are you using the latest Google recommended MTP driver for WinXP?

@Giant, the files are MP3s please read the question.


text:
Insufficient storage on tablet says it has 12gb used when only used 2
My brother wants to download an app on his tablet yet it says he has insufficient storage so i went to his storage where it has picture then the amount it takes up and downloads and apps and so on yet when you count all these amounts its around 2 gb yet at the bottom it has 12 gb please help!!!!! Thanks in advance

Download Terminal Emulator from play store, open and show the output of df command? That would help understanding your storage

Give us the output (screenshots) of Diskinfo and DiskUsage. You may have to delete an app or an app's data  to get some space for the said apps' installation.

@Firelord the storage is : available=498mb, system reserved= 1.69gb, apps=1.05gb ,pictures videos = 72kb, audio=220kb, downloads=135mb, cached data=117mb, misc=91mb however when i click apps it says at the bottom "12gb used 609mb free"

@JCurry make sure you've read our insufficient-memory tag-wiki to get an idea how to interpret "storage". Then [edit] your question and add how much all/used/free internal storage there is on your tablet. While [edit]ing: Please see to give it some structure (punctuation, paragraphs) to make it easier to read :)

sorry @Firelord im new

That is because the android app storage quota is like 1 GB, What version of android are you running? and what is the exact model of the device?
If its 4 and up you can easily move the apps to usb storage and gain more space, to do that you need to go to applications on your settings, click on the apps and then click move to sd. after you do that, reboot the device and you will have more storage for more apps.
Hope this helps

If you have facing this issue while downloading apps from play store folllow this steps.
Settings->apps->all apps.
Clear data of Play store, Play service,
If the problem still persists, clear the data of all web browsers in the same way.
Try to find app which use memory more than usual.