text:
No Audio, Samsung Galaxy S4
A few weeks ago, my phone's APN list got corrupted, causing me to lose mobile data; a series of firmware flashes, modem updates, and backups and restores fixed the APN problem, but now the entire sound subsystem is non-functional.  The speaker and microphone do not work in any app.
Example symptoms:
Dialer - pops up a "stopped responding" dialog when making or receiving calls; selecting 'wait' in the dialog allows the call to complete, but with no incoming or outgoing sound.
Sound Recorder - pressing record pops up a dialog "Internal Application Error. Microphone may be in use."
YouTube - all videos show "There was a problem while playing. Touch to retry."
Phone details:
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Sprint), model number SPH-L720. Rooted, running Android 5.1 (& 4.4) (CyanogenMod 12.1 various nightlies and 11 snapshot).
Things I have tried (without success):

Factory Reset (without restoring backups, just to see if sound works)
Re-flash various ROM versions; cm-12.1-20150917-NIGHTLY, 20150922, 20150926, 20150928, and cm-11-20141112-SNAPSHOT-M12-jflte.  The 20150917 nightly and 20141112 snapshot versions have previously had sound working, so it's not a bug in new ROM versions.
Combinations of the re-flash with factory reset.
Reboot with SIM card and micro SD card removed.
Re-flash modem/baseband to earlier version (was running OH1, now running NAE; have not flashed all the way back to MF9, which is the version that was running the last time I'm sure sound worked, but this was a move of desperation, since the modem firmware shouldn't impact the sound system.

I'm at my wits end.  I feel like with the above, I've re-initialized every location that could possibly be affecting the sound system, and yet, I can never get any audio input or output from the phone.

Providing what worked for me, in case someone else has the same problem:
A helpful suggestion over at xda-developers.com by developer bilgerryan indicated I should Odin a full stock ROM, in order to replace whatever corrupted data was causing the problem.  Long story short, in the process of looking for progressively "fuller" stock ROMs after several failures, I ran across this thread, which provided a tar which "contains the NON-HLOS.bin modem.bin sbl2.mbn tz.mbn aboot.mbn rpm.mbn sbl3.mbn".
Flashing that tar fixed the problem completely, and since it doesn't touch the system or data partitions, it didn't require backing up or restoring anything.  (Although you should always back up your data before flashing anything, just to be safe.)  After that, I re-updated the NON-HLOS.bin and modem.bin to the further updated versions I had installed when sound wasn't working, and it continued to work.  So the problem was in one of: tz.mbn aboot.mbn rpm.mbn sbl2.mbn sbl3.mbn
Huzzah for having a working phone again.


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Why did my Google Play store switch to Chinese?
I tried to update an app, and all of a sudden my Google Play Store switched from English to Cantonese. I'm in New Zealand, and my ip address--according to whereisip.net--appears to be California.
What the heck is going on?

possible duplicate of How to change the Play store language

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to Hide WhatsApp contact invites
So, WhatsApp contacts also displays contacts that don't have WhatsApp account as Invite contact.
How can I hide that Invite Contact list of contacts that don't have WhatsApp account??
I checked the settings and haven't found any option..

There's a workaround.
I changed the details from 'Mobile' to 'Home/Work' in my Android Contacts for all those non-Whatsapp numbers.
Now they don't show up in Whatsapp invite contact.

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


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Factory reset on htc one mini 2 doesn't work
I'm trying to do a factory reset on my HTC one mini 2 following the instructions on HTCs website here:
http://www.htc.com/uk/support/htc-one-mini-2/howto/511217.html
I can't access settings (it dumps me out to the home screen, hence the need for a reset), so I'm trying the hardware buttons method.
I hold volume-down, then hold the power button as per the instructions. After about 7 seconds, a black message box pops up saying "to restart your phone, press and hold the volume-up and power buttons".
If I keep holding volume-down and power the screen then goes dark. Nothing else happens.
If when the message appears I let go, the message disapears, and my phone just returns to the locked screen, I can unlock it as usual.
I'm completely flummoxed, any ideas what to do next?

Right, so I figured it out (much googling, some trial and error, more than a few swearwords).
The htc guide (and most others on the interwebs that have just copied and pasted HTC's instructions) neglect to tell you that the phone needs to be switched off.
So, factory reset instructions for htc one mini 2.

press and hold power button and chose "power off"
press and hold volume down and power button
hold those for quite a long time
You should then end up in the "three android symbols menu" Let go of all the buttons
Press volume down until "factory reset" is selected, tap the power button.
Cross your fingers.


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Mirror android screen on a spare lcd monitor using usb cable
Can I connect my smartphone running Android 4.2.2 to a spare dell lcd monitor by using a mini usb cable so I can mirror the android screen onto the monitor? Is it possible? Using some app maybe? No desktop is involved. Just a spare lcd.

Does your monitor have a usb-input which is possible to use as video input? I don't think so.

You need to be much more specific about the phone and monitor. Model numbers would be helpful. Information and photos of the connections on the monitor would also be helpful. More info, please!

if your device have MHL capabilities you try buying the cable mentioned in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDS6cP-ViG8

check out this website for more details on mhl https://gadgetstouse.com/blog/2013/08/24/mhl/

Original answer from September 2015:
No, you cannot with a standard USB cable. Depending on the mobile device in question as well as the monitor, you could possibly connect the phone with an MHL adapter.
Update September 2020:
Five years later and, of course, there are greater options for connecting a mobile device to an external screen. Hoping that everyone is now running newer than Android 4.2.2. and with the use of USB-C for connections, I've been using this USB-C to HDMI with OTG USB-A and USB-C charging. The important part is the charging feature for two reasons:

Some devices will not transmit video without additional power.

The adapter will charge the device while it is being used to drive
an external screen.

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


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Alarm with time zone
The stock alarm clock only allows specifying times in the local time zone.
However, I often travel across time zones, and I need a couple of alarms to happen at a given (absolute) time, regardless of the time zone where I currently am.
A related question was closed for asking about apps that would allow setting alarms in a specific time zone: Is there a alarm clock app that uses UTC time?
Without asking about specific apps. Is it possible to somehow specify alarms in one specific time zone?
If that is not possible with any existing app, could anyone give any pointers that would make it possible to develop such an app?
I was thinking on somehow subscribing to changes in the time zone (maybe checking the time every 30 minutes?), and adjust some of the alarms when a change is detected. But that sounds elaborated and prone to issues. Any other ideas?

Why not use an already developed app from play store? eg. See if this Alarm Clock app is useful. The description says, "alarms auto adjust themselves while the time zone changes and each alarm starts with predefined settings."

@Lucky that app does not allow specifying the time zone. It only says it adjusts alarms to time zone changes; i.e. the same as the stock app does.


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Is there a way to delete the picture on hangouts so they cant see it? retrieve picture
I wanted to recall a photo, that I sent to someone by accident. They are out of town, so I know they haven't seen it yet. Is there any way to delete the picture on hangouts so they can't see it?

a-lo: Apparently this is a popular post. Did the answer work for you? If so, please select the checkmark on the answer. Thanks!

Share and delete your photos from Hangouts messages and Google Voice MMS:

You can delete photos that you sent through a Hangouts message or
  through a Google Voice multimedia message in Hangouts. You'll need to
  delete the photos from Picasa Web Albums.
Even if you delete a photo in your Picasa album, if you sent it
  through a multimedia message, the person who received it may still
  have a copy of the image on their device.

Go to Picasa Web Albums.
Click Show All Albums. If you're using Hangouts to send Google Voice multimedia messages, make sure you're going to the Picasa
  account that is connected to the Google Voice account.
Click the album with the photos you want to delete. For Hangouts users: The photo album's title will be the name of the person you had
  the Hangout with. For Google Voice users: The photo album's title will
  be the phone number of the person who received the photo.
Click the photo that you want to delete.
Click Actions > Delete this photo. If you want to delete the entire album, open the album and click Actions > Delete album.

So after deleting from.google photos, it would be recalled?

This doesn't seem to work as of november 2016

April 2017 -- this worked for me.  It was very tedious, because the hangout in question had about 1000 photos in it, and there didn't seem to be any way to jump to the end, so I had to scroll a lot.  And then when I deleted it, the thumbnail remained; but I convinced myself that the image was mostly gone by logging in with a different browser, opening Hangouts, and noting that the image had been replaced with a bar-in-a-circle icon.

The newer version of the link for Picasa Web Albums seems to be: https://get.google.com/albumarchive/    There I had an album titled "Photos from Hangouts" in which separate chats albums are present.

It's easier to delete the album at get.google.com/albumarchive that @macieksk gave. No need to scroll through the Hangout like user:offby1 did. My photos remained in Google Photos, but were removed from my Hangout and the other party's hangout, and replaced by a red no photo "!" thumbnail. When you go to delete the conversation, Google will give the get.google.com/albumarchive link to delete photos. If you don't delete photos, then delete the conversation, I think the photos remain if the other party still has the conversation.


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Can't find text message that was to a group
When John Doe texts to a group that includes me, it appears as a notification in the upper left corner, but then when I go to the text message conversations between me and John Doe, its not there. Where is it?


text:
'unfortunately stopped' problem
My Gionee M2 is showing error messages often.

"unfortunately ikeyboard has stopped"
"unfortunately systeminfo has stopped"
"unfortunately adobe air has stopped"
"unfortunately measure has stopped"

It started suddenly. I can't use the phone at all. I've done following things,

I have done factory reset but no help.
I rooted the phone and uninstalled Adobe Air, systeminfo and ikeyboard using kingroot.

But unfortunately this issue is coming back automatically and the phone specification are as follows.
]1

Related: "unfortunately adobe air has stopped"

Possible duplicate of "Unfortunately xxx has stopped"

Your phone infected with a trojan. Not a permanant solution yet
use   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cleanmaster.security.stubborntrjkiller app to remove the virus

Please explain  (in detail) how did you conclude that the phone is infected with a trojan and how exactly that app is able to purge the trojan. We need details to understand the issue at hand, not some dependence on third-party apps.


text:
Malicious Android Apps installed remotely on my device
I recently installed Trend Micro Mobile Security in order to to check my apps if all are safe and secure since I have a rooted Xperia Phone which may be more prone to attacks.
I had clean results then I've got it uninstalled. The problem starts when I installed an App called "WiFi FTP (WiFi File Transfer)" from 1 Mobile Market which I found out isn't a genuine Google Play app and has a suspicious 1MB file size.  As a rooted user I've got a popular app called Xprivacy which warns me when any app is seeking permissions and gives me the choice to allow it or not.
When I opened WiFi FTP and gave it full permissions it needed I had a surprising Xprivacy popup for another app called "Security Certificate" asking for permissions to use (among others) the Internet.  I've blocked all of them. After removing WiFi FTP I had another popup for a suspicious app with the name "Settings Helper" asking for the same permissions as its predecessor. I blocked all permissions it was asking for, and opened Settings > Apps to check what they are. I found both of them having an identical weird android logo and when I got into the app info it had a "Disable" option not an "Uninstall" one. Which means that it is installed as a system app. Though I disabled both of them, and when I was outdoors I turned on Mobile Network for internet access just for 5 seconds and found a surprising big charge,and after checking traffic data usage I found an app (or better call them a system service for the three of them) with the same weird logo called "ceryos" that was the reason for that unusual charge and the previous two apps with some minimal net usage too!
I disabled the three apps but after some hours I checked them back and found them enabled Again except for "ceryos" (luckily)! And resetting the permissions limits I set them to from xprivacy. Though after doing more checks I found another one called "Live Wallpaper" with the same icon and disabled it.
What is the safest way to disable or remove these malicious applications?

Check the list of "Device Administrators" in the Security menu.

And if you want a decent way to transfer files over WiFi, try AirDroid.

I don't think this is the right website to help you. Perhaps Android Central forums? Oh. You may find it helpful to reset to factory settings and install apps more carefully.

Thanks for the replies! feral I checked "Device administrators" before and found nothing enabled and AirDroid is surely a good choice but curiosity was the reason that let me install such an app.

Neil this is my first question over here and I think you're right but I hope any one over here could give some help, and factory reset is the last option I'm thinking of right now.

I did some further search and found a similar post talking about the same issue, he didn't have the full answer yet i did it my own way and I guess it's working.
1.Since I'm a root user and my issue is related to apps installed in system directory I used "Root Explorer" went to the root directory then system->apps
2.I sorted the apps by date (to see the newly installed malicious apps)
3.I found the following app list: ("obs.apk", "abc.apk", "SettingProvider.apk", "LiveWallpaper.apk", "BatteryControl.apk") which all were installed the same date I installed that malicious app.
4.Finally I did remove them and I think it's over now.

I just want to mention that, be careful with what you try out in the wild. You were close to become a victim of a ransomware.

Totally true.. I made it once and won't do it again, the thing is just i trusted 1 Mobile Market as a safe store to download apps from and it totally wasn't.

PS. I have made a backup for the malicious files, if anyone is interested in reverse engineering these apps I could give him a copy.


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How can I install e2fsprogs on my device?
My phone has the "Monkey Test" virus and there is solution in here, but when I try to execute this command:
chattr -iaA providerCertificate.apk

I receive the error "chattr : not found".
I found a solution here, which is to install e2fsprogs, but I don't know how to install it using ADB. How can i install it?

Related: How to stop "Monkey Test" and "Time Service" apps

Read carefully: That e2fsprogs link and anything related to it is irrelevant to your problem. If you're having issue such as "chattr : not found" then most likely either you didn't install Busybox or you did install but didn't open it and followed the binaries installation. I've it installed and chattr binary works fine. Follow that XDA thread carefully.

Also, please keep this in mind: "If people are seriously copying any command they don't understand on the internet and pasting it into a shell to see what happens, they probably aren't going to last very long.", because you need to know what you're doing.


text:
Will the 2015 Nexus phones (5X, 6P) work with any US cell provider?
I'm pretty geeky, but I haven't really followed all the tech behind LTE rollouts and wireless bands and whatnot. I barely know the difference between CDMA and GSM. I know Verizon didn't use a SIM and generally phones weren't interchangeable, but that now they do use SIMs... Overall, I'm confused. But, confused or not, I want to buy a new Nexus phone.
The Google store web site for the 6P just lists a bunch of bands and says:

GSM/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
UMTS/WCDMA: B1/2/4/5/8
CDMA: BC0/1/10
LTE (FDD): B2/3/4/5/7/12/13/17/25/26/29/30
LTE (TDD): B41
CA DL: B2-B2, B2-B4, B2-B5, B2-B12, B2-B13, B2-B17, B2-B29, B4-B4, B4-B5, B4-B13, B4-B17, B4-B29, B41-B41
Phone is carrier-unlocked with wide-range band support for service providers worldwide. Check with your service provider for more information.

That last bit is not very promising, since such information is generally buried in knowledgebases and forums on carrier websites, and anyway the carriers mostly want to sell me a phone directly and aren't highly incentivized to make this simple.
Does this big long list mean that everything in the US — or, at least, T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon — will work? Will they all work everywhere that they have coverage, or might it depend on certain bands being deployed in some areas?
To make things worse, the 5X has a slightly different list — under LTE (FDD), 30 is gone but 1 is added. CA DL becomes LTE CA DL, and includes B4-B7 and B4-B12. Does this make any practical difference?

All major US carriers and Project Fi:  Link to Android Police
So that means any US-version Nexus 5X and 6P unit will work on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Boost, MetroPCS, Cricket, Google's own Fi Network, and more.


text:
TWRP USB-OTG won't work?
I have a nexus 7 (2012). I have installed the most ercent version of TWRP for it, and TWRP seems to work. Im trying to do this, and have reached the part where it says

Once Team Win boots, go into Wipe and select Advanced Wipe. Select all
  checkboxes except for USB-OTG, and slide to wipe.

Only USB-OTG didn't even show up in the advanced wipe partitions menu. The menu inlcuded:
- Dalvik Cache
- System
- Cache
- Data
- Internal Storage
I then trawled the internet and found (alas, can't seem to find it again) a thread on the xda-forums with with a similar question. It told me that a fix was to make sure that:

"Use rm-rf instead of formatting" was ticked on in settings
That USB-OTG was mounted in the mount menu

So i ticked "Use rm-rf instead of formatting" in settings then I went into the mount menu and I tried to tick USB-OTG. The option to select USB-OTG was there, but when I pressed it the box on the left didn't cross. I tested mounting and unmounting all of the other options to see if it was aproblem in that area. Nope, all the other mounted and unmounted fine! Selecting USB-OTG in storage didn't do anyhing either (as in I could press the icon to select it, but it wouldn't actually select, also the readout on this screen said USB-OTG had 0 data...)
Other than explaing or helping with all that, my question is also 'does it matter?'. Common sense tells me that if I don't have any USB-OTG connected and I just wipe everything in the advanced wipe, it will have the same effect as what the Guardian Project guide says? IDK but please help a noob out.
I'm fairly new to this (could you tell?) so all help is good, and I'm happy with command line 'deep' stuff (my main laptop which i'm using for this runs linux) including the TWRP command line.
Sorry for long post, didnt want to leave stuff out
Thanks

Format your usb storage as FAT32.

I formatted my pen drive in FAT file system and restarted the recovery. Then it allowed me to tick the USB OTG. And I could access all the files in pen drive inside TWRP. I used it to load the CM mod. FAT32 may also work though I haven't tested it.
Edit: FAT32 also works.

Your common sense is correct. Also your quotes it says

check all checkboxes EXCEPT usb-otg

(on the go). But anyway if no external things are connected then nothing will show and nothing will wipe because nothing is there.


text:
Missing space on internal storage
I have a GT-I9195 running Lollipop 5.1.1 (currently PAC-ROM) which in theory has 8GB of internal memory. However, I can't seem to track down what exactly has happened to all that space. With a paltry 100 or so apps (including system essentials) installed, the phone starts reporting it's out of space until I move apps to the external MicroSD card. The problem persisted even through the custom ROM installation and subsequent recent ROM update as well as a few factory resets/cache wipes/etc. It's been an issue for nearly 8 months now, and periodically I've trawled the Internet for suggestions and clues but without making any real progress.
It seems to me as if a large chunk of space on the phone's memory is simply inaccessible and unused. Is this possible? How can I delve deeper into what's going on?
I've included the output of a df command in terminal emulator below. I notice that there seem to be duplicates of the internal memory /storage/emulated/0 and /storage/emulated/legacy (though I think one is just an alias of the other), and that they are both the same reported size as /data.
Storage Analyser reports 541.93MB of that 5.3GB is used by accessible files and 3.59GB used by "android/inaccessible files". This adds up to the 4.1GB which df claims is in use, but I can't understand what that 3.59GB is when every app which can be put on the external SD card is already on it, and I thought that the /system partition contained the OS itself and was not included in /data?
I've tried to get ES File Explorer to do its SD card analyst trick on the /data folder but without success, so it's not easy to probe it and find out how big each subfolder is.
I'd really like to get to the bottom of this... can anyone offer a suggestion as to what to try next?
Edit: also of interest to me is that I do have more than a gigabyte of space on the internal storage (/storage/emulated/0), but this is apparently unavailable for installing apps on. It holds DCIM and other random storagey things, and naturally freeing up space here doesn't allow me to install any more apps on the phone memory.
Filesystem               Size     Used     Free   Blksize
/dev                   663.7M    48.0K   663.6M   4096
/sys/fs/cgroup         663.7M     0.0K   663.7M   4096
/mnt/asec              663.7M     0.0K   663.7M   4096
/mnt/asec/org.mrpdaemon.android.encdroid-2     6.0M     4.8M     1.2M   4096
/mnt/asec/flipboard.app-2     9.0M     7.4M     1.6M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.netflix.mediaclient-2    33.1M    31.9M     1.2M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.tecarta.bible-2    17.0M    15.3M     1.7M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.pisanu.scrabblechecker-2     4.0M     2.7M     1.2M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.shazam.android-1    27.1M    25.5M     1.6M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.hutchison3g.planet3-2    12.0M    10.3M     1.7M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.trello-2    16.0M    14.2M     1.8M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.whatsapp-2    22.0M    20.4M     1.7M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.audioaddict.di-2    33.1M    31.1M     2.0M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.evernote-2    28.1M    26.4M     1.7M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.mxtech.videoplayer.pro-2    25.1M    23.8M     1.2M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.mxtech.ffmpeg.v7_neon-2    19.0M    17.7M     1.3M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro-2    13.0M    11.1M     1.9M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.skype.raider-2    80.3M    78.9M     1.4M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.spotify.music-2    39.1M    37.5M     1.6M   4096
/mnt/asec/org.wordpress.android-2    11.0M     9.9M     1.1M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.Slack-2    31.1M    29.3M     1.8M   4096
/mnt/asec/jackpal.androidterm-2     2.0M   604.0K     1.4M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.mictale.gpsessentials-2    15.0M    13.6M     1.4M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.adobe.reader-2    17.0M    15.7M     1.4M   4096
/mnt/obb               663.7M     0.0K   663.7M   4096
/system                  1.4G   759.7M   714.5M   4096
/data                    5.3G     4.1G     1.1G   4096
/cache                 196.7M     4.5M   192.2M   4096
/efs                    13.4M     4.2M     9.2M   4096
/persist                 7.9M     4.0M     3.8M   4096
/firmware               64.0M    49.7M    14.2M   16384
/storage/emulated      663.7M     0.0K   663.7M   4096
/storage/sdcard1        59.5G    57.2G     2.2G   131072
/storage/emulated/0      5.3G     4.1G     1.1G   4096
/storage/emulated/legacy     5.3G     4.1G     1.1G   4096

Edit2: I finally did some digging in /data by manually selecting directories and querying them with ES File Explorer. Thankfully this didn't take too long before I found the main culprits:
data/media           1.45 GB
data/data            1.11 GB
data/dalvik-cache    1.17 GB
data/app             642.57 MB
data/user            1.11 GB (this appears to be a symlink of data/data)

Investigating data/media, I discovered a 1GB backup file created by ClockWordMod recovery, presumably when I first flashed the ROM. Moving it to my SD card has apparently recovered that space in /data, which is fab. This has, presumably, been the main source of my problem - that is, assuming this space is actually available for installation of apps now (not easy to check with this ROM other than by installing apps until I run out of space).
As for the other big directories: I can believe that data/app is the total size of my installed apps, and I guess there's no getting around the dalvik cache being so huge. I'd really love to dig into data/data and see what exactly is using so much space in there, but in ES File Explorer I have to manually select each folder and click properties to find out how big a directory is - a task for another time as I've been unable to find a utility to do this for me.

Welcome to the Android Enthusiasts! First, for the "running low" you can ignore your SD cards (they don't throw such an error). 2nd you've guessed right: emulated/legacy is just a pointer for the logged-in user to emulated/0 here (user0=owner, the digit is increased for subsequent users). Mentioning "inaccessible files" makes me think of "/data/tombstones" (crashlogs). Find some further pointers in our insufficient-memory tag-wiki.

Hi Izzy, thanks for the confirmation, the information and the welcome. With some further digging I managed to find what was probably the main space-sucking culprit - it was a 1GB CWM backup file sitting in data/media, which I was able to move out with ES File Explorer and root. What would be really useful at this point is a tool to show me the size of each folder in /data/ so I don't have to query it manually, but I seem to have freed up more than enough space for now. Edit: assuming I can actually install apps on that space...

Glad you found the major chunk! There are such apps, and those were recommended here a couple of times (e.g. DiskUsage). Be welcome to check my list for those :)

Related: How disk space is used on Android device?

So this is finally sorted. Here are the tools I used:
Initially, in Android Terminal Emulator, I used the df command (directing the output to a text file to post here: df > /storage/emulated/0/df.txt) to get an overview of the size and usage of each partition in the filesystem.
I later discovered FreeSpace which told me the same information but with a GUI and was somewhat easier to use. Doing this pointed to /data as the culprit.
I then used ES File Explorer to analyse individual directories. However, a more efficient way would have been to use the excellent DiskUsage (Google Play Store, F-Droid) app (thanks Izzy) - I've since pointed it at /data and it shows the exact size of every subdirectory in the entire tree (this does require root).
Doing this I discovered there was a large (1GB) backup file apparently created by ClockWorkMod Recovery when I installed the ROM (though with an odd timestamp, but that's another story). Using ES File Explorer again, with root access, I was able to move this backup file to my external SD card, freeing up space for downloading and installing apps.
Since doing this I've downloaded every large game app I can find and installed it to try to verify that the space is really available to install apps, and it does seem to have worked.


text:
Is blocking ads with hosts file slow?
For instance, Adaway offers a hosts file with 300K addresses to block.
It works, but will this significantly impact performance, therefor battery life? When does the system access the hosts file? Every time a connection is made, or is it just read once at system restart and stored in memory?

Normally, it is read once and remains in the memory. Do you have any statistics or any proof to even suspect that that file would impact performance or battery life at all?


text:
"com.android.phone has stopped" after reboot, cured by changing Preferred Network -- how to make permanent
Phone info:

"Google Play Edition" Galaxy S4 - GT-I9505ZWG
Android 5.1, build number LMY470.S008.150802
AT&T, Philadelphia

After rebooting the phone, I get the "com.android.phone has stopped" popup, and am unable to make calls or connect to the network.
I've been through the following steps to try to cure:

Clear cache for all apps
Clear data for "Phone" app (2 of them), as well as "CSC" and "com.phone.sec"

On a hunch, because there were issues last year with Google phones and AT&T support for LTE, I went into the "Preferred Network" settings and attempted to switch to 3G.
The first time doing this after reboot, touching the setting caused the settings app to exit. However, the signal strength meter then showed a signal, and I was able to make a call and connect to the Internet.
I then went back to this settings page, and was able to successfully change back and forth between 3G and LTE.
However, after rebooting, I was back in "com.android.phone has stopped" land.
It appears to be a settings issue, but which setting? And how to change? Is there a particular app that I should clear data for?
I don't want to do a factory reset, especially since I have a work-around.
If necessary, I can get logcat output. However I'd want a pointer to the specific output required, rather than dumping the whole mess into the question.


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Mount an ext4 formatted sdcard on a stock Lolipop 5.1 rom (rooted)
I currently have a Sony Z1 Compact. Unfortunately, it has an unlockable bootloader. I typically install Cyanogen on my android devices, but in this case, I don't have that option (without messing around with packages and changing out some kernels and so-fourth which I don't want to deal with).
I'm running the stock Sony 5.1 firmware with SuperSU root. My SDCard from my old phone is formatted in ext4. Upon loading it into the Sony Z1, it tells me the card is "damaged" (it doesn't recognize ext4) and refused to mount it. I can mount it via adb manually using the following:
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /storage/sdcard1

But of course, it doesn't show up as mounted storage in any Android app or the system preferences. I've found a myriad of posts for older 4.4 firmware references files that don't seem to exist in Android 5.1 (at least not on the Sony firmware).
The kernel obviously supports ext4. I can mount it. What is the correct way to get the Sony firmware to either auto-mount it or to setup my device to mount it manually on boot and have it correctly recognize it as an external sdcard to all my other android apps.
It's a 128GB card filled with my music (well, A through W. X through Z will have to wait until I decide to buy a bigger card) and I really don't want to have to reformat it in vfat.

If mountpoint is visible only to root and not to other users/apps, that's due to mount namespace explained here: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/197959/partition-gets-unmounted-automatically-in-android-oreo/200449#200449 Permissions problem is explained https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-X-Play/Android-ext4-support/m-p/3262766#M1645 and https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=63074215&postcount=2


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Exclamation mark on Wi-FI icon even with good network coverage
I'm using Sony Xperia Z2, after updated to lollipop 5.1.1 my wifi is not working in spite of a good connection due to that exclamation mark. I read so many related posts and answers here, but i don't understand the technical term/way to solve this problem. I kindly request to explain me in a very simple step-by-step procedure. Thanks

First of all, the exclamation mark is not what causes your WiFi not to work, it's the other way round; the exclamation mark is there to show that your WiFi is not working.

What type of wireless network are you trying to connect to (private, home, public, etc.)? Did the Wi-Fi work normally before the update to 5.1.1? How did you perform this update?

Can you connect to the internet via the same WiFi connection from another device? If you can, does forgetting the WiFi network then connecting again solve the issue?


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Deleting unwanted contacts from my cloud
I lost my S3 Mini and all my phone numbers were backed up on Google cloud. When I activated my Moto G and downloaded all my numbers, some of the ones that showed up on my phone were numbers that were unlisted or private and names popped up in my contact list.
I deleted them from my contact list on my phone, but when it backs up and re-syncs, the numbers that I had deleted from my phone show up again. I need to delete them from my cloud, but I can't find them in my Google account, and my Gmail only shows email contacts, not from my phone.
How to delete unwanted contacts from my Google cloud?

In the Settings within your Contacts/People app, there should be there should be a way to toggle which contacts to display. Pick the option to display contacts from all accounts/locations i.e. Phone, SIM, Google accounts etc. and delete any unwanted contacts. All unwanted contacts should be gone. You can then again toggle which location/account you want your contacts list to be populated from.

If you want to edit your contacts via web interface, you can do this at https://contacts.google.com.

The person who picked up your phone is probably still using it. Delete all unnecessary contacts and afterward, immediately change your Google password and log out from all devices for once.

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


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How can I fix my physically damaged Samsung Galaxy s5 that won't display the screen?
My Samsung Galaxy s5 stopped showing anything on th screen after I dropped it.  it still vibrates and makes noises but won't show anything on the screen.  how can I fix it?

This is beyond an average android "enthusiast". I would highly recommend contacting your sales agent if you are still under warranty, and if not get the screen replaced from a reputed dealer. It will set you back some money though, but it's still worth than trying to fix it yourself.
Perhaps if you're extremely lucky there might only be some disconnected ribbon, and the screen may still be working, but check it with an expert.

I also had a problem with my S5 which required it to be taken to a Samsung Service Centre - the screen ribbon cable had become detached. (I live in Australia and there happened to be one that was pretty local).
Before taking it to the service centre I recommend trying some of the ideas posted in the following guides:
http://www.technobezz.com/fix-samsung-galaxy-s5-screen-wont-turn-problem/
http://samsungrumors.net/galaxy-s5-black-screen/
The final option is to try and fix the issue yourself. This will void your warranty and I only recommend this as a last resort.
www.ifixit.com/Search?query=samsung%20s5&c-doctype_namespace=guide

Those links may prove to be helpful so consider adding the relevant parts here so that if the former expires in future, your post would remain helpful as it is now.


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Reset Galaxy tab without losing apps in SD Card
I have an old Samsung Galaxy Tab, it keeps on lagging and has delays. I want to reset it, if I do will the newly reset Tab still acknowledge the apps stored in the SD Card? Thank you.

I just flashed a new ROM to my Galaxy Tab 1 last week and the data on the external SD card was intact. Please clarify what you mean by "apps" stored in the SD card? Do you mean apps that are "moved" to SD card, or do you mean app data or app backups?

Short answer
No.
Explanation
One purpose of a reset, and why it's called factory-reset, is to set it back to the state it came from the factory. This means, all user apps and user data is "removed" (de facto, /data and /cache are wiped). Usually, only internal storage is affected this way, and SD cards are left untouched unless explicitly specified (I write "usually" as some manufacturers/ROMs deviate from this).
That said: your "apps on SD card" will be gone even without the SD card being touched, as:

app2sd doesn't move the entire app to SD card (but only parts)
Android would forget about those apps anyway, as information on packages installed resides in /data/system/packages.xml – and you remember, /data gets wiped by the factory-reset.

+1, I believe /data/system/packages.xmlshould've been a teaser for Short Answer.

@Firelord that would make the "short answer" 5 (or more) times longer :)


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How do I see current average battery statistics on Android 5.1.1 & Nexus 5
I want to see what my current, calculated standby and daily battery life statistics are before Android M is available on my device, so I can see if I've actually an improvement.
Is it possible for me to see such stats on the phone itself?

The best statistics natively can be seen from the service batterystats. Do "[tag:adb] shell dumpsys batterystats" to see the magic. My answer or Matthew Read's answer should give you a hint. Otherwise, consider third-party apps to log the statistics for some interval. GSam, BBS or BatteryStatsPlus can help.

The simplest method of doing this would be to install GSam Battery Monitor. It gives a clear representation of what functions are draining the battery very precisely and does not "package" battery consumers as the stock monitor does. (Packaging being taking separate processes and representing them as a single entity in it's consumption.
Google play services is one of the big offenders of this. Stock will usually give a 15x larger burden to GP services when in fact battery drain may just be pinned on it from the kernel or system.
Here's a nice snapshot comparison.
Stock:
(Click image to enlarge)

Standby is not even listed as an entity on GSam, but is instead delegated to each offending process.
(Both screenshots are taken at 80% charge. Be aware that GSam just scales the used amount to 100% while the stock does not.)
GSam Battery Monitor (Google Play Store):

Personally, the stock monitor seems to be a bit buggy and unreliable anyway. 1% for screen? Really?

I know all of the pics just became identical. I'm looking at it. (Fixed)

Please don't mess up with the revisions and  the images are not identical. See Why can people edit my posts? How does editing work?

@firelord, they are not identical because I fixed them. Something broke when I added the link to the play store for GSam. That and a note that GSam's measurements are based on percentages of the used battery while stock uses total battery life for its percentages. No other edits were made.

Don't know what you're saying but anyhow, unless you've something to fix in the post (grammatical) or add something new, please let it be like it is now.


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Is there a way to check DNS cache on an Android device?
Is there a way to check DNS cache on an Android device? For example, you can check it on windows via the command ipconfig /displaydns.

Why do you want to do this?

If you do not tell us, we may vote to close your question.

Never mind.  I found a post somewhere else which explains why checking the DNS cache can be useful.

Why does every time someone asks a question, someone responds with, "Why do you want to do this?"  The WHY is irrelevant: the question is posted.  Answer it if you can, or don't.  I personally want to know because it pertains to a DNS caching issue I'm researching.  Does that help answer your question?  Of course it doesn't--the why is irrelevant.


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How can I disable Chrome's incognito mode without rooting Android?
Is there a way to disable Incognito Mode in Chrome without rooting? My phone is running Android Lollipop.

Is there a good reason  why would you want to  disable Incognito mode?

@Firelord: Maybe the asker wants to install a web-filtering app such as Qustodio or Norton Family. Incognito mode tends to interfere with the proper operation of such apps. (The workaround is to upgrade to a device which can run Android 6.0 "Marshmallow" or CyanogenMod 13 or higher. Then Qustodio will work even when the user has enabled Chrome's incognito mode.)

Dear Cassie: On Android 5.x "Lollipop" and below, what you want may be impossible. Instead, install some monitoring software which lets you find out what your kids do in incognito mode. (Not all monitoring software has this capability.) Then tell your kids that you've done so.

Disclaimer
This answer is pointless.  Once you've read the end of my answer, you will see why.
My answer
I personally have tried Qustodio's "Block Incognito Browsing" feature.  (I was using a phone running Android 4.1.2 and a recent version of Google Chrome.)
It didn't work at all.
Incognito browsing still worked perfectly, and was not blocked or even hindered whatsoever.  Even after an hour or more, Qustodio had no idea that I was using Chrome's incognito mode.
In a help center article, Qustodio LLC does admit:

Please note that our incognito blocking feature is still experimental.

If you want to prevent incognito browsing, I see a few options:

You could lock down the device completely (though this is almost impossible to do correctly) and then to make sure that the only browser which the user can access is a browser which is incapable of incognito browsing.
Or you could use Norton Family's incognito detection.  If Norton Family alerts you that incognito has been used, perhaps you could confiscate the device from its user for a day or two.  (Norton Family claims to be able to email you after someone uses incognito mode on the device.  But I've never tested it, and I don't know whether or not it would work reliably.  You should test the feature on a few separate occasions before relying upon it.)
You could try Qustodio.  Even though their (experimental) incognito-blocking feature didn't work for me, maybe it will work for you.
If you are willing to root your phone, this may provide you with a new, additional option for disabling incognito mode.  Remember that you can unroot your phone afterwards.

Why this answer is pointless
Yet all this is pointless.  The user can use the browser's "Clear History" tool, or Android's application manager, to clear the browsing history — anytime he wants to.
Why would anyone want to disable incognito mode?

You could try Incoquito - it's paid and allows you to either automatically close all incognito tabs when the screen turns off or to disable incognito browsing altogether by preventing incognito tabs from being opened at all. It further includes a monitoring mode as well as logging of events/activities related to incognito browsing in Chrome as well as the ability to hide the app from the launcher. It also includes the following experimental features (as requested by several parents):

Log videos played within the YouTube app
Uninstall detection & prevention
Android settings guard
Block access to YouTube app

Disclosure: I am the developer of Incoquito.

Dear parents: Incoquito alone isn't sufficient. It may be easy for your kids to get around it, even if they're not tech-savvy. You must also install a filter. ❧ The free version of Qustodio is probably the best free option; the free version of Norton Family might be the second-best free filter. If you're willing to pay, I've read that NetSpark or GenTech are better than the free products. ❧ You may also want to collect up your spouse's and kids' new and old Android devices, and to lock them all in your bedroom every night.

Qustodio provides a way to disable to block Incognito browsing.
You need:

Qustodio Account
Qustodio App for Android
Open App > Configure this Device > Device Settings > Block Incognito Browsing
Patience, wait for some time for it to work and block incognito mode.

Source: How do I block Incognito mode browsing on Android with Qustodio?

How does this app work? Have you used this personally? Please share a screenshot which shows that either the Incognito mode can't be accessed for some reason or is simply unavailable in Chrome, after configuring the app.

I have not used it personally. Here's the source https://www.qustodio.com/en/help/article/1796566/

"Once this feature is enabled Qustodio will automatically detect within a short time when user is engaging in Incognito browsing and block the web-browser completely until the administrator of the Qustodio account enters the Qustodio password to unblock the device....No. Blocking of Incognito browsing is not immediate. It takes a short time for Qustodio to analyze browsing activity to detect that Incognito mode is being used." I see. Thanks for the article though.

@Firelord:  On my phone, I can freely use incognito mode for an hour or more.  Even after an hour or more, Qustodio neither detects my incognito browsing nor takes any corrective actions.  I suppose I could have contacted their support team and sent in a bug report, but instead I have rooted my phone and disabled incognito mode using another technique.

I have just released a new app which blocks incognito tabs from Chrome, Incognito Away. It has password protect features, and is geared towards parents wanting to protect their children.
The Chrome tabs are blocked instantly, as soon as some tries to open it. You can also have a pop-up message appear when some does try and open an incognito tab. For example, you could write out a warning to a child.
Additionally, there is an inbuilt feature to hide the app’s icon from the launcher, so that it’s harder for someone to even find that the app is installed.
To prevent people from being able to uninstall the app, I would recommend that you download an “App Lock” type app from the Play Store (such as this one). This will make it so that if someone tries to open your Device Settings to uninstall the app, a password will be required.
Note: I am the developer of Incognito Away. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch :)

Google Family Link
If you set Google Family Link to protect an Android device, it will automatically disable Google Chrome's incognito mode on that device.  (Google says so in this article.  I myself have tried Family Link and verified that the article is correct.)
Family Link can also do Web filtering, screen-time monitoring, and device-location tracking.  But these features are optional; you may disable them if you wish.
The usual Family Link setup is as follows:  One device (a computer or mobile device) is the "parent" device, and a second device is the "child" device.  Incognito mode will only be disabled on the "child" device.
If you'd like to get started, you may set up a "parent" account now.
It has quirks
Google Family Link has some quirks.  I've described the biggest quirk I've noticed, and its workaround, in another thread.
I hope that Google will work on eliminating the quirks in the future.
Despite its quirks, Family Link works reasonably well already, and I think it's a good way to disable incognito mode.
It may be easy to defeat
I'm not sure whether or not Family Link is easy for crafty children to defeat.  But, in general, there are ways to defeat most parental-control software tools.
It's wise to buy your kids a flip phone with no data plan, and a non-portable computer which is permanently stored in a public room such as the living room.  It's also wise to store all of your personal cellphones, laptops, and tablets in your bedroom at night, so that your kids can't secretly use them.

SecureTeen is a great app for Android and iOS -- blocks incognito mode, and gives parents the ability to block apps if necessary. Also shows history of Google searches. It has been a great tool in our family. Officially, it has 5,000+ reviews and a 3.5 star rating (as of April 2016).

This doesn't appear to block Incognito mode, it just logs all activity whether or not Incognito is used.

A Google Play rating of 3.5 stars isn't very good.

You can't with Secureteen, it's not a reliable parenting app, I have it installed on androids phone with lollipop and several problems were validated, incognito mode is not blocked and useless users support...consider Norton family or other alternatives

@tealhill 3.5 stars is considerably bad for an app on Play store. Generally 4.0 is "not bad" and 4.2-4.3 is "mediocre / average".


text:
Losing Mobile / Cell Connection When Leaving Home WiFi
I have a Galaxy S6 (T-Mobile US). This issue started shortly after the OTA update to 5.1.1. The frequency has increased from every few days to every time I leave the house whereby a reboot is the only way to fix it...toggling WiFi, data connection, airplane mode doesn't work. I have tried wiping the cache partition but have yet to resort to the last measure, a factory reset. The 4G LTE connection icon appears fine but the data flow arrows beneath it will be inactive when in this state.
Update: Installed the September T-Mobile OTA and was able to leave the house today w/out needing a reboot.


text:
What are methods to play audio/video files from a tablet onto a media center?
I need to have my kodi-based entertainment platform account for android tablets to play high definition media files (audio and video) located on the tablet. Kodi runs on an ARMv7 board, such as the Orange Pi and is connected to a large screen (24-27 inches). So far the possibilities that I have encountered are:

audio/video streaming
Android screen casting (with audio)
accessing the tablet through USB/Bluetooth/Wifi as a hard drive
an audio/video sharing application (either existing or to be developed)

Note that the tablet is also to be used as a remote control for Kodi through Yatse – I've just discovered that app, I don't know its features thoroughly yet.
I'm not sure screen casting can occur with a non-android node however; for example, I have seen Android TV do support receiving media content from tablets and smart phones. As for streaming, I assume it would imply a high bandwidth usage. I know VLC can do that but I'd like to spare the user from any configuration/preparation manipulations. Finally I'm not sure any tablet can be shared as a disk drive, be it through USB, wireless or Bluetooth.
Does the above make sense? What possibilities are available along with pros and cons?

If you're already using Kodi at your Pi – why not doing the same on Android? See e.g. DLNA server and client all-in-ones for some goodies in that area. You will notice an app called "Kodi" being top-ranked ;)

Sounds interesting indeed. Just that I have no clue how DLNA works :ashamed: ...

That explains. But that's not a topic suitable for this site. In short: an app can be a client, a server, a controller, or any combination of that. BubbleUPnP e.g. does all 3 parts. A controller can pick a file from a server, and tell another client to play it; this way I use BubbleUPnP to play stuff from my server on my stereo (or TV). Give BubbleUPnP a try, might spare you using two apps (and you can skip Yatse ;)

Thanks a lot. I'm not sure I can skip Yatse though as there's no keyboard nor mouse attached to the media center so I do need a remote that also provides a virtual keyboard and Yatse does that.

Glad I was able to help! As I wasn't sure how you use Yatse, I've put the "might" :) Still, the combination "might" prove useful. Enjoy playing with DLNA!

Yatse is indeed a really nice app and allows you to stream any content from your phone to your Kodi enabled device. You probably have to buy the pro version.
Alternatively you could just install an (S)FTP or NFS server on your phone and add the remote drive in Kodi.

I didn't know Yatse could stream to the media center. I will investigate that, as I mentioned to @izzy.

I see your problem lies in some missing background, so let me give you a starter:
DLNA was made for stuff like that. To put it simple, a DLNA network can have the following elements:

DLNA server: stores media (audio, still pictures, video) to be accessed by …
DLNA client: accesses DLNA server(s) and plays content available there
DLNA control points: while not strictly needed, these can be quite useful. A DLNA control point can access DLNA servers and clients as well, to e.g. grab a movie and tell your TV to play it. The client (here: TV) must support being accessed by the control point; network enabled TVs and amplifiers usually do.

I'd recommend you taking a look at my list of DLNA server and client all-in-ones, especially at BubbleUPnP – which is what I use from time to time: using this app, I can access my media server (Kodi in your case), and play media on my TV (Samsung) and amplifier (Onkyo) just fine. In that list, you'll also find Kodi for Android: as you're already using that on your Pi, you might prefer something you're already familiar with.

I will definitely have a look at that and compare with @pluto's answer. Both suggestions seem quite interesting and I now have at least a concrete choice, thanks a lot again.

Yes, I just checked that: pluto is right, the paid version of Yatse can act as control point – so you might go with that and only have to use one app. And of course a file server has additional advantages (you could use it to access your Android device's files from your PC).


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Lower part of the screen not responding to touch
While I was holding my LG G2 when running, sweat got into the lower right corner under the screen, leading to the lower part of the screen (about one third inches) not responding to touch. The phone can power on without any problem, and there is no problem with the display either, but I can't access to the navigation buttons (home, back, etc) and the app drawer button because that part of the screen is not responsive. I sent it to LG for warranty repair, but they returned the phone as is, claiming "liquid damage, not repairable".
My question is: Is the phone really not repairable as LG claimed? Is the damage only on the screen? Can I just buy a display / digitizer assembly and replace the screen myself?

Have you tried any soft-key apps like the Back button or Navigation Bars?

@Lucky Thanks, that would help a little, but would not solve the problem. For example, the lower part of the keyboard is still not usable.


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Gapps has stopped. How to fix?
Good Morning.
Yesterday I was excited to flash CyanogenMod 12.1 in my other Android device.
The process was the same and I did everything correctly. Unfortunately, after flashing Google Apps, the system wouldn't stop showing pop-ups like "google app has stopped", "google services has stopped". Nothing about Gapps works, even the keyboard.
I have tried to wipe data/factory reset, using CWM and reflashing CM12.1 ONLY, but it didn't work. The pop-ups are still there. Maybe there's some Gapps fragments in the system... Please, I would appreciate any possible help. Thanks

Did you flash the correct version of GAPPS? From where did you download it?

A few years ago you were meant to boot into Android (for the first time after flashing), leave it for a minutes so it's fully boot (don't interact), then reboot. If you didn't, you would get exactly the same symptoms as you have.

Since the CM version is not official, but ported, I searched all over the internet to find the correct Gapps version. I didn't find anything, so I flashed Gapps from CyanogenMod link. Isn't that supposed to work on every ROM? (The device is the old, old, old Samsung Galaxy Express)

The gapps is changed for each version of android. Try tk gapps, search it on Google and flag it on your ROM. As I presume as the CM 12.1 isn't an official update, so you are downloading a previous build of gapps, which was for 5.0.2 version of lollipop, or in your case CM12.

I found the correct one! But the problem persists! After all the popups, all google apps that I open says "this app is not installed"

"even the keyboard" - actually keyboard comes from AOSP, not from Google Apps, so the problem may be not with GApps but with something else.

I learned a hard lesson today: There's no better way to find what is causing this error than to collect a log with logcat.

Can you be a little more specific? List the steps you went through, What GAPPS version you used, Phone model, etc.

It is recommended to wipe dalvik/cache, factory reset before and after flashing anything in recovery.
So here are the steps to solve the problem

Enter CWM recovery mode
Wipe data/factory reset
Wipe Cache partition
Advanced > Wipe Dalvik Cache
Flash Gapps for CM12.1
Wipe data/factory reset, Cache partition
Wipe Dalvik Cache
Reboot

Great website for a collection of gapps, then does it have tk gapps, it could be resourceful.

For future readers I can confirm that the above 8 steps worked for me. I had done all except the Wipe Dalvike Cache. I think that was the missing key that i was missing. I used it on a Int Note2, a nightly CM13, with OpenGApps for Android 6.0. Thanks Sharath

A factory reset will not help,
You need to do a system wipe, then reflash CM 12.1 only and then flash gapps.

Wipe old system
Install new system from zip
Install gapps package
Wipe Dalvik & Cache
Reboot


text:
Is there any relation between charging rate and discharging rate?
Sometimes when I do not use the  original charger but a different one it would take less time to fully charge the device than the original charger would do. But I can feel that discharging rate is higher after using these chargers.
Is it true?  If it is true, then what is the actual reason?

I deleted my answer because it's not convinced me after reading it post many years. Will post when I get better evidence

I have similar experiences.  I can tell which charger I used based on the discharge rate.  I am interested to learn more about this phenomena as well.

I think not. faster charger actually put more energy into your battery (1A = 1W * 1V^-1). your battery's Voltage is at charging and discharging the same (or to be specific, it's rising while charging and dropping while discharging, but the same amount *), so basically the difference between the two chargers is the energy (A) which comes, and because of the same Voltage (V) the Power (W) must be different. if you discharge, the processor (and display,...) consumpts power (W), but the Voltage is still the same.
* what is not the same is how fast your battery would discharge in relation to the actual charging percentage (or, better known as slower charging at end of charging)


text:
Why would Doze feature need motion detection?
I do not see any reason mentioned by Google for Doze mode to get activated only when the device is stationary.
Is there any specific advantage for doing this only when the device is stationary? What is the need to even waste resources checking for motion detector readings, when this can simply be achieved whenever the screen is off.
I am asking this because my phone is in my pocket for most of the time and because of that Doze mode will not get activated. I think there are many more people like me, so I don't understand why google chose these specific constraints for Doze mode.

It is based off of the assumption that the device is not being used at that time, so it will enter Doze Mode.  How do you know that Doze is not being activated?  Clearly while in your pocket, if you are walking/running or moving around, the device will detect motion and not enter Doze Mode.  That's how they chose to have it operate.
Here's an explanation of it taken from here.

Doze mode is different in that the entire device is taking a nap, not just the least-recently used apps (such is the case with App Standby). Doze mode is activated when the device is not plugged in, when the screen is locked, and when no motion has been detected for some time. These assumptions imply that the user has put down the device and walked away. So, when they come back and pick their phone up off the counter, it should not have dropped to 30% battery. It should, essentially, be in the exact state it was in when they placed it on the counter. Right?

Correct me if I am wrong but they could have used location sensors for that, why would they need motion sensor which would get activated even if sit at the same place shaking my leg when my phone is in my pocket. Location sensor would work perfectly in that case.

They could have yes, but chose not to for whatever reason.  I would assume something like if your GPS/location isn't working and each time it is checked, it is using data/wifi/battery to do so and if it is changing due to being in a building where location would jump around, the phone may not go into Doze Mode either then.

Screen v. motion
Consider an application like email, which periodically polls your mail server for new email and perhaps alerts you to new mail by making a sound or light notification. When you are physically awake, you may want to be informed in a timely manner when you receive email even if the screen is off, which requires application network access. This happens only if your device is not in doze mode. If you are physically asleep, it does not matter if your device is in doze mode and has delayed those email notifications to a later maintenance window.

Location v. motion
Once a device enters doze mode, how would it decide to exit?
It can't use location sensors when in doze mode; GPS is a high power draw and WiFi/cell location needs network access, which is also a relatively high power operation. In order to check for whether to exit doze mode using location, it would have to exit doze mode.
A device can use motion sensors in doze mode. This is a relatively low power draw and does not require any network access. The power savings in reducing other operations must exceed the draw required for the motion sensors, otherwise doze would not make sense.


text:
Moto X app screen suddenly scrolls vertically
My Moto X, for as long as I've had it, has had the classic panes of apps in the all apps section (where you can just swipe horizontally to browse through the apps).
However, now I have a vertical sliding system with the four recently used apps at the top of the screen.
Is there any way to get back to the old way that stock android had been displaying all apps?

Moto X (2014) by default uses Google Now Launcher as the default launcher.
The Google quicksearchbox was recently updated to give a peek into upcoming Android 6.0 Marshmallow app drawer layout which has vertical scrolling for apps and widgets.
So Uninstalling the updates for app named Google with package-name com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox  (either in Play-store or in App settings) should bring back the old feature.
User reviews dated 24th, 25th September on Google play-store gave me insight on this that the app named Google caused this behavior.

That launcher shows last updated in August 2014. I wouldn't call it recent, unless there is something I'm failing to see here.

Actually the app named Google which acts as backbone for the launcher was updated yesterday that made the app drawer layout vertical


text:
Mirror device screen to pc
For presentation purposes I want to mirror the device screen to a (very large) screen connected to a pc, so multiple people can see it at the same time.
What is the best way to do this. I have seen some apps but they either require rooting, signing up for accounts etc.. I don't mind buying some cable if they exist but chromecast is a bit excessive (need to switch device often and don't always run the presentation on the same pc).
Any suggestions or hints to get me in the right directions would be much appreciated.

It has to run on multiple devices. For my current project I am testing on an asus phonepad 7 but this changes from time to time.

Does this answer your question? How do I project the screen of my Android phone for a presentation?

I would use Vysor.  You can control your phone from your computer.  Root is NOT required.
Link to information on Vysor

You'll need the Android SDK install on the computer, as it does use adb, so you'll want to start adb by opening a command propmpt window and typing:
start adb-server

You'll have to install the Google Chrome extension from here.  It only works in Google Chrome.
You'll need USB Debugging enabled on your phone, Settings → Developer Options.
Plug in your phone, and Vysor will start up automatically, and a window will open, which will be a welcome screen, shown here:
(Click image to enlarge)

From here, you can use your mouse to swipe your homescreen left/right, take screenshots, click to open folders/apps, even keyboard access.

Nice this worked right away without any problem.

You can try AllCast witch only require a working Wi-Fi connection.
It works pretty great for me (LG G3, Android 5.0) :

Download Mirror Beta
On your PC, in Chrome, install AllCast Receiver

Make sure both your phone and laptop are connected on the same wireless network and then :

Open Mirror Beta and select your computer :

AllCast Receiver will show up on your computer mirroring your Android screen.
Hope this will work for what you need.

The app for this solution keeps getting stuck on downloading without actually doing something so I couldn't test it. Also you mention both needing to be on the same wifi, but I need to display it on a pc which doesn't use wifi. Is it still possible then? I'll try downloading the app again later.

Oh ok if the PC does not have a Wi-Fi connection it won't work. Glad you found a solution ;)

You also can use simple and cool tool droid-at-screen.


text:
How to root Moto G (3rd gen) running Android 5.1.1?
I recently bought a Moto G (3rd gen) and I want to root it. It runs Lollipop 5.1.1.
My previous phone ran Android Jelly Bean and rooting was easy with the Framaroot app. But it does not work on Lollipop.
So, how do I root my device?

If you are just using apps, then try kingaroot, it uses internet to retrieve the best rooting strategy for your android device and android version.

Same problem here. kingaroot doesn't support Moto G. I followed the guide for 3rd gen but am getting stuck on installing SuperSu. Did you find a solution?

Caution: Unocking Bootloader will void your warranty and format your device. Proceed at your own risk.

Download ADB and install it- google it
Turn off your phone and press vol- and power button. Release power button after 4-5 sec, youll see the bootloader menu. Now release the vol- too. To enter into the fastboot you may have to press the vol up key while fastboot is selected(use vol down to navigate).
Connect your phone and open command prompt on pc(press windows key + R and type cmd).
Type this- "fastboot devices" and see if it displays the device id. If yes, proceed to next step. If no, make sure fastboot drivers are properly installed.
Then type this in the cmd "fastboot oem get_unlock_data". You'll get a string copy it to a notepad and save it. Then type "fastboot reboot" to reboot your phone.
Go to motorola's website review the risks and click on next. You'll be asked to sign in, use the google account connected to your phone. Follow the instructions to format the string and paste it on the webpage click the agree radio button and click on "can my device be unlocked?".
On the next page click"request unlock key"
Check your email for the unlock code. Now type "fastboot oem unlock KEY" where KEY= the key you received in the mail.
Download TWRP Extract the .img file to ADB folder.
Connect your phone is fastboot mode. Type "fastboot flash recovery filename.img"
Now download SuperSU.zip (google it because I can't post more than 2 links) from the link and place the zip file in your phone's sd card or internal memory.
Now flash the update from TWRP recovery which you installed.
ASK if you're unsure about any steps. Don't risk bricking your phone.


text:
how do I enable 180 degree screen rotation on Moto G (3rd gen)?
how do I enable 180 degree screen rotation on Moto G (3rd gen)?
Portrait is default
Landscape rotates the screen by 90 degrees
but is there a way to enable auto rotate for 180 degrees (upside down/reverse portrait) without root access

Use Rotation - Orientation Manager (7-day trial). It allows you to set the orientation per app or globally. "Reverse Portrait" is what you're looking for in terms of 180 degree.
(Click image to enlarge)

Alternatively, for my Paranoid ROM (AOSP; Android 5.1), using adb I can enter on PC:
adb shell settings put system user_rotation 2

It achieves the same goal.
On further search, I found some notable mentions:

Rotation Anywhere
Ultimate Rotation Control -- full 7-day trial
Screen Rotation Control
Rotation Control
Rotation Lock Adaptive (Free) (Source)
Set Orientation -- unsure about it

paid app. Is there a free one?

See my revised answer.

Rotation Anywhere is only for  Android 1.5 ~ Android 4.2, not lollipop.. I will try the others -- Rotation Control looks promising


text:
Disable "Search apps..." search bar
Device: Moto G 2nd gen (Android 5.0.2).
I'm not sure what I've done (if anything at all), but now when I click on the apps icon in my home screen, instead of my apps being divided between a few pages with me having the ability to scroll right/left between them, now my apps are all in one long page with a search bar above it.
See picture:
Does anyone know how to revert the situation?

Which launcher is it? Is it Google Now Launcher? I've heard that they recently introduced the vertical layout.

Related http://android.stackexchange.com/a/124205/119358

If you didn't do anything then atleast you must have the default auto-update setting in your Play Store app. So it has updated to the newest version available on Play Store. As it appears on the Play-store comments its the Google App that has been updated to version 5.3 and the UI of the app drawer has been updated from horizontal menu to vertical scrolling along with the search bar at the top in the latest version. You can simple try a different laucher like Apex, Nova for a quick solution. If you don't like other launchers you can try uninstalling the Google app's updates in the Settings.


text:
Having problems with carrier activation and connecting to cell network
I have a Sprint HTC One (m7wls) and recently switched over to Ting. I was using Cyanogenmod and couldn't use Ting's instructions for activating with them, so I used an RUU from HTC to get back to stock. Now I can follow the reset instructions, but they don't seem to be working. When I enter # # 72786 # I can see some fields (MDN, MSID, M.IP Customer Profile...). Not sure how important it is, but the MDN and MSID show 'No' rather than any info. So then I tap 'Reset' in the menu, and the phone reboots but then that's it. No more activation activities happen on their own from there. I can continue to Update Profile and Update PRL in settings and that will get me a 4G connection, but still no cellular network (no texting or calling and no bars).
Using code # # 3282 # gets me into a more advanced menu where I can see more fields (other than MSID and MDN) and alot of them say 'No'. I have that Slot Mode is enabled, but there's a 'No' under Slot Index. Mobile Country Code and Access Overload Class also say 'No'. I'm not sure what they all are, but I thought I'd mention them incase they help point to a bigger problem.
I'm guessing that part of the problem is the missing my MDN and MSID numbers, so I've been focused on getting those configured. I've tried using these menus to set the values (just MDN and MSID at first, but I've also tried once with just the Slot Index) and every time I tap 'Commit Modifications' in the menu to save it I see a toast that says 'Commit Failed'. Using captured logs from logcat and a decompiled version of the EPST I think I've found that it won't save anything because the Telephony interface indicates that the radio is still on when it's about to save.
I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts are explanations of how things work. I'm going to try a rooted stock ROM that will let me get into the EPST app. If I still see the same problems then I'm going to write an app that will let me turn off the radio (hence, the rooted stock) before trying to set the MDN and MSID. But I'm still worried about all those 'No's and am wondering if those will have to be set too before network connection will start to work.


text:
How can I free up Google Photos storage usage from Google Drive
Google Photos (previously Google+) automatically backs up your photos from your phone to your Google+ / Google Photos account.
They give you the option to backup a compressed version which is unlimited and free, or you can backup at full original quality but it uses up your Google Drive storage quota.
I have always believed I have had this setting turned off, but I noticed I am using 8GB of my Drive quota due to Google Photos. Which makes me think it had been backing up the full versions for some time previously - Right now the option is set to the free compressed version.
(I am assuming the 8GB is due to the original uncompressed option being turned on at some point? Unless theres another thing that would use up this space?)
Is there a way to identify and remove all of the high resolution photos from my Drive / the Photos that are using my Drive storage, but still keeping scaled / free version of the photo.

I have just noticed you can choose an option to show a Google Photos folder in your drive of your Google Photos. I have just done this hoping I could somehow filter by size or quota used but this doesn't seem possible.
I just want to try and identify what is using the 8GB

I wish I could add to a pre-existing bounty.  I would add another 100 rep

I have just found the real correct way to combat this problem. There is no actual way you can easily see which photos are "original" quality vs "high".
Google provide a slightly hidden feature to convert all your "original" photos to "high".
On Google Photo Settings Page @ https://photos.google.com/settings
Click Recover Storage button to Compress Original Size Pictures!

This saved my lots of time and google space :) I was looking for this answer since long... :D thanks !!

I came across the same problem yesterday. My solution is to download all the photos to my PC, delete them from the cloud, set the backup option of Google Photos to 'High quality' and then download them to the phone. From there they will be backupped with the correct size to use free storage. Of course this may be lengthy if you have 8 GB of photos. Sadly I couldn't think of any other option, because Google Drive or Photos won't allow to sort my files by size as was once possible.
EDIT: with the new update of Google Photos, the possibility to resize all photos to 'high quality' is now built in. Open the web interface from your computer -> settings -> recover storage: it is as simple as that. Here the guide.

How can I download all photos? I have several years worth. :/

The best way is to do it from your PC, I guess. You download all the photos to your hard drive, delete them from the cloud and then upload them once again using the Internet interface for Google photos. This way, if the option 'high quality' is checked, the photos shouldn't take up your cloud space. It will take a while, depends on your Internet connection, but as hard as I try, this seems the only solution.

The easiest way to download all photos at once is with Google Takeout, Google's account data export tool. Quite handy.

@Mr.Buster wow that's a great tool! Thank you!

Use the Sort options available to sort images by size, you'll be able to see what images are taking up the most space - You then can make a judgement if to delete it.

The better quality an image the bigger it's size, thus the bigger images are the high res-images you wanted to delete for the space.The high resolution images will be bigger in size compared to the compressed ones, thus when you sort the image by size (Descending - From Biggest to Smallest). The high res-images will be at the top.

How to Sort - Computer, Android and iOS

Google Drive on the web using the Computer:

Go to Google Drive - On the Web
In the top right, click the sort icon .
Choose an option:

Name: Orders files alphabetically by filename.
Last modified: Orders files by the last time any user made a change.
Last modified by me: Orders by the last time you changed a file.
Last opened by me: Orders by the last time you opened a file.
On a home screen, you can also sort by file owner. At the top of the file list, click Owned by anyone and switch to either Owned by me or Not owned by me.

Advantages: No Need to Download any files, thus saving Data

Google Drive Installed on Computer:

Download and Install Google Drive Installer on to your computer.
Download Your Google Drives Photo Folder
Open Your Photos Folder
Click on the top of the tab that says size
Delete Unnecessary Photos but leave the rest
Side note: Even though you get free space to store images on google drive the size is still shown.

Advantages: You wont need to re-upload the photos again as this way they will be removed from the google drive folder
Disadvantages: You'll Still need to download the Photos to sort (But wont need to re-uploaded them as the deleted ones just get removed from the drive)

Google Drive on Android:

Open the Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides app.
In the top-right corner of any section or folder of the app, touch the More icon.
Select Sort by and choose the way you’d like to arrange your list of files (for example, by “Last modified”).

You can also sort files after you have performed a search to sort only the files from that search.
Advantages: No Need to Download any files - Except the google play app, thus saving Data
Google Drive on iOS:

Open the Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides app.
Next to the search box in your file list, touch Sort.
From the sorting list, touch the option you want to use.
The files will be sorted. Repeat the process to sort the views differently.

You can also sort files after you have performed a search to sort only the files from that search.
Advantages: No Need to Download any files - Except the Iphone app, thus saving Data

'''Delete Unnecessary Photos but leave the rest''' How do I know what ones to delete? They are ALL going to have a size? Its not like the free ones are going to show 0KB on my computer?

@binarysmacker Can you try out my answer and tell me if it worked. As sorting out the files largest to smallest you can effectively delete all the big files (in your case the high-res images) and thus save drive space

I found a great solution.
On Google Drive app settings there is a option to compress storage. It compresses you files from full size to high resolution using your free space on photos.


text:
Issuing adb shell commands with arguments
So I can issue a shell command on my GalaxyS5 device using this:
$ adb shell run-as com.steenriver.littlecrane 'sh -c pwd'
/data/data/com.steenriver.littlecrane
$ adb shell run-as com.steenriver.littlecrane 'sh -c ls'
cache
files
lib

So far so good.
Now, if I want to supply an argument to the command, the shell will not see it:
$ adb shell run-as com.steenriver.littlecrane 'sh -c ls files'
cache
files
lib

I also tried starting a shell outright, and then type in commands in the terminal, but doing that just makes adb hang completely, and output nothing.
$ adb shell run-as com.steenriver.littlecrane
u0_a197@kwifi:/data/data/com.steenriver.littlecrane $ ls
<hangs>

How can I give an adb shell command with arguments?

I'll leave this for someone more qualified, but I think this isn't a question for an end user. Maybe on SO.

"-c" switch of sh command requires (and uses) a single argument which is the full shell command as a string.
This should do the trick:
adb shell run-as com.steenriver.littlecrane 'sh -c "ls files"'

In the original example, "files" is interpreted as an extra argument of the "sh" command (simply discarded when using the "-c" switch) , not of the "ls" command.


text:
Incoming call record not visible
I received a call from a company and somehow my phone got discharged. When it restarted, the call record was not visible. I really need that number. Any help

Can your phone company provide the info?

@MorrisIriga i asked them but they said that you have to wait till the bill is generated.

While your situation appears strange, you could perhaps try Android Data Recovery:
"Android Data Recovery, an incredible tool for recovering, allows you to retrieve Android data such as contacts, text messages, call history, photos, WhatsApp history, videos, audios, documents and restore them back to Android phones of any brand"
http://www.recovery-android.com/android-data-recovery.html
I've never tried that application and can't guarantee if it'll work or not.
From reading this, steps involved on recovering lost data may involve:

stop copying data onto phone or updating to prevent overwriting data you wish to recover.
Enable USB debugging on your Android.
Run the Android Data Recovery and follow on screen instructions.

See link above for more details.

The link about that program you noted had been used by several spammers in the past. They all posted the same kind of answers. Consider adding the detailed steps needed to achieve the goal, so as to differentiate yourself from the spammers.

I tried many software, but didn't worked for me. Actually its not deleted.. Its just not showing that number.


text:
Can't update latest lollipop patch on rooted Nexus 9
My rooted LTE Nexus 9 running stock 5.1.1 has the Teamwin recovery installed. When I restart to apply the latest lollipop update, I can see error messages in the console as in the pic. Why does it mis identify my device as not having LTE? Is there a way to apply the update without re flashing the stock recovery? Edit - I got the same problem with stock recovery as well.
]

Please, what custom rom are you using? You're already running lollipop but just applying latest update or coming from KitKat or so? How are you flashing the update, via pc or recovery?

No custom ROM, all stock. I have tried the OTA update, rebooting when prompted, but neither stock nor custom recovery are able to install. I got my tablet with 5.1.1 already installed, and rooted it after that.

Its not like before with kitkat. Google ramped up security for lollipop it now does a full scan of everything. Including checking if the system has ever been mounted r/w. This means no OTA if any part of your system has been modified, corrupted or just weird. Your best bet of you want the OTA is to flash your current lollipop then take the OTA. Honestly that's just busy work because you can just flash the update.

Don't know what you mean by current lollipop, since I already have the stock unmodified 5.1.1 lollipop with the stock kernel and only changed the recovery. Putting back stock recovery also failed because it's somehow reporting incorrect build.

Sorry, I should have been clear your current 5.1.1 build. If your rooted then your system has been modified and has been mounted as r/w = OTA fail. Now the incorrect build is another issue. What does your build prop state.

It says flounder_lte as it ought. Build id is LMY48I.

OK, where did you get the twrp download. Because flounder_lte is not officially supported by TWRP. Is it possible you flashed TWRP for flounder? If that is the case when it scans the recovery it will report as flounder not flounder_lte. That's also where the error is happening in your log at cache/recovery/block.map. https://twrp.me/Devices/

I have removed twrp now, and it's back on stock, but still the same error.

Twrp was part of the root tool I used.


text:
Is there a setting to always start from the home screen on unlock?
I am running Lollipop 5.0.2 on an LG phone.  Is there a setting to always start from the home screen on unlock?  Instead of trying to open the last open application.

AOSP ROM doesn't have such setting and neither did I ever hear about such setting in any other ROM. Anyhow, if you are comfortable with app based solutions then you can consider any of the following apps for the objective.
Tasker (7-day trial) does it nicely.

Profile: Event → Display → Display Off or Display Unlocked
Task → Actions: App → Go Home.

Done!

Macrodroid (free for up to five macros) can also help.
Macro:

Trigger: Screen Unlocked or Screen On/Off → Screen Off
Action: Launch Home Screen
Constraints: Choose depending upon the trigger or leave it untouched

Done!

AutomateIt (free) works too.
Rule:

Trigger: Screen Off Trigger or Screen On Trigger
Action: Launch Home Screen Action
Rule: Show rule popup when launched → No

Done!

Atooma is also doing well here.

IF: Screen → Screen On
DO: App Launcher → choose your launcher app

Done!


text:
Disabling the Google App
A while back, I disabled the Google App (com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox).
IIRC, disabling the app caused some problems which I discovered over time.  Unfortunately, all my notes on the topic were lost.  I am no longer even sure of the version of Android on which I performed the testing.
There are at least two reasons to disable the app:

Lack of trust in Google.  Desire to have as few Google products in use as possible.
The Google App starts running on its own, using valuable memory, CPU resources, and storage space.

For users that have no use for the Google App, are there now any consequences or problems with disabling the app?
If there are issues, what about blocking everything it tries to access using XPrivacy (Xposed module)?

This seems like a lot of non-compensated testing work to compile this. Asking for this level of precision is unusual to a casual user. Is this homework, or non-paid data for an article?

@wbogacz As far as I know the OP, neither of the two – but rather a question on whether it's safe to disable that app on newer Android versions, or to expect unwanted side-effects. From the phrasing, he wants to rule out those "smart ass answers" rather than having us setting up our labs: if you've already tested this, please answer – but our Lizard doesn't want the whole world starting academic studies on the topic (though he wouldn't reject that if we did :)

Izzy (as usual) is correct. I just want to know if there will be problems with disabling it, and if so, what they are. I remember experiencing issues in the past, but my notes were lost. The issues were not immediately apparent, but I was able to trace back various problems to disabling that app. IIRC, it was on a very old version of Android (and the Google App), so it is very possible none of those issues exist anymore. If people have it disabled, and are not experiencing any issues (or disabled it and did experience issues), I am very interested in learning from their experiences.

This is not a core system app, it may not even exist on a given ROM.  So if there are issues, it's due to the particular ROM doing something incorrectly.  Polling is off-topic here, whether of experience or opinions.

@MatthewRead That might be true, but even some of the Nexuses were affected by that "bug" (rendering the device close to unusable if that app was disabled) – on their stock ROMs.

You don't have to disable the app.  You can leave it enabled and never launch it.  If your launcher supports it, you can hide the app's icon without disabling the app.  (The Samsung stock launcher, for one, allows users to do such things.)  Why do you want to disable the app?

@unforgettableid Question updated with answers to your question.

The least that can be done safely is to deny all permissions to Google App. It still will waste some network traffic, probably.

Disabling the Google App (com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox) may cause the Voice Input button on some standard keyboards (including the AOSP keyboard) to not appear or not work.
Some alternate keyboards, such as TouchPal, will allow downloading a separate speech-to-text package from Google.  Other keyboards, such as Swype, do not require any Google software to support voice input.
Outside of that issue, I have not found any consequences (outside of having more storage space) of disabling the Google App.

I disabled Google App (if disable "grayed out", uninstall updates, at which point disable option appears), while using the Google Now launcher, and was permanently unable to load my home screen, even if I reenabled Google App. Eventually tried reboot, and it froze forever on "Starting apps", due to inability to load home screen, so was forced to do a factory reset.  Be advised, the Google App may be tightly entangled with the Google Now launcher, so setup a different launcher ahead of time before disabling Google App in this case.

@maxpolk Thanks for that info.  I'm not familiar with the Google Now launcher.  On what device did that occur and what version of Android?

I have Nexus 6P Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Google Now seems to be tightly related to Google App, even wikipedia says "Google Now is implemented as an aspect of the Google Search application".  Disabling Google App seems disharmonious to Google Now users, as I experienced.

@maxpolk Thanks for the details.  It seems to be something new (similar to the bad idea of how Microsoft "integrated" Internet Explorer into Windows).  Previous versions of Google products don't seem to suffer from that issue.

@maxpolk What launcher do you recommend? Is it possible to get something like the AOSP launcher (if it's something other than Google Now)? (In my particular case, I'm trying to dump Google App from Nexus 5X with latest stock Android firmware, right now it's 7.1.2).  I tried simply pm disable com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox from su prompt, and default launcher seems to break in this case. Fortunately I enabled it back without reboot and it survived.

@SargeBorsch   Browse launcher apps, I don't have any recommendation since each has their own peculiarities, seems like you have to pick your own poison.


text:
change android recovery language
Accidentaly brick recovery mode on my cell (Star B943 MTK6589 quad core with Android 4.1.2), so I reinstall my recovery.img from backup (Android system recovery 3e) using mobileuncle tools. Worked fine. Cell is ok BUT recovery menu is now in chinese!
On recovery boot, for a second, cell displays FACTORY MODE on second line, then displays chinese.
How can I change to english?
cell is Star B943 Mt6589 quad with Android 4.1.2 with recovery 3e.
What append-
I tried to replace my recovery with CTRv2.2 (CarlivTouchRecovery from XDA forum) for MT6589 chips. Cell worked fine except for recovery mode. When I boot in recovery cell stuck on droid recovery logo. Need to remove battery to properly boot. So, I copied my (3e) recovery.img cell to root and ran Mobileuncle tools app available in Google store to reload recovery. Worked fine except now my recovery is in chinese! My intuition is that the recovery menu is language sensitive depending on some flag somewhere.
I used  MTK Droid Tools v2.5.3d to generate backup of cell, which I took the recovery image for Mobileuncle.
Cell language is french.

Thanks! I've integrated that with your original post (to make it easier to spot). Now could you please also add some details (e.g. a link) on where you downloaded the mobile uncle tools, plus whether recovery still claims to be 3e?

Dont know about recovery version as its in chinese. Only thing I can say, is when I boot in recovery mode, for a second, message FACTORY MODE is displayed on second line or the recovery.

OK, thanks – then we have to go with this. I'm not familiar with MTK devices (but I know several others here are), so I leave the stage now. Fingers crossed, good luck and a fast, stable solution!


text:
In call volume root modify
I have a HTC One m7 international. It has root access. Android lollipop 5.0.2
The in call volume is too low despite being on max volume.
Which file in the root system should I modify to increase the max volume? What line of code corresponds to this setting?
Thanks vm

android version?

It is lollipop 5.0.2

Turn on adb in phone,connect the phone to system and run this command in system connected adb shell service call audio 7 i32 3 i32 0 i32 1 Source: SO post

Thankyou it seems to have increased the volume...  Can you explain a bit what that line of code means and how it works?

This approach achieves desired functionality by communicating with Android APIs at AIDL level making use of ADB

Run the command:
adb shell service call audio 7 i32 3 i32 0 i32 1

Here, the service call refers to IAudioService. Click here  for more info.

7 is the function named setStreamVolume. It is the 7th in the list of functions in the interface IAudioService. Verify it here. (setStreamVolume takes 3 parameters streamType, index, flag)
i32 is to write the integer INT into the send parcel. (Alternatively we can make use of s16 for UTF-16 string)
3 is streamTypevalue. (Value 1 → phone, 3 → speaker, 4 → alarm, 6 → bluetooth)
0 is index value and 1 is flag value

See the source here.

But how can op set that for every call? Or is using it once persistent?

@cde Changing once is enough,  no need to change it before every call

"7 i32 3 i32 0 i32 1" - I don't get it, why is the index=0 ? Isn't it the volume value? And what is the meaning of flag=1 ? Can you, please, clear up this issues? Thanks.

For Android 10
adb shell media volume --show --stream 1 --set 1

example :
/ $ media volume --show --stream 4 --set 1
[v] will control stream=4 (STREAM_ALARM)
[v] will set volume to index=1
[v] Connecting to AudioService

Specific usage
usage: media [subcommand] [options]
       media dispatch KEY
       media list-sessions
       media monitor <tag>
       media volume [options]

media dispatch: dispatch a media key to the system.
                KEY may be: play, pause, play-pause, mute, headsethook,
                stop, next, previous, rewind, record, fast-forword.
media list-sessions: print a list of the current sessions.
media monitor: monitor updates to the specified session.
                       Use the tag from list-sessions.
media volume:  the options are as follows:
                --stream STREAM selects the stream to control, see AudioManager.STREAM_*
                                controls AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC if no stream is specified
                --set INDEX     sets the volume index value
                --adj DIRECTION adjusts the volume, use raise|same|lower for the direction
                --get           outputs the current volume
                --show          shows the UI during the volume change
        examples:
                adb shell media volume --show --stream 3 --set 11
                adb shell media volume --stream 0 --adj lower
                adb shell media volume --stream 3 --get